The Gospel According To Rhys - Colwyn Bay North Wales Web blog About Sport Technology Web 2.0 Internet Life and Making Money Online

photo credit: Andrew Feinberg

This post is in reply to a Facebook comment from Rhys.

The comment (if you’re not my facebook friend – if you’re not, why not?), said this:-

“I’ve stopped my full posts coming onto FB – it stops people visiting your website, as they just comment here.”

This post is an answer to why I do put my posts Facebook.

When I was last on the Beeb to talk about blogging & the state of the blogosphere (listen to the interview here), I talked rather a lot about hubs (much more than made the final cut incidentally), blogs now are seemingly the final place to drive traffic to, rather than the first place to go for news. As a result, my posts shouldn’t be a “the only place to find good posts.”, it should be a “hey, look here! My post has been on facebook and you like it. If you subscribe to my RSS feed, you can get posts like this daily!”.

Okay, maybe not daily. But the point is that whilst I feel that the community surrounding my blog has dwindled due to the lack of comments, in actual fact it’s risen due to Twitter, Facebook and the syndication of my posts in a few places on the internet. All because that there are only 3 comments in a post compared to 7 or 8 a year ago, doesn’t mean that they’re not commenting. I get replies on Twitter & Facebook as well (though mainly my facebook replies are “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”), hence what brought on this comment.

And that I guess is what being a blogger about. It’s not about denying possible readers your posts, it’s about being as open and approachable as possible. I know a lot of people think like Rhys, who try and tease readers into their blog, and that’s their perogative (I’m not going to tell people how to blog), but for me,  by being as open and approachable as possible seems to work.

In which case, does that make me a blogger? Or some twitter/blogger/facebook mutant?

I managed to get a copy of Kodu Game Lab and have been playing with it. Here are my thoughts on it.

First of all, my fears detailed on the Kodu Game Lab Post were right – compared to tradtional programming languages, it’s nowhere near as good unfortunately as using a programming language, and you will not produce the next Metal Gear Solid or Call of Duty. The games are fairly simple 3d roaming games by and large, but you can make shooters, golf games and racing games, amongst others.

Furthermore, the characters you can use are very limited. The Kodu (I think they’re Kodus anyway) control like cars. They take about 3 or 4 seconds to stop. I couldn’t find out how to stop it, and that brings it onto the third point.

It’s very difficult to actually edit anything! From my understanding, you pick an item, set to do something on a certain action. It sounds pretty simple, but it’s actually quite tricky to get your head around it.

Nevertheless, if you want to make a game out of it, then really there’s nothing better (or indeed anything else) on the Xbox 360 to make games. It’s pretty good for developing simple games, and it is really the best non programming game creator since Klik & Play.

Today also sees the release of an interesting game in the UK. 1 vs 100. It’s a massively multiplayer online (non RPG!) game that really has got me excited. It’s based on the TV show of the same name, and involves 1 player trying to beat 100 players.

Three things that make this game interesting – it’s the first ever Xbox Live Primetime Game, which is seen as many as the gaming world’s first ever direct competition to primetime TV. Games will take the form of “Episodes” – 1 hour long games similar to TV shows which will feature people playing. And – whilst there will be the ability to play the game outside of these episodes, the episodes will feature prizes.

The second point is the prizes. Microsoft will be giving away gamerpoints to winners in the 1, the 100 and indeed the crowd (players not the 1 or the 100).

And the third thing? It’s totally free (for at least beta). Chances are that Microsoft will offer advertising (another link to the “episode/primetime” nature of the game) to keep the game free, but we’ll see what happens.

All in all, it seems rather cool, and I’m stupidly excited to play it today at some point. Will give a full review of the game at a later date.

I’ve got a nervy weekend ahead of me. I’m not sure how much I can talk about it, even when the weekend is over, but if it all goes well, it should be absolutely awesome. I’ll probably divulge it on Twitter. Depending on how this weekend goes will lead to a small change in direction to this blog. I’ll keep you posted.

Ladies and gentleman, let the Ashes begin!

photo credit: andydolman

For the unaware, The Ashes are the greatest cricket tournament in the world. It is between the mighty England (ably carried by Welsh players I may add), and our colonial inferiors, the Aussies.

Unfortunately, by some sheer chance, the Aussies won the last series 5-0. But the time before in England, in the greatest ever ashes tournament in the history of the world, cricket fever was grabbed by the short and curlies when England defeated the Aussies 2 tests to 1 (2 draws) to regain the Ashes after 21 years of hurt.

For most of you, you probably will want to learn about cricket and the history of this tournament. Simply treat cricket the way most of us treat cricket – something that goes on in the background during a five day piss up. But if you want to learn the basic, have a look at this Cricket for Newbies article, as well as this history of the Ashes here.

I know I have at least 2 cricket fans reading this, and certainly plenty of Aussies reading my blog. I expect certain lurkers to contribute to this post, notably one man who saw that catch and that Ricky Pointing run out in the Third Day of the Fourth Test at Trent Bridge. So that is why, in this post, sledging will be permitted.

So Aussies, a country with about as much culture as a petri dish, let the series begin!

Who do you think will win?

One of the more fascinating releases on the XBLA over the weekend was Kodu Game Lab. As the name suggests, it’s not actually a game, more of a game creator. Allowing pretty much anybody to create a game how they want. As this is a quick post – here’s the blurb from the back.

“Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The visual programming environment allows rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input. Share your creations with friends over XBOX LIVE.”

Now, when I was a fairly socially inclusive, yet creatively marginal member of the Blitz Basic community, I did write a few games. Believe me – it was tough, as unlike applications or plugins, they needed to be visually impressive as well as fun to play (a lot of my games could’ve been brilliant if I could’ve drawn). Nevertheless I did make a few (usually for weekly competitions – which allowed me to design games quickly), and they were fairly well received, as well as being senses of personal achievement for me (I loved putting games onto the now defunct Blitzcoder community!).

I also found “game creator” software to be lacking. They were okay, but usually specialised in one genre of game, rather than a huge  library that you could run with, but I could see their place in the world – as introductions to game programming. As such I will try and do a review of Kodu Game Lab & let you know my thoughts.

However, have you done any programming? Any ideas you have for video games? What resources do you use for programming. Share your thoughts in the comments!

What am I referring you to this flow diagram? Let me explain.

At the moment, it appears that swine flu seems to be affecting celebrities, where UK based sitcom actress Mollie Sugden died this week. In one tweet on Wossy’s Twitter account, Twitter was innundated with #MrsSlocombesPussy posts. Including a fair few from me as well.

In short, Mrs Slocombes Pussy was err….spread throughout the world, and certain areas of the blogosphere (Mashable, and to a greater extent Techcrunch) outcried. “Oh my goodness! How can this world live with such a horrible word in the trending topics!”. Even when they informed them of why this was a trending topic, the writer wrote a fairly insensitive comment in retaliation.

This is what I was talking about last week! Bloggers breaking stories without knowing the full facts. Techcrunch seems to have a reputation (reading the comments) of breaking news without finding out facts.Facts that if they spoke to one of their twitter followers (come on, they must have some from the UK) to explain it, it would avoid updates, explaining themselves, and a loss or reputation.

To conclue: news breaking is like sex. It’s always a great thing to come first. Sometimes it makes you look inconsiderate and insensitive, but at the very least shows a lack of preparation.

* Before I get shouted at, the story I used in comparison was Billy Mays death, and how I researched it. I’m well aware I’m just one person, likewise with the states, but it seems to be a trend of big websites. Probably I should’ve put that, but it does annoy me that US Centric websites don’t realise there’s nothing outside of their sites, that we’re all living in mud huts and carry around spears. But there we go.