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For those new to my blog, I occasionally do review of shit on my hard drive — weird files or programs that have made their way onto one of my computers that I’m currently messing around with. It’s been a while since I’ve done one, so I’ll do a bunch of mini-reviews.
Writemonkey
I have been skeptical of the so-called “distraction-free” word processors for some time. It seemed to me to be a gimmick, yet another piece of software that tries to “trick” people into writing. But I kept seeing recommendations for Writemonkey on my Twitter feed, so I decided to give it a try. And for first drafts that are nothing but prose (like my episodes of Whitechapel), it’s really not bad. The export to MS Word is a bit wonky for me (at least, it looks wonky in OpenOffice), but that’s a minor quibble — for something like this, I expect to do rewriting and reformatting anyway. It really is that middle ground between Notepad and OpenOffice that I was looking for. Plus, it doesn’t install on your computer, so I can drop the folder into Dropbox and use it on any computer I have Dropbox on. (I could even drop it onto a USB if I needed to.) Oh, and instead of a bunch of “features” that are pointless, this one actually has features that are useful and contribute to my process. (Well, and a few that I don’t use.)
Desktop Dungeons
I like roguelikes, but I often don’t have the time to devote to them that I would like. Once in a while I’m looking for a short dungeon-crawling experience that plays quickly. I found Desktop Dungeons over at IndieGames.com, and I’ve been loving the hell out of it. It’s actually pretty strategic for a roguelike, but you can play a game in about 10 minutes or so. And like most roguelikes, you’ll die a lot.
Tales From The Floating Vagabond
Tales From The Floating Vagabond is one of those games that, for many years, I swore to people existed but no one believed me. I used to play this game a fair bit when I was in college (usually while drunk), but whenever I would talk about it in later years, I would just get strange stares from other games. And then, on a hunch, I found out that DriveThruRPG has a PDF copy of it. For really, really cheap. I’m pretty sure I burned a hole in my credit card in my eagerness to get a copy. The game is a little clunky in the age of super-fast comedy RPGs like Risus, and it’s a bit more punny than funny at times, but there’s still a lot of entertainment to be had. The schticks alone are worth a look.
Retro Wallpapers
I’ve been looking for some new wallpapers for work and for my netbook, and I’ve been really grooving on these next-gen remakes of old-school games. I’m currently rocking the Castlevania one.
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Man, I haven't thought about Tales in forever. The gun classifications had to be one of my favorite parts. I may give Writemonkey the once over!
Yeah, I love the gun sizes. I even made a reference to it in Mind's Eye Theatre: The Awakening.
Let me know what you think of Writemonkey. I'm wondering if it's really an awesome program, or if it just happens to scratch a very specific itch.
Will do – I'll probably poke around with it tomorrow. Today I've been trying out what Justin Achilli is doing with the Chrome/Google Docs setup, and while I am definitely digging on Chrome over Firefox, there's just something about Google Docs that I don't like, and I can't really put my finger on it. I am typically happy with Word, but for the last few months it's been taking a dump all over me every couple of times I try to save and close a window.
Anyway, will try it; I gave PageFour a test-run, and while it seemed kinda of nifty, it just didn't hit it for me. Maybe Writemonkey will be The One.
I'm with you on Chrome over FireFox and not digging Google Docs. Have you looked at OpenOffice for a high-powered word processor?
Yeah, but OpenOffice tends to crap my computer out in very weird ways (this thing was top of the line seven years ago, now not so much). I was going to look deeper into it, but I am upgrading near the end of this month so there is no real need. While everything about OpenOffice seems really cool, it also seems like some of the functionality I like from Word I can't find there – like a direct blog template, and the ability to export to WordPress or whatnot. I understand that OpenOffice is really modular and configurable though, so it's like I just haven't discovered how to do it.
Hrm. Copying and pasting from OpenOffice works just fine for me when I write Whitechapel. But yeah, if you've already got Word, you probably don't need OpenOffice — I just didn't want to pay for another MS Office license for my netbook.
Yeah, I got Word as part of the install partition on this computer; I am debating if I want it for the new one or not. I'm definitely going Windows 7, but I don't know if I want to fork out that much money for Word in addition to everything else I'll be throwing cash at.
I will say that Windows 7 is SO worth it. It spend up my netbook something fierce.
And I'm actually poking around with Windows Live Writer now. I didn't even know this thing was on my system. It looks really cool, though.
I actually have a copy of TotFV over on my shelf.
– c.
Hate. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaate.
Heh, I have TotFV (and various supplements) in my box of old RPGs in my parents' attic. The glue binding of the book was so bad it cracked during the first reading. I had to take out the pages and put them into individual ring binder sleeves.
I even wrote a short campaign for it in which the PCs had to find the ingredients for the Pan Galactic Gargle blaster. They almost died on Fallia from happy marsh gas poisoning. ;o)
I also used TftFV to run a Hitchhiker's-style campaign! I think that's why I remembered it so fondly — it was the closest to a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy RPG as I've ever found.
Excellent.
Ditto on that – one of our longer adventure was tracking down a Hrung and interrogating it on why it would choose to collapse on Betelgeuse VII.
Writemonkey is a magic program. I do not know why but it helped me a lot. And I agree – some features are incredibly innovative and useful. If you care about your writing – do try it.
Alma
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