Author: tunequest

Choose Your Own Adventure: Interactive Fiction for iPod

Yeti

Text-based games for the iPod, known generally as iStories, are nothing new. Using the basic HTML support found on device’s Notes feature, some people have been putting together text-based adventures for a couple years now. Heck, even I sketched out the beginning of a story a while back, but never completed the project.

In its most basic form, the idea is to load a series of inter-connected text files into the Notes folder. A reader then selects the start file and upon finishing that section, is presented with a dilemma, forced to choose a course of action. The choice determines what happens next in the story. Through a series of choices, the reader eventually ends up at one of several possible endings. The iStories concept is very much like the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children’s books.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the CYOA franchise is getting in on the action. The publisher, Chooseco, relaunched the brand in 2005, which had laid dormant since 1998. The CYOA online store is offering a free download of an iPod Choose Your Own Adventure story, The Abominable Snowman, based on the first title of the relaunched series.

After playing around with the story for a while, I gotta say that it’s a pretty sophisticated release. This game isn’t just a bunch of text files. It takes advantage of the “museum mode” found on recent generation iPods to integrate images and sound into the storytelling.

The Abominable Snowman comes as a 20ish MB download that includes an installer program. When run, the installer copies all the text files to an iPod. It then opens iTunes and adds the 137 associated mp3 files to the iTunes library and finishes by syncing the library with the iPod.

The way the story works once copied to the iPod is rather ingenious. While technically, one can simply read the story, the text can also be read to you by the author, R.A. Montgomery, who is also the creator of the series. At key moments in the plot, the narration stops and the reader is presented with a “click for image” link, which loads a silent mp3 that has album art attached, presenting a visual to accompany the story.

Of course, the Choose Your Own Adventure series is aimed at children. This is by no means high literary art. But it does push the limit of what an iPod can do and that’s pretty cool.

The Abominable Snowman is free for “beta testers” through Jan. 25. Compatible with 3rd-generation iPods and later. Use of images requires iPods that support album art.

Choose Your Own Adventure image on iPod
An image from Abominable Snowman on iPod.

Star Trek on iTunes update: Enhanced or no?

UPDATE March 26: After nearly a two month stint of being offline at the iTunes Store, the Star Trek TOS is back. The complete first season is available in its original broadcast form. Additionally, newly remastered episodes from the first season are available in their own section. At this time, iTunes is still the only source for them in their uncut form.

Remastered First Season Episodes on iTunes

Since the first season of the original Star Trek was unleashed unto iTunes a couple weeks ago, there’s been some controversy as to whether the episodes are the original cuts or the new “remastered” versions that started broadcasting last year. Having not purchased any episodes, my original supposition was that the iTunes version were the same as the DVDs, since the new ones haven’t even finished broadcasting.

In fact, as of Jan 19, only 16 new versions have been aired, and of those only 11 have been from the first season (of the total 29 episodes).

But after partaking in this conversation at OneDigitalLife, I reexamined my assumptions and did some research and it looks like some of the episodes are indeed remastered. Space Seed for example.

iTunes Store preview. Click for full-size image.

If Paramount/CBS/Apple are adding enhanced episodes after they air, that’s an interesting strategy. The iTunes Store is currently the only way, if you don’t record them on a DVR, to get a copies of the remastered episodes. It’s much like being able to download the recently broadcast episodes of Lost or CSI. Plus, iTunes is the only place to get full-length (not cut for commercials) versions of the enhanced episodes (for now)

There are some pitfalls to this approach however.

The store doesn’t indicate which episodes are new and which are not. Can we assume that every remastered episode that has aired can be found on iTunes after the airdate? Nope, some of the new broadcast episodes are on the store, some are not. Space Seed on iTunes is enhanced, as is Balance of Terror, while reviews say City of the Edge of Forever is not, even though all three broadcast months ago and all three broadcast before the show debuted on iTunes.

Also, if I were to buy Where No Man Has Gone Before today (the 19th) and a remastered version airs tomorrow (it’s on the schedule), would I then have to buy it again to get the new one? Probably yes. Same goes for any future remastered versions. My guess is that if I bought the whole season now, and the episodes were refreshed, I’d have to buy the remastered ones again.

Then there’s always the possibility that someone doesn’t want the remastered versions. That person would be stuck shelling out for the DVDs and just have to encode them themselves.

Update: CBS announced today that episodes of Trek remastered will be released on HD-DVD some time during the fourth quarter of 2007. Until then, iTunes is the only way to go.

Free short film at iTunes Store: Good Morning Baby

Note: The offer from iTunes has expired.

If you’ve been searching for a reason to try out the iTunes’ much-promoted movie service, here’s one that might just persuade you.

Free film: Good Morning Babyoffer expired.

Description from the store:

A confused woman struggles between two loves-a love for her so-called future husband and a love for a new found home. Falling off her envisioned map of life, she tries to find her true self and her true love.

It’s gotten mixed reviews from iTunes users. Some people seem to love it, most don’t though (avg 3 stars). Oh, and it’s copyright Glamour Magazine, if that’s any indictation of what you might be getting into.

The flick doesn’t really seem like my typical fare. But, it’s only 13 minutes long, and free, so maybe I’ll try it out, just to see how the movie store works.

Films from the iTunes Store require Quicktime 7.1.3. The download is free, and don’t be fooled; the email address is optional.

Deal with Paramount adds Star Trek Films to iTunes Store

During the Macworld expo keynote a week ago, Steve Jobs made the off-hand comment that Paramount Pictures had joined Disney in selling films through the iTunes Store. Of course, that deal means that all of the Star Trek motion pictures (except the Search for Spock) are now available for digital download, enabling portable viewing on a iPod or streaming to a new Apple TV.

Like all movie downloads from the store, the films cost $9.99 each, decent-enough price I you just have to have it now. For my money though, I’d much prefer the physical DVDs with all the special features and bonus materials. Still, if you don’t care about those things or already own the DVDs and don’t mind having your fair use rights sold back to you, downloading might just hit the spot. If not, I suggest you give Handbrake a shot.

Anyway, back to iTunes. At 640 pixels wide, the resolution of the pictures is adequate for most viewing situations. Compression artifacts are few, and motion is smooth and seamless. The sound was also acceptable, but I was using my PowerBook’s speakers.

Artifacting is usually very noticeable with red. Click to see this shot (PNG-24) from the First Contact trailer. It shows that the store’s compression holds up pretty well.

Continue reading →

Acrobat 7’s nifty optical character recognition
(aka Call off the search, I found Spock)

The other day I discovered that Acrobat 7 Pro has built-in OCR (optical character recognition). So I decided to run some scanned pages of text through to see how well it works.

Well, it actually does work, and with surprising accuracy, though the resulting document was nearly double the file size of the original. It’s really cool though, because Acrobat layers the OCR’d text invisibly over the image, making it look like you can select, copy and search the imaged text directly from the PDF.

But the point of this is, that while running some basic search strings on the doc to verify its accuracy, I unintentionally did something funny:

I guess Spock wasn’t on the Genesis Planet after all. Now if we could only find out why he’s not at the iTunes Store…

Here’s a video podcast of Acrobat’s OCR in action. [creativesuitepodcast.com. requires Quicktime]

Susumu Yokota – Grinning Cat: Simply Amazing

Susumu Yokota's Grinning Cat

I came across Susumu Yokota’s Grinning Cat (2001), amazingly enough via Amazon.com. I’ve had an account there for nine years and, before this record, I cannot remember a single time that the store recommended something relevant to me. Over the years, I’ve become fairly adept at glazing over the recs altogether. Maybe it just took that much time for the site to gather enough information about my interests, because when I saw that stark album cover pop up at the top of the page while browsing for xmas presents a month ago, I just had to find out what it was all about.

The effusive praise on the product page led me to check it out for myself at the iTunes Store. Shortly there after I had my very own copy.

Having played through the album through a couple times now, I find that I am completely in its thrall.

This thing is bursting with magnificent brilliance, not for what it sounds like, but for what it does to your head. The music itself is most closely related to ambient (with some glitch overtones), though it is a far cry from the chillout music that has come to be most associated with the style. Rather than being composed, this record feels like its sonic ideas expressed emerge out of the ether, lead a transitory existence, then disappear into the void.

The closest comparison I can think of is the downtempo rhythmics of Porter Ricks’ 1997 self-titled album, but Grinning Cat is far less structured. Positively otherworldly, but never in an alien way. These sounds evoke a kind of immersive metaphysical wonder, as if it the mind is being separated by the body.

I’ve never heard anything like it and, frankly, I can’t remember the last time a piece of music affected me this profoundly.

I’m surprised that I had never come across Yokota’s music before, given the length of his career and the regard with which he is held. I look forward to exploring his music more fully. Until then, I’ll just have to deal with the Grinning Cat clawing its way deeper and deeper into my subconscious.