Web Site Underconstruction

Hey everyone guess what I'm making a website. This website will be host the the Saturn Has Moons Web Video Productions. Although no videos are currently available for upload they need a nest for the eggs or so to speak. So first of all one needs a logo. Sense the company is called Saturn Has Moons I thought to start out with Saturn as the logo and incorporating a slogan that fits the web video production aspect.

Now the color palette for the site follows a close relation to the logo for a good feel of consistency across the site.

Now following a slight space theme, the web page will have the logo as a strait home button. The navigation bar will consist of moon pictures that connect to other pages on the site, things such as the certain series that are produced and the about us page. Contact information will of course be on the very bottom of every page to keep the good stuff in the center. The center, or body, of the page will hold brand new things that have been added to the site to give the site a new flavor every time it is visited.

The concept of this site is simple, give people a place to go to watch Machinima and find information on the latest video games. We produce our own videos and bring together important info from across the web for gamers. The space idea has little connection to video games of web video production but its different and isn't nailed down by "the man" which gamers prefer.

So hopefully my associates and I can get this up and going in the near future. A more finished version of the site will soon be up for view.

What every gaming pad needs

To tell you the truth I am a little disappointed in myself. I do not have many nerdy geek gamer furniture, cloths, or accessories. I have a few posters, some movies, a light saber and even a Darth Vader alarm clock but I definitely need to get going or I wont be able to clam my nerd status for much longer.

So I went out in search of such items and on my journey I found plenty of posters, shirts, figures, and even a toaster that prints Darth Vader's face on your toast but there was barely any geek furniture. I was shocked, how am I going to build my man cave now? I asked myself. Well I could do what this guy did.

Awwwwwww Ya. That's right a NES classic controller. It's perfect. This coffee table would make anyone a nerd for life, just look at it! Crafted from $200 of material and 70-100 hours later this man created a work of art. One can not only set the mountain dew filled coffee mugs on this table but can store all of their games inside the spacious compartment inside.

You might think to yourself that you really want to push the A button. Well guess what, YOU CAN!!! This table is also the worlds largest controller, just plug it in to a NES system and get you buddy to hit the A and B buttons while you control direction.

Bottom line it's awesome and I want it, it's just to bad it's not for sale.

The good and the bad...websites

Quantity vs quality, professionally done vs user based, the good vs the bad: these are the attributes that are always questioned about a website both before and after creation. So what would be a good example of a good website take Kongregate for instance. 

Its got a simple logo on top with a strait informative slogan. Directly to the right is utilities such as such and the logging in option. Directly below is a simple menu bar with the the prime subjects of the website that split into sub topics to help the user narrow down even more. In the middle of the page is latest news, what all the users will want to know right away. Plus if one does not know what they may be looking for there are great game suggestions a little further down. There are related ads that are not distracting. Finally on the bottom of the page is all the professional information to remind users that there are good people behind this site.

But if that's a good website whats a bad one. Simple take The World's Worst Website Ever for example. It's not just a clever title this one is truly horrible. Brightly colored bad resolution both to small and to big pictures litter the floor of this page. The background is a repeating mess. The information is unorganized and hard to comment on it nicely. The topic is clear to the point that this is a bad website but otherwise it is completely unthoughtful. There are a bunch of little animations that are interesting as an individual things but added in a site and they're not cool at all. Lastly it's browser specific as in it only really works on several browsers and not the rest.

Those are just a few examples of good and bad websites. To make a good one just basically start with a template that has good organized information for a solid foundation then feel free to be creative. 

If video games were meant to fly, they would have been given wings

I am just going to start with this. This is the article I currently read on Kotaku about the future of airline gaming.

Designed by Contour Aerospace and Factorydesign this chair is called The Not For Wimps Prototype and I think awesome.


Basically it's a plush chair with a noise cancellation bubble for high quality audio. A carbon fiber arm stretches over you to present the screen to you. It is only a prototype though so it's still in its molding step so it still has many possibilities. I certainly hope I will have enough money to take gamer class on a plane or perhaps I can settle for a possible room chair version of it.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrr you ready for some Legos?

I don't know about you but ever sense I was a young child I have always loved Lego's and what's not to love. At that age Lego's gave the ADD human child the freedom to build practically anything. The skies the limit so to speak.

Now when Tt games turned those lovable blocks into 3D models and fused them with famous movies it turned my world upside down. Well maybe that's a little dramatic but I did enjoy them very much. Lego Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman kept me happy and content through all their comedic levels and reminding me of memories of old.

But now there is a new Lego game making its way to consoles in May, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. That's right, soon we will be able to play in the already messed up world of Jack Sparrow. The game will of course be in Lego's, have zero voice acting, and have some strange things that weren't originally in the four movies. Four? Indeed, four. This game will also have the new movie, also coming to theaters in May, too.

So I don't know about you but I am probably going to buy this game because no matter how old I get I will always have a special place for those connectible blocks.

Kotaku Article

Video Game Parkour

My friends and I one day got into looking up a ton a videos on the topic of Parkour. You know that free running thing like the game Mirrors Edge. So we watch so many of these videos that we got to talking about doing it ourselves. Realistically none of us are in good enough shape and it's a slim chance that any of us ever would be but we can still dream, can't we?

Anyway I was doing my daily browsing of Kotaku when I stumbled upon this article. In a brand new place called Tempest Free Running Academy there has been a bond between video games and Parkour. Basically it's a gym for those who want to practice free running with a ton of walls, ramps, bars, and platforms to climb and jump on. But all the equipment has been painted and themed around the virtual world so that one may play a video game while staying active. 

Unfortunately it's all the way in California and there is still a small chance that I ever would be fit enough to show my face in a place like this but one can hope and perhaps a summer road trip may soon be in the near future. 

Gaming, shaped by your mind

I don't know about you but sometimes I play a game and I practically cry when one of the main characters die, other times I couldn't care less. It would be nice if companies could get a across the board formula for this kind of thing. Well, maybe they can.


Puzzlebox Jigsaw created by Steve Castellotti tracks your brain waves in both relaxation and concentration levels by its Neurosky's neurofeedback EEG headset.

Basically here's the skinny. If they can track how your felling during game play companies will be able to make things harder, easier, meaningful, fun, and even scary. Personally I can't wait to see how awesome a game can be when it is proven to scare your brain.

As if Farmville wasn't bad enough

On the massive social media site called Facebook there are these things called apps. Some are quizzes others are games Some of them are good some bad but we are going to talk about a more specific one called Farmville.

Farmville is designed by Zynga who also creates Mafia Wars, Petville, and Cafeworld. All of these games are point and click games that are directly infected by the time of the players position on the earth. In Farmville your job is that of a farmer, you plant, you tender, you pluck all in real shortened time increments meaning if you don't harvest in time those strawberries are gone. It has animals too but this weeks Kotaku article I found is about a plant, a plant called "The Watermelon Baby."

In the Chinese version of Farmville only is there this demon baby fruit. In the game you plant a watermelon, simple right? You water it and hoe the surrounding weeds till it grows nice and big, still simple. But when it is time for it to be harvested a pink baby creature sticks its head out to say hello.

This thing is creepy looking, not only that, if you do not harvest it in time it dies. So your farm will have a dead watermelon baby lying in the field.

Now I don't know about you but I do not know if I could ever come up with something as disturbing as this. Maybe it is trying to tell people something. Any ideas?

The game I am excited for? Darkspore.

A while ago now the video game "Spore" by Maxis came out for the PC. The game was great, the player could create practically any kind of creature they could possibly think of. From a humble cellular beginning to the upbringing of a mighty galactic empire the game had so much potential. But in the end the game failed to meet my pre-purchase expectations.


I stopped playing it shortly after I had to wipe out my hard drive, I just never bothered or desired to install it again. But this week during my Kotaku browsing session I saw something relatively familiar. The game is called Darkspore and according to the Kotaku article, Darkspore Splices Fresh DNA Into Online Multiplayer, it's the evolution of player vs player.

The story is simple you are a Crogenitor, a ancient species that use to shape the DNA of creatures to create "genetic heroes." But eventually certain strands of DNA were unstable creating the Darkspore who, in which, turned on their creators. After a induced slumber you are woken up by a AI called Helix and are charged with the task of forming new creatures with E-DNA to drive back the Darkspore.


The game has single player or co-op missions where you pick three heros to fight with. Each hero has their own abilities, powers, strengths and weaknesses so be sure to analyze the mission's Intel before diving in. The levels consist of third person, massive clicking action where you run through a level with certain objectives all the while killing monsters. At the end you fight a massive boss guy, each level becoming more and more difficult. At the end you get points which you can buy more heros, upgrades, and parts, or you can skip this part an go strait to the next level for a higher reward later.

Here is where you can customize your heroes. Although you can not go super crazy, like spore, you can still do quite a bit of DNA manipulation. Each hero has a limit in which you can customize them and certain items help certain heroes better. Plus after you have made your hero more powerful you can then color and make your heroes look even more awesome.

After you reach level seven you can play in the games player vs player matches. The games can be 2 vs 2 or 1 vs 1. Either way you basically fight another player in a best of three match system. In between matches the players may tweak their heroes to better prepare for the next round.


There is over 100 heroes to choose from so there will never be a dull moment. Soon enough players will be writing schematics about which combination is better for this or that situation. Speaking of soon the game is releasing on March 29 and is due for a public beta test. Make sure to go here to sign up and hopefully I'll see you there.


BAM! I got into the beta!

Google Art Project

You know that Google thing were you can see you house from space or a street view right on your computer? Ya I thought so. Well dig this, Google has released the Google Art Project a program allowing users to view several famous museums around the world from their very home.

The program works much like Google's Street View program. You select a museum and if you have an idea of a particular piece you can search it directly. But if you have no idea you can just open up the floor map and jump right in a first person view of the museums halls and rooms.

It's pretty cool, you can walk from room to room and if a particular piece interest you one must just simply select it and it will provide a close up view along with information.

Unfortunately the user interface is a difficult hassle to work with. Many times you select an arrow towards a direction in which takes you to another room altogether. So you have to slowly turn around through what seems to be endless loads.  I would suggest a wasd style. Another issue is many of the in cased items have a nasty glare reflecting off of them making it difficult to see.

But overall very cool for Google to do. It just needs a few tweaks and it will be good to go and show the world art.

A New Way To Type

I don't know about you but I have always had a serious issue typing on the three consoles. Whether it be typing in a personal message to a friend, typing in my gamertag and password to recover it, or putting in a code for an in game bonus or more Xbox Live time.

So that is why this article has caught my eye, Could This Be the Future of Typing On A Control Pad?. It talks about the production of a new way of controller typing for the Xbox 360 called the "Circboard."

It almost works like a cell phone being that certain keys can equal more than one input. To access a section of letters or punctuation move the left stick to the position. Then by using either the color coordinated buttons or the right thumb stick select the character of choice. Here is an example of its use...

At first look I imagine this system to be kind of slow but overtime I believe the use would become faster, similar to how one becomes familiar with cell phone texting.

Several video games have done this before such as "Killzone," but this one had a neutral selection as well and only had nine total boxes. I personally like the "Circboard" interface better but it might vary between users.

I would totally dig a program like this to be incorporated into each console. Some say why not buy a keyboard attachment for the bottom of your controller? Well because that's money and something that I wouldn't use enough to have it be worth it.

Overall I hope it makes it to better the lives of others. Maybe polish it up but a fast release would be ideal.

It's a Weapon, Sword of...

This week Kotaku presented the creation of a famous video game sword, This Real Final Fantasy Sword Does Some Real Damage. It is a relatively short article about a man who has crafted a real life replica of the legendary sword the "Buster Sword" from the game Final Fantasy VII.

This blades real life reflection is approximately 8 feet long and weighs in at 54 pounds. To craft the weapon alone would require money, time, and resources. But beside the making of the weapon is the wielding. To lift 54 pounds is hard enough but to then swing it in a flawless form and grace is darn near impossible.

This brings me to my point, fantasy weaponry is truly that, a fantasy. They will never happen. It may be cool to purchase or make you own and have them on a wall to show off but to actually use them in a melee combat situation is just a fools errand. The strength, perception, control, and stamina required to master any of these beasts is in-human. Here is a few examples...



Leon's sword from Final Fantasy with a built in gun.

Axel's weapon thing from Kingdom Hearts. He wields two of these.




Warning- prolonged use could lead to loss of limb/life, serious wounding, high mortality rates etc.



The point is these weapons are cool but extremely unrealistic. The guy who made the "Buster Sword" into a reality is awesome but beside a couple hits on youtube there will be not much use for it afterward.

A Music Town Creator

I was on the Kotaku site looking for a topic that may interest me and I came upon one with this title, "This Isn't Sim City, Its A Musical Instrument." I thought to myself, "I love Sim City and musical instruments," so I clicked the link.

The article was about a game called "Isle of Tune," a easy to generate music simulator. It has a relatively straight foward interface were one may pick it up in the matter of minutes. First step is to lay down the road, second add houses, lamp post, trees, and shrubbery, lastly you place down your cars and hit go. When the cars should pass a landmark item it activates a sound. Lamp posts = drum beats, Trees = shallowed synth piano, Shrubs = a more vibrante synth piano, and Houses = random everyday noises. Each item is able to be changed such as the lamp posts and houses will make different noises while the trees and shrubs will produce different notes.

Don't worry about having musical brilliance or talent because after about five minutes of tinkering it becomes clear to how things work. But if you do want to see what others have done you can see other users islands if they uploaded them like this one...

And if you want to show the world your genius you too can upload you islands with a simple click.

My only problem with it is that there is no direct key that the music plays in which means if a famous song you want to create has a few sharps or flats you have to settle for the closest note. But overall a very well done program that is free to play here. Also the developers are currently working on getting it on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPad.

So if you've got five minutes go ahead and try it and create something cool.