Tvindy

Cool

Although I haven't been blogging much lately, I did get to guest-blog yesterday over on Will's blog where I wrote a review of the game Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. While I was researching that post, I came across a truly amazing movie of someone making it all the way to the end of Super Mario 64 (an earlier Mario game) in under 17 minutes. If you've ever played that game, you'll see moves that you never thought possible. This may be even more mind-blowing than baked eggs.

On an unrelated note, if anyone wants a free invite to Newsvine, I can hook you up.

The Sims 2

Remember back when I cashed in my Yahoo! credit card points for an Amazon gift certificate, which I used to buy an iPod? And then Amazon gave me another $50 gift certificate for spending $250 in their electronics department, but I would only receive it months later? You mean you've actually forgotten about that? Well, you can refresh your memory here.

Anyway, $50 was just the right amount to buy a copy of the Sims 2 when it first came out. It's a lot more advanced than the earlier versions and definitely has a more elaborate narrative structure. I thought I'd share my story so far.

I started by creating a new character from scratch, using all the new sophisticated tools for creating a custom appearance. My goal was to build the most physically attractive woman I could imagine. (Remember Weird Science?) I made me a woman! Yes I did. But I de-aged her, so that I could watch her mature into her adult form. Also, this would allow her to last longer, since the new Sims eventually die of old age. It's much better to start them out young.

I couldn't start the game with just a toddler. I needed someone to take care of her -- an adult. On a whim, I decided to try and make a replica of Receptionista. After all, she's had more versions than any other blogger I know, including South Park and lego versions. Why not a Sims version?

As it turns out, I have come to regret modeling a Sim on a real person. Sometimes it's downright creepy. You can read all about my adventures in Simming here, but note that I only refer to her sim as R.

GROW II

I've been toying some more with Grow, and I've discovered some things that I just had to share. What had me stymied until now was that although I had occasionally been able to fully develop both the hills and the pipe (which are clearly intertwined), I had yet to discover the actual mechanism by which this was accomplished. Hence I was unable to accomplish this in my best game. Through further experimentation, I have discovered that early development of the sphere is the key. Even though in yesterday's post, I had a solution in which the sphere achieved its full potential, I now realize that preliminary development must occur much sooner, as it serves as a catalyst for both the hills and pipe. Having discovered that, I quickly tweaked my solution and discovered to my delight that it is possible to play a perfect game! By introducing items in the following sequence, you will fully develop every aspect of the planet and achieve a perfect score of 20000:

1. SPHERE
2. CUBE
3. EGG
4. HILLS
5. LADDER
6. PIPE
7. PROPELLOR
8. WHIRLWIND
9. COG
10. DISH
11. NOZZLE
12. TV

GROW

Lately I've been spending a lot of time on the game GROW by Eyemaze, and since it can be very confusing when you are first learning it, I thought I'd share what I've figured out so far.

The big red ball is a planet. Your job is to develop the planet as fully as possible by dragging the twelve items on each side to the planet. Each item evolves through a number of stages. You want to get as many items as fully developed as possible. The more successful you are at this, the more fully developed the planet will be, and the more points you will receive.

The trick is to discover the best possible sequence for introducing the items. Some items take a long time to develop. Some depend on other items being introduced before or after or even in a certain order. With every decision there is a tradeoff, and I do not believe it is possible to ever fully develop everything. Compare the above image to the one below to see just how different the outcomes can be:

In order to explain some of the things I've learned, allow me to first give names to the objects. Starting with the left column going from top to bottom, we have the following: PIPE, COG, PROPELLOR, DISH, EGG, LADDER. And in the right column: CUBE, SPHERE, TV, WHIRLWIND, HILLS, NOZZLE.

Now try this opening sequence: PIPE-HILLS-COG-PROPELLOR

Did you see all the big white bubbles that came out of the pipe and stopped over the hills? Interesting, huh? This is important if you want to prevent the mountain from becoming a volcano. The moisture and shade from the bubbles prevent that from happening.

Okay, now hit the reset button (or play through to the end if you want), and try this sequence: PROPELLOR-PIPE-HILLS-COG-DISH

Uh oh! The bubbles got blown away, because the propellor had become too strong and blew them off course. If you want to bubbles over the mountain, be sure not to introduce the propellor to soon, so it will not have a chance to grow.

Now try this: WHIRLWIND-HILLS-PIPE-PROPELLOR

See, it's not just a matter of whether or not the bubbles reach the hills. You can also feed them to the whirlwind to give birth to an alien. This results in extra points, but the downside is that the propellor is destroyed and cannot be developed.

But the whirlwind does not have to destroy the propellor. If it is more fully-developed, it can hold its own. Try this: PROPELLOR-PIPE-WHIRLWIND-HILLS-SPHERE-COG

And the more fully-developed the propellor is when it merges with the whirlwind, the more bonus points you get. But you lose the bubbles (unless you can get them to the mountains beforehand, in which case you will not be able to fully develop the propellor), and you don't get to create an alien.

You can also lose the whirlwind: WHIRLWIND-PIPE-COG-DISH

Now let's explore some other things. Start a game with this sequence: CUBE-LADDER. These two items are intertwined, and both need to be introduced early in the game. When they are both given sufficient time to become fully developed, something amazing happens. (Unlike many of the other items, these will grow and develop with any subsequent item introduced.) Okay, now continue playing, introducing whatever you like. Once the cube and ladder are fully developed, the cube will turn into a suit of robot armor, and the ladder will have grown so tall that it enables a large anthropomorph composed of purple balloons to climb down and don the armor, resulting in big points. No matter what direction you decide to take the game in, I believe that this is always possible, so you should do it in every game. Furthermore, the cube and ladder do not have to come first, you will always be successful if the cube is your second item and the ladder your fifth.

Also, the TV can always be added last. Adding it any earlier will not have any advantage. The nozzle can always be added as the penultimate item. So however you are pursuing victory, you will never go wrong having the cube second, the ladder fifth, the nozzle eleventh, and the TV twelfth. You will also want to introduce the egg as soon as possible, as it is one of the late-blooming objects.

As far as I can determine, the highest possible score that can be achieved is 13500, and the result can be seen in the first image. Interestingly, to get this score, you have to sacrifice the development of the pipe. In this scenario, the bubbles are allowed to blow away and never help to develop the mountain or whirlwind. Below is the best winning sequence I know of. If anyone has found a better one (more points), please let me know.

1. PROPELLOR
2. CUBE
3. EGG
4. SPHERE
5. LADDER
6. COG
7. DISH
8. WHIRLWIND
9. HILLS
10. PIPE
11. NOZZLE
12. TV