Tag Archives: games

Computer, Hobby

Old and new computer games

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Only the ones i’ve played recently or having good memories playing it.
Only noteworthy games

Pyramid Mummy pharaoh thingy ??? One of the first games i remember.
(Besides Pong on a “pong-only” system)

I’ve played a Mummy game in Black/White on a XZ81 or ZX Spectrum, one of the first Computers i had access to. (Richard)
But i can´t find/remember the name.

The Sentinel (1986)

https://classicreload.com/the-sentinel.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sentinel_(video_game)

In The Sentinel, the player takes the role of a Synthoid, a telepathic robot who has to take control of a number of surreal, checkered landscapes of hills and valleys, by climbing from the lowest spot, where the hunt begins, to the highest platform, over which the Sentinel looms.

The Synthoid itself cannot move across the level; instead it can look around, accumulate energy by absorbing the objects that are scattered across the landscape, create stacks of boulders, generate inert Synthoid shells and transfer its consciousness from one of these clones to another.

Kings Quest II? (1985)

Played this with my friend Richard on his Atari ST

Few years later, same kind of Game Engine:

Leisure suit larry in the land of the lounge lizards

The Myst series (1993-)

Myst and more

Carmageddon

The player races a vehicle against several other computers controlled competitors in various settings, including city, mine, and industrial areas. The player has a certain amount of time to complete each race, but more time may be gained by collecting bonuses, damaging the competitors’ cars, or by running over pedestrians. Unusually for a racing game, checkpoints do not extend the time limit.

7th Guest

The 7th Guest is an interactive movie puzzle adventure game, produced by Trilobyte and originally released by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in April 1993. It is one of the first computer video games to be released only on CD-ROM. The 7th Guest is a horror story told from the unfolding perspective of the player, as an amnesiac. The game received a great amount of press attention for making live action video clips a core part of its gameplay, for its unprecedented amount of pre-rendered 3D graphics, and for its adult content. In addition, the game was very successful, with over two million copies sold. It, alongside Myst, is widely regarded as a killer app that accelerated the sales of CD-ROM drives.

DOOM and Quake

Many many hours i’ve spend playing doom with Mandy on my first network (1995?)
Quake was my Graphics Card Checker, i never made it to level two!

Amiga

Shadow of the Beast, Super Frog ,The Sentinel, Game of Thrones and Dr Mario
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuGilF0TwYA

And dual player Stunt Car Racer. We played this before there were networks, using a serial cable!

Simulators and more

I used to have Microsoft Flightsim (the old version) , but my main operating system is Linux so i switched to XPlane (Windows, linux and Mac) See other posts about Flightsims

VR games

We bought VR glasses.
Besides viewing movies in 3D, playing with Blender in 3D, Xplane flightsimulator there are some games i sometimes play.

I expect you to die, WWI Warplanes, Green Hell and Mass Exodus Redux. The last one is great fun together with a PC player.

Android games

Tried several games, non stuck.
I enjoyed “SpaceTeam” the most.
Current (dorment on my phone) : Mekorama, BinaryGrid2 (Yes Nerd), Dice me and 2 Player Reactor (those last two, for playing with friends while traveling)

Arcade games

I only knew Galaga, on a table version in Germany (We played there with the Concord Pipe Band)
The other one was
Hyper Olympics by Konami ( Snackbar “Lunch” when attending school LTS Deventer )

PC Games (Recent)

Uboot, Xplane Flightsimulator,Keep talking and nobody explodes
https://store.steampowered.com/app/494840/UBOAT/

Switch Games (Recent)

Limbo, Unravel Two, Death Squared,Machinarium,Degrees of Separation, Guacamelee 2
Mostly Co-op

Sidetrack … pinball

I really like the Terminator pinball game.
There is one in Zwolle at https://computermuseum.nl/
(This one i played when i was a soldier in 1992)
I have some test setups for Virtual Pinballs, but its not the same.

“Recent” old Skool games

https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2021/11/21/retropi-handheld/

1942 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942_(video_game)

Metal Slug series – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Slug_2

Hobby

Boardgames

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Don’t know what game to buy?
Head over to boardgamegeek.com

Ratings, wiki, manuals, reviews, forum and more
Get you own collection list online

Our list is here
Link https://boardgamegeek.com/collection/user/fashice

My top 5 games (at the moment) are:

  • Uboot
  • Memoir ’44
  • Monster Slaughter
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Codenames Duet

U-BOOT: The Board Game is a fully cooperative, real-time tabletop game of WW2 submarine warfare. It allows 1 to 4 players to assume the roles of the Captain, the First Officer, the Navigator, and the Chief Engineer on board of a type VIIC U-boat. The game is driven by a companion app, allowing for an unprecedented level of realism, as well as a challenging enemy A.I. which will push your skills to the limit. The action unfolds both on the strategic and the tactical scale, always demanding teamwork, efficient crew management, and quick situation assessment.

Uboot game with own 3D printed submarine with leds

Memoir ’44 is a historical boardgame where players face-off in stylized battles of some of the most famous historic battles of World War II including Omaha Beach, Pegasus Bridge, Operation Cobra and the Ardennes. The game includes over 15 different battle scenarios and features a double-sided hex game board for both beach landings and countryside combat. Each scenario mimics the historical terrain, troop placements and objectives of each army. Commanders deploy troops through Command and Tactic cards, applying the unique skills of his units — infantry, paratrooper, tank, artillery, and even resistance fighters — to their greatest strength.

Memoir ’44

Monster Slaughter is a tactical game inspired by horror movie classics, where each players takes control of a family of three monsters: father, mother and child, each with their own stats and family power. Their objective is to scour the cabin looking for five guests, find their hiding spot and “take care” of them! Each victim hides in a pile of cards that monsters must search through to find them, gathering items and traps as they do. Once revealed, a guest’s miniature is put on the board and can be attacked!

However, each player has secretly set a killing order for these guests, and killing them in order is worth more points. They can use their item cards to defend the guests against other monsters or scare the victims away to other rooms, so the guests die in a more favorable order!

Monster Slaughter

Some DIY own build games are:
Shogi (Japanese Chess)
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2012/05/31/shogi-game-lasercut/
Crokinole (Canadian game)
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2018/06/14/made-a-crokinole-game/

Hobby, IOT / Domoticz

Started on a mobile over the internet Escape room experiment

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I’ve been working on some modular gadgets which can be combined to make a complete puzzle.

I like games like Keep-talking-and-nobody-dies. (Which is a computer game, but you have to play it with multiple persons and a physical “manual” Great fun!)
https://keeptalkinggame.com/

And i like real escape rooms.
There are some puzzle “rooms” you can buy in the game store, it is okay but many are for single use only.

I’ve been following some people on youtube, i saw some great ideas but not a remote over the internet using physical knobs and switches.

This is a RFID reader with an old Amico Esp8266 Arduino. It sends RFID information to the MQTT broker

Some other tools ‘n knobs .. and stuff

I want to use Adhoc Wifi and a Mqtt/Nodered setup which uses a mqtt over the internet to get people (and their knobs) connected

I already got a lot of test schematics

Left part of the “connect the wires puzzle” right a solenoid electrical lock)

Schematic for the MQTT enabled RFID module

ESP8266 <-> RC522
D8            SDA
D5            SCK
D7           MOSI
D6           MISO
GND           GND
D1            RST
3V3           3V3

Code

Below will write the RFID id to “rfid/id” and resets this when you remove the tag to “rfid/id = 0”

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>
#include <WiFiClient.h>
#include <PubSubClient.h>
#include <MFRC522.h>

#define SS_PIN D8
#define RST_PIN D1

MFRC522 mfrc522(SS_PIN, RST_PIN);
unsigned long cardId = 0;

WiFiClient net;
PubSubClient client(net);

const char* mqtt_server = "MQTTBROKER";
const char* ssid = "MYSSID";
const char* password = "MYWIFIPASSWD";

void setup() {
  SPI.begin();
  mfrc522.PCD_Init();

  WiFi.mode(WIFI_AP_STA);
  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);

  client.setServer(mqtt_server, 1883);
}

void reconnect() {
  while (WiFi.waitForConnectResult() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
  }

  while (!client.connected()) {
    String clientId = "NodeMCUClient-";
    clientId += String(random(0xffff), HEX);

    if (!client.connect(clientId.c_str(), "rfidclient", "...")) {
      delay(5000);
    }
  }
}

void loop() {
  reconnect();

  if (!mfrc522.PICC_IsNewCardPresent()) {
    return;
  }

  if (!mfrc522.PICC_ReadCardSerial()) {
    return;
  }

  cardId = getCardId();

  char buffer[10];
  sprintf(buffer, "%lu", cardId);
  client.publish("rfid/id", buffer);

  uint8_t control = 0x00;

  do {
    control = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++) {
      if (!mfrc522.PICC_IsNewCardPresent()) {
        if (mfrc522.PICC_ReadCardSerial()) {
          control |= 0x16;
        }

        if (mfrc522.PICC_ReadCardSerial()) {
          control |= 0x16;
        }
        control += 0x1;
      }
      control += 0x4;
    }

    delay(0);
  } while (control == 13 || control == 14);

  reconnect();
  client.publish("rfid/id", "0");
  delay(500);

  mfrc522.PICC_HaltA();
  mfrc522.PCD_StopCrypto1();
}

unsigned long getCardId() {
  byte readCard[4];
  for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
    readCard[i] = mfrc522.uid.uidByte[i];
  }

  return (unsigned long)readCard[0] << 24
    | (unsigned long)readCard[1] << 16
    | (unsigned long)readCard[2] << 8
    | (unsigned long)readCard[3];
}

Schematics used for the Solenoid lock

Software is a mqtt example from the internet which toggles a PIN on the arduino.

Hobby

RTMP / RTSP / HLS Streaming video

UPDATE: 20220906 – Started testing with steaming VR/360 also

RTMP stands for Realtime Messaging Protocol
RTSP stands for Realtime Streaming Protocol
HLS is a HTTP Live Streaming method

I needed a way to stream semi-realtime video to a website.
There are multiple use cases.

  • Streaming a boardgame online
  • Showing my desktop, while i was working on projects.
  • Watched (streamed) Curse of Oak Island with some friends while being in a Jitsi meeting at the same time together.

In all cases i used OBS to stream to the website.

Prepare the stream server:

Install nginx, with the rtmp module

wget http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.9.7.tar.gz
wget https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module/archive/master.zip
tar -xvf nginx-1.9.7.tar.gz
unzip master.zip
cd nginx-1.9.7
./configure --add-module=../nginx-rtmp-module-master/
make && make install
mkdir -p /HLS/live/test # live is the stream name, test is the pass key
chown -R {nginx user} /HLS

create a config file

worker_processes  1;
error_log  logs/error.log debug;
events {
worker_connections  1024;
}
rtmp {
server {
listen 1935;
allow play all;

application live {
allow play all;
live on;
record all;
record_path /video_recordings;
record_unique on;
hls on;
hls_nested on;
hls_path /HLS/live;
hls_fragment 10s;

}

application vod {
play /video_recordings;
}

http {
include       mime.types;
default_type  application/octet-stream;

server {
listen 80;
server_name www.fash.nu;
add_header Access-Control-Allow-Origin *;

location /live {
types {
application/vnd.apple.mpegurl m3u8;
}
alias /HLS/live;
add_header Cache-Control no-cache;
}

location /mobile {
types {
application/vnd.apple.mpegurl m3u8;
}
alias /HLS/mobile;
add_header Cache-Control no-cache;
}

location / {
root   html;
index  index.html index.htm;
}
}

You need a webpage containing the embedded player

<!-- HTML -->
<video id='hls-example'  class="video-js vjs-default-skin" width="400" height="300" controls>
<source type="application/x-mpegURL" src="http://www.fash.nu:8080/live/test/index.m3u8">
</video>


<!-- JS code -->
<!-- If you'd like to support IE8 (for Video.js versions prior to v7) -->
<script src="https://vjs.zencdn.net/ie8/ie8-version/videojs-ie8.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/videojs-contrib-hls/5.14.1/videojs-contrib-hls.js"></script>
<script src="https://vjs.zencdn.net/7.2.3/video.js"></script>

<script>
var player = videojs('hls-example');
player.play();
</script>

Run the server part:

/usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx -c /root/stream.conf

Now you can connect OBS to the streaming server

Open the webpage and enjoy!

2nd webcam showed card details. Also text boxes appeared who’s turn it was.

UPDATE: 20220906 – Started testing with steaming VR/360 also

When attending the MCH2022 talk about streaming 360 video, i made a mental note to try this with my Vuze cam, using current setup and the one suggested in the talk : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=460vo1O5pC4

To check : EGJS

Vuze Android App
3dprinting, Hobby

Uboot Game

2019-06-08 I’ve bought myself Uboot the game.

It is one of my favourite board games.

Playing with a cardboard uboot is … okay. But when you have a 3D printer .. do i need to say more?

Parts printed

3D printed version assembled and completed in Jan 2021

All assembled and put Leds inside.

Led’s are controlled by a Arduino, Mqtt or a fysical button can be used.

Hobby

Made a Crokinole game

Crokinole is played on a circular wooden board, with wooden circular disks as playing pieces.

Possible origin is Canada.

Players take turns shooting disks across the circular wooden board by flicking the disks with their fingers. Players try to land their disks in scoring regions on the board, with the highest scoring area the recessed hole in the very center of the board. Each round, each player/side alternately shoots a set number of disks (usually 12 or 8), shooting one disk each turn.

Players must position their disk on the start of each of their turns in their quadrant in front of them, touching the outer scoring ring boundary.

If there are no opponent’s disks on the board, they must aim for the center of the board.

If there is an opponent’s disk on the board, they must aim and hit an opponent’s piece first, either directly, or by a carrom shot.

The center recessed hole is worth 20 points, and disks are removed and scored at the end of the round if they land in the center hole.

Disks that are outside the outer scoring ring at the end of each shot, or are touching the outer scoring ring at the end of each shot, are removed from play for the round.

Sketchup drawing with measurements
Hobby

Shogi game lasercut

I designed playing pieces for a DIY made Shogi board.

Shogi (将棋, shōgi, English: /ˈʃoʊɡi/, Japanese: [ɕoːɡi]), also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, chaturanga, Xiangqi, Indian chess, and janggi. Shōgi means general’s (shō 将) board game (gi 棋). Western chess is sometimes called (Seiyō Shōgi 西洋将棋 lit. ’Western Shogi’) in Japan.

Shogi was the earliest chess-related historical game to allow captured pieces to be returned to the board by the capturing player. This drop rule is speculated to have been invented in the 15th century and possibly connected to the practice of 15th century mercenaries switching loyalties when captured instead of being killed.

Pieces Lasercut and Laser-engraved

Final board

Left side the turned over pieces, right side displays normal faceup pieces

I’ve designed the pieces and the markings on them using Inkscape.
Instead of the Japanese characters the pieces show the allowed movements. The Circled signs are on the back of the pieces.

shogi-final_2Download

Board and traditional characterset

shogi_board_pieces_tradDownload
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Changed 51 card game

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I changed the rules of this game.

Fifty-one is a card game where the aim is to stay under 51 points.

Fifty-one only uses the so-called picket cards; the seven through the ace. The distribution of points is as follows;

Card Points

77 points
88 points
90 points
10+10 or -10 points
Jack2 points
Queen3 points
King4 points
Ace1 or 11 points


The ‘suit’ (hearts/diamonds/clubs/spades) is not important.

At the start of the game, the cards are shuffled, the dealer deals three cards at random to each player and places the remaining cards face down on the table. The person after the dealer now plays a (high) card face up on the table, announces the number of points and takes a new card from the face down pile. The following players now play another card and add the number of points played to the number on the table and take a new card, for example: the first player plays an 8 and says ‘8’, second player plays a 7 and says ’15 ‘, the next player plays a king and says ’19’, the next plays an ace and says ’30’ (or ’20’) etc.

As soon as the point total gets close to 51, players should start playing cards like 9 or (-)10 to prevent the point total from going over 50. The first player who can no longer do this loses the round. After this, the game starts again, the loser usually acts as the new dealer.

If a player manages to collect three identical cards in the course of a round, he can pass. He then places the cards face down on the table, says pass, and stops playing. He can then no longer lose that round. (*)

After playing a card, if a player forgets to take a new card from the stock before the next player has played a card, he must continue playing with the remaining (two) cards.

When the deck of face-down cards is exhausted, the face-up cards are shuffled, placed face-down again, and play continues.

The game is played with 3 or 4 players. With more players there is no opportunity to collect favorable cards. (**)

I’ve played this a lot while traveling with bands on the bus. So what did I change:

(*) I skipped this rule
(**) When changing to the rules below we could play with 6-7 or maybe 8?

I used two decks of cards. Same as above, but I added two sixes, one (or 2) 5 and a 4.

6 Change the direction of playing, so you could be facing another turn when you just played a card!

5 Change hands, in opposite direction of playing (all players)

4 Drop you cards and get 3 new ones OR exchange with another player

3 ? be experimental!

We sometimes just played around with these rules. Just get the rules you are playing with clear at the start of the game

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A board game we made

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I designed with my friend Richard, a spooky board game.
It was made of two large multiplex pieces, about 75xm by 50cm. With walls 25 cm height (guessing)

There was a ground floor (graveyard) and a dungeon below that. You had to use dice to move, but there were traps.

  • Hidden trapdoors
  • A ball which knocked you over
  • Closed doors
  • Monsters
  • Puzzles
Drawing i made in 2023 from what i can remember.

The ball (4-5cm) was made of scrunched paper with a gypsum layer.
It could take two paths and depending on where you stood with your playing piece, could knock you over.

A few years later my parents bought Ghost Castle/Spookslot. Which was very much alike we’ve made.

Looking at the models i’ve been making the last few years, i could re-make this again??