dspitzley

As long as you do it on your own time and your own equipment, I don't imagine an employer would have any legal grounds to complain, unless the employee's contract says otherwise. But then, I'm hardly a lawyer. I personally haven't done much in the way of side projects, with the exception of a bit of research into GBA programming. As you can probably tell from the game list I posted earlier, I find plenty of less productive ways to spend my spare time. Dan

I have a big thing for exploration and uncovering the whole world map (lord knows why). M&M always filled that need nicely. The Fool's Errand is a brilliant word/image puzzle game from Cliff Johnson. It's made up of a more or less non-linear series of puzzles. Solving each of these puzzles provides a chunk of story text and adds a tile to an overall world map, which itself is a puzzle. After all of the pieces of the map are obtained, you have to figure out where each tile goes on the map. Once this is finished, there is a series of puzzles embedded in the map that you must solve with clues given in the story text. I've never seen this sort of uber-puzzle approach in any game before or since, with the exception of some adventure games. But even those never presented the puzzles in such a unique fashion. The game (and others from Mr. Johnson) are available for free download at his web site: http://www.fools-errand.com/ You'll need to set up a Mac emulator (evaluation version and instructions given on the site) to run most of the games, but they're worth it. If you like The Fool's Errand, a sequel is coming later this year which you can pre-order on the site. Check it out. Dan

Recent Games Finished: PC Sacred (nearly done, truly huge) Splinter Cell II Far Cry Broken Sword III Contract JACK (not as good as NOLF, but faster and still fun) XIII (urgh) Call of Duty GBA Shining Soul I and II (Avoid I. II is much better) Medal of Honor: Infiltrator Max Payne (very faithful adaptation) Metroid: Zero Mission XBOX BG:DA II Beyond Good and Evil (buy it) Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel I-Ninja Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy Whiplash (smack 'da bunny) Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (meh) Grabbed By the Ghoulies (meh x 2) kill.switch (neat cover mechanics) Pitfall: The Lost Expedition Past Favorites: PC Thief I and II Crusader: No Remorse/Regret Divine Divinity System Shock I and II Most LucasArts Adventures Infocom, baby PS1 Tomba I and II Overall Best/Most Influential Games: The Fool's Errand (sequel is on its way in October) Ultima IV and V Might and Magic series

Are the potatoes wearing tinfoil to keep the government from reading their minds?

I like 'em mashed, and I like 'em fried.