Design Virtual Bridges With West Point Bridge Designer

West Point Bridge Designer is a challenging engineering game where your goal is to design and build virtual bridges for the lowest possible cost. Unlike the simplistic, fun oriented bridge building game Cargo Bridge, West Point Bridge Designer is designed to be realistic.

One of the purposes of the West Point Bridge Designer 2012 is to provide a realistic, hands-on experience that will help players understand how civil engineers design real structures. While many aspects of the software accurately reflect the structural design process, a number of significant compromises have been made to keep the program from getting too complex. WPBD is intended as an introduction to engineering design, with emphasis on the design process, rather than the detailed technical aspects of structural design.

As a player you have to plan and design a virtual steel bridge to carry a two-lane highway spanning a river, in much the same way that practicing civil engineers design real highway bridges. Your goal is to design a bridge that doesn’t collapse when a load is put on it while trying to obtain the lowest possible cost in the process. You may choose from a wide variety of different site configurations for your bridge, and you also have at your disposal all the basic structural elements such as bars, beams, columns and joints.

The game takes care of all heavy-duty mathematical calculations, so that you can concentrate on the creative part of the design process.

Once your first design attempt is complete, you will be able to test your bridge to see if it is strong enough to carry the specified highway loads. This test shows a colorful animation of a truck crossing your bridge. If your design is strong enough, the truck will be able to cross it successfully; if not, the structure will collapse. During the crossing the stress on various elements of the bridge will be highlighted by color allowing you to gauge which elements need replacement or strengthening.

If your bridge collapses, you can strengthen it by changing the properties of the structural components that make up the bridge, or by changing the configuration of the bridge itself. Once your bridge can successfully carry the highway loading without collapsing, you can continue to refine your design, with the objective of minimizing its cost while still ensuring that it is strong enough to carry the specified loads.

West Point Bridge Designer is developed by the West Point Military Academy in the USA, who use it to run a large annual contest. The contest is open to students of age 13 through grade 12, who are currently enrolled in schools in the United States. However, anyone can participate in the West Point Bridge Design Contest – you just won’t be able to advance to the Qualifying Round and compete for prizes. Prizes include $10,000 in scholarship and a notebook computer.

2013 West Point Bridge Design Contest will start on January next year. See this page for more details about the contest.

Read more ...

Where Did The Games Folder on Windows 8 Go?

Free games such as Minesweeper and Solitaire have been a standard fare for Windows for decades. Nobody would call them the best or the most influential games of all time, yet over the years these classic Microsoft games have become some of the most widely played video games on any platform. Nobody would consciously sit down in front of a computer for a round of Solitaire, but during boring office meetings everyone would sub-consciously reach for the Games folder in the Start menu. If nothing else, these famous titles have become the leading boredom killers. From hardcore gamers to clueless secretaries to bored grandmas, everyone has played Solitaire or Minesweeper or Mahjong at one point or another.

Inexplicably, games do not form a part of the Windows 8 package. Free games are still there, but they need to be installed from the Windows Store where they compete with other professional titles like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja. Surprisingly, Microsoft doesn’t even push these titles on the Store page. You have to seek them out yourself.

Microsoft Minesweeper

Minesweeper for Windows 8 includes the classic mine-based theme as well as a “Garden theme” where mines are replaced with Ladybugs. The previous flower garden theme has been done away with. But it has an Adventure mode where you guide a brave cave digger to the center of the Earth, collecting riches along the way while avoiding mines. The game includes updated graphics and sound but the underlying gameplay is the same.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection

This collection includes five different card games in one - Klondike, FreeCell, Spider, TriPeaks, and Pyramid.

• Klondike: This version is the timeless classic that many people just call Solitaire. Try to clear all the cards from the table using traditional scoring or the popular Vegas scoring system.
• FreeCell: Use four extra cells to move cards around as you try to clear all cards from the table.
• Spider: Eight columns of cards await your attempts to clear them with the fewest moves possible. Start out playing with a single suit until you’re comfortable, and then see how you fare when using two or even all four suits in a game.
• TriPeaks: Select cards in a sequence, either up or down, to earn points.
• Pyramid: Pair two cards that add up to 13 in order to clear them. Try to reach the top of the pyramid.

Microsoft Mahjong

Microsoft Mahjong is the classic matching game updated with beautiful imagery, intuitive controls, and all the features that fans of mahjong have come to expect. There are three different themes to choose from, and three levels of difficulty.

Pinball FX 2

Pinball FX 2 is the sequel to Pinball FX released for Xbox 360. The player fires a steel ball onto the playfield using a plunger. Once the ball is in play the player controls the flippers and can nudge the machine to influence the path of the ball. Each of the game's tables become more complex as the game advances, opening new paths and opportunities.

New Games

Microsoft stopped developing Chess Titans and Hearts, and the abysmal Purple Palace, thank goodness. Instead, there are three new free games from the company.

Adera

Adera is a point-and-click adventure game that will unfold like in a series of episodes across multiple seasons. The episodic story begins when the protagonist Jane Sinclaire receives a desperate message from her long-missing grandfather. Using nothing but her wits and a strange stone orb to guide her, Jane sets out to find her grandfather before it’s too late. The game’s complete storyline will be revealed over five seasons, the first of which will be free and will offer about three to four hours of gameplay. Future instalments will be available for purchase at a price not yet announced.

Wordament

Wordament is a word game where you are competing with the whole internet to be the best word searcher in every game. Every player is competing on the same board, in real time, and each game lasts only 2 minutes. Each board is unique and alternating rounds offer challenges such as two- and three-letter digram tiles and theme puzzles. You can choose to go for the bonus points, try to find the most words possible or earn scoring bonuses by finding longer words.

Taptiles

Taptiles is a 3D puzzle and matching game. The player must clear matching pairs of cube-shaped tiles in order to complete each puzzle, usually before a timer runs out. Tiles can only be cleared when they have at least one edge completely free, and points are awarded for players who can match quickly and build a speed chain. The game comes in 4 different play modes, including a fast-paced race against the clock, a more methodical puzzle game and an untimed mode for players who want a more relaxed experience.

Read more ...

5 Free Horror Games as Terrifying as Slender

Recently, a new indie-developed psychological horror game called Slender was released and it become immensely popular on the Internet. It received many positive reviews on gaming websites around the web, with phrases such as “pure horror” and “absolutely terrifying” being used to describe the game. Kotaku even has an amusing compilation of videos showing people getting scared when playing Slender. If you liked playing this game and want to re-live the experience, but with a different game, here I’ve compiled a list of games that all have the same terrifying and claustrophobic atmosphere similar to the one in Slender. They shouldn’t hurt your wallet either, because they’re all free.

Before we look at the other games, let us take a quick peek at Slender for the benefit of the readers who haven’t heard about this game.

Slender is based on the mythical creature called Slenderman that was originally conceived in a thread devoted to creating fake paranormal photos on the Something Awful Forums. It’s a slim, elongated figure with a featureless white face and root-like protrusions and he appeared in the background of black and white photos.

The game begins with the player in a forest at night. The goal of the game is to collect eight notes scattered throughout the woods with the Slenderman stalking behind. The player is equipped with a only a flashlight with a battery which must be conserved. There are no weapons and the only way to survive the game is to avoid Slenderman.

The game is currently in beta and is available for Windows and Mac.

Now the alternatives.

Hide

Hide is a very simple game with very simple low-resolution, retro graphics. The game drops you off in the middle of a snowy forest. Your goal is find five signs scattered across a map while avoiding being found by an unknown monster that is prowling the landscape. Just like Slender, there's no way to physically fight back against your pursuers, so your only form of defense is simply to run and hide. The soundscape consisting of footsteps on the snow, a distant church bell and heavy breathing does a good job in creating a terrifying atmosphere.

Hide is available for both Windows and Mac.

Penumbra

The Penumbra trilogy is another immersive survival horror game very similar to Slender. The game was originally developed as a tech demo to demonstrate the capabilities of the company's HPL Engine. The demo was so well received that the company decided to develop it into a full commercial game. Although Penumbra is not a free game, the original tech demo is still available and is entirely playable for free.

Penumbra follows the story of Philip, a thirty-year-old physicist whose mother recently died. After receiving a mysterious letter from his supposedly dead father, Philip follows a series of clues that lead to him to a mysterious location in uninhabited northern Greenland. The harsh cold forces him to take shelter in an abandoned mine. Unfortunately, the mine's entrance collapses as he enters it, and he is forced to move deeper inside.

The mine is entirely dark. Philip is equipped with a flashlight which he must operate sparingly to conserve battery and a few glow sticks that he picks up on the way. Even with the flashlight, the darkness engulf around you and together with your fears. The game's main focus is on exploration and classic adventure game object interaction: examining and collecting objects and using them to solve puzzles.

You should definitely checkout the other games of the series - Penumbra: Overture, Penumbra: Black Plague, and Penumbra: Requiem, and also Amnesia: The Dark Descent from the same developers.

SCP-Containment Breach

In SCP – Containment Breach you play a worker who is trapped inside a containment facility during an accident in the building and must find a way to escape while dealing with several scary entities. The creatures only move when not in direct line of sight, but to prevent you from keeping the creature always in view the game incorporates a blink-meter that forces players to blink.

RockPaperShotgun writes: “Repetitive, dark and ominous, it aimed to have players wishing for something to happen in order to break the monotony while also desperately hoping that nothing would happen because the only possibilities were awful.”

Incidentally, you cannot escape or beat the game at the moment. This is because the game is the alpha development stage, and currently has no ending. SCP-Containment Breach features a randomly generated map layout so you can replay the game as many times you want.

Candles

This is another indie-developed horror game that uses darkness and spooky sounds to keep you constantly on edge. Your house has been taken over by dangerous imps while you were away and now you need to move around carefully, lighting candles to scare them away. Like Slender and other games mentioned here, Candles has the same tense and creepy feeling. The game is relatively short game, and has a couple of glitches, but it’s still a nice take on the horror genre.

The Corridor

From IndieGames: “In The Corridor, the player wakes up from a sense of unexplained anxiety, leave their room, and find themselves in a dark, long hallway. The hotel slowly turns into an endless maze of walls that forebode something sinister. They then must go deeper into the darkness to escape.”

The developer's website is in Russian, but the game narrates in English and should be played with a headset. The game is unfinished but the current build is playable and should give players a good fright.

Read more ...

Kerbal Space Program: Build And Launch Your Own Rocket

Kerbal Space Program: Build And Launch Your Own Rocket

Kerbal Space Program is a fun and engrossing space simulation game that puts you in charge of an alien space program. Your job is to build rockets and help the aliens, called Kerbals, get off the planet and into space. The game is still under development, and as yet there are goals and objectives. It’s pretty much an open sandbox where you are free to build anything you want and fly it to anywhere. 

The core of the game lies on rocket design. If you want to build a worthy spacecraft capable of successfully launching the aliens into space and safely returning them back to their planet Kerbin, you must carefully plan each stage. The tutorial is a bit long winded but it explains the basics nicely. Instead of reading the tutorial, you can watch the tutorial videos which will walk you through the steps in less time.



You start at the Rocket Assembly Building where the designing takes place. Various pre-fabricated modules such as liquid fuel engines, fuel tanks, solid fuel rockets, landing gear, wings, steering fins, struts etc are available. Each part comes with a short description and specification. To build a rocket simply drag the parts and slap them into each other. There is no size limitation on how big the rocket can be and no budget to limit your design.

You can build simple single stage rockets to more complex 2 or 3 stage rockets. You can start with simple goals like building a rocket that doesn’t tumble out of control and then move on to challenging tasks like getting into orbit, or landing the spacecraft on one of the two fictional moons (Mün and Minmus). Or just let your creativity go wild and build bizarre shaped rockets and watch the fun.
Once your rocket is ready it’s time to head out to the launch pad to try out your creation. If the rocket is well built it will take off without incident.

Once in flight, you can maneuver the rocket by controlling the pitch, yaw and thrust with different keys. There is no auto-pilot as such but there are what they call “S.A.S. Module” or Stability Augmentation System that help stabilizing the rocket. Without S.A.S. Modules it’s pretty hard to control the rocket, so make sure you install them when you’re building the rocket.



Overhead displays lets you monitor each stage of the rocket, the rocket’s altitude, speed, bearing etc. If you placed a command module into the craft you’ll have space crews – three Kerbal astronauts. Their faces and reaction, visible during the entire trip, seems to periodically alternate between elation and fear.

The game supports extensive end-user modification, allowing craft parts to easily be built and implemented by players. As a result, the game enjoys a significant modding community, with hundreds of modifications released to date. These modifications to the game add to functionality, allowing craft such as land vehicles or airplanes to be created far more easily than with the base game.

Kerbal Space Program is currently in the alpha stage of development, and can be downloaded for free. However, there is a newer updated version that can be purchased for $18. The free version of the game will always remain free but will never be updated.

Read more ...

Rovio Releases New Game “Amazing Alex” for Android and iOS

Rovio’s phenomenal success, the Angry Birds, now has a new brother - Amazing Alex. Released today on the Android and iOS platform, Amazing Alex is a physics based puzzle game that includes 100 levels, but unlike its sibling this time you have to cough up $0.99 cents to own it. However, a trial game with 16 levels is available for Android.

Amazing Alex employs a gameplay different from Angry Birds: instead of punishing pigs, you have to create Rube Goldberg-style machines by adding different parts like shelves, boxes or scissors starting with simple contraptions in the early levels to more complicated additions later on. While Angry Birds was a trial-and-error game throughout all the different versions, Amazing Alex requires creativity and planning to solve each level.

Amazing Alex was not developed by Rovio from scratch. It used to be called Casey's Contraptions when Rovio bought it from the game developers Mystery Coconut last year. They touched up the graphics and introduced some Angry Birds-inspired structure.

An exciting aspect of Amazing Alex is that users will be able create their own "challenges" and share them with others.

Amazing Alex is available now for 99 cents for the iPhone and $2.99 for the iPad. On Android based devices it is available for 99 cents or $2.99 for the HD version. Rovio says that the game will be available to Windows Phone, Mac, and PC soon.

[via TheNextWeb and Softonic]

Read more ...

JogoBox: Download, Organize and Play Thousands of Free Games

If you love playing casual, arcade-style games, you must be familiar with sites like Kongregate and Newgrounds. And if you love these gaming portals, you will also love JogoBox. But unlike Kongregate and others, JogoBox is not a website – it’s a desktop program that gives you access to thousands of games that are typically found online and played in browsers. The difference being, with JogoBox, you can download these games to your computer, organize and play them offline whenever you want. Aside from casual games, JogoBox also offers several PC-based freeware games such as America’s Army, Sid Meier’s Civilization, Super Mario, Command and Conquer, UFO: Alien Invasion and more.

The initial download of JogoBox is 363KB, but this is only the pre-installer, which further downloads some 55MB of additional files when launched. After the installation you will be taken to the main program.

JogoBox’s main screen appears very much like a game portal. There is a “Featured games” section at the top, which I’m sure, will be updated every once in a while. There is another “New games” and “Popular games” section underneath. At the top left there is a navigation bar that takes you to a curated list of games organized by game genre such as Adventure, Brain, Fighting, Girls, Racing, PC Games, Skills and Sports. The nomenclature is a little offbeat and out-of-way from the traditional Action/Strategy/Puzzle type of categorization you are familiar with, but they are easy to identity and even intuitive in some cases. For example, if you want Cake Mania type games out of your list, you can totally avoid the Girls section.

You can also utilize the Search tool to quickly find games you want to play.

When you select a game JogoBox shows you a short description, a few screenshots and gameplay controls, along with system requirements. To play the game, click the Play Now button, This will start downloading the game. You can see the download size only after the game begins to download. I would have preferred to see it before downloading, but the download can be cancelled if it appears too big, for instance.

All games are downloaded and saved within JogoBox’s installation directory, but you can change the location of the download from the application setting. As soon the game finishes downloading you are ready to play. JogoBox keeps track of all downloaded games which you can access from the “My Games” section. You can even create shortcut to the game and place it in your desktop so that you can play them without opening JogoBox first.

JogoBox is fantastic game organizer that can easily replace Windows 7’s default game manager. Besides, it works on Windows XP and Vista, apart from Windows 7.

Other Game Dowloading Tools: Tiggit and Games Downloader

Read more ...