Prague Under Attack By Giants

Prague by Night

The Game is Finished

You can play it here.

---PLAY---

Todays Game Update

Newest version as of now.

Controls are the same as before, except now you can press up to go through doors.

UPDATES:

-Multiple stages
-Doors

-----PLAY-----

New Hobby Update

For those who haven't read the post titled "New Hobby", read that one first!

I have decided to use this blog as a way to show the progress in my game designing process. Working with the graphics from yesterday, and some new code thank to a tutorial at This Page I have a new version of the game now.

I put a link into the tutorial because I feel it is important to give credit to the people that deserve it, finding good tutorials for Flash 8 is fairly difficult, but his worked amazingly well.

I took out the "attacks" of this version, I will put them back later.

Move Left/Right --> Arrow Keys
Climb/Descend Ladder/Boxes --> Up/Down Arrows
Jump --> Space Key
Crouch --> Down Key (when not on a latter/box)

-----PLAY-----

Another --Newer-- Version

+Background animation
+Little bug fixes

-----PLAY-----

New Hobby

Here's a random, non-Germany related blog entry for today, just 'cause I can.

I picked up a little new hobby this year, just because I wanted something to do in my free time. Programming. It sounds boring, and a lot of it is, but making a game can be fun (I am using Flash). I wouldn't suggest it to people who get easily frustrated, have trouble finishing things, enjoy sleeping at night, or have trouble writing tons of unintelligible lines of code without typos. Strangely, those are all things that describe me. I guess it's kinda like someone that has a fear of spiders taking on a hobby as a spider breeder.

I chose this little hobby because I was looking for video games (my other little hobby) for my Mac and I realized how few there are, and how expensive they are (*Windows version -> 10$* *Mac version -> 50$*). I thought if I started easy, I could maybe work my way up eventually and help out all the people like me who just want to entertain themselves on their Macs without spending a bunch of money.


Here is a sample of a days work on a Flash program, you can't even call it a game yet, but I like how it's coming along. At my current level of programming skill, something like this takes a few hours (animation and coding).







Movement -> Arrow Keys
Jump (when standing still) -> Up Key
Crouch -> Down Key
Weak Punch -> C Key
Strong Punch -> X Key

Note -- Don't expect anything to come at you, like enemies, because there aren't any, you just walk around the one part of the stage.

To start, click on the ---PLAY--- link below and then just click anywhere inside the animation box on the new page, you will need Flash Player to get it to work.

------PLAY-----

Have Fun
-Kevin

This year until now in a mosiac

This was just a test for a bigger project at first, but it turned out OK so I thought I would share it with the few people each day who still look at the blog. I haven't had much motivation to write new blogs lately. You can show your longing for more news by posting a comment (just writing "write more" is enough) to let me know you were here!

Every square in this picture is a picture that I have either taken in Germany this year, or used in some way in Germany (pictures of my home town, for example, to show to people in Germany).

The big picture is me in front of the Hamburg capitol building.

Enjoy.

TIP -- Click on the picture to make it bigger!

Sushi Night

Sushi Night

I decided to make some sushi today for some delicious fun.  It turned out o.k. in the end, the rice wasn't the best and some of the ingredients weren't balanced right, but it was still tasty, and it was fun to make.  Here are some shots from this evening.

Here is my host mom, rolling up her own sushi roll.


Here is the first of the three types we made. This one is smoked salmon with cucumber and cream cheese. The salmon gives it the nice smokey and fishy flavor, the cucumber brings a nice crunch to the bite, and the cream cheese makes everything blend together smooth, but there was too much of the latter ingredient.


Here is the North Sea shrimp and avocado roll. The North Sea shrimps are from the North Sea, which is the sea to the North of Germany. This roll was a favorite with Heiko.


Here is the last roll, simple avocado, cucumber, and cream cheese. I wasn't sure if somebody wanted something without fish, and a roll without fish can be stored for eating sometime else.


Here is the end result, 6 of the 9 total rolls made are here, and the four of us almost finished this plate,


Till next time,

-Kevin Sacherman

Weimar, in English, by day.

For the German version go here --> www.sachermanindeutschland.blogspot.com (It might not be updated for a little.


I just got back from 5 days in the city of Weimar, Germany's so-called "culture city." The city is well known for being the home of both Goethe and Schiller, some of Germany's most famous writers. The lived there in the 16th century, before the United States existed, but their houses are still standing. On a darker note, Weimar was also kind of a starting point for the Nazi party in the 1930's, and one of the first concentration camps, Buchenwald, was built just a few miles outside of the city. After the war, the city was in the DDR, East Germany. These contrasting histories make this city an ideal place to learn about German history and culture.

This trip was organized by the German side of the exchange program (GIVE, ASSE, PPP, CBYX are all abbreviations I have heard for it.). I don't want to bash the American side too bad, but the German side really seems to have their shit together, and they put on a great couple days. If anybody has read my blogs about the Washington DC trip at the beginning of the year, they will know the little issues I had with it.

So here it goes with:

Day 1

Day one was mostly traveling. I got pretty lucky with my train tickets and managed to meet up with a few friends on the train.
The train ride was uneventful, but I got to see some new scenery from the train, we went through Berlin and East Germany, and we hat the switch trains in Leipzig. Everything was going pretty well, I made all the trains in time and I brought plenty of snacks so it was looking like it was going to be a pretty smooth day, but then I did something stupid; I left my bag on the train.

Now, for travelers, leaving a bag on the train and leaving a bag on an airplane are completely different. If you leave something on an airplane, you will have about a half-hour time period where you could go back to the train and ask to go get it, but unlike an airplane, a train leaves one station after about 3 minutes, and after that it's gone, the train won't stop or turn around. I noticed it just as I was leaving the station, and even though I ran at full speed back through the station to the platform, I couldn't even see the train by the time I got there. Now, there wasn't anything too important in this bag, I had my backpack and my wallet, cell phone, and such, but 5 days without any new clothes or toiletries would have been a disaster.

The next step was that I went to the help desk with a friend (his German is way better than mine and I didn't want to screw this one up) and we told the lady there that I had forgotten my bag. Upon hearing this, she pulled out this HUGE book, which in my mind is always a bad thing, when someone needs pulls the big book out. As it turns out, it wasn't very complicated at all, she called someone who called the train, and someone on the train went searching for the bag, and they managed to find it before the train left the next station, which was Erfurt. They aren't allowed to mail people's bags, so I had to buy a ticket and take a little adventure. In the end, I was 6 euros lighter, with both my bags and a few pictures of Erfurt. Success.

That night the whole group got together, 47 of us total, 3 went home early, and watched a film.  I say film because even though it was about 90 minutes, I always consider movies to be interesting, and films are things you watch in school, or on the History Channel, where the same 5 pictures float across the screen with creative zoom techniques with an old guy talking for a long time.

We also took an initial tour of the city, to get an overview of some of the things we will see later.

Day 2

After the excitement of day 1, I could hardly wait for day 2.  I got a room with 2 guys from Oregon, Johnny and Ryan.  Breakfast was the normal German affair, rolls with meats, cheeses, pig-based spreads, and jellies.  Did you know that the direct translation of the German word for breakfast is "early piece"?  Pretty funny.  After early piece we headed into the city to look at Goethe's and Schiller's houses.  I was pretty bummed that you weren't allowed to take any pictures inside, but that's something you readers will have to deal with.  The houses were interesting, considering that they were hundreds of years old.  We also got to see Goethe's traveling coach, back then it must have been the cadillac of horse drawn buggies.

Day 3

Day three was a day trip to Wittenburg, the city where Martin Luther lived during the reformation of the Catholic church.  This trip started with an hour and a half on the train, then we had a tour of the city.

This is Martin Luther's house, actually one side of his house form the view of the courtyard in the middle. It was pretty giant.

This is the city church in Wittenburg, different from the castle chruch, below, where Martin Luther "hang his 95 thesis' on the door" (He didn't really hang them there, but it's close enough.)

After lunch we went to the Kennedy center for international economics (or something along those lines) for a seminar on economy ethics.  Now, I'm not going to say that it was bad, but it was just extremely confusing.  We had to play this card game together.  Each table had a set of rules that were slightly different, and the rules were extremely vague.  Because nobody could really understand it right and therefor nobody was playing right, the guy leading the seminar was getting pretty angry and he kept changing the rules.  By the time the rules were settled, the game ended up to be a variation of Hearts, but stripped of all skill based elements and fun.  You would deal the entire deck of cards out, and you weren't allowed to look at your cards.  Then the person to the left of the dealer put their top card out, and the other players each put a card out.  The suit of the first card determines which suit counts that round, like Hearts, but since you weren't allowed to look at your cards, it didn't matter.  The person with the highest card of that suit (usually the person who started, because there would not be any other cards of that suit played) would win.  To make it more confusing, we weren't allowed to talk with each other.  The winners and losers moved to a different table, where the rules would be a little different.

We didn't learn until it was over that it was teaching us about global economics.  The lead guy tried to explain that the girl who won the most rounds won because she had good leading skills, even the game was 100% (I'm not exaggerating here) luck, and that everyone else lost because they couldn't adapt to new rules or work well with other people.  He had a good message, but the method of telling it was broken.  In the end, it turned out to be another lesson about culture shock, which is pointless by now because we have been living here in Germany for 6 months now.

The cards.

An excited participant. (roommate Ryan)

Day 4

On day 4 we got down to some of the heavy history of the area, starting with a trip to Buchenwald, one of the first concentration camps built by the Nazi party.  First some background information on the area.  The city was one of the first cities that gave its full support to the Nazi party (There was a time when many people supported the Nazi party, before the war.)  This city was also the first to start making Hitler's youth groups.  Because the Nazi party had been in the city for so long before the war started, nobody had a problem when they built the concentration camp, Buchenwald, just a few miles outside the city.  It wasn't until the end of the war, when General Patton forced the residents of the city to walk through the camp that the town knew what was going on just around the corner.

I didn't take any pictures there, under the request of our guides, even they taking pictures was allowed.  All of the original prisoner barracks were gone, but the main gate, the fence, the crematorium, and a few other structures were still there.

After that, we headed back and in the afternoon we had a very awkward group discussion, nobody had much to say so we sat almost completely silent for about an hour and a half.  That brings us to,

Day 5

Day 5 was also just a travel day, but because I booked my train on the safe side (later) I ended up waiting about 2 hours longer than everyone else, and I traveled alone.

Me waiting, self portrait, too bad that the weather was so nice for the travel day.

The rolling hillsides of East Germany, pretty nice view for the train ride.

Well, that's it (alot, I know).  Check back for "Weimar, by night" for the lighter, social based version starring Jeff Condor and brought to you by MayO's, It's Mayonnaise for Breakfast!

Till then, write some comments and tell your friends to read this,

-Kevin Sacherman

Edit : I mixed up day 2 and 3, oops. (They are still mixed up)

Uri Geller

I thought I would explain a bit about who Uri Geller is, since I have a video or two on my blog and it doesn't need to be an inside joke with the guys from Germany. Uri is a magician, a special flavor of magician though, they call themselves "mentalists". He was really popular in the 60's or 70's, mostly because of his "amazing" ability to bend spoons by just rubbing them and thinking really hard. My guess is that his popularity waned when people caught on to the fact that it was fake, but maybe people wanted to see something new.

Back to the point, now he's got his own TV program in Germany, and oh, what a surprise, it's a game show, like every German TV show. It's called "The Next Uri Geller" and it is supposed to search for someone to replace him, from 10 of the top "mentalists" or something. In addition to the silly competition and American Idol-like long, drawn out shows, Uri says he'll do a live illusion every week, and he will even make things happen in the viewers' houses!

The first week, he fixed broken clocks and he made spoons fly off the top of televisions, which is in the video under

www.sachermaningermanyvideos.blogspot.com

To let people know, the video is completely real, I filmed with a real camera, put directly on my real computer, and loaded directly onto the real internet. Nothing about the video itself is altered, although I'm not going to make any promises about the condition of the spoon that evening.

The next week he made peoples tables shake and slide, I felt like I was watching ghost hunters on the Discovery Channel (which is a great show, if you get the chance, much better than Uri Geller) I made a video there too, but it's not worth putting on the site.

Anyway, we'll see if this magician can manage to suck a few million dollars out of this generations pockets, just like he did last time he was popular.

If you're interested, there are some great informational videos on YouTube about him.

-Kevin Sacherman

Cartoons

The German class decided to put together a class newspaper, and instead me just waiting for the project to be over, I pulled out my pen and whipped up these masterworks. Unlike the last post about my drawings, these were made during the proper homework time (at home) and with the teachers permission, except for maybe a few, but thats beside the point.



This was my first one, it was right after people found out that Iran didn't really have a nuclear program, it translates to, "No, George, no more cookies until you stop lying about the Middle East." I didn't think it was particularly funny, but other people liked it.



This is a Hamburg based joke, at the time I wrote it, the Hamburg cultural museum had just found out that it had bough fake Chinese terra-cotta soldiers, it translates to, "Hey guys, they're made out of chocolate!"



This one is about the new electronic voting machines this year in Hamburg, and how people were unsure about how to use them and such.



This one is my favorite of this bunch, it's about global warming, the newspapers say things like, "Knut is 1" and "Save the earth" and such. Take note of the irony with the airplane.

KEGELN!!

I think I have a new favored sport, it's called Kageln, and it involves throwing this little ball down a skiing bowling ally and trying to his this pins that are hanging on strings on the end. It's kinda like a party version of bowling, not so official, a little more old-school. Check out these sweet action pics!




...The open Kegelbahn (like autobahn but for kegeln). I'd compare it to a few feet of fresh pow when the roads are closed and the lifts are open.



The tension was building, as we tallied our own scores by counting how many lights went. Not pictured, the hours of stretching and warming up beforehand.



Host mother at full speed, showing us novices how to throw the ball.



This photo was taken for the sake of training, we need to work on Heiko's form if he wants to make the German Olympic Kegeln team.



My refined and streamlined style blew the competition out of their Lederhosen.

It's been a while...

It's been a while... but now its time to hear some more news!

I'll start here, the Christmas market in Hamburg, a few weeks before Christmas. This place was full to the brim, the area around the main train station and the city hall.

First is my host brother and mother, then my host brother and me, then a shot to show how crowded it was, we wanted to go down there, but that wasn't gonna happen. The last shot is from the Christmas parade that night, it was every Saturday until Christmas in December. Since it's old news, I'll keep it short and end it here.