RetroVirus255: A game where you have to read the instructions first

I always liked "hack'n'slash" mini-RPGs, where you could pop in for a few minutes, play a level or two, and then forget about it.

I always disliked the RPG games where you could gain significant rewards just by semi-randomly clicking on nearby enemies, with occassional pause to auto-heal.

That's why I created RetroVirus255 game. If you just start playing blindly and clicking in enemies, you will be dead in a few seconds.

It's a cross betwen RPG and puzzle game, because the combat is deterministic - it has no random elements at all.

Unfortunately, it has some some social elements and you have to be on Facebook to play it. Go here to try it out.

Time to get less social

I discovered there are hundreds of comments and personal messages waiting for me at Twitter. The trouble is, I never log in to my Twitter account so I didn't read them. My Twitter was automatically populated from my "Favorite Links and Detailed Activities" feed, that's all. It has no other use.

The solution: I am no longer putting anything on Twitter (manually or automatically).

Dozens of people ask me to "become friends" with them at Foursquare. I don't get it. The reason for being connected at Foursquare is to know when YOUR FRIEND is sitting in the pub somewhere so that I can stop by. I never met most of these people. What could be the reason to add them as friends at Foursquare??? So that I can see that someone who I don't know is at the pub nearby? If they want to know where I am for any reason, they can see that on the top right of this page. I have less than 10 "real" friends on Foursquare and most of them don't update their status there. Also, after experimenting with Foursquare, I have doubts about its usefulness, with many venues duplicated and many having wrong adresses / locations which no one fixes (I tried reporting them, nothing happened).

The solution: I am blocking my Foursquare account.

I am also getting extremely irritated by Facebook: For example, I once "Liked" the movie "Kick-Ass" at imdb.com and I immediately began receiving "News" from IMDB to my Facebook account. News that have nothing to do with Kick-Ass. I also became a member of the Facebook Group "KickAssCZ" and I found out later that I now have "KickAssCZ" as my favorite movie on Facebook, without me adding it there (ignoring the fact that there is not any movie called "KickAssCZ"). Worst of all, I clicked on someone's bizarre Facebook link, which resulted in ME sending the same bizarre link to my FB friends. Again, without me knowing about it and without possibility for removing this link.

The solution: The solution does not exist so far, I am afraid, because I have to keep my Facebook presence intact for now (because of my work). But note that I am only adding people who I can call my friends to my "Friends" list - read about it here.

If you somehow want to see what I enjoyed seeing / reading on the web, there has always been one single best solution: Watch my "Interesting Links" feed. Several links appear in it every day and it can be viewed using anything that handles RSS. It's generated by Google Buzz / Reader but that doesn't matter. If the Google ceased to exist, this feed would still be at the same address, generated by some other means. If you want to be more social and comment on these items, I suggest using Google Buzz (which is connected to this feed).

In any case, please note that my Google account is "fuka@fuxoft.cz". This is my e-mail, my Jabber/GoogleTalk id and also my Google Wave id! If you still have my old Google account mentioned somewhere (fuxoft@google.com), please delete it, I no longer use it (for several years now).

My other "live feeds" (my blogs, my photos etc., including the "Everything Fuxoft" feed previously used to populate the Twitter) are explained on my homepage.

Oh, those Facebook games...

No, I Am Not Your Facebook Friend

A long time ago, I registered myself on several social sites (Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo etc...).

Recently, Facebook was "discovered" by Czech users which means that I am now getting about 30 Facebook notifications in e-mail daily, most of which look like this:

"Honza added you as a friend on Facebook. We need to confirm that you know Honza in order for you to be friends on Facebook. To confirm this friend request, follow the link below."

When I go to facebook.com, often I have no idea who that person is. Sometimes I know that person but - and this is the important bit - this doesn't mean the person is my friend.

Facebook seems to imply that knowing someone automatically means I am friends with him. That's certainly not true. There are dozens of people I know, I don't hate them, I don't think they are stupid, I'd even lend them money under some specific circumstances, but that doesn't mean they are my friends. If this feature was called "My contacts", I'd have no problems with it.

There are also people who I am friends with "virtually", over the net. Of course, I have no way of knowing that "Honza" is in fact "L33THax0RG0D@Haxx.net" who I am communicating with daily over Jabber.

Another thing that rubs me the wrong way is the fact that becoming friends with someone automatically makes me part of bizarre activities:

The thing on the right is a small part of what I see every day on Facebook (incidentally, these people are my real friends). I'd probably like to know details about why Robert Rameš loves me, because I always thought he was hetero, but when I click on "Click here", I must "Allow this application to access all your private data" and only after that I am allowed to see the whole truth (I quote):

"Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'FacebookRestClientException' with message 'Notifications are disabled for this application.' in /home/www/ilyfb.leadhoster.com/facebookapi_php5_restlib.php:2403 Stack trace: #0 /home/www/ilyfb.leadhoster.com/facebookapi_php5_restlib.php(969): FacebookRestClient->call_method ('facebook.notifi...', Array) #1 /home/www/ilyfb.leadhoster.com/index.php(10): FacebookRestClient->notifications_send(Array, '/home/www/ilyfb.leadhoster.com/facebookapi_php5_restlib.php on line 2403"

Tragic love, indeed.

When I want to know what the hell is this "I love you" application, the only working link leads to Facebook discussion page with "I love you" and "This is spam" messages, all from people I don't know.

Facebook is fast becoming the new MySpace, with people "adding", "tagging", "making friends" and "subscribing to apps" only in order to have some sense of achievement from the fact that they have the most firends/apps/feeds. Soon, all of this will be automated a everyone will become everyone's friend automatically, without having to ever visit Internet. And there will be worldwide peace.

Certainly there are interesting apps and interesting uses of Facebook. Unfortunately, they are being buried under enormous heaps of digital waste and thinly veiled spam. I hope I won't have to completely delete my profile (as I did on MySpace) but meanwhile, I am disabling all my Facebook e-mail notifications. Because my friends know how to contact me and make me part of their activities.