American Settlers: Aside

NOTE: I was going to append this to my previous post, but I realized instead it should stnad on its own.

To those of you just getting started wtih Oregon Trail: American Settler, let me say this: Don't bother.

If you'd rather not follow that advice, then listen further: Start right now building as many infirmaries as you can and in those informaries start building as many needles and mortars as you can, because you're going to need them.

Here's another thing: Does no one else work in these towns? Yeah, yeah, I know. I can get "friends" to come do chores in my town. Go online and get your friends helping, that's how you build a community! Whee! I don't mean that. I mean in-game, does no one else work in these towns? I'm so busy running a sick ward that I've got crops rotting in the field and taxes/revenue going uncollected because very energy bit i get is going towards making medicine. And you know what: They're all going to die before I can get to them all.

[Insert here lesson on how I finally figure out the social gaming aspect and how this is supposed to teach me that It Takes A Village to Raise A Child ® and that the game is a microcosm showing how the liberal/progressive meme of working together with others is supposed to be beter than the conservative do it all yourself/get bootstrappy meme.]

Stuff that. It's just a game. And if they want to inject politics into this kind of thing, then give me the option of kicking some fannies in order to get some of the other denizens of this little pioneer village to do some of their own damn work for a change. Because the truth behind social gaming is not the concept of getting everyone to cooperate so that two plus two can equal five, but so more people get suckered into these games and thus boost the publisher's numbers and the possibility that some idiot will actually start making in-app purchases either to save a dying village or to help a friend.

So tant pis pour cochonnet.

App Review: iSurvival

The time hasn't come yet that an iPod Touch is the first item I think of when I'm compiling a list of wilderness survival essentials, but a friend of mine recently recommended a survival app that just might change my mind.

It's called -- maybe this won't win points for originality -- iSurvival. But as I mock the name, I have to say that for an occasional wilderness wanderer like me, it's got some handy stuff, though I'm hard-pressed to way when, in the future, I envision myself becoming lost at sea. Published by Utah-based Fishington Studios, the app is billed as a "military grade" wilderness survival manual. And considering the friend who recommended the app worked as a paramedic and in California and follows military minutia as he has a son who is a soldier, I have to believe that this app lives up to its billing.

Wilderness Survival, ten-year-old style

There are small tells throughout the manual that reveal the text in iSurvival wasn't originally written for the leisure wilderness crowd -- the chapter on shelters, for example, advises that you choose a place to build your shelter that "provides concealment from enemy observation" -- but, in general, the tips therein echo those I've read in more expensive manuals, including a few I've got lying around the house because I haven't yet gotten around to getting lost.

Though I've poked fun at the manual a bit, it's certainly something I'd have at my side if I were wandering off into the wilds. The app's clear textual presentation, accompanied by clear, useful illustration of survival techniques ranging from shelter-building to identification of edible wild plants.

The link provided above says the app is available for $1.99. I searched iTunes and got it for free, though perhaps the "free" was a short-time promotional price.

The only fault I can see in this app is obvious -- run out of power for your handheld device and the app is locked away forever. Perhaps they've included a chapter on locating current bushes . . .