iScraper.

Hello.
Several months ago, I started playing an iOS game called 'Tiny Tower'. It's a simple concept; construct a skyscraper, one floor at a time. You chose from either residential or business floors so you have people living in the tower and working to earn money to build more floors! It may not sound like much but the charming pixelly animations make it really compelling and it is full of little incidental touches that enhance the game as a whole. Plus, it is horribly addictive. Each level you build costs more than the previous one but obviously, if you're playing well, you'll be earning more money as you build new floors. It only takes a week or so to get something that looks like this:

However, there is an achievement for building 100 floors and I was determined to get it. Now, I have realised that dream. Click HERE to see my magnificent tower in all its glory.

Oh yes, and although it was my intention to stop at 100, I now have a burning desire to see every type of floor there is, so I'll likely remain in the iron grip of this blocky timesink.

I thoroughly recommend the game to all of you with the ability to play it. It has a surprising amount of depth and is completely free as long as you don't mind being patient. You can read a review Here and if any of this has convinced you to give it a spin, it can be found on your friendly neighbourhood app store.

Have fun!

Soul Provider.

Game time.
On paper, today's plink may sound a bit unsavoury. You float around as a ghost possessing hapless people and forcing them to commit murders until you have harvested enough souls to pay the reaper. But it's not as bad as that sounds, honest! The whole thing uses the ever-charming 'pixel art' visual style and the bouts of slaughter are broken up by some decent sections of black comic dialogue.

As you progress through the game, you'll take control of several different types of people, each possessing different skills (see what I did there?) from the lowly office worker who is only able to swing his briefcase around menacingly, to the likes of the gun-toting security guard and the lock-picking cat burglar. You'll need to figure out who to use in order to dispatch your co-workers, whether that be by pummelling them, shooting them or kicking them out a window.

The difficulty ramps up as you progress and each level has a pretty strict time limit, so there's no time to hang around contemplating the morality of your actions, just hurry up and punt that guy off the roof!

More fun that its subject matter would suggest, then. Play Soul Tax.

Pixellent.

Evening.
I have a video for you. It's footage of New York City as it is beset by a plague of pixels! Taking the form of classic retro videogame sprites, they lay waste to the city. This video is amazing and well worth a watch even if you aren't a total geek. But if you are, then you get the added bonus of spotting all the references to different games and their makers.

Anyway, enjoy!


PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Discover more animation and arts videos.

The embedded video is a little small. If you'd prefer to see it in glorious big screen, click the link.

Bicentennial!

Ding ding ding ding ding!

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this, here, now, is my 200th plinx post.

I know, I know. It seems like only yesterday that I decided to resurrect my long dead tradition of posting the entertaining stuff I find on the internet somewhere to show my friends. But it was in fact just a smidge over 18 months ago and now look where we are. 200 posts.

Hooray for me!

But seriously, I wanted to do something a bit special for this, ahem... momentous event buuuut I didn't realise it until too late, and rather than delay the update even further, I've gone with something a bit half arsed. So yeah, sorry about that. I eventually plan to use some html trickery to make this seem like a real website but at the moment I don't know enough.

So, what HAVE I done? Well take a glance to the right. Do you like the new logo? I think it's ace. It's a composite of two images I made using something called Q-BLOCK which is a really funky 3D pixel art creation tool.

Here are the fruits of my endeavours:

Plinx Logo.
My Big Ugly Mug.

It's a surprisingly versatile gadget and I urge you to have a go at making something yourself. If you do, please show me!

Q-BLOCK. (click edit, then clear to start your own masterpiece)

I would just like to say thanks to anyone who reads this badly-written mess. I know there aren't many of you but I really enjoy writing this blog and I hope you people get some fun out of it to. Here's to the next 200, eh?

Paul.