Inspiration...

There reaches a point in everyone's blogging where you will inevitably, eventually, horrendously run out of ideas. Thinking today about the multiple blogging ideas I could write about: The 12 year old kid with DOPE written on a baseball cap who came into work today. I even know where you can buy a hat like that. Or maybe I was thinking about telling you my parents were off to Yorkshire. Again. Which might be interesting, but it probably won't be. Or I could even tell you about the worlds most amazing potato wedges that I created tonight, but that I can see is just as boring!

You can see where my lack of inspiration comes from really. I mean all I have really done today is go to work and play candy crush, then cook potato wedges. Actually on the Candy Crush front, I have managed to finally crack level 25... I know not impressive, but from humble beginnings... I have only been playing it for 3 days...

So as many of you may know, I am off to university in just a couple of weeks. This means that I am going to have to give up the job I currently hold at The Co-op. While this news may appear to be sad for me, I really don't think I will miss it. And I am not going to start complaining about the opportunity I have had to have a job, and earn decent money doing it, which has set me for many things, not least of which is running ad maintaining my car, working at a shop like the Co-op can have a lot of things compared to Candy Crush.

The frustration. You spend your entire life trying to make things work which are just not going to work. I think the problem with working in a retail shop is that they are all set out to be the same, and therefore the systems are just not adaptable to different situations. In trying to think of the best way to explain this, it is like trying to fit a ball into a cube shaped box. It doesn't fit in nicely. I mean you can get it in with a bit of squeezing and pushing, but it is not perfect, in fact in many ways the ball is now ruined.

This is the same with the shop. When it was a newsagents before, everything worked, because it was designed to work in that situation. A small shop with a limited access and limited stockroom space in a 60's prefab row of shops. Stock came to the shop in the owner's Citroen Belingo van, people only bought a paper and a bag of humbugs and everything ran smoothly. Now deliveries come in on huge lorries, in cages and trolleys far too big to fit in the stock room and at one point in the shop the aisles aren't even wide enough to fit a trolley through. How are people supposed to shop for their groceries in a shop which is barely big enough for 4 pints of milk and a loaf of bread?

I suppose you have to treat everything as a learning opportunity, and there have been some parts of the job that I have really enjoyed, like the colleagues I have had,  and other things that I hope will be part of my future career: the mindset of business, predicting what people will buy, helping customers out and advising them on what the best product is. But there are many things that, a week on Saturday I will be more than happy to wave goodbye to.

Oh and check this, in my tea break in writing this article, I managed to get to level 28! Watch out Dad, 32 here we come!

Thanks for reading!

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My Dad's New Crazy Idea

My dad, as I am sure many of you out there can sympathise with, is one of those Dads who pretty much every week comes up with a new outlandish idea to solve an on going problem or tackle a big DIY project. The example my family always use to highlight this is the bird table he once built. It currently sits on a 45 degree angle and hangs off the garden fence by a few screws and a bit of rusty bracket but as my Dad says, at least it has a perch for the birds to sit on!

This always causes much amusement whenever it is brought up over meal times and things like that, but it really does typify our Dad's imagination. Another thing about my Dad is that he is a farmer. Well actually he just likes to pretend he is a farmer, really he sells fertilisers to farmers and stuff like that, and keeps a pair of wellies in his boot at all times. That kind of a farmer. However, a couple of years ago my sister suddenly decided that she wanted some chickens. So my family did the most rash thing they have ever done in their lives. We decided to get chickens.

We spent a few weekends building chicken runs (which I designed, just thought I should point that out. Why my parents trusted me to design and build a chicken run, heaven only knows) and getting everything ready for the arrival of 4 new members of the family. With me and my sister solemnly promising to look after them, and then of course not looking after them, my Dad has sort of started a farm in our garden. we now have 12 chickens, numerous vegetables growing in random corners of the garden and a greenhouse, as well as I believe 2 grape vines, with the intentions that one day they may grow enough grapes for us to actually make some wine from (it's never going to happen).

Now Farmer Dad is on the hunt for some more stuff to put in his farm... trouble is he has sort of ran out of space in the garden. Naturally he has turned to the family smallholding in the Yorkshire Dales, where we now spend our weekends and holidays... And any other free time we have...

One of the fields that belongs to my Great Uncle, sits behind 3 lovely holiday cottages which as you may or may not be aware we are currently in the stages of "doing up" slowly but surely, to the extent where we just spent our family summer holiday fitting a new kitchen. And painting windows. Standard.

Anyway this field has 3 problems: Long grass, nettles and rabbits. A lot of rabbits. Think Wallace and Gromit and then some. My Dad's solution to these problems... wait for it... Get some sheep. That is right. My Dad would like to get a to quote "small flock of sheep" (apparently they don't like being on their own, ya know, because they are highly sensitive creatures) to keep the grass down and expose the rabbits so that they all "bugger off." And these are to be kept in a field 130 miles away. Actually 131 to be exact. 

The thing is though, I may mock my Dads crazy ideas, but they are ingenious, I have to give him that. So you never know, in a year's time I could be writing a post to you from the lovely dales of Yorkshire surrounds by thousands of sheep.

The trouble with this whole thing is, is that all I will be able to sing on the journey up there is "It's Shaun the Sheep, It's Shaun the Sheep" And I don't think there is any more to that theme tune so I could be a long drive up the A1/M1/AM1/(A)(M)1/North Road Thingy...

Thanks for reading!

Follow me on twitter for further updates on the sheep... and whether my Dad has been taken to the lunatic asylum yet @peachy146

Technology, honestly?

So I have a super-snazzy, ultra-fast Samsung Galaxy S3. And it is brilliant. But at the minute it has decided that, between it and the network provider, they don't want me to access the internet all of the time and on every application.

This is somewhat frustrating and I would love to know why it has decided to do this to me. As I type this post, I am waiting for the YouTube app to load up. I will let you know when it does.

I spent about 20 minutes on the phone to India while me tea went cold, asking them what on earth was going on. They had no idea, I have no idea. I have tried turning it off and on again several times, but to no avail. 

This makes me question the trust we place in technology. I mean just this morning I was uploading a day's worth of video recording onto it to upload it to YouTube, and now it is in tatters as I can't actually get the stuff on to YouTube as my phone won't let me. We basically run our lives by technology. I know my uncle has a tablet which acts as his diary for work and home, his whole life is stored on there. As this tablet ages, I can't help but look at it in fear of it crashing any day soon, and my Uncle left in a massive whole of confusion and chaos as he can't remember where or when he is supposed to do anything.

And along side this, I have spent the whole day today making signs out of wood. I here you ask, what is the significance in this dull and meaningless piece of knowledge of your life Tom? Well I did not use a single piece of technology to do it. I used wood, a saw, some paint, a book to use the words from to write on said signs, varnish and an incredibly useful sister to make me mny cups of tea. Yes you can argue that there was technology used to get all of those things to that point, hell all of them were probably paid for using a card. But it is the point that so much of our lives are based around technology nowadays, that we never actually get out and do anything.

We are too concerned about reading and writing frivilous little blogs in the hope we make somebody smile or change somebody's life our make a fe extra quid off of adsense, without thinking about what is important in life. So from now on I am going to try and do something technological and something non-technological each day. And I am going to keep you up-to-date with how that goes.

And also my phone has finally come back to tell me that there is a problem with the network and I can't upload that video. Point well and truly proven.

Thanks for reading

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My Search for the Perfect Game - Part 3: Prison Architect cont.

After the last post I thought I would go back and write a list of goods and bads for Prison Architect as the best game in the world. and here it is, starting with the positives:

-Firstly the way the GUI is set up is really good. All of the items are little tiles in menus, from foundations to objects to floors to walls. Now this is nothing special and can be found in many other games, I know. But there is a very nicely presented as well as functional clipboard type presentation of all the staffing, prisoners, and financial reports which is really good way of having a large menu on screen. This is minimised at the click of a button.

-Also the idea of foundations is really nice. it is something very realistic and means that the mechanics of the game work really well as well as that sense of realism. This is something I would definitely like to see in my ideal game.

-The way the people move around is very simple but very effective. There is no moving legs, occasional arms and head move too, as well as it being very obvious when they have handcuffs on etc. This simplicity is not only effective but also quite funny. For example, when the workers are carrying doors or tables, it just looks like doors or tables moving about the place and is quite quirky. This is something else which a game has to be. A little bit comical and a little bit light hearted designed with a sense of humour. After all it is a game.

-Obviously the game works on a very simple grid. Yet again basic and easy-to-use but also allows for ones imagination to get a bit carried away as well as mean that there is a lot more functionality in the game if there is that grid. Take Minecraft for example, the idea of blocks means you can build great big structures, but the physics mean that the grid adhered to is so controllable and neat. Often people talk about Minecraft OCD, which I have been diagnosed with by my friends, and I think this comes about by the lack of any roughness with the grid system. The reason why I think this should be applied to a perfect game is that it gives the player the possibility to do so much more, rather than struggling to even create a basic vehicle in something like Garry's Mod, and also allows for greater precision and neatness. A tidy game is a good game

The things which make Prison Architect not the best game in the world:

-The topic: Prisons aren't very exciting, at the bottom of it, but Prison Architect does bring an awful lot to the table when it comes to the topic and makes it very fun in breaking up fights and sorting people out etc etc, but it is more of a game of sorting people rather than managing a business, which what I think should be the focus of the best game in the world.

-You are paid every 24 in-game hours which is roughly around 25 minutes. It needs to be an hourly pay system and there also needs to be a better balance between money earnt and the cost of building things, as the current game doesn't allow, after then initial grants have been spent, for much in the way of earning money and therefore expansion. There are ways of sort of cheating, which is effective, but also it's not very ethical and takes a bit of the fun out of earning all of your money and developing your prison fairly and by the book.

-Apart from those two features, there isn't a lot else which is wrong with the game, and it is only in Alpha. Some things like the paths of Guards and how quickly they respond to incidents, which one is selected for each incident and things like that needs improving, but this is even an issue in games like SimCity 5, where the traffic goes round and round in loops to get to places when it wouldn't do that in real life, so it is not a unique issue and in all fairness to the game, I bloomin' love it.

So Prison Architect is a step in the right direction, but mainly the business aspect of the game doesn't quite make it the best possible game I can find. Nevertheless, go and play it if you are at all interested by what you have just read. I have already lost an entire weekend to it, and I have only just started playing it.

Follow me on twitter: @peachy146

My Search for the Perfect Game - Part 1

As an avid gamer and supporter of Youtubers, I have been thinking for quite a while about the perfect game. what really got me into playing was Minecraft, as you will be aware if you have read previous blogs. Now this game has a lot of aspects which really appeal to me: It is completely sandbox and free-roam, so you can do as you wish. There is the idea of growing and upgrading tools and buildings to get better things. A natural progression through material strength and durability properties.

However there a quite a few things which I would like to see in the game. The idea of money and creating and developing wealth, with things to earn money from and also spend money on to make more money, the kind of business simulation games which get a bit boring after 20 minutes, like burger restaurant and the like, have this element and it really captures me, but the idea of actually having to do the work yourself is also inspiring as it makes it more than just clicking things and earning money. You are actually being productive and it is a little more realistic.

The mod-pack of Tekkit though adds a lot of this, such as power and electricity, as well as being able to automate things and create very complex pieces of machinery. This I like! Also the pack never seems to end, so there is always new things to capture your imaginations and explorations.

My point is, they both still aren't perfect. Minecraft is absolutely amazing, don't get me wrong, as many of the people close to me will testify, I still believe this. However for me it isn't perfect. I am not quite sure what is perfect exactly so I am going to enter on a journey through the world of indie games and see what ideas and principals and mechanisms I can take from those games and strive to find the perfect game.

Follow me on Twitter: @peachy146