Flash game: Zombie Defense Agency

Played a great flash game called "Zombie Defense Agency" and took down some notes while playing...


Strategy

• Use flame tower in areas with lots of area to cover.  The zombies move faster as a result of the flame so this can be counterproductive if
• Going up in levels is great for increasing tower range and density of damage.  So if you come across a level with very little room, the answer isn't more towers, it's better ones.  I used level 4 towers up until _.
• Zombies already on the map don't react to the "make an opening - close an opening" strategy (destroy a tower and then bring it back to block off access as they approach).  However, zombies NOT on the screen WILL do this.
• Furthermore, in later levels, the sort of "turtle" looking monsters are able to smash through a new tower.  So definitely don't try this mid-process.
• When upgrading, don't upgrade a tower past it's useful range.

I can't tell the difference between a level 4 shotgun tower and a lightning tower.  I guess some zombies are resistant to the electricity?  Their stats are the same but the shotgun tower costs 4x more.
The Heat Wave tower is also an area-of-effect tower.


Fairly obvious suggestions

• Its always best to have a range of towers for a range of different enemies.
• Setup "slow" towers apart from one another at places along the route as the slowing effect wears off.  I couldn't see any compounding effect from slow towers near each other.
• The basic $50 towers are mostly just walls.  However, they aren't bad in terms of range so if one ends up in the middle of the map, feel free to upgrade it rather than sell.
• If you keep hitting "next" the zombies will group up.  This is fine but you'll want the grenade tower for area-of-effect damage and you'll also want to quickly upgrade towers as zombies pass by.

Almost all tower defense games

• Put short range towers in corners, ideally so that the zombies have to walk ALL the way around them, thus maximizing power-to-area ratio.
• Always use natural obstacles to your advantage to increase the distance the zombies have to travel.  The only exception to this is healing targets, for which this might be counterproductive.  I think in this game they're the all-black zombies.
• Setup towers where they can group up nicely.  This helps use all your towers as much as possible while enemies are in proximity.  This is often the center of the screen, but if there isn't a clear center, just pick a good open area to create a choke point.
• Sniper towers (slow shooting, high range, high damage) should be posted in the middle of a larger maze area to get the maximum number of shots fired against enemies.  Try to set these up towards the exit to let other towers filter down to the big enemies.  In this game, that tower is called the photon beam.

Wishlist

• More levels!
• Sometimes I can't seem to click "off " a tower after selecting
• Ability to turn off music, but keep other sounds
• Some kind of note that one of the levels has a very different physic than previous games (zombies cross paths.  Same with the following level.  You can't block either path.
• Ability to change Flash quality level (it's set to high quality by default and there's no way to change for slower machines or if you want to save power for  process running in the background.
• When hovering mouse over "upgrade" it should list what will happen IF you click it and then go back to the actual value when not hovering.
• Call it "leveling up" when you get options for new towers, upgraded towers, or better starting cash.  It's confusing.
• On the score screen, some note next to score describing how many zombies were stopped vs. destroyed

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman

It's an inadequate obituary, but as good as any.  At least two of his performances affected me in a very personal and direct way.

Abusive Job Interviews

These things exist and they're complete nonsense.  It wasn't yelling as in the article, but I'm happy to now report on the clowns (Qvinci) who "interviewed" me.  I even had the opportunity to work with these guys years later and turned it down because of the sort of ugly, cannibalizing corporate culture I had already seen.

If it happens to you, just walk away.  Remember the No Assholes Rule.

A better left vs. right

An excellent conversation on American conservatism and liberalism with Jon Stewart and Charles Krauthammer.

Addressing the war on the poor

The "war on" headline isn't just provocative, they're the words of a GOP governor from Ohio in a refreshing appearance of Republican centrism.  I saw a resurgence of this during the Bush Jr. administration where Republicans were increasingly talking about helping the poor as part of their religious beliefs (usually Christian), but largely this has faded with the push by Tea Party conservatism.  It's nice to see again.  Thank you, Mr. Kasich.

Where fear noises come from

Horror movies have been evidently leaning on one major instrument for years now.  Somewhat of a let-down.

Joke science

Even though I'm not a huge Seinfeld fan, I really enjoyed this.  The analysis of how rhythm, style, and awareness of it's fundamental unimportance all really help underscore what we all know about comedy, but probably couldn't describe.

Mos Def goes through force-feeding procedure

I really thought it was intravenous - I had no idea they inserted a tube in your nose and, apart from being humiliating, it's also very painful.

In the scope of bad and worse, I don't want people to die, but it helps make clear that force feeding people is not a reasonable long-term plan for prisoners.  It's the sort of thing that wears away at your humanity and definitely wouldn't build empathy and gentleness in those among us who are most violent and angry.

Why Star Trek - Into Darkness blows

I hated this movie. Spoilers!

• Flashing lights, loud noises, and things exploding!  Oh dear me!
• Chris Pine exudes authority like a scrappy dog: didn't feel he cared about anything even when he pulled a muscle trying to act like he did.  I think the two dimensions I got were "sad" and "risk taker".
• At no point did I feel the villain was anything but a tool.  Spock was boring.
• Everyone's flying out of the destroyed ship into space and nobody seems to give a f--k.  The Enterprise used to be the center of the show and now its something we can smash up like it's made of legos.
• Only person I cared about in the whole move was Captain Pike, who they killed off pretty quick.  The only person I really liked was Simon Pegg (Scotty).

Worst moments:

• After the ship get tossed and turned and everyone's flying around like confetti, 10 seconds later everything's normal again and looks at Spock like "what's he in a hurry about?"
  
• No efforts or energy put into plugging these massive leaks that should kill everyone.  No efforts to triage or even address the hordes of more-or-less dead people.  Oh except that pretty blonde girl?  Let's heal her up!
  
• They surgically removed a sequence from the first movie and inserted it this movie (radiation leak, main character sacrifices life to save the ship).  The first JJ Abrams movie just made a horde of references to the previous series, but ultimately went it's own way.  This one recycled and entire plot sequence.  I'm not sure it it was *exactly* the same because I walked out.

Anyway, this was all a big, stupid lark built from a whole bunch of other scripts, some from movies that had already been made.  I didn't care about the characters and didn't feel like anything took place anywhere other than a soundstage in Burbank.  In that sense, the painfully low-end budget old series beat them out here.  I really thought they were in space or on some other planet once in a while.

Now my personal message to JJ Abrams: For god's sake, hire a script supervisor or someone to work on continuity.  I get that Gore Verbinski can smash up a pirate ship and not really go back and address anything, but the assumption there is that pirates are disposable and these guys can take a knife or two in the gut.  I don't expect you to tie up all the loose ends, but pick 3 or 4.  Also, while we're on the topic, you should apologize for the final season of Lost.

Experimental Electronic: Uncertainty Principle by Current Value

Having searched for something genuinely unique in music, I came across some experimental drum and bass that really shocked me back into the new.  Wonderful stuff from German producer Current Value.

Yes, the above paragraph is a reference to this.

National Security Letters ruled unconstitutional

Thank fucking god.  These letters were the worst sort of intimidation and secret police bullshit that should never have happened in the US.  Sigh of relief goes here that ANY movement has been made on this.

The Good and Evil mix

I've been wanting to post about my old mix for years now and Soundcloud finally gave me a forum to make it available.  Although it draws from a variety of music styles, it has a distinctly electronic vibe, along with movie soundtracks, IDM, and ambient tracks.  I spent over a year making it and 3 more years trying to finish it in a satisfactory way.  Enjoy.

Disney Princesses vs. Miyazaki

This article puts words to something I've thought about many times: women defined by beauty and a man's love rather than having some kind of external identity.

Endless war

Some surprising actions by Rand Paul surrounding current military authority associated with the US War on Terror.