Old Man Musings would like to wish you a Happy Halloween! May all the rugrats be safe wandering through the neighborhoods and may you get all the candy you need. Don’t get into too much mischief.

After reading an article at Joystiq about the upcoming Pac-Man World 3 game, which will have Pac-Man speaking, I thought back about the old 80’s Pac-Man cartoon. That Pac-Man was voiced by a man named Marty Ingles. Marty didn’t even apply for the job. He actually dialed the wrong number and got the producers of the show by mistake. They said he’d make the perfect Pac-Man, but at first Marty said no.

The producers were pretty sneaky and recorded his voice secretly over the phone and three days later they told Marty he had the job. They even sent over a huge crate with the arcade version of Pac-Man game inside. After Marty joined the cast, the cartoon was an instant success and ran for two seasons.

(Read on …)

It’s almost Halloween time and if you keep up with Homestar Runner, you know they enjoy the holiday and get all dressed up. I had fun creating these images and I hope you enjoy them too. Happy Halloween!

Take a look at this clever short Zelda animation that I found when over at 4CR. Good simple drawing along with good music.

The latest Strongbad email is about a bed time story for The Cheat. In the story he is playing The Adventures of Bayou Billy and Adventures of Lolo on the NES with former NBA basketball player, Moses Malone. Where do they come up with these ideas? Another silly show created by those talented guys over at HomestarRunner.com.

MOSES MALONE: The Adventures of Lolo? You better have saved the receipt!

Over at 1UP they have started a week long trip down memory lane about the Nintendo Entertainment System. Most of us have fond memories of the NES and all the great games we played. So blow that dust out of the NES cartridge and plug it in.

Up - Up - Down - Down - Left - Right - Left - Right - B - A - Start

UPDATE: More NES-themed memorabilia, history, the highs and lows, and even a neat little video. The media spotlight video includes some of our favorite NES games whose sights and sounds will bring you way back.

There is a pretty good article over at Wired about the gradual burnout we have when playing a game. I find this to be true with most games I play. Of course the game grabs our attention when it is first played. But after a while the interest in the game eventually ebbs. One of my most recent examples is Nintendogs. I purchased the game when it was first released to the public and I played it for about a month, but I’ve not touched the game since.

We humans seek constant novelty, so only gameplay that has nearly infinite permutations — like chess — can hold our attention forever.

Of course if the game has great mechanics, like chess, you can always come back and play it again at a later time. One of the few video games that I go back and replay is Advance Wars and possibly StarCraft, since they were well made. Sometimes it is great to go back and play the old school games like Pac-Man or Q-bert, but that doesn’t last long. What other games out there are like that you like to go back and play?

A fun Flash game that I happened upon with some great music, artwork and a pretty silly story.

In a bug colony, far, far away (well- the next suburb) a terrible thing is happening. Nasty, horrid bugs have attacked, and the only person who can save them is Kelman… yes, Kelman: His legs went south when he left 15° out of a big 720°. The artwork is by hip vinyl toy artist/animator/illustrator/creator of Scary Girl/all around neat guy Nathan Jurevicius.

Play Kelman to the Rescue.

Fishskin Goobers by Treasure Flavour Food Co. Ltd.

I came across these bite sized morsels just recently and their cute and clever packaging caught my eye. It looks like Mr and Mrs Fishskin Goober were planning an outing to the beach, by just looking at their sunglasses and hats. Now, if I could read what Mr Goober was saying, I’d imagine he was just telling everyone to eat his many Fishskin Goober children. (Perhaps an amorous fish and a drunken peanut hooked up?)

  

I don’t know if this was an outdated package, but these things were so darn crunchy, I was afraid that I was going to break some teeth. It was like bitting down on rocks, with about as much flavor as a rock (that wasn’t covered in mud). Perhaps I’m missing some international taste buds and I need more practice eating rocks.

Ingredients: peanut (possibly one that is broken into many?), amylum (a starch), granulated sugar (it must have been burnt), refined salt (in limited quantity). It forgot to mention: pressed peanut sweepings and fishskin.

The manufacturer website is printed as: http://www.z-q-w.com but that site seems to have gone the way of the Dodo. So it seems Mr and Mrs Goober have the last (toothless) laugh.

I was looking around the web today and found a plethora of fun Flash based games. The GameDesign site is in Japanese, but it is not tricky to navigate around. Have some fun and try out the Domino Pressure and the Maze game. The 4 Balls game is just like the Connect 4 game. I’ve not beaten any records but I think I’m hooked. Enjoy!

As you might have been aware the world of gaming is far from diverse. If you ever went to a gaming convention or logged on to your favorite game online and expected to see anyone that wasn’t a younger to middle aged white male, you were fooling yourself. Generally that group is the major demographic in gaming and this fact is reaffirmed by all the game marketing and ads that “tend” to that group. (No real surprise there.)

The International Game Developers Association has released its first ever internal survey determining the makeup of its members, in a report titled Game Developer Demographics: An Exploration of Workforce Diversity. The goal of the report and survey is to answer the basic question, “who makes games?”

It is an interesting study, but has several “Survey Caveats” such as Self Selection, a definite North American biasness and the risk of duplication since the surveys were open and readily available over the Internet. To me that makes me wonder about the total validity of the survey, no matter how much interest I have in the subject. But at least did some data filtering and took data from a sample population.

(Read on …)

Great news from Nintendo was announced yesterday! They will be working with Waypoint in the US and McDonald’s to provide free Wi-Fi access for the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection at almost 6000 locations.

Also, FatPort, will also be offering free Wi-Fi access in (yet undisclosed) public locations, across Canada.

It’s combining my hobby of fast food and playing games, which is wonderful. It is time to get Americas youth a bit more pudgier. That is if they’ll take a break from the game playing long enough to eat anything. Also, you just have to watch out for the greasy fingers on the buttons and screen.

And you thought getting the kids to leave the McDonalds Playland was tricky, just you wait.

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Another sign of the times- an example from Playmobil, a Security Check-in playset. I saw this on Gizmodo.

Hello, Mr. Brown Person! I’m afraid you are on a watch list. That is because you are a bad person, Mr. Brown Person. Please come in the back room with me while I put on these tiny rubber gloves. No, your lawyer cannot help you.

I guess if kids can play and familiarize themselves with these things it makes it easier for them to understand, accept and feel more comfortable towards. But how far will this go as society slips into this new realm of control? What will be next? A toy version of a jail cell with telescreen displaying “You Love Big Brother”?!

This story begins back in my college days, many years ago. It was a cool autumn day of my freshman year and I was enjoying one of my weekends hanging out and relaxing in my dorm room. My buddy and roommate Mike was planning on doing his wash, which was greatly needed and well over due. Our dormitory didn’t have a washer and dryer, so we always had to use the ones in the many nearby dormitories, that were within a short walking distance. With his bag of dirty clothes over his shoulder, Mike headed out while I just hung out and grooved to some tunes.

While hanging out in front of the window, enjoying the nice autumn breeze, I see a steady stream of girls filing out of the nearby dorm. (It was the all-girl dorm, which we enjoyed visiting when we weren’t studying.) It seems that the fire alarm went off and the girls were being evacuated in a orderly manner. You could see some smoke coming out of one of the windows. It wasn’t that much, but it was enough to set off the alarm. With all the girls running around, it really got the guys in my dorm to stand up and take notice.

(Read on …)

Tomy has a Mario dot Flash game available for those who are not willing to buy the actual product. It is like the old game of Light Bright, you choose the color pegs and move them over to the outlined area to create your own Mario!

(Yes, it takes a few minutes to complete. I imagine the real toy would be more fun.)