When Two Best Friends Make Video Games (And Only One Sells). A good examination of what’s going on in the indie market.

Beyond ‘Serial': The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2015 – The Atlantic. See also: additional 10 Great Podcast Episodes from 2015 from Matt Thompson.

Waiting for Serial? Try Some of These, Our Favorite Podcasts | WIRED.

Nathan Grayson’s Top 10 Games Of 2015.

Take a Video Crash Course in Beginner Electronics, at Make.

Data Atsume. Tons of data for the Neko Atsume game on what to use to attract the rare cats and get the greatest fish return. Via Waxy.

Stick a pin in it! — Postlight Posts — Medium. The Pinterest Chrome plug-in is taking over your website, but only the users can see it so you might not know. If you manage a website you should know this is going on, and they offer code to stop it.

Steam VR Stealth Game Looks Like A More Violent Portal, at Kotaku. I got to try the Vive last year and part of that was a Portal demo. Scott and I spent some time wondering how you’d make a Portal game for the Vive played at home and our theories were a lot like the way this game is described.

chocolate peanut and pretzel brittle | smitten kitchen.

What’s the Right Way To Make A Hot Toddy? | Mental Floss.

Cocktail Party Gingerbread Folk | Sprinkle Bakes. They include little foil wrapped booze filled chocolate bottles, what a splendid idea. See also: Gift This! Santa’s Candy Bark.

Brunch Cocktails- Cranberry Ramos Gin Fizz – Craft and Cocktails. Via Design Crush.

SANDY OLD MAN ON X’MAS | Lady and Pups – an angry food blog.

eggnog waffles + a few favorite kitchen things | smitten kitchen. I’m bookmarking this for #4: a deeply dark Dutched cocoa that has an Oreo taste. Interesting!

The Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies Recipe | The Kitchn. See also: Roll Out Sugar Cookie Dough Before Chilling It.

Everything Bagel Bombs, at the Amateur Gourmet. I used Adam’s instructions for Momofuku’s bagel bombs last year and it became an instant tradition. You can freeze these before baking and put them into the oven right from the freezer, perfect for a low fuss fancy breakfast option when the focus is on opening presents.

How to: Hanging Twig Christmas Tree » Curbly.

NORAD’s Santa Tracker Began With A Typo And A Good Sport : NPR. This is an amazing story.

Here are some mobile/tablet games that I recommend for keeping you distracted during long stretches of travel or just during the dark winter nights. (I played all of these on iOS but I’ve linked to the developers websites for each game and noted what platforms they are available on.) They aren’t new but these are the ones that I found memorable and keep around for replaying in the future. At the bottom of this post is a list of little puzzle games that keep me happily distracted while waiting in lines at the airport. Happy travels everybody!

Tetrobot and Co
I am very, very obsessed with this game. This is a cute and stylish puzzle game that hits all the right spots – the controls are easy to pick up, there aren’t any Running Against The Clock levels, there is a rewind button that will take you back one step at a time, and the puzzles are just difficult enough to make you feel like a GENIUS when you solve them but never quite get frustrating. There are plenty of elements to make completionists happy including some play-it-again challenges that make early levels that much more challenging. In Tetrobo and Co. you pilot a tiny robot through each level moving and arranging blocks to make your way to the exit. The blocks have different properties (magnetic, reflective, impervious to fire, stick to the walls). These are all very familiar game concepts but the levels here are especially clever, often requiring a bit of extra discovery on your part to solve. As you go along new physics are introduced so the puzzles never get repetitive. I found the clicky/whirry/buzzy sounds in this game particularly appealing and the soundtrack changes for each set of levels. There is a sweet little background story that is revealed as you solve things that is safe to ignore if that’s not your thing, it’s a continuation of story behind Swing Swing Submarine’s previous game, Blocks That Matter.

What else? The main protagonist in this game, the one who built the tiny robot, is a girl. The game is completely safe for kids (but please don’t tell me if your seven year old found the whole game really easy, my ego will be crushed). It was originally built for PC and is available on Steam, but it was clearly designed with touch screen in mind. I’ve played the predecessor to this game, Blocks That Matter, on my laptop and found the levels just as clever but occasionally more dependent on frustrating time elements (for example, a series of crates catching on fire, a constantly oncoming boss monster). I was able to get through all of the main levels without rage quitting and can definitely recommend playing it.

I’ve been trying to describe to friends why I like Tetrobot and Co so much and I’ve been comparing it to the Portal games because of how smart it makes me feel when I solve a level. I’m currently giving this game a rest in the hopes that I forget all the tricks and solutions so I can play it all over again. Save for kids? Yes. App Store/Steam/Google Play/Humble Store/GOG.

Oceanhorn
Reviewers compare this to a Zelda game (Wind Walker era) and they aren’t wrong. In this game you play a young boy who explores islands, swings a sword, shoots arrows at monsters, finds hidden caves and, yes, defeats a few boss monsters all in the effort to save the world and find his long lost father. I’m not partial to console-like games on the iPad but this one won me over in a big way and I’ve played all the way through it twice. The monsters that you encounter as you explore the world aren’t difficult to defeat (though they do respawn the moment you leave each area) and I had less trouble with the boss monsters than I feared (with a little help from some walkthroughs, I admit, because ugh boss monsters ugh). While you do encounter plenty of monsters the game is well balanced with lots of time for exploration on each new island, and a few towns where you can stock up. There are lots of hidden areas, completionist elements and reasons to revisit old areas (like magic boots that allow you to cross gaps). Despite the usual meters for health/money/arrows/bombs I never found myself stuck. There has been a nice update to the game this year so I’m ready to play through it again. Safe for kids? Yes. App Store/Steam/GOG/Humble Store.

Broken Age
Disclosure: I played this on PC because I was a Kickstarter backer and that was the option available. Having played it and carefully scoured reviews for the touch screen version of the game I’m pretty sure that you won’t miss having a mouse and keyboard when playing this game.

Broken Age is a brand new retro style point and click adventure game of the sort I grew up playing. It’s more about the story and a bit less about the puzzles and I absolutely loved it. The graphics looks like watercolors, the characters are all voiced incredibly well (and by lots of names you’ll recognize) and I absolutely fell in love with all the characters. There is humor and heart and randomness and a little bit of “I have a bucket, a skirt and a mirror and I need to convince a sentient vine to let me jump into the pit” that you’ll recognize if you’ve played these sorts of games before.

The world of the game is split between two characters/worlds that you can switch between if you are feeling stuck with one storyline or the other and I bet you’ve already guessed that at some point the storylines cross. For as much as I love the world that Doublefine has created and I love this sort of game, there isn’t a lot of puzzling or defeating going on here and after a while it becomes clear that no matter how many amusing conversation threads there are you’ll eventually be lead towards the only one that counts. This didn’t make me love the game any less, but if you’re not a fan of the King’s Quest era games this isn’t one that will change your mind. Safe for kids? Yes. App Store/Steam/PS4/PS Vita/Google Play.

Murder Files
Everything about this game seems geared towards a younger version of me but it managed to completely delight my old self. It’s a little bit cartoonish and it’s interspersed with the style of logic puzzles that I remember being given to pass the time during long car trips. (Kids, this was before we had iPads or even, shudder, portable DVD players. Car trips were boring, grim and probably account for 95% of my lateral thinking ability.) The real star here is the narrator who manages a humorously dramatic tone and does all the character voices. Half of the game are the aforementioned logic puzzles and half is listening intently to the answers that possible suspects give which I found surprisingly tricky since my brain is so likely to tune out at the wrong moments. This whodunnit/logic puzzle combination is something I’ve seen in a few games but it’s executed perfectly here and I recall the story as fondly as the puzzles. Safe for kids? Yes. Except, you know, it’s about murder. Kid safe? Yes, but murder is a thing. App Store/PS3/Steam/Kindle Fire/Google Chrome.

The Trace
This is a murder scene investigation game with controls similar to The Room. You can move around, zoom in, make observations and collect clues, find codes and open drawers and uncover some hidden areas. At the end of each case you answer a series of questions and uncover the guilty party. Safe for kids? No, there are some dead bodies lying around. Not gruesome but definitely grim. App Store/Google Play/Kindle Fire.

Agent A
A stylish point and click adventure where you play a secret agent who needs to work her way through the hideout of a villain, Ruby LaRouge. The game is full of tropes – keys and locks and passcodes, hidden panels, getting a clue out of a fish tank that contains sharks, trying to get the cat to move. The game play felt slow at times (go all the way outside to get that thing, now come all the way back, now go outside again) but the puzzles and storyline kept me entertained the whole way through. Bonus points for both the secret agent and the villain being female. Safe for kids: yes but violence is implied. App Store only.

Tiny Bang
I’ve been a little hesitant to recommend this game here. The game has beautiful Samorset-like hand drawn visuals, a relaxing soundtrack, and a charming story. The elements of the gameplay involve hidden object hunting, logic puzzles, jigsaw assembly, some Simon Says (ugh), a couple of constantly moving 8-bit style mini games (which I find frustrating and overly long) and a few puzzles that just require that you put the things in the right place that are somehow simple and difficult at the same time. I don’t find any of these elements particularly swoon worthy on their own but they’ve all been brought together into a game that is (most of the time) relaxing despite all my protestations. Kid friendly? Yes. App Store/Steam/Google Play.

Games I’ve got to carve some time for but love so far: The Wolf Among Us, Seek (swivel chair is helpful, go try it out), Lifeline, Walking Mars, Heroki and The Room 3. What have you been playing? Let us know if you have any gems!

There are lots of chances to buy delightful handmade gifts in and around the Seattle area this December but there are three going on this weekend that are of particular interest to me, and maybe you. These events are run by or feature people who I have worked with and dearly love because they make Seattle a more amazing city.

Urban Craft Uprising
Dec. 5th 10am – 6pm & Dec. 6th 10am – 5pm, Seattle Center Exhibition Hall. This is bustling and packed full of options for everybody on your list. (Seriously, I always leave here with a perfect gift or seven.)

King Street Makers Market
Dec. 3rd – 5th, 11am to 7pm, 666 King St. “A 4-day gift-centric pop-up shop featuring the handcrafted work of PNW makers.” Lovely curated collection filled with things to eat, bake with, wear and display.

The Handmade Showroom Pop-up Shops at Pacific Place
Open every day through Dec. 31st, in Pacific Place Mall. Ok, so this one isn’t exclusive to this weekend but check it out while you’re downtown (and before they go back to a weekend only schedule). The shop features goods from artists and makers in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon and Idaho).

Don’t freak out, but scientists think octopuses ‘might be aliens’ after DNA study | Irish Examiner.

A 3D-Printed Chess Set Made of Pieces That Are Individual Mini Planters, at Laughing Squid. This is pretty darn charming.

Alison Bechdel Would Like You to Call It the “Bechdel-Wallace Test,” | The Mary Sue. This comes from an interview with Alison Bechdel on Fresh Air.

Emily V. Gordon’s book Super You is available for preorder! She is a hero of mine and I’m so looking forward to her book.

Disney’s Artemis Fowl adaptation moving forward with Kenneth Branagh · Newswire · The A.V. Club. The Artemis Fowl books are great because of the secret code running along the pages, but I listened to the audiobooks and was impressed with how cinematic they were. I like the names attached to this movie so here is to hoping it’s great.

The 100 TV Dramas Everyone Should Watch — Vulture. I love that all the Bryan Fuller shows are high on this list. On Dead Like Me: “it’s one of very few coming-of-age stories about a girl that isn’t a story about falling in love.” Yes.

Here’s what one year in space does to your body | The Verge. “Your feces will not be shooting stars.”

The Problem With Trillian: Hitchhiker’s Guide and Me – The Toast.

Jerry the Bear – Off Topic – Cooking For Engineers. A plush bear that teaches kids how to manage their own chronic health conditions by caring for Jerry the Bear. This looks pretty amazing.

Remove Odors from Your Entire Home by Simmering Vinegar, at Life Hacker.

The One Podcast to Start With, Across 24 Topics — Vulture.

VR Interface Design Pre-Visualisation Methods on Vimeo on Vimeo.

Music to Sleep By – The New Yorker. “The composer Max Richter has written an eight-hour-long piece that he hopes listeners will sleep through.” I lived in a noisy apartment in college and would put on an album by The October Project. Training myself that way was incredibly effective, I still get heavily drowsy at the second song on that record.

Ermahgerddon: The Untold Story of the Ermahgerd Girl | Vanity Fair. I dig meme origin stories.

SunsetWx. A sunset quality predictor, via Kottke.

The next game from the creators of Monument Valley is going to be a virtual reality experience, at Kotaku. I’m getting excited about VR.

Sorry Ello, the Real Anti-Facebook Is Good Old Email | WIRED. They call out the old fashioned newsletter, specifically Tiny Letter, here and I have to agree — I’ve signed up for a few newsletters in the past months and it’s like getting my journal-blog days back.

TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Dust: An Elysian Tail’ | TouchArcade.

Little Inferno creator’s new game is about programming people | Polygon. Tablet version coming soon. Yes!

The 50 Best Free Games On PC | Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Knytt is in the top ten!

Cool Tools – The Best Factual Podcasts.

At last, a handy storage solution for your phone! | Sugru. Easy, cheap, removable DIY for an iPhone holder, awesome. Via Swissmiss.

A few years ago I made Trick Or Treat Cookies for Halloween and back then I noted that I’d love to do an all-coffin version. And look! It only took me three years!

I decided to imprint the tops with wood grain using a mat meant to imprint on clay, something I first spotted on Martha Stewart (video, there with Jeff Daniels on an April Fools episode). Doing a little research I found Haniela’s (video) has also created these, and her instructions are wonderful. She’s got a lot of great videos for Halloween baked goods, check out this Monster Eye Cake.

I bought my wood grain mat from a local pottery supply store, it’s the wood grain mat sold by Chinese Clay Art. There is a larger wood grain impression mat for fondant on Amazon. (I would have bought that one if I’d had time, also note: affiliate links.)

When you’re cutting out the cookies roll to 1/4″ thick. Roll the dough between two layers of parchment paper, this will keep the chocolate cookies nice and dark. I have a tiny kitchen so I roll dough on my dining room table using a medium sized Roul’pat. It’s pricey but I adore it, it grips the table and the parchment nicely so things don’t slide around, it gives me plenty of space to work on and I can roll it up to store away.

You’ll need one woodgrain top, one flat bottom and two layers of hollow sides for each cookie. I made these with two hollow layers in the middle, instead of the single layer from my original Trick or Treat Cookies, to allow for more room for candy. I used round cutters to cut out the insides because it was far easier than trying to trim out the middles and laziness ruled that day.

I used dark chocolate candy melts to use as glue because it sets faster, but if you have the time real chocolate would taste better. Use a plastic bag with a very small corner snipped off, no need to get out piping tips or a decorating pen for this one.

Gathering candies to go inside was a lot of fun, I wandered around a particularly well stocked candy shop long enough for the employees to get curious and start suggesting spooky candy for me. Here I have:

• Autumn colors mini gummy worms
• chocolate coated popping candy (There are also apparently Chocolate Pop Rocks out there somewhere!)
• dark chocolate crisp pearls (These come in other flavors and are insanely good sprinkled on ice cream.)
• gray colored Milkies (silver M&M style candies.)
• walnuts coated in chocolate and rolled in cinnamon, which look dusty and spooky but taste amazing
• Wilton candy eyeballs (They also make a red veined version.)
• Wilton skull and bones sprinkles

I wish I had bought the salted licorice black cats because it would make for an interesting good/bad surprise depending on who gets it inside their cookie. I’m pro licorice myself. The wrapped chocolate eyeballs shown here didn’t actually fit in the cookies so let’s all just ignore them. La la la. (Note: affiliate links above.)

Here is the best thing I learned from doing this project: clay art or pottery supply stores are excellent places to get interesting baking supplies. Wandering around Seattle Pottery Supply I saw a whole bunch of tools meant for fondant or baking and I was stunned by the amount of plunger cutters
that allow you to make teeny tiny cookies. Next time I have some creating baking in mind I’m planning to head to the pottery supply store first.

Click more for the recipe: [Read more →]

Here are the things that have caught my eye this Halloween:

FOOD

Eyeball on a brownie created by Christine McConnell. She’s made a candy eye look so much more threatening than simple sugar. Also take a look a the other treats she created. And the house she decorated. And basically everything else she’s done, it’s stunning.

Prosciutto Wands at Martha Stewart. I first encountered these back in the summer but they instantly made me think of Halloween. Very simple and easy to interpret as ghastly when set on a darkly decorated table.

Bleeding Heart Cake (video) by Ann Reardon at How To Cook That. This is a recreation of a cake in a Taylor Swift video but this entirely edible construction for holding hidden goo until you cut into it deserves to be used for Halloween.

Halloween Witch Hat Surprise Cookies at It’s Always Autumn. Easy to make and very cute, bonus points for mixing some candy eyes in with the other treats inside.

NAILS

Creepy 3D Ghost Face tutorial from PiggieLuv (video). This uses gel polish built up in layers, creepy. Via this Halloween nail art round up at Brit+Co.

Halloween DIY Googly Eye Manicure at Design*Sponge. Silly and simple. If you’d like something even simpler take a look at the VandalEyes nail stickers at Espionage Cosmetics, both types glow in the dark!

GAMES

Dark Echo. You can’t see the monsters but you can hear them. I played a demo of this at PAX this year and even standing in a large room filled with people I was frightened when I would finally encounter something that was stalking me. (Mobile on the App Store, Google Play, Amazon Apps and on Steam.)

Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon. This is the second Spider game and this one is larger and tells a much darker story. You maneuver a spider around an estate and it’s grounds and find clues as you explore. If spiders freak you out you can play as a tiny walrus instead, which is hilarious. (Available in the App Store, Google Play, Humble Store and Steam, later for Vita and PS4.)

LISTEN TO

All In Your Head at the 99% Invisible podcast. They detail how the sound designer behind the television show Hannibal made sounds that make us uneasy.

Caitlin Doughty of Ask A Mortician on the Explain Things To Me podcast. A great interview on how she got started in the death business, how embalming became common and what she wants done with her body when she dies. Also listen: Another interview on the Nerdette podcast.

Charles Manson’s Hollywood, a twelve part series on the You Must Remember This podcast. Karina Longworth follows the series of events and the who, how and what sort of society of the time led to the Manson murders. There is meticulous research and in depth stories of the people surrounding Manson’s time in LA. It’s worth looking at the webpage for each episode to see photographs from the time.

Two Halloween playlists for your party needs: at Oh Happy Day and the Marloween 2015 at The Amber Show.

QUESTION FOR YOU

Has anybody tried those lace temporary tattoo masks? Do they stay on for the duration of an evening? I want to try out the various temporary tattoos that are out for Halloween (zombie bites, spiders, masks) but I’m afraid they would flake away after only an hour or so.