ASCII shoot-em-ups through the console, written in Ruby with available source? Awesome!

thechangelog:

UPDATE: I neglected to credit Dennis Hotson in the original post. This has been corrected below.

While definitely silly, don’t write this Canabalt clone off as pointless. When I stumbled across ROFLbalt, a text-mode side-scroller from Paul Annesley and Dennis Hotson last night, I started to write it up for The Changelog but got sucked into the source. It’s fascinating to see Ruby-based text sprites:

class RoflCopter
  include Renderable
  def initialize x, y, background
    @x, @y = x, y
    @background = background
    @frames = [
      [
        '          :LoL:ROFL:ROFL',
        '  L     ____|__         ',
        '  O ===`      []\       ',
        '  L     \________]      ',
        '       .__|____|__/     ',
      ],
      [
        ' ROFL:ROFL:LoL:         ',
        '        ____|__         ',
        ' LOL===`      []\       ',
        '        \________]      ',
        '       .__|____|__/     ',
      ],
    ]
  end

  ...

Go ahead and clone the source and give it a go in your terminal, but be sure and peruse the code and discover some nifty Ruby.

thechangelog:

MorningStar is an open source step-sequenced bassline synthesizer using Javascript and HTML5 Canvas. That’s right kids, NO FLASH. The app is based on Cristiano’s Kiev II library.

Checkout his announcement, the code and the demo.

Ice-bound Ireland (Taken with Instagram at Bearforest)

Ice-bound Ireland (Taken with Instagram at Mallow)

I’m on my way home from Ginglik: a Victorian toilet under Shephards Bush that has been converted into a music venue. It’s far more appealing than it sounds and I can vouch that does not smell like a toilet, though in heavy rain it leaks like one.

This was the last night of The Big Secret, a show that features (well, featured) little known and rising musicians, most of them soloists. It had the unique attraction of an artist that drew pictures in charcol of his interpretation of the songs, and beam the drawing as he rendered it onto a screen, which lead to a marvellous mix of music and art.

And, after six years, tonight was the swansong. I admit that it was a recent discovery for me (thanks to my friend Marek) and I have only attended a handful of times, but I lament its passing, as I now am robbed of the chance to go again.

But it ended with four strong performances, and gave me the opportunity to discover the wonderful Jem Cooke. And so I walk home, my head filled with new tunes, new artists for Spotify and a need to find a new and secret venue.