I am pleased to announce the availability of a new project. It’s called Content Statistics. It lists almost every statistic related to the content of the site. It doesn’t display any traffic to the site, just the content.

I would like to thank Adam Glaysher for all his hard work in getting it to work with my demands and my server.

It is updated manually and approximately every week.

I consider it 90% finished – we just need to get the comment totals working properly and add the Recommendation Images per timeframe. There are also a few tweaks to the design that I will make when I have time.

After that, we will slowly add new stats as I think of them. However, if there is any stat you think we are missing, please let me know.

It can be accessed via the Projects menu at the top of the page.

This post is temporary and will be deleted in amonth, please link to the page itself not this post.

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What is Luminesca?
Luminesca places you in control of Lum, a little underwater creature whose home is in grave danger.

Outsmart predators, guide small creatures and scare off rivals using your esca (that’s the glowing bit on your head!) Explore an underwater world, full of life, which responds to your touch and physical presence.

Discover the secrets that lie in the deep…

Luminesca is a 2D side-scrolling adventure which focuses on the events of a changing environment, utilising light and physics to challenge the part of you that loves to explore.

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In celebration of Gilfrarry (Thanks man, can’t thank you enough) reformatting and uploading all the Half-Life 1 maps and mods into my format and onto my server, I have decided to run the 100 SUMMER DAYS OF NOSTALGIA Starting 1st June and running for 100 days I will update a Half-Life 1 map or mod every day.

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece entitled Evenness of Quality, where I argued that a mod should have an evenness of quality throughout. Even if that meant dropping a section down in quality so it wouldn’t stand out. However, just to be clear, I was not talking about the detail of an area, but something more abstract. Well, today I am almost going to contradict that and write about the WOW Factor.

For a mod to reach greatness it normally requires at least one section in the mod where the player goes “WOW”. There are a number of ways to cause that exclamation.

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This article is not a review of Portal 2. That will be posted on a new part of the site eventually. This is an article ABOUT Portal 2.

This short article contains spoilers about the game and my upcoming review.

Let’s get this over and done with…. I was a little disappointed with Portal 2. The beginning was okay, the middle fantastic and the end, mostly meh! with one “WOW, cool! moment.

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There are lots of things that affect how popular a mod becomes and how much coverage it gets. In fact, I had a conversation with somebody recently about his mod and I used the phrase “The right mod, in the right place at the right time”.

A few days ago I posted a mod called The Sewer and it’s quite good in some sections and average in others.

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It is with great sadness that I announce that Jasper, an active member of the PP community, died on Monday. I am sure I speak for all my readers when I wish his wife and family our deepest sympathies.

Jasper was always interested in helping visitors to the site and I feel honoured that we managed to work together on some other projects.

I know that the maps and mods he found here brought him great pleasure.

When I started this site, I never thought that I would be posting anything like this, but that shows how much a community we have become. His contributions to the site, with reviews, message, ideas etc will be missed.

Please use this post to pass on any messgaes, although under the circumstances, I don’t know if they will be seen by his family. I am sure they have more important things to think about than a gaming website.

Comments on this post will be heavily moderated.

Rest In Peace Jasper.

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UPDATE 2
I had forgotten to include Mel’s submission and I would like to apologize for my mistake. His story has now been included at the end. Sorry Mel.

UPDATE
Thanks to all those who entered.

I have created a PDF document with all the entries, along with an introduction, details of the winner and my comments about each story.

PlanetPhillip.Com Writing Competition January 2011

Right click and select your browser’s version of “Save As” to download it and view from your computer or click the link and depending on your system and set up it may open directly.

For those who just want to know the winner, it is….

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Well, around this time last year I wrote two articles entitled Things I would like to see in mods in 2010

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Portal is such an interesting game, whether you love it or hate, whether you are a great player or a bad player, it’s clear to see that the concept behind it has so many possibilities.

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