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Double Action: Boogaloo is the most over-the-top action movie one can imagine, dripping with bullet time scenes... In game form. Take control of one of three (three!) characters with seven weapons (or your fists) to choose from, pick your trait out of five, and get killin'.

That's it, in a nutshell, although you do have a bit more to help you in the fight. At any point, you can dive, slide, or jump up and off walls. All of these maneuvers make it harder to get shot, which is certainly an advantage. Landing hits on your opponents when doing these actions will earn you Style points, which is the overall score on which the winner is chosen - kills don't matter if you don't gain the Style points to beat your opponents.

Additionally, you can gain time on your bullet time clock that you can activate at any point, which triggers slow-motion for the entire server for as many seconds as you have. Gaining one or two seconds in a life is common enough, although there is a trait that causes you to immediately gain three seconds once you fill the Style meter. Bullet time is important because of the aforementioned maneuvers that can be performed which makes shooting opponents tricky, to say the least.

The game is played in first or third person (it can be changed at will) and there is no such thing as "teams" in this world - it's a constant, fast-paced free-for-all. Playing on a server with a high number of people and standing in place for too long will most likely result in your death.

At certain points in a game, "side missions" might open up. These missions might be to kill the current player with the highest Style, or to recover a briefcase and take it to a certain position, or a race. Completing this mission will earn the player a nice chunk of Style, although it can be hard. Don't expect the constant firefights to lag because of these missions, though.

Warning: this game is ridiculous. It's a game inspired by silly action movies filled with over-the-top moves and badasses, like the game Stranglehold. It even has the doves suddenly erupting from people in the middle of a fight. Diving off a building and unloading dual Colts into a firefight is par for the course. It's also extremely fast-paced. If you dislike either or both of these things, you won't like this, because that is almost the game in its entirety.

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So I was digging through legends mode artifacts earlier when I found an interesting book: A pink tourmaline-bound, 125-page biography called "And They Sang 'Lusko Chaineddefense!'," authored by "Shosá Smigesana" (Shosá Peachloved). I decided to find out who this guy was and why he wrote a book like that and it was... Sad.

To start, Shosá was born in the year 2, the eldest son of Kara Anvilhare and Othdo Perplexedstood. Kara and Othdo had a daughter and another son, as well. He had a very rough start to his life as both his father and his younger brother were killed in the year 4 by, curiously enough, two separate ettins. In the year 8, Shosá himself was confronted by a minotaur but escaped unscathed. His mother packed up, took Shosá and his sister, and started shifting between different settlements over the course of a decade: Stormsilvers in 9, Iceseizure in 11.

Both Shosá and his mother worked as rangers in Iceseizure. In 16, his mother was attacked by a rampaging brush titan and was struck down. Shosá decided to move again in 19, going to a hamlet called Tulipsteels. It was there that he met Lusko Chaineddefense and married her in 22.

(Lusko was a minor figure in the world, relatively: she was one of the first humans and spent some time wandering the wilds before founding Stormsilvers with her group, which Shosá had lived in for a short while. She even helped form the position of lord and ruled Stormsilvers herself for some time.)

Over the course of the next few years, they had six children:

• Obin Moistenharvests; eldest daughter; b. 23
• Innu Shocktoe; second eldest daughter; b. 24
• Nedun Wringcalled; only son; b. 25
• Ceru Trenchdrank; third eldest daughter; b. 26
• Tikbo Rhymedlabored; fourth eldest daughter; b. 27
• Speski Twoshadow; fifth eldest daughter; b. 29

However, things were about to go terribly wrong for Shosá. In the year 29, a bronze colossus by the name of Ipa Silveryprides attacked Stormsilvers. Ipa's rampage cost Shosá dearly: In the attack, his wife was killed, along with Obin, Nedun, Tikbo, and Speski. Obin was the oldest, at six years old, and Speski hadn't even reached her first birthday yet. With over half his family dead, he moves to a hamlet called Amusehammer in 31 and becomes a farmer in 32. He immediately abandons his job and forms a bandit group called "The Branded Seasons," which sees nobody but himself join it. He moves yet again to a hamlet called Bottlebunny in 33.

In the year 35, he became obsessed with his own mortality, just six years after his wife and four of his children were murdered by the colossus Ipa. In 36, he became an apprentice of a dwarven necromancer called Atis Greatertrades, who taught him the secrets of life and death. He moves to the tower Lastdents in 36 and took his own apprentice in the same year: a dwarf woman by the name of Stodir Scarletguild. Afterwards, he wrote "And They Sang 'Lusko Chaineddefense!'" in the year 53. The writing - his only memorial to Lusko - is described as "reasonably serious."
 
At one point, Stodir led her own group, "The Mechanisms of Gravel," pillaging and murdering. She was actually very successful, winning many battles, even though she could only have claimed to have killed six unimportant humans in her life. They had multiple clashes with "the Messianic League" over the course of a couple of years, which was a group serving under a human civilization called "the Dented Empire." Many such battles were fought in a region called the Aqua Steppes, at no particular site. In the year 80, the Mechanisms of Gravel and the Messianic League went at it yet again: Stodir was leading the Mechanisms of Gravel and the defenders were led by a human called Emung Riddlednoble. The secrets of life and death proved insufficient and Stodir was struck down by Emung. 174 years later, in a terribly ironic twist, Stodir's corpse was raised by another dwarven necromancer called Ustuth Rampartmoisten, totally unrelated to Stodir, Shosá, the Mechanisms of Gravel, or anybody in Lastdents.

The last person of note in Shosá's trauamtic life is Tokda Dancefortunes, a human woman born in 64. In 137 she murdered an elf, in 138 she became a lady, and in 141 she became obsessed with her own mortality and pursed the secrets of life and death - like many before her. She became an apprentice of Shosá in 148, learning the secrets of life and death. She gave birth to ten children - all of whom died centuries ago.

And that is the end of Shosá's tale. Innu (his second eldest daughter) passed of old age in 104 and Ceru (third eldest) was claimed by age in 114, neither of them having done anything notable aside from marrying. Tokda is still alive (surprisingly) and continues to reside in Lastdents. Shosá's master still lives as well. Shosá himself continues to sit in his tower, four centuries after his last children died, writing many books on many topics, but none of them mentioning Lusko Chaineddefense a second time.

A thread about Space Station 13.

I've decided to try my hand at fabricating a station, based on what I've seen and heard in terms of Glloydstation and Metastation. I'll be taking concepts from both and tossing in my own. Since we may be in the middle of a code change, I have yet to start on it, or even chalk up a rough floor plan, but I'm putting down the basic concepts here for reference and criticism. Ideas are welcome and appreciated.

The depth on what I'm listing won't be ridiculous. This is a dump for all the rooms and notable features. The station shape and the contents of the rooms will be decided when I'm making the map. Let's build another station.

The listing goes as such:
  - Room
     % things directly connected to that room

Minor design questions are also shown with parentheses and question marks.

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Wildfire Worlds is an early alpha game about watching a city go about its business and then burning it all down. The end goal of this game is to be able to change how the society works -- create a free democracy, well-structured police state, a society of ravers etc. -- and then destroy everything, presumably with the options for aliens, giant robots, zombies, a Commie invasion and probably every other cheesy end-of-society scenario there is out there. It has a simple, cute art style for something that can end up being so horrific.

There is one way to rip apart society now: activists. With the hand of God, you place down activists (who look more like zombies...) who can then "convert" normal citizens by talking to them about world peace I guess. Normal people run in fear when they see activists and police officers charge and beat them senseless with batons, or gun them down later on in the apocalypse, and I think they even get grenades when the city has almost totally fallen. You can control these activists and move them around. When you mass enough of them, you can run cars off the road or rip down buildings. Most buildings spout more citizens when you destroy them. However, some buildings are unique, like the power plant or electrical station. Destroying either of these kills the power to the city, which makes the view range of citizens shorter and makes them easier to catch. You can also do this on the micro level by destroying the much more vulnerable streetlights.

If your "peaceful" activism fails, construction workers will rebuild whatever you trashed and you can try again. Currently, you have 500 activists per game so it's unlikely you can lose unless you really, really try.

Currently, the game is $15. Of course, to give incentive to buy now, the price will be increased as the game comes closer and closer to the v1 release. It's a risk, as would be expected from new games like this, and some might not be willing to take it just now.

LINKS:

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VIDEOS:
Wildfire Worlds trailer
Recipe for a Riot
The video when the alpha released
WEBSITE LOCATIONS:
The frontpage
The forums
The blog
Media, including more delicious screenshots

I'm not sure about you, but I'm pretty excited for this game. It seems less people are aware about it than I would expect.

Heads. No, seriously, heads. They default to a bite attack, which is much more effective than most wrestling moves a zombie with graspers would do, they're hard as hell to hit and they can still open doors. Besides, who wouldn't love the mental picture of a ton of heads rolling towards the enemy?


That's how it is for all my animated heads. I'm a grand master swordsman. There's nothing stopping you if you animate about a dozen heads and take a walk through town. The only downside I can see right now is the difficulty of acquiring such a specimen. A slash to the head of your average human seems to have about a 70% chance of just ripping his/her brain up without taking it off. You could animate the corpse and try again, but that would get annoying after a while.

http://mochakimono.chipx86.com/agen2.html
Another one of those silly little random generators, like the random video game name generator. Just click "GENERATE" and look at the either sensible or ridiculous magical spell that just befell you.

Everyone can read your mind, then you have a flashback into the nearest person's past, and finally everyone can read your mind.
 Your right ear turns lemon yellow and explodes, then you go deaf. (who could've guessed?)
 You turn into a catperson, then you turn into a tiger, and finally you are wracked with pain from head to toe. (I wonder *why* you're wracked with pain...)
 Your breasts, if any, turn red and then you are filled with overwhelming peace and joy repeatedly. (Hmmm...)
 You turn into a horse permanently. (I won't comment on this one...)
 A torrential rain falls. A veritable monsoon-like downpour begins, but only for a few minutes. (Damn! What are the odds?!)
 There is an earthquake and you become slowfooted. (whoops!)
 Your penis, if any, turns dark purple and enlarges, then you grow a draconic, arrow-headed tail. (what in the hell...)
 Your left leg explodes and then you get a free wish permanently. (I WISH FOR A NEW LEG!)
 Your hair grows fur. (huh...)

It makes a good timewaster.

People who are intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious, but getting them to think analytically even in subtle ways decreases the strength of their belief, according to a new study in Science.

The research, conducted by University of British Columbia psychologists Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan, does not take sides in the debate between religion and atheism, but aims instead to illuminate one of the origins of belief and disbelief. "To understand religion in humans," Gervais says, "you need to accommodate for the fact that there are many millions of believers and nonbelievers."

One of their studies correlated measures of religious belief with people's scores on a popular test of analytic thinking. The test poses three deceptively simple math problems. One asks: "If it takes five machines five minutes to make five widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets?" The first answer that comes to mind—100 minutes—turns out to be wrong. People who take the time to reason out the correct answer (five minutes) are, by definition, more analytical—and these analytical types tend to score lower on the researchers' tests of religious belief.

But the researchers went beyond this interesting link, running four experiments showing that analytic thinking actually causes disbelief. In one experiment, they randomly assigned participants to either the analytic or control condition. They then showed them photos of either Rodin's The Thinker or, in the control condition, of the ancient Greek sculpture Discobolus, which depicts an athlete poised to throw a discus. (The Thinker was used because it is such an iconic image of deep reflection that, in a separate test with different participants, seeing the statue improved how well subjects reasoned through logical syllogisms.) After seeing the images, participants took a test measuring their belief in God on a scale of 0 to 100. Their scores on the test varied widely, with a standard deviation of about 35 in the control group. But it is the difference in the averages that tells the real story: In the control group, the average score for belief in God was 61.55, or somewhat above the scale's midpoint. On the other hand, for the group who had just seen The Thinker, the resulting average was only 41.42. Such a gap is large enough to indicate a mild believer is responding as a mild nonbeliever—all from being visually reminded of the human capacity to think.

Another experiment used a different method to show a similar effect. It exploited the tendency, previously identified by psychologists, of people to override their intuition when faced with the demands of reading a text in a hard-to-read typeface. Gervais and Norenzayan did this by giving two groups a test of participants' belief in supernatural agents like God and angels, varying only the font in which the test was printed. People who took the belief test in the unclear font (a typewriterlike font set in italics) expressed less belief than those who took it in a more common, easy-to-read typeface. "It's such a subtle manipulation," Norenzayan says. "Yet something that seemingly trivial can lead to a change that people consider important in their religious belief system." On a belief scale of 3 to 21, participants in the analytic condition scored an average of almost two points lower than those in the control group.

Analytic thinking undermines belief because, as cognitive psychologists have shown, it can override intuition. And we know from past research that religious beliefs—such as the idea that objects and events don't simply exist but have a purpose—are rooted in intuition. "Analytic processing inhibits these intuitions, which in turn discourages religious belief," Norenzayan explains.

Harvard University psychologist Joshua Greene, who last year published a paper on the same subject with colleagues Amitai Shenhav and David Rand, praises this work for its rigorous methodology. "Any one of their experiments can be reinterpreted, but when you've got [multiple] different kinds of evidence pointing in the same direction, it's very impressive."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=losing-your-religion-analytic-thinking-can-undermine-belief