Tildemark blogs

Old School Favorite: Pacman

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:15:49 +0800

Pacman is one of my personal favorite arcade game. Even today, I can still imagine myself playing some old school games, and i must admit i still miss them. Pacman, one of the games that does not seem to end. Difficulty increases while moving up a level. Relying on your perception and your keyboard typing skills can sometimes become frustrating. I still hear myself saying "Damn, this keyboard is defective." even though its not, just another alibi for not passing a level. Some other arcade games that i like were Digdug, Arkanoid, and Invaders.

These programs runs on my 80286 personal pc with that 180KB single sided - single density floppy diskette. You will be surprise how much technology has envolved since then. Today my Flash disk is able to hold 16GB of data that is almost 100% times more than the capacity of the early storage devices. Anyway, what am i talking about, im supposed to be talking pacman. here is a playable version here, got it somewhere on the net, i don't know where. You may download this swf copy if you want to play pacman offline; you will need an offline flash player to play pacman.

Play Monopoly Express Online

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:25:50 +0800

This is an online version of the Monopoly Express game a derivative of the popular Monopoly board game. The original is at http://host.exemplum.com/hasbro/monopoly_express/monopoly_express.html. You will have ten dice, three of them are policeman. Any policeman you roll will placed immediately at the board until you will have three of them. At this point, your turn ends and your score will be set to zero for that round. You choose to End the round and record your score or you may keep on rolling until you get three policeman. Your aim is to beat the AI and reach $15000 first.

Go - immediately add $200 to your current score.

Policeman - Every policeman you roll will be added to the board until you collect three. Collecting three policeman ends your turn and your score is set to zero.

Property - Every property is worth the amount indicated, collecting all the colors allows you to build houses, hotels or bonuses for utilities. The change die allows you to get a random property.

Browser Based Games

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 18:24:58 +0800

While looking unto my blogs categories, i have noticed the browser based category to be empty. I guess, i just can't update my blog about the event on the games i play. When i play, i usually spend all of my time on it, that's also the reason i may not be able to blog often. There are a couple of browser based games i have enjoyed playing, in fact i prefer them to those installed versions whereby we could check my mails, chat, and at the same time surf the web while playing.

Blogshares - I played blogs shares for more than a year, got myself into the top 50 rich players but stopped then they changed some rules in the game which i think they made it to gain more money than by making the players enjoy. there was also a bug on the game which made a major roll back. that was enough to convince to stop playing. i still have my account though i think my chips are gone, i lost the interest in playing so every blog i moderated is approved.

Neopets - I still play neopets from time to time. I dont find it boring, even if the target audience are supposed to be elementary kids but i think alot are adult players. Lots of built in games to choose from not to mention the battle dome wherein you could challenge neopets players to fight against your neopet.

Adventure Quest - Its been almost 3 years since i last played Adventure Quest. I only played this game in about 4 months. the free version is very hard to login. it made me decide not to continue playing. My character just reached level 40 when i stopped playing.

Tribal Wars - I was addicted to this game. it made me stop working, blogging, even skip meals, and other online activities. it was almost a year when i realised how i became and eventually stopped. i missed playing TW. I cant go back anymore probably because my villages may already be overruned. I managed to raise my points to 400k when i stopped playing. If i were to recommend which game i like the most, my answer would be tribal wars.

Unification Wars - Its a game similar to tribal wars but its setting is in space. The reason i stopped playing unification wars is that its too hard to comprehend and is very hard to manage. I mean we could read the documentation but i cant bear its complexity as i could compare it to tribal wars.

Answers To Uncover The Code Quest

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 13:24:18 +0800

The second quest "Uncover The Code: The Secret is Hidden Right Before Your Eyes" is quite difficult compared to the previous one, it took me the whole week to search for the answers. I did not intend to publish my answers though, but looks like post maybe helpful to those lazy people out there. If you intend to solve the quest for yourself better not proceed.

This time the quest requires you to read the book. My advice: read the book, its is nicely plotted. Just remember, the book is a work of fiction, what is written is not necessarily true. But i still, consider some facts behind it, and a question lingers into my mind is it really true? anyway, you might want to read the response of the opus dei to the da vinci code at their website.

Enough chatting; Here's the link to the second quest: http://www.randomhouse.com/doubleday/davinci/.

The quest comes with 5 codes each of them with increasing difficulty, the first three questions comes from the book a sort of preparation questions. Before we go, it is a good idea to read the hints provided by the site.

1. The first question is composed of a three letter word.

A Florence wife possessed a knowing smile, And dark mysterious smile that did beguile. Her portrait, "La Giaconda" rose to fame. Although we know her by another name.

The is the more common name of Leonardo Da vinci's famous painting "La Giaconda?"

The Mona Lisa, also known as "La Giaconda" has been widely dissected by art critics and historians for years, since Leonardo Davinci painted her between 1503 and 1505.

2. In what city does The Mona Lisa reside?

Where else, Paris

3. To what secret society did Jacques Sauniere belong?

As stated from the book, Jacques Sauniere is the Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. The keepers of the Holy Grail.

Lets answer the Quest!

Reveal The First Code

Magnify the book cover at the site select the back cover with the quotes of the varous authors, at the lower left of the image you can see an inverted blurry text. It reads 37 degrees 57 minutes 65 seconds north, 77 degrees 8 minutes44 seconds west

click here to see the back cover.

Now, using google answers enter this at the search box:

"37 degrees 57 minutes 65 seconds north"

The search will give just one link the question was worth $10 dollars, not bad, i took several hours searching for the code myself. Now, answering the quest is relatively easier for the web provides more than enough links for the answers.

The answer is kryptos heres a picture of it.

The Second Code

One deciphered portion of Kyrptos offers the enigmatic message:"they used the Earth's Enigmatic field. The information was gathered and transmitted underground to an unknown location. Does Langley know about this? They should: it's buriedout there somewhere. Who know's the exact location?

According to Kryptos, What are the initials of the person who "knows the exact location?"

I have never seen the kryptos personally, but with the help of that $10 question the answer was revealed. it was ww.

Actually the cover of the book there's a text written in somewhat Arabic but its not, i tried to read the front cover with a mirror and wallaaa. It is English! At the back of the book below the quotes written upside down is yet another text which reads only ww knows is written faintly.

The image is so large which garbles the page i will just provide a link here.

The Third Code

The question reads:

The cover flop describes the novels plot,
But simple words can often hide a lot.
Within those paragraphs (and shrouded fast),
Resides a mystic phrase from ages past.
To make your quest... abandon any fears,
If you are bold, the font of thruth appears.

Heres the book cover. The image is so large which garbles the page i will just provide a link here and here.

Notice the bold characters on the pictures. Collect them all and place them into the text boxes, the phrase reads to be: is there no help for the widows son

The Fourth Code

The answer was mentioned in the book it is the oldest and the largest fraternity in the world. For the question:

Before we continue, you must prove our worthiness by answering this one simple question: For which ancient brotherhood (still active today) Those this phrase have special meaning?

Using Google with the terms "fraternity+oldest+world". i answered freemasons, but it didn't work. The answer is mason.

The Fifth Code

Took me several days to answer this, and it is by far the most difficult but, at the end it was fairly easy indeed. I found the dolphin and the anchor, its the Doubleday logo and is found at the book, but i have no clue on what to do next. Until i saw the triangles right between the doubleday logo and the barcode and at the background is a triangle which matched to be the key.

The image is so large that i can't display it here, instead I'll just provide a link here.

Here's the phrase:

A dolphin and an anchor (but no sea).
A triangle on white is also key.
Between the two you'll find a crimson field.
Upon it printed faintly is a seal.

Each number to a chapter points a way
Each chapter starts with words in muted gray
The letter that is first is what you seek
Thirteen of them (and though it all looks Greek)
Add three all-seeing-eyes - a perfect square
Begin at E, Caesar guides you there.

What famous phrase is printed around the seal?

With the hint opened from the quest, i realized the quest is referring to the chapters of the book 105 in all and corresponds to the first letter of each chapter. The code in thirteen letters in length. The seal is composed of numbers with three triangle, arrange in a circle. 16 in total a perfect square to solve it using the Caesars box. 13 in length plus the 3 spaces (triangles) a total of sixteen = perfect square.

Searching for the chapter that starts with letter E we have Chapter 20. We will start there clockwise.

Chapter 20 E
Chapter 11 U
Chapter 11 U
Chapter 68 N
A Triangle
Chapter 1 R
Chapter 10 S
Chapter 11 U
Chapter 61 P
Chapter 15 I
A Triangle
Chapter 5 M
Chapter 8 L
Chapter 73 B
Chapter 11 U
A Triangle

Arranging them into Caesars box (remember the first quest? if not read the cryptology 101 in the hint) and noting the triangle as space. we will just substitute it with # as the triangle or the space.

E U U N
# R S U
P I # M
L B U #

Now we should solve it by rewriting from top to bottom and left to right in that order. It should read as E#PLURIBUS#UNUM. replacing the # symbol with spaces.

Thus, the answer to the fifth code is E Pluribus Unum

The Final Clue

The eyes of Mona Lisa launched this quest.

And now her knowing gaze lays to rest.
The French would say "Oeil Droit"
holds the key just point and click on it --
and you're home free!

Using google translate tools for "oeil droit" we find "right eye"

Click on her right eye and a message displays:

Congratulations on Uncovering the Code and thanks for playing!
The contest has now officially ended but stay tuned for Dan Brown's next exciting novel!