Botanicactus.

This will be a series of posts from our holiday in Cala D'Or, Mallorca, but this one is a special as there is no real information in English, on this destination and what there is is heavily Engrished on its main site.

Es Llombards square.

Botanicactus is a botanical garden situated about a kilometer outside of Ses Salines, in the south of the island, we had previously seen an old article in the BCSS journal detailing a trip there, but untill we saw an excursion for this on the Saga Holiday noticeboard we had forgotten entirely that it was there.

On the Friday we decided to take a trip out on our own to see if we could make it there by bus, not having a hire car.  Two words, Big mistake.  First of all these are country buses, they rarely run on time and if you miss one its quite a wait for the next bus. (incidentally if you are in the north east this is a worthwile trip to undertake Son Baulo and its shorefront prehistoric site is definitely one to take in especially for nature lovers).

Anyway we took the Palma bus and got off at Santanyi, the main administration center of the area, we found that

A: it would be a 90 minute wait for the next bus (more like 2 hours) and
B: spending 90 minutes in Santanyi would be 90 minutes far too long. 

We're not saying it was a one horse town, more like one and a half, typically Spanish and if there are any foriegners they are much more likely to be Germans than English. It was really twisty and for extra weirdness we kept seeing leaflets stuck up for the memorial of a 103 year old woman who looked creepy as fuck (sorry no photos of that).

Santanyi outside the church.

With that, and the reassurance that it would be like closer to Es Llombards a village further up (about 3km away but more like a mile down the hardtop). We decided to walk.  If you are fit and able you can do this easily, bear in mind its outside Ses Salines rather than Es Llombards its more like a 4 mile trip than anything else, and is only really advised for the hardcore and the sporty.
The first thing we noticed walking down the strip is that there are a few barren farms out there with sheep and chickens, the other thing is that the side strips are littered with dead birds.  Every few hundred yards we would come across some unidentified mass of feathers lying on the roadside (though we found a dead partridge on one occasion) and sometimes what we thought was a flat hedgehog.
We made it to Es Llombards before caving in and taking a local bar for a drink.  Es Llombards is even smaller than Santanyi (a one pony town), but the people there was nice, we got directions from the lady behind the bar, and I got to try out my ropey Spanish.

Suitably directed up we set off on the longer leg of our trip and following the road round we finally made it to Botanicactus.

Our first impressions is that it kind of reminds me of the old cactus park outside Los Christianos / Playa de las Americas in Tenerife but with the added bonus of not being closed.   There are a few Yuccas and some big Cerei outside and a faded mascot billboard in a sombrero leading the way inside.  But first this is what Wikipedia has to say (we actually translated this ourselves with about 20% help from Google translate)

Botanicactus is a 150,000M Square botanical garden specialising in Cacti and other succulents.  A private garden situated outside Ses Salines, Mallorca.

History.
It took two years work to transform the landscape into the Botanicactus gardens, utilising the local hills to give protection from the wind, and digging out the artificial lakes which doubles up as a source of clean water.  The garden was opened on the 20th May 1989 and is not affiliated with any organisation or institution.

Collections.

The site is home to 1000 species and 15000 specimens of which 12000 are cacti,  These are grouped into 3 sections.

Tropical species. (50000 m2)
Cacti from Arizona with a Saguaro that is over 300 years old* 40000m2
Native Mallorcan flora, Represented by Olives, Almonds, Pomegranate, Cypress, Pine and Eucalyptus? 25000m2

Also included is the biggest navigable lake in the Balearics, situated in the tropical zone with reed banks, bamboos and tropical plants.
* we didn't see this actually, though Arizona is pushing it with the species I saw its more like South America with an extended stay in Mexico.

At a pinch those Yucca could be from Phoenix

Reality is far more different, there are three zones, one is a tropical zone with some planting including Jacaranda, locust beans (Carob) and day lillies, its not too bad and had a massive rill leading up the hill toward the main desert zone.  This is actually very impressive a little heavy on Echinocactus Grusonii (not the nicest of cacti) but with plenty of mature Agaves and big stands of Aloe Melanacantha and Arborescens and
yuccas galore too.  Occasionally you'd get a big silver torch cactus or something different just to break it up, its set on a sloping hill allowing you to walk around and looks the business too.

The last zone is of course the lakes, there is a small lily pond home to a few wandering coots along with red and blue dragonflies.  The main lakes are surrounded with large reeds and had more coots swimming on the lake as well as some stilts confined to the edges.  Walking around there are two islands one Duck island is not accessible whereas the lake island is allowing you to walk out onto the bridge and see the lake.  Whilst walking past duck isle we happened across a massive moth which is probably a Eyed Hawkmoth which had nestled into a palm and was reluctant to fly. 

Walking back we took a few more snaps and had a look at the gift shop (small selection of cacti with some postcards and snacks for sale) before heading back to Ses Salines to catch the bus.  We didn't see much of Ses Salines as we bumped into the lady from the bar in Es Llombards who graciously gave us a lift back to Santanyi and called us a taxi taking us back to Cala D'Or.  We noted that the bus we should have taken from Ses Salines came in a good ten minutes after the adjoining bus had left for Cala D'or.

Overall that is Botanicactus. Situated outside Ses Salines, Mallorca

Admission price E8, 50 Adults E4.40 kids.
Travel advice.  If you can make it in one bus trip do so, otherwise a hire car is the only way especially if you are up in the northern end.  We'll leave you with some photos of the place.

Big Cerei.

Mascot surrounded by Aloes

Little lake with waterlillies

Aloes, we saw a lot in flower here.

Round the RIM. With Happy Hippos.

Because we really didn't look into it with any depth last time, (just outlined specs and a fantasy phone) we'll be putting in a full on review of our Quackberry Torch.  But first here is an update.

We gave you a full review of german chocolate and GBC game Das Geheimnis der Happy Hippo insel about 2 years back and despite adding this to the untranslated list over at Datacrystal we never thought that this would actually get a release.   This along with FDS Monty On The Run is possibly the most unlikeliest of Romhacks being as it is a translation from German to English and the second game I've actually requested being translated.

So far, what we've played of it, it seems pretty good.  You can get the patch here and read a bit of a review about it.  Now how about doing Snoopy Hajimete No Otsukai next...

Blackberry Torch: a review.

Forgive me if we covered bits of this in our fantasy fone piece but we'll be talking a little about our Blackberry Torch and how it fits in with other smartphones. 

First up is appearance.

Yup it looks nice.  You have an 8cm x 5cm touch screen, complete with 4 buttons and a  middle button that is a sort of analogue pad, (you press it and an arrow comes up simulating a mouse contact).  Its also black which means its a fingerprint magnet, and the touch screen while nice is aggravating, due to it triggering everytime you touch it intentionally and you really have to jab it when you want to trigger anything that you want to touch.

Software.

Comes with 7.0 version of Blackberry software and the usual Youtube / Facebook apps and stuff.  We have a mobile site to do our work with and its not that bad surfing.  Though you really do have to wonder about surfing the net on a tiny screen.  They give you a link to the Blackberry app store and of course BBM which we haven't set up.  We do have email and that, which isn't too bad.  Though Blackberry isn't so bad,
looking through the apps on the store reminds me of gaming back in the 80's lots of clones of popular ideas and lots of stuff that isn't free. 

Games.

We have two. First up is Brickbreaker an Arkanoid clone that looks like it was made in AMOS and handles like a pig on acid due to the janky touchscreen.  Though it has a one more go feel, sort of like Angry Birds, its a lets clear this level and get it over and done with, which is distinct from actual one more go, genuine gameplay as you can get.

The other is Wordmole. Which thankfully is excellent.  You have a grid of letters and have to make words to beat a time limit.  You can play through seasons and clearing a season gets you a sort of whack a vegetable (ironic seeing as the Wordmole himself is highly remedial looking, maybe he works for remploy) minigame.
The only downside is the highly suspect american English word list that won't recognise recognised words, we've lost games due to it baulking at regular words such as nib, nappy and maths.  Having said that its not bad at all.

Looking on the app store we see that £2 is the recommeded pricing point and maybe more (£5 for Gold miner) and due to it being on blackberry, its the gaming equivalent of a BBC model B, a nice idea but no one does any games for it.

Blackberry Desktop.

A semi servicable iTunes equivalent, it does sometimes want to sync your phone so it can slurp music and Photos, 9 times out of 10 it'll say connection sync failed and be a cunt about it.  It'll also auto import your music library a la iTunes but not your Pics and stuff.  Oh and is a real cunt about video files requiring only select MP4 files and  not having any free conversion tools out there to do it either.
Black marks there.

Overall.  If you can afford an Iphone or Android device then buy one of those they are better.   44%

Julie Bee2: Amigan

Our second Julie bee special also concerns hardware, but you will be relieved to know that it does not involve wish fulfillment or mocked up phones.

We found a massive box thrown out at work, nothing special just a massive plastic storage tub and thought it would be good to store videos in.  We also decided to clear up our room, and this is where we refound our old Amiga, as well as some old tat for scanning and removal.   The best thing is though its been in the wars it still works.  

We coupled it up to the television and hey presto our HD kicked in, bringing it life.  Though it doesn't seem we have a working joystick we do have a working mouse, so we decided to boot up a few progs and see what we have. 

This is a montage of clips from programs / art that include but are not restricted to..

LSD document disk 49. 
A cracktro for 9 Lives though it crashes after this.
Various old pictures we made in DPaint / P Paint we used a picture viewer called Visage to show them and our digital camera to grab them as clips from our portable Telly.

Bark Bros was a home grown choose your own adventure game involving alien dogs stumbling across a downed space shuttle with Bill Clinton and Al Gore in it and a criminal organisations attempt to steal it.  Written in Wordsworth, Amiga's own equivalent to Word (perfect),  this was the title card, there were a few other documents on the disk written with Blacks Editor.  To be honest this was and still is the best we can do, as we cannot program to save our lives.

Othonna / Fenestraria.  These two succulent clips are from old copies of the BCSS journal though I suspect the Fenestraria is from memory or at least cultivation, those leaves would be buried in habitat.

Leech. Drawn from memory and yes its pretty gross looking with its swamp water filled jar and label.

Cat. Black and white image of my old cat Zoe.

Aphex Twin.  We drew this from the cover art of the Richard D James album.  Face is a little out but that makes it all the more sinister.

Finally theres some more from the LSD Doc disk 49 to finish up.

If  this proves popular then we'll add more images.

Julie bee1: Cellular Phone

We've got a mobile phone.  Its for work purposes and is one of these.  Normally I don't like phones, they allow you to talk to people and when you hate phoning, that is the last fucking thing you need.  However this is not only necessary for my work but it also allows you to listen to music at work which is much, much better than it seems.  We've decided to sign up to a no personal calls so the only thing we can do is contact work mates and surf the net (when there is WiFi available).   It isn't that reliable as the touchscreen needs some serious poking to get it registering, and of course it relies on GPRS (and Oranges shit network for all calls and mobile internets) which is severly pissing on my chips. 
Those who have phones (and lets face it we work with iPhone bores) say that its not as good as an iPhone and after giving us a try its not.  Which has got me thinking what would be the ideal phone would be like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Blackberry yesterday.

 Fantasy Phone.

Specs.
I don't know too much about specs, most modern phones run ARM processors so something like a quad core version of this would be cool.   More cores could be added for insane power, or just add whatever cpu the PSVita uses.   They should have a gpu as well for 3D stuff, the one in Dave Brabens Raspberry PI project seems interesting as well as mighty powerful.  It would have a decent cameral say 8MP and output 1080HD for all filming purposes as well as having 16GB onboard storage backed up with SD cards in its SD card slot.

Casing.
One of the main problems with the iPhone flat touch screen style is that its all too easy, when in pocket to trigger something you don't want to (yeah we know you can lock the screen but I'd rather not have to) so it'll either be a clamshell device or something with a recessed screen like the bottom screen of a DS.  We also like the old Blackberry mini keyboard style of keyboard, so maybe have it dual screen like a DS with controls and keyboard on the bottom screen and touch screen at the top.  We'll also add in proper joypad controls as what most phones have is just virtual sticks on a tiny screen. The little 8 way joystick from a Neo Geo Pocket I remember being especially boss, so lets add two and make sure they are made by these guys, as well as 6 face buttons (for Megadrive purists), start and select and 2  shoulder buttons that double as phone call and exit.  Seeing as its clamshell we would love to see the sim card input fit in the side like a PSP memory card as well as a top slot for a full sized SD card or Micro SD with adaptor.  Finally we'll add a headphone port, a USB port for charging / USB intergration, and whatever kind of Zero point energy source that'll make it run for 100 hours between charges, (in a generic case of course) and an off switch.

Something like this, though maybe not.

Software.

To end all fanboys we would love our fantasy phone to be system agnostic, running apps flawlessly under emulation or using a virtualisation to run either, Memo, Windows Stupid, mandroid, Quackberry and Apple software natively.  You would load up a browser and pay a license to dual boot your phone and share contacts between the two services.  Oh and it must multitask,  letting you switch between programs on the home menu and

Offline software / Third party.

Because most phone management software is the work of the devil we have decided to mock up our own.

We didn't put in drop menus but trust us they are there.

It would, on initial start up, sync your phone and create folders on screen with which you simply drag and drop your files to transfer them across (in fact we hate the fact that all ITunes software auto scans your drives for music which it auto installs), you would then press the sync button to sync all files automatically when you are done transferring.  It would on start up tell you that there would be updates to the main software upon loading up and when your phone is synced let you create a folder for storing your apps on your PC/ MAC/LINUX/ Amiga compatible computer. You could then back them up to disk or to the phones SD Card.  It would also come with a help file showing you what to do.  If ever your phone is knackered or need to switch then transfer them across.  Like regular handheld consoles, I'd also like to see regular console games and utilities to come on SD card as well as be downloadable from the APP stores much more regular Phone game fare.

Fi nally when it comes to content, your phone would be like the mobile equivalent of Irfan View.  One of the things  I hate about the quackberry is that any video requires paid apps to convert to a convenient file format so it'll play.  We want it playing every obscure format from MOD. files to MKV files as default with downloadable codecs available from app stores where available.

Phone calling and texting.
I doubt any of these will come of age and that, and of course pricing would be a moot point, I'd say it would be on a par with the iPhone and of course maybe more once you add a monthly call plan from the major phone companies.  We would love it to not of course and just leech off of WiFi and Satellites even GPRS if you are in a pinch to connect to the net to make calls (maybe through skype or another video call).  Yeah cos I'm a loner and its my phone this is what I'd like the most.  A smart phone that isn't really a phone.

Now thats smart.

Sodding Football.

This could be considered a round up of sorts, we really don't have much of a liking for the "beautiful game" as I find it boring, and besides whenever I watch my token  team (Liverpool) they lose.  To be honest, this antipathy extends to videogames as well.  There must be at least 60 copies of  Fifa Soccer for every man, woman and child in the UK and there are further variants punted out every year.  Whether its hardcore management or five a side, there are millions of the buggers, there are even online variants of Panini Football stickers but with a FIFA edge to them. 

One of these days we will pick up Sensi for Amiga or one of its console variants as it seems closer in ethos for what football should be to me.  I.E  unlicenced and utter nonsense, if I recall correctly they had a granny team as well as various other fabulous sides. 

In fact here is a few games we'd love to see being made under the FIFA licence.  Oh and yeah dig our new site remodel, TBH we've been wanting to do this for ages now.

FIFA Park.

Yeah we know its kinda derivative of FIFA Street but, and this is the big but, it really is nothing like we played
football as kids.  What we want are.

Jumpers for goalposts.
Rush Goalies (they were allowed to come out of goal and be striker and as memory serves we made to feel foolish whenever you tackled them and scored)
 Fat or Geeky kids in defence.  The personal place of choice for the terminally unathletic.
Girls.  Yep sometimes girls played football, often though they'd just watch and talk with their friends.
More than eleven players on each team,  but often much less.

For this to work it'd have to be sort of like Inazuma Eleven, or Nintendo World Cup but not as shit.  Though without the super powers or anything else, just kids playing football in the schoolyard or the Park.

FIFA Soccer Womens Edition.

This incarnation of the popular game is probably the most mundane version of the lot.  A ladies version of the popular football game but with the proper licences from the Womens F.A and that.

To be honest this doesn't stand a hope in hell of being made.  I can't remember the last time I even saw a woman take part in a football game and the people who usually buy FIFA are not really that interested in womens soccer, unless they are particularly fit.  In fact google says that there is a game by American Soccer star Mia Hamm {though her name actually sounds like a cartoon pig} that was devoted to womens soccer, although that was just a crudely rebadged Michael Owens Football.

FIFA ate my hamster.

Actually the idea I'm gravitating to more is this one.  Rockstar ate my Hamster was a pop simulation game, where through constant stunts and pop tracks you tried to gain notoriety for your act and tried not to get yourself killed.  Due to the bad behaviour of footballers nowadays youi could easily replicate this type, but instead of getting killed, the outcome would be dropped from you team or jailed.  Add in some two footed tackles or unnecessary diving on pitch and you would have a winner or at least an interesting IPhone game.

FIFAsona.

This is a version of the above game but much more serious.  It would play out a lot more like the Persona RPGS, which involve strong team mechanics (a team of school kids investigate supernatural occurences, with the focus on team building and such).  I'd love to see a game where you are a new transfer into a made up team, in a lower league club.  Going through the footballing year, working on relationships with your team mates and playing in various cups.  Like Persona you would need to get on with your team, choosing who to hang out with and taking part in training sessions with your team. 

Where as I'd love to see this, even more so if they used a Sensi style overhead view, your average punter wants his RPGs to involve orcs and Goblins, like Skyrim, and not to involve footballers.

 

Fantasy Game post idea ting.

If you play games for any length of time you kinda want to make your own, untill you find out how much trouble that is.  No seriously coding is a bitch, and for me its one of my holy grails to actually learn how to do this.  Of course I won't, its horrible, tedious stuff, unintuitive and illogical (plus our lateral thinking is massively massively fucked) instead we'll just post our ideas for games here.  You'll get three increasingly monged ideas.

1. Superhuman Riderborgs vs Spectre Rangers SRPG. (tokusatsu vs kaiju edition)

This is going to take an awful lot of explaining so here goes.  I would love to see a tribute to Super Robot Wars,  but instead of anime robots imagine that it involves more super sentai shows instead.  Think Power Rangers, Masked Rider, and any number of rubber suited monsters and beasts from saturday morning shows and cheesy 60's b movies.   It would be licencing hell of course to bring this to the west, I'm not sure that Japan would fully co operate but damn, controlling the big G with Mothra as his wingman and getting support from Spectreman and some of the Beetleborgs as well. 

In fact the only way to do this is probably to create homages Think Disgaeas Prism Rangers as prime example of this and you can't go far wrong.  To add to the idea, there are a few Super robot wars games that have official translations, these are based off of original IP and thus avoid the whole licencing trap.

2. The Final Fantasy parody.

Our last two ideas are probably the worst of the lot. Parodies of games seen through mass hallucinogens and far, far too much sugar, and as a consequence will never be made.

They already have a loving retread of some of the original FF games, whether its FF4: After Years recapping what Rydia did when she grew up or FF9's homage to the original games with its fan service and excellent card game.  (Hey Squenix why not release the card games from FF8 and 9 for IPhone, whack on a RPG mode and you'll have mucho profit, they were good.)

What we are proposing is a run through of all the games in the series told via the memories of a bullshitting old man.  Inaccurate memories told via Kamishibai, recapping famous scenes with a healthy dose of ad lib parody and sight gags.    These bits of the games would be the cutscenes as he gathers the audience around and eventually it fades into a playable scene from one of the games.  Think of the quests from Crisis Core but played for laughs and with the narrator chiming in at set times to provide commentary which is often at odds of what really happened.

3. COD of War Comradeship is Manic.

I really hate modern FPS shooters, with 15 colours for brown, ultra grim and sweary storylines and its online world.  We recently had a go at Gears of War and it understated all that is wrong with gaming.  (of course I sucked at it, but man, I would love a top down viewpoint in those games, just so it looks like I'm playing a SNES game on drugs).

Which is where our new game idea comes in.  Its 2015 and the Russian goverment lead by Sergei Orlov and his trophy wife Vivian Leigh have devoted the last quarter century to ressurecting the Soviet empire via the medium of counter terrorism and cybernetic bear droids.  The EU and America of course do not want the Soviets to rule the world again and decide to parachute in Billy the Fish from Viz.  Armed with nothing but twin laser rifles which are upgradeable via tech support from Rasputin and Nikola Tesla, the Goalkeeper cum mercenary must single handedly bring down the evil empire and thwart the meerkat army and its undead leader Zombie Octopus Leon Trotsky.

The graphics are of course presented via the medium of Cel shading and should look something like Jet Set Radio for the Dreamcast complete with low poly modelling and variable ragdoll physics (set from none to hilariously over the top) if it resembles a late era PSOne game, that would be cool.  Oh and all cut scenes must, must be presented with Engrish and all voice acting intentionally over the top.   We are aiming for House of The Dead levels of acting here.

On line modes would mute voice chat by default and have variable physics as well with things that explode randomly or summon massive things.  Something along the lines of this would be cool.  But much expanded, possibly some of the bosses from single player mode but vs teams of folk. 

Revisitation

So we decided to go back to Walthamstow.  Just to see, if after a month or two, that signed Michael Rosen book was still there.  Of course it wasn't and so this unconventional round up begins.

There's a lot of sadness to report here, so without further ado we'll begin.  Walthamstow was just a brief stop here instead of the main focus this time and there wasn't that much different than last.  We were on the look out for any unusual records, and we got Popcorn by Hot Butter and Stop/Start by The Assembly.

The former is a cover from the old Gershon Jackson synth track from 1969, and its still a killer tune after all these years.  The latter is a side project for Depeche Modes Vince Clarke and pirates friend Feargal Sharkey and we really hope its not too bad (it promises guitar along with synth)*.

Though these were nice, the real prize was finding a copy of EGM in their post office.  Times were we used to pick up nearly every issue of EGM whenever it hit UK shores (which weren't often).  Then in the mid 2000's they changed the layout, culled most of the foreign news and add Seanbaby to the mix (which wasn't so bad).

We seemed to have picked up the yearly honours edition, and that was piss weak at that, like an American edition of Edge with all the design knocked out of it.  In which they had relegated Tobias Bruckner (trash game commentator) to a small side column, which about summed it up.

The main destination was as always, Tottenham court road.  Akihabara for the English and home to the only decent arcade in town, the Leisure Casino.  They had a few new cabs to play including Cave/Atlus team up Esp Ra De and a slightly flickery R.Type Leo.

                                                            Now for some sad news.
We found out that another Indie game shop has closed down.  Game Focus was an excellent little shop selling all sorts of old and new games for a  reasonable price.  They had a window full of rare stuff including the last time I visited a Hyper Neo Geo 64 and some reasonably priced Saturn games.  Though they used to have a decent games such as a pretty boss selection of DS games the downturn really affected it and these dwindled to absolutely nothing which was a shame.   I did get some great things there including Disgaea DS back in the day.  Though they were a shadow of themselves they were still worth a look.

PSVita. Are we having fun yet?!.

Scan of the week.

We picked up a promo launch mag for the PSVita, Sony's great white hope, a while back and flicking through came across this guy.  I think he is meme worthy and sums up the publics apathy to the Vita in all its guises. 

*Edit.  Its patchy, whereas the first side (Never Never) has Fergal singing on it and is largely wank, the B side (Stop/Start) is of course much better being as its all Vince Clarke synth work.