Not all fun and games

Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | News

I wanted to share this little project that I did for work because, well first of all it’s the first programming project I’ve had a chance to work on for a while (believe it or not) and while the focus of the site is games I feel the primary focus of programming int general is not games. I like games not only because they’re considerably more fun than applications but because they are also potentially easier for the beginner.

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I haven’t been programming much lately, and I excuse it on getting the programs I have ready for the site and getting the book together (with many thanks to Devin Watson for providing the pointers I need to make it ready for a publisher), but the truth is I have a confession to make. I’ve been playing a lot of Lego Indiana Jones lately. Actually my wife and I are playing it together, which is the problem because every evening after the kids are tucked in when I should really be working on the site one or the other of us always talks the other into playing the game. It usually doesn’t take much convincing. The game is fun, no doubt about it.

Since this isn’t a review site I’ll leave my thoughts on the game hidden behind a more tag.

We played Lego Star Wars II together before this. (I played Lego Star Wars I solo before I got her into it.) It’s interesting that with Lego Indiana Jones we’re attacking it systematically, saving out money for the things that will pay off like multipliers. And pay off it did. Before we even started the third movie we had 27 million studs. Now we’re about 80% through and spending our 47 million studs without regard because unless something is going to come along that costs a solid 100 million we’re probably not going to run out.

What this game really needs is a sink hole for your money, something that you can spend it on constantly that will pay off somehow, but that you never really finish spending for, like a boat in real life. My immediate thought was a gun that shot studs, but it’d have to be a really awesome gun to make me want to use it enough to counter my 48x multiplier. Either that or a trophy room like on the Super Solvers Treasure MathStorm that just encourages you to collect. (Aside: I love the whole Super Solver series and it’s a life long ambition of mine to share them with the current generation.)

Like I said, this isn’t a review site, but maybe I’ll sum up my experience with the game when I’m done with it if I get feedback that anyone would like to see that.

At this rate we’ll be done with the game pretty soon so I can give a little more focus to the site in the evenings. Wait, Lego Batman comes out on the 23rd? Oh no. (Oh yes.) Don’t worry, it’ll be a month or so before I catch it on sale low enough to justify me buying it.