http://www.shoeboxblog.com/?p=32420

PIXEL PEOPLE!

So, in case you have been living under a rock (or just don't track launched games religiously), theres a new FREEmium game launched a week (or so) ago for iPhone/iPad by our very own Singapore based game developer company LambdaMu games and produced by Chillingo who apparently is a pretty bigshot in the gaming world.

GAME DESCRIPTION

Welcome to the world of Utopia where YOU create the city and the residents.

Greet new clones to Utopia at the arrival centre, then find them a place in your new world. Splice genes of residents and combine their skills to discover new Pixel People to join your thriving city.

• VARIETY IS THE SPLICE OF LIFE
Combine the properties of Utopia residents to create up to 150 new occupants, each one suited to a special role in your new society. You can create Athlete Stanley Cupp, Judge Judy Schuss, or even Buccaneer Yoho Howe!

• MONEY MONEY MONEY
Each new job you create for a Utopian resident puts money in the bank, and the more residents you place in each building, the more money you make! Use your cash to build more residences, places of work, and to expand your land. Collect or buy Utopium to speed up building processes and reveal secret recipes for creating exotic residents.

• LOTS TO DO
As your population grows, love can blossom in Utopia too, and you can earn a sweet bonus for every 11 love hearts you collect. Bonuses could be coins, Utopium, or even a wild animal to wander your world?

• EASTER EGG
Discover all the secrets of Utopia with Pixel people's delightful hidden secrets — unlock certain buildings for enchanting surprises!

 MY TAKE

• Apocalypse came and went - you're now the Mayor of a sad empty piece of space. 

• Repopulate the city by regenerating clones when you build new houses.

• Give clones jobs by splicing existing job to unlock new jobs (150 to choose from!)

• Build them their work buildings - buildings make money for you. 

• You use the money to grow your city into a big epic city with animals, trees, parks, monuments, basketball courts etc.  

Here's the video to whet your appetite abit more :

EGGCITED? 

DOWNLOAD HERE NOW!

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Seeing how I am not really the most hardworking blogger (I'm really only doing this cos I'm an awesome friend and Pixel People is the brainchild of some friends, so just spreading the love. Played it as a favor (and also any chance to be critical I will happily take up :D) 2 months before the launch as a playtester.), alot of information I just copied and pasted (I really don't know much about copyright laws of copying and pasting peoples work... I assume I just need to mention where I got it from... right?)

ANYHOO. 

 This is of course not to say that the game isn't good - unbiasedly it really is nothing short of addictive.

Well that's really putting it mildly. It is nothing short of a black hole of time suck. 

And would I play it again? Yes. I replayed the whole game twice. Voluntarily. 

Here's some screencaps of the result of my hours of mindless farming lovely city. 

(And yes, being patriotic, I've added some widely utilized Singaporean jargon for the description as well.)

CITY CENTER

I'm the mayor so I get a nice house surrounded by trees and water.

And a statue I dedicated to myself after all the hardwork I put into building my people an awesome city.

DOWNTOWN 

To encourage the neighbouring aliens to come visit, my hotel is next to the spa (who doesn't like a good massage on holiday!), afterwhich they can take a leisurely stroll to my farmers market right next door to pick out our freshest space greens! All freshly grown in the greenhouse next door. (Yes I know I spent waaaay too much time on this game).

RESIDENTIAL AREA

To encourage my citizens to be healthy and happy and maximize productivity, I gave each block their VERY OWN POOL. I really should be mayor of a real city.

So this is where I dumped most of my random non categorizable buildings (yes and there's quite alot of them).

And in hopes that my people will learn to be eco friendly, I've built a Nature Reserve for them to visit the many animals that live in the trees.

Like this gummy bear here. 

And that's me!

(Come visit me at the Sheriffs Dept under the "Wanted List"!)

Anyway, don't just take my word for it!

Reviews BY EXPERTS for all you non-believers. 

“Pixel People takes an apocalyptic future and makes it hopeful, cheerful and bright—if it’s where freemium games are headed, we have a lot to look forward to.” — Touch Arcade, 5/5

“Pixel People is an excellent and addictive mash-up of town building and element combining. Download it!”— IGN, 9.0/10

“Seriously good” — Computer & Videogames, 8/10

“It’s got charm in spades, depth of play and an awful lot of content to keep your fingers busy for a long time to come.” — Modojo, 4.5/5

“Simple, elegant and endlessly entertaining” — Kotaku

“The game strikes a great balance between accessibility, with its loveable pixelated population, familiarity, and innovation…” — EDGE 

And for those who are too lazy to scroll up to find the link, click here again to download. 

Have fun! It's FREE. 

quickie

Chop chop one before i collapse in exhaustion.

Weekend events are for the young and sprightly. Seriously. Am getting too old, need weekends to allow my body to recuperate :( 

Singapore's Punggol By-Election was held today - interesting stuff. Not gonna comment too much seeing how i probably have nothing useful to contribute on this already extremely hot topic.

Finally finished major purchases including bed, table, shelf and drawers for my room which I've wanted to redo for AGES. Refusing to let the fact that I simply have too much demands and stuff to fit into my room (which is slightly larger than a shoe box), I actually managed to configure everything in a way that everything FINALLY has its place. Yay.

I may now be poor BUT AT LEAST I CAN MOPE IN MY AWESOME ROOM AND FEEL BETTER.

Next week is gonna be another mad rush.

SO FREAKING TIRED.

Apologies for totally fragmented post.

Must be synapses slowing down cos of age and wear and tear.

and so this is how it ends (again)

Wow that was fast.

Ha, didn't even last 3 out of the 21 days.

And on hindisght, it is probably for the best that I shouldn't blog everyday cos I'm really not that interesting.

Case in point  :

Friday night - Mj, did a sweeeeeet ban se pong pong (zi mo sommore!), but still somehow managed to lose $60, had a nice conversation w the normster otw home whom I haven't met in AGES

Sat - work (where i almost died on 2hours of sleep), rewarded my own perseverance with awesome baja fresh burrito and guacamole and crashed by 8pm

Sun - work, bought pink lipstick, rosti and les mis

Nonetheless I guess the reason why I'm still bothering with an online account of my pretty standard, meh life is so I am finally accountable to people who actually read (hi Laremy! hi leemster!) vs. private diary entries which probably wouldnt see past Day 1/21. And seeing how one of the greatest regrets thus far in my life is not remembering half of it :( so yes, heres to more pictures and daily (ok fine, bi-weekly lah) recordings of my life.

Some other random musings

Men are like apps - its near impossible to find one that has the EXACT specs that fit your lifestyle. Sad.

To combat my ridiculous inability to get out of bed, I will thus forth embark on the R&D of

a) The Bed Tipper - where the bed tilts at the pre-set time so you are LITERALLY forced to roll out of bed

b) The Timed Coffee Machine - which actually is already in existence (but for a ridiculous price), so my plan is to do one cheaper using some hacks i found online - will update if it works hurhurhur.

Am going to watch a rollerderby training session soon - looks like a pretty epic sport to get into.

Ok yoga time.

Strike 1 of 3

That has GOT to be a record, failing a resolution on the day it was mad. 

Nonetheless, Day 2 of 21

Decided to give myself 3 chances before calling it quits.

Strike 1 of 3.

So yesterday I toyed with the idea of why I'm blogging - why not just have a diary? Generally since my posts are largely boring and day to day rather than provocative, thought challenging, or even informative posts. Neither do I have a gazillion photos to share. And I came up with zilch. We'll see how it goes. Perhaps simply cos typing is easier than writing. That and the backspace button is SO much more friendly and fun to use than blancko (I just googled how to spell that and for something that was absolutely an essential in every childs' pencil case back in the 90s, its extremely strange that I can't find it online).

Yesterday was ok I guess another one of them average days. Woke up late and panicked upon realising my Apple adaptor stolen by the boss to Myanmmar. Presentation with a new adaptor which colleague had to sprint to Vivo and back to buy. Work. Gangster Squad (good stuff, ridiculously fun), gym and grass.

Recently decided I better learn to start cooking before the mother moves out of the house. Googling how to cook mushrooms at this very moment. Gotta love google. Gonna make myself a healthy wrap with mushrooms. Heres to it being more yum than it sounds I'm hoping.

2 days down. 19 left to go.

21 DAYS TO FORM A HABIT

DAY 1 of 21

aaaaaaand.... im back!

After an extended hiatus (so much for resolving to blog diligently ha), partially stemming from technical difficulties re passwords/usernames etc other unexciting problems, and the rest from my laziness to solve it, I AM FINALLY BACK YO.

Read an interesting article about how it takes 21 days to form a habit, so, as of 15 jan 2013, i will officially test out this theory. 

as with every other hiatus, first things first : UPDATES! (as of aug 2012)

Sept

- Involved a truckload of work related emotional crises 

Oct 

Finished my most dreaded event of the year on a fairly satisfactory note

Finally made it to Australia (Sydney --> Blue Mountains --> Melbourne --> Gold Coast) for 2 awesome weeks.

- Except that Scoot managed to lose my luggage for a whole week and i spent 500AUD on a brand new wardrobe WHICH I AM STILL TRYING TO CLAIM FOR

- Except that I had to end up tying up loose ends and dealing with insane anxiety and anger issues brought about by sucky work matters for a whole week

- Except that total phone bills solving both these TOTALLY AVOIDABLE PROBS : SGD750

Nov

Finished another major event, re-evaluated work life, decided things needed to change, got all worked up and upset again, decided to "Keep Calm and....

Dec 

Visit Shanghai!!!!!!"

Epic awesome impromptu trip cos of the company, despite having to take no-paid leave and already being in debt after Aus. 

- Except that I was pickpocketed of an iPhone4. At that moment, finally realised that its happened TOO MANY TIMES for me to get too upset over already.

Finished another pretty good event - realized that am getting quite good at these. Took me long enough -_-

Zoukout

3 nights of non stop (AND SUPER EXPENSIVE) crazy fun, but more due to my crazy beautiful colleagues.  To be honest, don't remember the music AT ALL. First ever zoukout i have really really thoroughly enjoyed.

Christmas 

Despite my yearly promise to myself that i will put more effort into celebrating this, it never seems to work out. Only thing i did that was even remotely Christmassey was buy a mini tree from IKEA which i'm planning to keep alive until next year. Only if it survives will I consider my life long wish of getting a dog.

NYE 

Was at a setup till 12.15am, meaning i essentially spent the stroke of midnight with my clients/contractors (which wasn't actually as painful as i thought it'd be).

Impromptu sour plum shooters at Zouk with my favorite friend (48 shots shared by 2 over 2h) followed by crazy happy barefoot running around chasing cats (or so claims the friend) and randomly screaming "Happy New Year!" to everyone we passed at 4am in the morning. 

Jan 2013 thus far

Woke up to realise that I had acquired an unpretty bruise and an equally major abrasion from tripping and unglamorously sprawling in the middle of a traffic junction (also according to my friends' probably inaccurate account) the night before. Memorable bits for the day, finding a nasty chicken claw in my herbal soup, "Madagascan Chicken Sandwich" vs "Mediterranean Chicken Sandwich". And theres one funny moment which i swore i wld rmb, but more which i forgot. GREAT THIS IS WHY I NEED TO BLOG MORE.

Made some resolutions.

Broke a good few all within the first 2 days.

BUT.

Thus far still a pretty good year. Finally made the time to get my life in order. Resolved some unresolved issues. Admitted to myself some not so pleasant truths. Finally decided to let go of some other bullshit. ACTUALLY MAKING IT TO GYM!!!!!!!

Finally starting to feel more adult.

2013 is gonna be a good year.

(Even my horoscope says so! Power of positive thinking!)

1 day down. 20 left to go.

Of lost phones and clubbing

and so for the gazillionth time, my phone is officially lost.

can now add to be never-ending list of misplaced phones, my 6 mth old iphone 4s.

so yes to the lucky bugger that managed to kope my phone, i hope smth not very nice happens to you (everything else that pops up in my head is too awful to officially document).

as it is, im trying to recall which i've lost at which point of time but im fast losing count.

aug 2012 : iphone 4s

feb 2012 : iphone 3gs

feb 2011 : BB Curve

jan 2011 : iphone 3gs

strangely enough, when i was younger (ahem, ok fine, i meant not yet an adult), i was also losing phones at exactly the same rate, but more misplacing (ie. leaving on cabs etc) cos of forgetfulness, rather than losing cos of drunkness and dark clubs. i seem to have overcome the leaving stuff in cabs now by making a conscious effort to check cabs before i leave. so i guess if i can make that a habit, i can make another conscious effort to not get drunk? ha ok just typing that out and i know i cant.

my speed of drinking increases at the same rate as my level of intoxication.

like a speeding out of control car whose brakes dont work.

i dont quite enjoy clubbing anymore, the constant throngs of people, the darkness (i swear im getting more and more night blind, think its an age thing), side stepping puke, never ending toilet queues and worst, is my total lack of ability to control my drinking speed.

back in the day it used to be "shit, ok must stop at 3 drinks cos thats all i can afford", now its more like "ITS FRIDAY! GO GO GO!" then out comes the bottles and its gg from there on out.

much as i wld like to push the blame to my party hardy colleagues (these are the girls who can club 2 days in a row - while im still nursing my hangover from the night before, theyll be asking "so, whats the plan tonite?"), i know its really a personal choice.

i love drinking. im ok with clubbing, but i fear losing out. like on mondays when everyone is back in office and they start discussing "omggggg, fri was epicccc etc", i just sit there feeling sad and wondering if i shld have gone. i dont wanna lie on my deathbed and wonder if i shld have clubbed more. but every single time i go, im just reminded of how i shld really stop doing this so often, for fear of losing my phone, my dignity and my carefully maintained image of a good girl (ok jkjk, that ship has sailed a long time ago).

but.

friday was pretty epic. even by our lofty standards. table at mink, 5x champagne magnums, belvedere magnus, patron, jagermeisters, being chased by bouncers, apparently watching a crazy bottle hurling fight, policeman and ambulances, and calling my friend the next morning to tell me what happened in the 2 hours that my memory was blacked out.

at this point, ive given up beating myself up over nights like this, and just embrace the stupidity and irresponsibility of it all. i just hope that i manage to say to myself sometime soon "been there, done that, no need to revisit".

that and the fact that everything in your phone is now stored up there somewhere in the clouds, so losing your phone no longer means losing your life line. just buy a new phone, plug it in and you wont even know its gone (just that your wallet feels significantly lighter).

and i hope my 4s blows up in the douchewad's ear when he's using it.

:)