I’ve been playing around on Wave a bit recently, and found this cool bot called Bard Bot. It lets you play text-based RPG games thought Google Wave, thought simple blips such as /north /south /look etc. There are about 20 games already available for it, but no description of the games that you can choose – although one is The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy (I’m a massive fan of that book!)

I think this is one of the coolest things I’ve seen on Wave, apart from the Declaration Of Independence Waves. What I’d like to see is using it for a group play – e.g people taking it in turns to make the character take an action (There’s no multiplayer feature yet).

This is a really good example of stuff that can be done with Wave, especially bots and gadgets. Maybe you could use the voting gadget with this to decide what to do next?

Links:

Google Wave
bardbot@appspot.com*

Wave Bots
Wave Gadgets

*Add Bard Bot as a contact in your waves to play.

This news item from GameSetWatch excites me. Not that someone is making sexy hi-res photographs inspired by Infocom games… by that Rick Thornquist is writing a book about Infocom, and plans to interview a number of Infocom people for the book. I don’t know who Rick is, but he’s my new game history hero.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Infocom games. They were some of the first ever video games I played on a PC and their ingenious packaging matched their more than ingenious games. I am still trying to remember what to do when you first get on the Vogon ship in the classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (designed, in part, by Steve Meretsky). I can’t wait to get my hands on this book. Sadly, Amazon doesn’t yet have a product page for it, but when they do, you can be sure that I will pre-order it!

Here’s some good Infocom-related links for you to peruse and enjoy:

• Wikipedia
• A brilliant white paper on the history of Infocom
• The classic Infocom unofficial home page
• Play Infocom games online
• GSW article on Steve
• Infocom collection torrent

I think I’ve already said how much I love booksales. I went to another today and picked up Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for fifty cents. You can’t turn that down.

I also got a twenty-eight story omnibus of Roald Dahl’s adult stories…woohoo!

The great thing about booksales (at least in my community) is that they also benefit the library. Old books for cheap, we load up on ‘em, and then give them back to be sold once again. I rarely buy new books (stingy poor college student), so fifty cent paperbacks and one dollar hard covers is the way to go.

Inimene õpib kogu elu, isegi kui seda mõnel puhul väga raske märgata on. Mõned asjad on aga nii tähtsad, et vanemad lihtsalt peavad need oma võsukestele pähe taguma. Näiteks, et kuuma pliiti ei näpita ja et ristmikul tuleb miljon korda mõlemale poole vaadata ja et laulvate näitlejate muusikast tuleb kauge kaarega mööda käia.

Aga ka rumalal ja sõnakuulmatul lapsel võib olla hea päev ja ahi ei köe, autosid ei tule ja laulev näitleja juhtub olema Zooey Deschanel.

Sa tead Zooeyt kindlasti, kui oled näinud Hitch-Hikers Guide To Galaxy filmiversiooni. Tricia McMillan ehk lühidalt Trillian. Aga lisaks on tal ka koos M. Wardiga bänd She & Him  ja see on juhtumisi hea.

She & Him – Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?