The following wall of text is a manifesto of my justification for wanting to develop a game. I might edit this a little later, but what you see here is enough of a final version to post.
The Legend of Zelda II, the Adventure of Link, has long been berated as the bastard child of the Zelda series. Many go so far as to not include it within the Zelda “genre” out of personal distaste for the game. But, I consider it one of my favorite games of all time.
There are many cases to defend the game, like unique gameplay and excellent player control, but my angle is specific: It’s the video game that has the most interesting swordplay, as far as I am aware.
What would you like for Christmas? How about an Ant Farm!
Ant Farm was written, shot, and edited over two days. Besides drawing on Dick’s discussion of his ant farm (also see Ant Redux, Rodent Bot Fly), it owes special debt to Dick’s discussion of torches in Forest Walks: 1, 2, and 3, and Dragon’s post, The Better TP Lantern. And by the way - Protozoic does NOT endorse or recommend anyone making a TP lantern as it is very dangerous.
In terms of movie-making, we’ve attempted to properly light the indoor shots. This was done with two fluorescent lights bought from Lowes for a total of 30 dollars. Considering the cost, we were pretty happy with the result.
We hope you enjoy Ant Farm and have a happy holiday.
Download here in Quicktime 6 format or below for Quicktime 7. The Quicktime 7 video is smaller and looks better but might not play on all computers.
The discussion of torches and immolient soaked toilet paper rolls got me thinking: Surely there must be a way to have flaming textiles or paper products portably contained in such a manner as to avoid burning through their support structures or leak through the non-factory joined seams of their containers. To that end I’ve devised (probably re-invented) the hanging lantern on a stick (a.k.a. “flail lantern”).
A new film is coming out and I predict that I will love it and place it among my all time favorites!!! It’s by the same folks the brought us “There is Something About Mary,” so you know the film will leap over many social boundaries and rape several taboos.
Once we stepped into the trees enough to not be spotted on the road, I lit the torch. It burned amazingly well and bright, but here’s the shocker: You can’t see much with a torch in the woods. First of all, you have to hold the torch well away from your vision or it’s too bright for your eyes. Also, you can’t see but a few trees ahead of yourself. I noticed the wood underneath the torch head started to catch fire so I spread mud over that part.
We walked and managed well. There’s a problem with many forests on Delmarva; they are mainly made up one tree type, since the forests have all been logged and these are new trees. This tree, the loblolly, is has roots that are poisonous to many other plants and make the ground unfit for many other plants, except briars. This is why it’s so hard to navagate through Delmarvan woods, with such dense thorns. And, for us, we had to be sure not to light any tall or hanging briars on fire.
