Category: Gaming

I am not a good game designer, but I knew that before playing Super Mario Maker. In other games with a built-in “creator” mode, like LittleBigPlanet, I would just ignore the creation aspect and focus on playing.

Mod and level design tools for most RPGs require too much dedicated study and practice to draw me in. But with Mario Maker, it’s incredibly simple to design a hideous torture chamber. Or indeed any product of intentionally horrible, unfair game design. I’m still not very good at it, but I’m beginning to love creating.

Super Mario Maker is essentially two games: A design tool and a traditional 2D platformer. The tool aspect lets you crib elements from several Mario games and toss them together into a level of your own making, which you can then upload online for everyone else to play. You choose the overall graphical skin from among Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, or New Super Mario Bros. U. This affects the way everything looks and sounds, and how some items are used (for example, Mario World allows access to Cape Mario while New Super Mario Bros. U swaps that with Propellor Mario). And the background that you choose (airship, underwater, castle, etc.), determines the stage and musical themes.

Only three nations have ever landed a spacecraft intact on the Moon: the United States, Russia, and China. Many countries have slammed lunar orbiters or probes into the Moon to study its environment, but gently landing a spacecraft is trickier. The Moon is big enough to have a gravitational pull, but it doesn’t have an atmosphere to slow incoming objects. Spacecraft in lunar orbit must fire retro-rockets, very precisely, in the opposite direction of the Moon. That way they can slowly descend without slamming into the rock. It’s a delicate procedure that usually requires a lot of time and money, which is why only government agencies have been able to do it up until now.

A trait carried over from their debut, luckily for us listeners

Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances.

That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, with mild stun’sails spread, floated across the tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man’s delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn swells.

The tax man even cites a specific statute: “Whoever purchases goods at an unseemly low price to take advantage of the seller’s ignorance shall be subject to a fine equaling 200 percent of the earnings from any such transaction.”

You can admit to tax evasion and pay a penalty, or you can deny any wrongdoing. Choose that option and you’ll be commended by the tax man; he’ll even give you a “Taxpayer in Good Standing” diploma, which he recommends you frame and hang in honor.

The cowhide exploit involved killing cows and collecting their hides. Players quickly discovered that if they mediated for a certain period of time, cows in one early area of the game would respawn every time they woke up. Thus, players could stock up on cow hides to their heart’s content and then sell them for a nice fee. CD Projekt Red addressed this by deploying the Bovine Defense Force Initiative, which took the form of a hulking, ultra-powerful nasty monster who kills anyone trying to cash in.

Browne Sanders made up her allegations against Thomas

The Money Quotes via Ben Golliver

I think they perceived that nothing was to be done for the present, and had gone away to breakfast at Henderson’s house. There were four or five boys sitting on the edge of the Pit, with their feet dangling, and amusing themselves–until I stopped them–by throwing stones at the giant mass. After I had spoken to them about it, they began playing at “touch” in and out of the group of bystanders. Among these were a couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I employed sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg the butcher and his little boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were accustomed to hang about the railway station. There was very little talking. Few of the common people in England had anything but the vaguest astronomical ideas in those days. Most of them were staring quietly at the big table like end of the cylinder, which was still as Ogilvy and Henderson had left it.

I fancy the popular expectation of a heap of charred corpses was disappointed at this inanimate bulk. Some went away while I was there, and other people came. I clambered into the pit and fancied I heard a faint movement under my feet.

[blockquote author=”DALAI LAMA” pull=”normal”]Our prime purpose in this life is to
help others. And if you can’t help them,
at least don’t hurt them.[/blockquote]

It was only when I got thus close to it that the strangeness of this object was at all evident to me. At the first glance it was really no more exciting than an overturned carriage or a tree blown across the road. Not so much so, indeed. It looked like a rusty gas float. It required a certain amount of scientific education to perceive that the grey scale of the Thing was no common oxide, that the yellowish-white metal that gleamed in the crack between the lid and the cylinder had an unfamiliar hue.

Soon the crew came on board in two

Dorothy’s life became very sad as she grew to understand that it would be harder than ever to get back to Kansas and Aunt Em again. Sometimes she would cry bitterly for hours, with Toto sitting at her feet and looking into her face, whining dismally to show how sorry he was for his little mistress. Toto did not really care whether he was in Kansas or the Land of Oz so long as Dorothy was with him; but he knew the little girl was unhappy, and that made him unhappy too.

Now the Wicked Witch had a great longing to have for her own the Silver Shoes which the girl always wore. Her bees and her crows and her wolves were lying in heaps and drying up, and she had used up all the power of the Golden Cap; but if she could only get hold of the Silver Shoes, they would give her more power than all the other things she had lost. She watched Dorothy carefully, to see if she ever took off her shoes, thinking she might steal them. But the child was so proud of her pretty shoes that she never took them off except at night and when she took her bath. The Witch was too much afraid of the dark to dare go in Dorothy’s room at night to take the shoes, and her dread of water was greater than her fear of the dark, so she never came near when Dorothy was bathing. Indeed, the old Witch never touched water, nor ever let water touch her in any way.

She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together: she made out the words: ‘Where’s the other ladder?—Why, I hadn’t to bring but one; Bill’s got the other—Bill! fetch it here, lad!—Here, put ’em up at this corner. No, tie ’em together first—they don’t reach half high enough yet—Oh! they’ll do well enough; don’t be particular—Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope—Will the roof bear?—Mind that loose slate—Oh, it’s coming down! Heads below!’ (a loud crash)—’Now, who did that?—It was Bill, I fancy—Who’s to go down the chimney?—Nay, I shan’t! YOU do it!—That I won’t, then!—Bill’s to go down—Here, Bill! the master says you’re to go down the chimney!’

‘Oh! So Bill’s got to come down the chimney, has he?’ said Alice to herself. ‘Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn’t be in Bill’s place for a good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I THINK I can kick a little!’

She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn’t guess of what sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself ‘This is Bill,’ she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.