The Gadgets Page

Anita Sarkeesian has created a brilliant analysis of the boring tropes that video games have been using ever since the beginning of gaming. Her YouTube channel, Feminist Frequency, has all the videos, but here is a playlist of the entire series:

After watching these videos, I suddenly felt a huge relief. THIS is why I don’t like so many games. I don’t really want to save the damsel in distress. I don’t want to earn rewards that take the clothes off the women in the video game. I always felt as if I was not the target audience of the video game industry and now I know why. They have LITERALLY written games that only appeal to less than half the population. LESS THAN HALF.

That is so sad and fiscally idiotic. Women want to go on adventures, too. We don’t want to save our husbands or boyfriends. We want to bring them and our friends along with us. Write games for EVERYONE and you will sell more. I can’t stress how important this is. A good game that lets EVERYONE play will make millions of dollars. It will sell game consoles. I wish I could reach into the minds of every game designer out there and make them understand that if they STOP writing games for straight males and START writing games for EVERYONE, then they will make so much more money.

Plus, I could really use a fun and interesting game right now. I’m getting a little sick of all the Bejeweled rip offs.

There is something to be said for a company who bases their entire promotion on the product itself. Parrot had a huge display at CES this year and the majority of it was used for this cage. Every few minutes, the mini-drones would come out and do a choreographed display like this one filmed by ABT.com.

By the time we saw this display, I was SICK of drones, or quad-copters, or hex-copters or whatever they finally decide the names of these little toys are. I’m sure the big ones that we saw could be used for something other than camera flyovers and playtime, but on the whole, these are toys.

But there were SO many companies with drones that it makes me feel like they are something that I should pay attention to.

All I can see, however, is a future where every pre-pubescent kid has a mini-drone, following them around and filming every moment of their lives. Or maybe a sky so full of drones that I have to swat them away like bugs. I know that there will be laws and the future won’t turn out to be that dystopia, but then again, laws agains drones are just as dystopian. All those people who love to fly these little quad-copters and RC planes will be run out of their hobby if the states outlaw them.

In the end, drones were a HUGE thing at CES this year and as much as I worry about it, I am excited to see what the future will look like!

A couple of months ago, I found this adorable shirt on MaruMaru Dayori:

I really liked it but…

It’s yellow. And there is that weird black line across the bottom that looks weird if you wear it with anything that isn’t black. And I prefer long sleeves to short ones, especially because it’s getting to be wintertime again. And it would look so very good in red…

So, I created one of my own, using the original as a guide. I’ve made them in a wide variety of colors to please all the fashionistas out there. ENJOY!

Red Hippie Chick Long Sleeves Animal Crossing QR Code

The snow hit my town today and I immediately hated the path in my town. I looked for some new paths to replace them with, but I didn’t like any of them either, so I made my own.

First, I made this Gravel Path.

It was alright, but it looked a little like it was floating on top of things instead of an actual path.

This Earthy Paver is a little better.

It just didn’t work with my new Winter Wonderland, so I created this Snowy Paver and I like it MUCH better.

Now, I have new paths in my town and I can share them with the world so everyone can enjoy them.

If you would like to visit my town, my Dream Address is 4000-2185-7855.

There are some days when you can do everything right and still have bad luck. It’s true in Animal Crossing just as much as it is in real life, but in Animal Crossing, the fortune teller can actually warn you about your impending bad luck.

A visit to Katrina, will start out ominous, so you know right away that it’s a bad luck day.

The Lovely Phone, is more ambiguous, however. It may just say something vaguely unfavorable.

There is little you can do to turn your luck around. If you have the lucky item, you can make yourself about as lucky as a normal day.

If you have your lucky item AND can also wear your Tingle Hood, then you can have a lucky day despite the “misfortune that is attempting to come down on you.”

Arranging the furniture in your house helps, but it really can’t overcome a bad luck day. In Animal Crossing, as in real life, it might be best to just hide in bed on your bad luck days.

I don’t like the mini-game tours on the island. I ONLY do them to earn medals so I can buy the cool stuff from the island shop. The quickest way for me to earn medals is with the Elite Scavenger Tour.

In about two minutes, I can earn 16 medals EVERY time. Here’s how I do it. (Continue Reading…)

My lucky item for the day was the Mint Gingham Skirt and I didn’t have a good shirt to wear with it, so I revamped one of my sweaters to match it and added a sling bag. Here’s the QR Code:

I absolutely LOVE that I can just make a new outfit and share it with the world immediately. I hope you all like it.

If you would like to visit my town, my Dream Address is 4000-2185-7855.

This video is NOT SAFE FOR WORK and is laced with profanity, but it is SO true! Jenna Marbles talks about what video games taught her.

If you feel that video game designers don’t care about what they are teaching kids, you’re right. Granted, some of those games weren’t meant for kids, like Grand Theft Auto, but honestly, the last thirty years of video game design has been dedicated to the lowest common denominator, violence. I really loved what she said,

“Super Mario Bros. taught me that if you see something that you don’t know, that’s not you, you should… kill it. DIE! I don’t wanna befriend you. I don’t wanna get to know you. You’re gettin’ in my path… you’re dead. It’s basically more hardcore than Scarface.”

The lack of friendly fire in gameplay seems like a HUGE problem in games. I was watching Sean play Sklyanders and I was worried, “Watch out, you’re going to kill your other guy.” He just casually replied, “Oh, I can’t hurt him.” He didn’t even worry about hurting his co-player or the innocent wooden bystanders on that level.

What did video games teach me? Adventure taught me how to memorize mazes and directions without being able to see them. Even now, I can navigate the real world better because of it. Animal Crossing taught me how to be a pretty good friend by sending them nice letters and doing favors for them. In my forty years on this planet, no one ever told me that if I send a pleasant note, text or email to my friends every few days that it would make them like me. I also learned the names of several fish and insects because of that game. Tetris taught me how to pack a suitcase really well. Plants Vs. Zombies taught me to multi-task. Dungeon Raid taught me to run AWAY when I see a big bad guy. It’s really the ONLY video game I’ve played that has ever given me that option and taught me that lesson.

On the whole, the video games I’ve loved the most have taught me positive lessons, or perhaps I was willing to overlook the negative lessons and just focus on the positive.

I love to sell my fruit, gems and fossils on the Flea Market pallets at Retail, because I can sell them to the villagers for almost four times what Reese will pay me for them. Unfortunately, I ran into problems. It was hard to get the villagers to LEAVE once they bought something and getting them to come to Retail was just as hard.

With a ton of trial and error, however, I’ve found a pretty good way to efficiently sell all of my high ticket items at Retail for four times the usual price. Here’s how I do it…

Update 12-04-13: I added information about bad luck days. (Continue Reading…)

There is a simple denim jacket in the video game, but it is buttoned up to the throat and makes me feel like a nerd when I wear it.

So I made my own. A simple denim jacket with a white shirt underneath. (Continue Reading…)