Stick It To The Man.

Afternoon,

I won't say too much about this because it'd spoil it. Just click below and draw a stickman. Easy as that.

GO!

Plinx Quickie.

This is a Public Service Announcement.

Portal, one of the best games ever, is now free to download on PC or Mac. I'm sure nearly everyone has played it now but if there is anyone out there who is still yet to experience its splendour, for god's sake get it now. It's free until September 20th so shake a leg.
Grab It Here.

I'm Appealing.

Hello, this post may trigger a feeling of deja vu for you long-time plinx visitors.
Remember when I asked you to help Thomas Truax get his album released? Well guess what? He's at it again!



If none of this is ringing any bells, all you need to know is that Truax tours the country with a boot full of instruments he invented himself playing truly compelling songs. I've met him a couple of times and he's a thoroughly nice chap. In fact last time I saw him live he played the birthday song for me on that instrument you see in the picture above (it's called the Hornicator. Oh yes.) But yeah, he has a new album and needs all of our help.

This one is a concept album of sorts, a 12 track opus that is being written and recorded one track a month with each track referencing the month it was recorded in! Still with me? Good.

So this album is due for release in January but ONLY IF enough people pledge to buy it. Otherwise it won't be released and the world will be a worse place as a result. That may sound hyperbolic but I honestly think that what ol' TT is doing is important. He makes music unlike anything else that exists. Like last time, the album is part of a PledgeMusic drive which means you have several pledging options. If you just want an electronic copy of the album, it'll only set you back a measly £6 but you can opt to pay a little bit more to get some funky extras. Check out the page HERE.

I've put together a short Spotify playlist to give you a few reasons to get behind this musical endeavour. So Check It Out. (If you don't have spotify; firstly, what's wrong with you, go download it now and secondly, you can find a lot of his tracks on youtube.)

Anyway, stop reading this and go and change the course of music history if you wouldn't mind! Don't dilly-dally too much, there's only 12 days to go before it's too late.

Thanks, you won't regret this.

Monochromantics.

Hi, 2 games today that fit into that wildly popular genre - 'ludicrous physics games starring black & white animals'.

First off, a zebra. Doing what zebras do best, making his way across the savannah... in a car. The game is Safari Drive and you need to get the motorized mammal from the left side of the screen to the right by clicking on objects littered about the stage to remove them. It's a fairly fun and straightforward jaunt with some enjoyably odd facial expressions from the zebra. So give it a spin.

Next, it's perhaps the most beloved of all the two-tone creatures, the penguin. This particular penguin wins extra points for wearing a trenchcoat and packing heat. Why? Well to kill zombies, of course! Lots of ricocheting rounds and smashable furniture in this one: Zombies vs Penguins. Whee!

Aaaaand that's your lot. Until next time, pals.

Plinx Quickie.

How do.
Just a quick post to keep the blog ticking over. A clever play on words turned into an excellent collection of pop culture robots both famous and obscure. Click the sample below for the full-size version of...

Where's Wall-E?





Did you find him?

Incurable Stealie-o-holicism.

Cripes, it's been a weird couple of days, hasn't it? If you live in one of the areas where there has been rioting, I hope you've remained relatively unaffected.

It's been really disheartening, watching all the terrible behaviour on the news. Seeing how it'll affect blameless business/homeowners who will have a really tough time getting back on their feet.

However, in the aftermath, it was great to see good-hearted individuals coming together to help fix things. I love a bit of indomitable human spirit, me.

In a similar vein, I'm glad that some people are doing their bit to bring a smile back to our faces by looking at a tragic situation and seeing the funny side. So today I bring you PhotoshopLooter

It's a collection of cleverly doctored images of the twats doing all the stealing and smashing. See below for examples:





Teehee!

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.

Plinx Quickie.

You're all familiar with services such as SnipURL, TinyURL, etc right?
They take long, unwieldy web addresses and condense them down. Very useful, but a bit bland.

Wouldn't it be better if you could make any innocent URL look suspicious? Inject a bit of danger into your web-browsing? For example, would you click a link that looked like this:

http://5z8.info/hack-outlook_s1o7am_dogfights

Didn't think so, but you'd be perfectly safe to do so. It would just lead you to this very blog, replete with my grinning, boxy face.

This is the service offered by ShadyURL. I think they're doing important work, spicing up the prosaic world of surfing the net.

So, are you willing to take my word for it that this link is safe?
http://5z8.info/racist-raps_f5j2du_blackmarket
Go on, give it a click. I dare you.

Plinx The Blog & Paul The Human.

Hello,

I used to watch a lot of cartoons. I don't just mean when I was a child, but up until a few years ago. Then I kind of stopped (with the exception of the combined output of Matt Groening & Seth MacFarlane) because things just didn't seem as good. I imagine some of it can be attributed to me growing up but it feels more like the toons are just getting less innovative and unique. Cartoon Network seems to be getting buried in stuff like Ben 10, Generator Rex & Johnny Test.

In short, it feels like we've taken a step back from the anarchic lunacy of things like Cow & Chicken, Ed, Edd & Eddy & Courage the Cowardly Dog.

So is there no hope? Au contraire.

Enter...



It's the best cartoon I've seen in ages and really feels like a breath of fresh air in a genre increasingly over-crowded with generic action toons.
It veers very close to being too 'wacky' but the end result is something that has you shaking your head with disbelief on a minute by minute basis. It's very colourful and there are characters made of rainbows and sweets but there's also a jet-black streak of comedy running through it.

It'd be best if you just watched for yourself, so here are the first two episodes. Drink it in, then go watch as much of it as you can.



YEAH!

Carface.

Do you like Pixar movies? Stupid question really. Everyone likes them, and with good reason. As a body of work, it's approaching flawless. Perhaps the closest thing to a low-point would be 2006's Cars and even that was still a lot better than most of their competitors' fare.

Anyway, there's a sequel coming soon so what better time to apply the Pixar anthropomorphising technique to some famous and iconic cars from film and tv.

Observe:



Pretty cool, huh? See the rest Here.

Badum Tish.

Just a quick one today,
How does a cymbal react to being struck?

Turns out, it's more extreme than you'd think. Check it out:

Press M For Murder.

Hey, so we haven't had a game for a while. To be honest it's because nothing has really grabbed me. No matter how nicely polished or deep, every flash game I play recently seems to be a variation on a familiar theme.

Then finally something held my shrivelled attention. Ironically it was a game made as part of an indie game design contest called Ludlum Dare 48H, which tasks entrants with making a full game in just 48 hours. The game I'm about to show you was created by a guy called Adam Saltsman who created the previously-plinked Canabalt and it really shows that he has mastered the 'simple concept makes compelling game' trick.

Taking place on a single, unmoving screen and lacking in such luxury features as a play button or any instructions, this game is minimalist to say the least. However, it gets very hectic very quickly.



It's called Grave Robbers but you do not play the eponymous thieves. Rather, you play the unseen omnipotent force that is trying to thwart them using a number of carefully laid traps, each mapped to a key on the keyboard.

As the little animation-free swines swarm through your dungeon, you'll be hitting S to drown them, K to squish them and U to burn them (amongst others). Don't be squeamish though, the spartan graphics ensure there is no gore.

They will try every different direction and the 'cool-down' time on each trap means you will quickly start flailing about trying to rain death on your puny yellow foes before they can abscond with your loot.

It's frantic and fun. Give it a shot:

Grave Robbers.

The Fake Sound(s) Of Progress.

Evening.

We humans are a pretty sophisticated bunch. Some people dedicate their lives to working out how we tick. They study behaviour and stick electrodes into squishy pink brains. They probably do other stuff too but that's technical enough, right?

Anyway, we like to strut about this planet like we own the place. As if we are masters of all we survey. We have built incredible machines to perform menial tasks for us (by we, obviously I don't mean you & I. I mean clever people) and we perhaps not unreasonably regard ourselves as in control of the machines.

Turns out that the artificial bastards might be pulling one over on us.

Collected HERE is a list of 5 ways in which machines lie to us to make us feel better. The most unexpected one for me was the cash machine. I'll never look at one the same way again, and I suspect you won't either.

POST ENDS.
*whirr. clunk. beeeeeeeep*

Let Slip The Sprogs Of War.

Hey, get comfy and watch this video.
It's just your average clip of a bunch of kiddywinks larking about with plastic guns. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happens.

Y'know, this charade would be a lot easier to keep up if it weren't for the preview frame of the video giving the game away below.

Ah well, just watch it. Cutesy carnage ensues.



GET SOME.

Exhibit I.

Hey so Facebook is pretty neat, huh? It's handy for keeping in touch with friends and for sharing pictures, videos and links.

Once you've created your profile, anyone can come poke about in what is, essentially, a shrine to you. Everything you say, everywhere you go, every picture of you. It's all there. A treasure trove of information about you that would make the most committed stalker look sheepish. It's almost like a museum

That's exactly what you'll find here at the Intel-sponsored Museum Of Me. To tell you any more would spoil it. Just click through and grant it access to your facebook profile. You won't regret it, promise.