Starting Marathon Infinity in vidmaster mode on linux

A few days ago I installed Marathon Infinity for some multiplayer games. I wanted to practice a bit first, but sadly it is not possible to start a multiplayer game alone, so the only way to get some fast action is to play singleplayer in vidmaster mode.

This resulted in another problem. I could not figure out the button combination to trigger vidmaster mode on linux. After some minutes searching I was quite frustrated, but thankfully the Aleph One source is available, and the source revealed:


static bool has_cheat_modifiers(void)
{
	SDL_Keymod m = SDL_GetModState();
#if (defined(__APPLE__) && defined(__MACH__))
	return ((m & KMOD_SHIFT) && (m & KMOD_CTRL)) || ((m & KMOD_ALT) && (m & KMOD_GUI));
#else
	return (m & KMOD_SHIFT) && (m & KMOD_CTRL) && !(m & KMOD_ALT) && !(m & KMOD_GUI);
#endif
}

Based on this, vidmaster mode on linux is activated by holding SHIFT and CTRL while clicking BEGIN NEW GAME, and sure enough:

Pledging hard here

BitBreeds stand with the humans; we won’t let it slide.

Aliens

With the discovery of a possibly habitable planet around one of our closest stellar neighbours, it has become clear that sooner rather then later, there will be aliens and UFOs around.

A new hope

This summer, UFO Hunter, a simulator for waging war against UFOs was revived and released to the public.

Our consultant getting accustomed to the simulator
Our consultant getting accustomed to the simulator.

Since the future of humanity rests on the shoulders of this simulator andĀ spacex, we have called back one of our most important assets (a veteran from future wars carefully regrown from DNA retrieved in theĀ Artifact) to perform a thorough test of the simulator.

The force awakens

In the spirit ofĀ Shi Qiang, Lou Ji and Thomas Wade, we at BitBreeds haveĀ declared for the humans. Like our spacex and UFO Hunter friends, we have set our sight on the stars, and we are going for the goal.

What will you do?

Get 1000 the game

My dad is a great teacher, not too long ago he taught me this game he was having his class play. To play you need a dice, pencils, and paper.

Pencil, paper and dice
All the equipment you need.

The game is quite simple, but complicated to master. It works like this:

  • Everyone draws a 3 by 3 table.
  • The dice is rolled and everyone places the rolled value in one of the empty positions in the table. Everyone has to place the value before the next roll.
  • This is repeated until every position in the table is filled.
  • To find your result you add your rows.
A game
A finished game with score 991.
  • The above table would result in the final sum of 123 + 634 + 234 = 991.
  • The winner is the player with the result closest to 1000. This means that 1001 beats 990 and 951 beats 1051 and so on. It is the distance from 1000 that matters.

To play decent in this game, some knowledge of addition is required. To play well you also need to figure out when it is best to play risky, and when to play safe. This is much harder than it may look.

I really hope that after reading this you will try to play this with your friends. If you have no friends willing to play nearby, you can try my asynchronous version. There you can start a game, and then send your friends a link to join that game. Then they can play whenever they want within a week.

Go play Get 1000

If you want to rejoin a game, your 10 last game links will be stored in your local browser storage for a week. These will be listed in your game list. If you saved a join link, you can also use that to join a game.

Superb toy!

This toy is incredible. It is reasonably easy to construct things, while still providing a challenge once you get the basics. It is suitable for nearly all ages. It says 3+ but if you remove the smaller parts it is suitable for much younger children even though they might just enjoy tearing down your constructs. The absurd thing is that when they do, you wont hesitate to make another one, since building these are way too much fun.

WEDGiTS
WEDGiTS