Sunday 31 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Heh, well, I got there in the end!

I feel like I only explored a tiny fraction of Black Velvetopia before leaving. That was probably a mistake. Along the way, you’re supposed to collect 4 cards, which involves fighting 4 identical copies of the same boss, although with a different colour scheme each time. If I’m remembering this right, the first boss is Tiger. Just so long as you use levitation correctly to enable you to run away fast and jump out of harm’s way, he’s reasonably easy to beat (although it still took a few tries). IIRC, next up is Dragon, who has a habit of sitting you on fire. Try to avoid that!

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Friday 29 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Having defeated the lunatic Frenchman Napolian (still not sure how that did anything useful…), I explored further, and found possibly the most likable character in the game so far — a tortured painter. Determined to free his mind, I entered his psychic world and…

…my God, it’s possibly the most beautiful game world I’ve ever seen. The scenary is jet black, with vivid flourescent colours splashed across it. It honestly looks flourescent. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s beautiful! Even Raz now shows up in gaudy colours, and appears to cast a slight purple glow around him in lieu of a shadow.

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Wednesday 27 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Last night another fun evening of dancing was had. Unfortunately I still ended up dancing by myself most of the time. (Linda seems content to stand and watch us all dance.) It’s also slightly unsettling when the dance instructor isn’t sure what the steps are. Linda managed to start the Stroll in the wrong direction (and everybody followed her without question). She also didn’t seem sure how some of the moves go. Mind you, she isn’t the only one.

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Wednesday 27 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Haskell makes use of a construct known as a monad. The obscurity of this term and the vast profusion of “monad tutorials” available on the Internet makes it seem as if monads are vitally important but highly complex.

But this is not actually the case. Monads are actually quite simple. It’s just that they are extremely abstract, so it’s kind of difficult to explain what they are in a simple way. It’s like trying to explain what a “number” is; it’s a simple enough idea, but hard to put into words.

Also, monads can be very useful, but that doesn’t mean you have to use them all the time. It’s not like all of Haskell revolves around monads. (Some people mistakenly get this idea.) Monads are just one kind of construct used in Haskell; they just happen to be unfamiliar to most people, so they get talked about a lot. Don’t take that as a sign of importance.

So what, finally, is a monad anyway? And why is there more than one type of monad?

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Wednesday 27 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

Oh you are kidding me!

Psychonauts is now £1 to buy. And to think I paid £6 just a few days ago…

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Tuesday 26 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

I found a walkthrough for Psychonauts and managed to get unstuck.

Recall that I wandered around the twisted neighborhood of The Milkman Conspiracy, and got stuck being constantly arrested outside the book depository.

I didn’t realise this, but hitting the black cars causes items to be released, including several disguises that allow me to enter houses which were guarded. But that still doesn’t really help me. But then I accidentally discovered that you can in fact get into the arborium. When one gate opens, the other gate secretly opens. And when it closes, the other closes. So if you walk through the gate and back out again, the other gate is still shut when you get there. But if you open the gate and then jump back other it, the other gate is still open, and you can go inside.

When you get in there, you get a bunch of flowers, which allows you to access the cemetary where you were told to go in the first place. Once in, you find a book, and a cut-scene plays where you get told to go to the book depository [apparently me being told that was a glitch; I shouldn’t have gone until now]. And you also get given the necessary disguise to get in!

Now, to defeat the den mother…

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Monday 25 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

My last post entitled “psychonauts” actually had about two sentences about Psychonauts, and several pages of stuff about other games. So this post is about the epic oddessy that is Psychonauts, in depth.

I will begin by repeating myself. Zero Punctuation said this about it. In case you can’t be bothered to click that, I will quote the salient parts:

This game contains, in no particular order:

A telekinetic bear.

A dentist who collects brains.

A scene where you walk around Godzilla-style, terrorising a city of talking fish.

A trench-coated government agent who disguises himself as a housewife by brandishing a rolling pin and talking disjointedly about pies.

You can’t criticise this game. It’s against the law or something!

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Friday 22 Jan 2010 by Orphi the AweKid.

I just ate a packet of salt & vinegar hoolahoops. As a result, my lips are now numb.

Anyway, I had a look at the ingredients list. Surprisingly, it tells you how much sunflower oil is in there (28%), but not how much potatoe is in there. Which is interesting. (Reassuringly, potatoe is the first ingredient on the list.)

For me, the real kicker was this:

This packet contains approximately 2 servings.

Erm, WTF? Who the hell buys a packet of crisps and eats half of it?! That’s absurd! Nobody does this!

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