Author Archives: Andy

Can't sing, can't dance, can handle a sword a little.

Wallpapers for you Sir

Sir, You Are Being Hunted

The talented and presumably human Christian Anderson has created a series of wallpapers for Big Robot’s Sir, You Are Being Hunted. Despite the frailties of his mortal, organic frame Master Anderson’s works are both sinister and delightful. Just like the game.


Game music: Child of Light

Child of Light banner

How did this happen? As an XBox One owner I expected any interruption in the dearth of games to be heralded by, if not Titanfall levels of fanfare, at least something. But no, it was only when I went looking through the game store I came across Ubisoft’s Child of Light. Yes it’s had reviews, and no it didn’t slink onto the scene like a ninja, but at the same time when something as interesting, as pretty and as unique as Child of Light gets released I’d expect to hear a little more.
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Pixieland: Now with actual Pixieland

Off to work we go

Pixieland has a new home! No longer stranded in aburn.org.uk where the poor thing first saw light of day. No! www.pixieland.org.uk is go. Thanks to the magic of a networking wizard (and a hammer, hammers are usually involved I hear) the migration was as seamless as makes no difference and all the old links should redirect transparently. Both woo and indeed yay. Thank you, Mr Networking Wizard.


Well done America: APIs are copyrightable now

Oracle Headquarters

Back in 2012 after a six-week trial of critical importance, Google won a decisive victory over Oracle concerning the rights to use the Java APIs. Now that victory has been overturned by an appeals court in a ruling that is as misguided as it is dangerous.
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The rise and aversion of a Nintendo PR distaster

Tomodachi Life

Poor Nintendo. After the runaway success of the DS and the Wii it was almost inevitable that the Wii U would be a bit of a disappointment, and verily it came to pass that profits fell, forecasts were missed and expectations lowered. Then came the clamouring for them to get out of the hardware business, focus on software and jump into the mobile market, because we know how well that worked for Sony.

All in all, they could really have done without the internet shitstorm they created when they announced no same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life.
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Add requirement. Repeat until original goal lost.

Camden Bench Banner

Right, time for a quick tangent from music, games, technology and programming. It’s design-related, don’t worry. Introducing the Camden Bench, quite possibly the nadir of seating and certainly a depressing symbol of modern life. Cities and councils have long since been using public seating designed to resist sleeping – bus stops with narrow, sloping seats that only mutant lizard people could find comfortable, benches with spikes or excessive arm rests. Hell, even metered seating. None of which is surprising given we live in a world where people can try to pass laws making it illegal to feed homeless people.

So against all that the Camden Bench looks positively tame. But let’s look at it from a design perspective shall we?
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The machine has spoken: EyeQuant

EyeQuant Banner

A few days ago I read about EyeQuant in an Ars Techinca article. EyeQuant, a Berlin-based startup, have developed and trained an AI they claim can tell you how clear your website it and what people will pay attention to. The company claim a number of success stories with big-name companies.

They charge a hefty monthly fee but also offer a free demo so I thought I’d give it a whirl.
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Game music: Tetris

Tetris Banner

It’s been a year now since I started this series with Bastion so let’s celebrate with the greatest piece of video game music ever written. If the whacking great big banner up there didn’t give you a clue and you skipped the title completely, I am of course talking about Tetris.
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Join the fight to save Zebes!

Barrett Biggers Banner

Wow… Via Dueling Analogs I’ve discovered the Etsy store of Barrett Biggers, who does some truly amazing artwork.

Fine art prints in my geek vintage and tradigital painting styles of famous games, anime, and films. Legend of Zelda, Miyazaki, Nintendo, Evangelion, Final Fantasy and so much more!

They aren’t wrong. The Metroid pictures are particularly wonderful, though the my personal favourite is probably the Dune poster.
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Success! Responsive goodness

Chiron Responsive Banner

Earlier I said I was going to have a crack at making the theme I use for Pixieland a little more responsive and you know what? I actually did it.

Clunky and coarse, yes, but now if the page width drops below the previous minimum of 960px things will get out of the way and let the width drop sanely to the content minimum of 640px. It actually looks kind of OK too, though I’m sure I’ve missed some inevitable side-effects of being a bit over-zealous with the CSS selectors I’ve overridden.
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