Celebrating Doctor Who’s 50th – on Google

Google has joined the Doctor Who 50th anniversary action with a timely logo and pixelated adventure.  Check it out here.

Matthew Cruickshank

Just click on the “play button” in the logo and select a starting Doctor so you can fight Daleks and Cybermen across England and into the cosmos.  It’s cute and just the sort of thing I want to see in the days leading up to the 50th.  Not that you could tell I’m a Doctor Who fan from some of the posts on this blog.  These must be trying times for non-Who fans though.

According to the artist’s blog, Matthew Cruickshank, the mini-game and design was also helped by engineers Rui Lopes, Corrie Scalisi, and Mark Ivey.

Cruickshank sums it up nicely on his website by saying: “The Doctor Who doodle started life as a request from a fan at Google. It seemed daunting- 11 Doctor’s, 50 years of adventures, countless enemies and time travel!

Matthew Cruickshank

But we loved the idea of science fiction, technology and fun coming together, so we set about creating a multiple level game. The game was always a simple premise- those dastardly Daleks have stolen the Google letters and we need Doctor Who to retrieve them.”

The real reasons to hate Facebook games

Marvel: Avengers Alliance/Playdom

A lot of my friends on Facebook, and people in general, have a long standing hatred for Facebook games, which is unfortunate for me because every once and a while I get really obsessed with one and play it for a few weeks straight.  I’m not going to say there’s anything wrong with hating Facebook games, but if you really want to roll your eyes the next time someone won’t shut up about Bejeweled Blitz, at least hate the game for the right reasons.

Why do people show disdain for games on Facebook?  Probably the most common reason I hear is because they’re not “real games.”  Which ties into people who play Facebook games not being “real gamers.”  Allow me to roll my eyes at you if that’s the case.  Please, don’t be elitist.  Facebook games are casual games and every bit deserving of a person’s time if that’s what they like.

However, Facebook games are flawed in several ways that do deserve hate.  So if you’re going to bash these games, let me tell what to hate.