No longer are rainbows, sparkly dolphins, and synth-pop ballads limited to acid trips in your high school buddy's Astro Van.

With Adult Swim's original Robot Unicorn Attack, an ironic novelty premise was married to a seriously addictive endless platformer, which then gave birth to a phenomenon that has spawned imitators, sequels, and pop-culture status.

And now, several years later, we have a sequel to what was perhaps a semi-joke game that has a devoted following. The challenge for Adult Swim was following up a game known for its over-the-top premise and difficulty. Fans may be disappointed that the universal Robot Unicorn Attack 2 for iOS isn't as difficult, but they certainly can't say the game is subtler.

The Robot Unicorn Attack world is as strange as ever. Full of rainbows, dolphins, floating space whales, and other leftovers of a seven-year-old’s fever dreams, the opening level of the game is everything that fans of the series would hope for. You get to frolic in a heavenly dreamscape until you violently die, your poor robot unicorn decapitated in an explosion of failure. Thus, ends your “wish,” or one of your three lives that you're given during each run.

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Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

Wargame: European Escalation is a technically accomplished and challenging strategy game that will definitely appeal to hardened strategy gamers. But it could be a bit daunting for less experienced players.

The game is set in Europe during the period 1975 to 1985, when the Cold War was still very much alive and kicking. It presents you with a what-if scenario in which a minor skirmish on the border between East and West Germany escalates into all-out war between the Western forces of NATO and the Russian-led Warsaw Pact.

Focus Home Interactive

It’s an intriguing set-up, and the fact that it’s set only a few decades in the past allows the developers to use real news footage to set the scene and create an atmosphere of tension at the start of the game’s 22 missions. However, you are thrown into the action with very little help. The game does include a Skirmish mode where you can practice against the computer in small battles, but there’s no real tutorial to help you get started and we quickly found ourselves stumped by even simple tasks, such as troop selection and movement.

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An app available for download from Apple’s iOS App Store contains an embedded Trojan horse. And while the good news is that you’re almost definitely safe from any malware danger, there’s still reason for concern. The app itself is almost certainly harmless—and the malicious code is probably present unintentionally—but the fact that the code slipped through the App Store’s review process isn’t ideal.

The app Simply Find It, a $2 game from Simply Game, seems harmless enough. But if you run Bitdefender Virus Scanner—a free app in the Mac App Store—it will warn you about the presence of a Trojan horse within the app. A reader tipped Macworld off to the presence of the malware, and we confirmed it.

Apple declined to comment on the issue.

Bitdefender warns of the presence of Trojan.JS.iframe.BKD in the game. (Two other free Mac antivirus apps, iAntivirus and ClamXav, both failed to notice anything amiss with the app.) It’s not too much effort to figure out what Bitdefender is detecting in the app, either.

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The original Magicka, Arrowhead Studios' inaugural release for Windows PCs, was—for a while—the best possible excuse for killing your friends. It is a comical action-adventure game that features full-out friendly fire, a gaggle of wizards, a surprisingly robust spell system that allowed you to mix and match elements at will, and more downloadable content that you could ever shake a stick at.

Paradox Interactive's $2 Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet for the iPad is exactly like its PC counterpart—except that it’s a little more streamlined, a little more cartoony, and missing an entire dimension. Plus, it’s optimized for mobile platforms. The basic premise is still the same: you're a wizard of dubious competence who must go out and remove a particularly obnoxious plot, possibly with an entourage of friends. No, the plot isn't particularly inspired, but few, if any, have ever messed around with the Magicka series because of its narrative.

Like its predecessor, Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet is best completed alone and best played with friends. The control system is wonderfully intuitive to work with. To move, you tap on a desired location on the screen. To cast a spell, you hit any combination of the seven elemental icons at the bottom of your window. Depending on what elements you've put together, you might find yourself doing everything from summoning a massive thunderbolt from the sky to healing a boss to setting your teammates ablaze. The possibilities are, while not limitless, certainly extensive.

What makes all of this better are the restrictions and the ways the elements interact with one another. For example, if you first take the time to soak a foe (or a friend), you'll be able to freeze them instead of simply slowing them down with a dusting of ice. Did you accidentally set yourself on fire? Be certain to douse yourself or risk taking slow, continuous damage. Naturally, some elements exist in direct opposition with another. If you try to mash Lightning and Water together, the attempt will fizzle out.

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Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

Typical—you wait ages for a good racing game and then three come along at once. They’re all from the same company too, as Feral brought F1 2012 and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing to the Mac recently. Grid allows you to take part in a wider range of races on professional race tracks or on ordinary streets in various locations around the world.

The start of the game is a bit of a shock. There’s no tutorial and you are thrown into a rookie race that you have to complete in order to earn your racing license. The starter car for this race seems extremely sensitive at first and even a slight tap of the left or right keys on your keyboard can send you screeching into the barriers at the side of the track. A gamepad might provide smoother controls, if you’ve got one available.

It doesn’t take long to get the hang of the controls, and Grid also includes a “flashback” option that lets you to rewind the action to just before a bad crash. You can try again without having to replay the entire race from the beginning.

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Gravity Duck, a $1 universal game for iOS, stars a little pixelated duck who has been sent by his Easter-Island-like deity to collect all of the golden eggs on an island. He’s been given the ability to reverse gravity, effectively transforming the platforming gameplay into a much more complex and interesting enterprise. Across the games’100+ levels, you’ll be guiding the adorable and silent duck to capture these eggs while dodging spikes, killer caterpillars, and other classic platformer enemies.

The game controls are as simple as the premise: you can move and you can reverse gravity. There are some small caveats, however: you can’t reverse gravity while in mid-air, and if you want to change the plane you’re walking on (instead of walking on ceilings and floors, walking on walls, for example) you need to hit a special button.

You wish the game were as whimsical as its name suggested, because the gameplay is throw-your-iPhone-out-the-window-difficult. There are so many ways for Gravity Duck to die, and there are no save points for any level. So if you’ve figured out how the duck just near the goal, only to have him walk into some spikes, frustration sets in as you have to start the level—albeit short—over again. For the most part, each stage can only be solved using one particular strategy, and this funneled feeling is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the game. Bigger stages with more features and abilities would have done wonders to keep this game on my iPhone longer.

In fact, with a more ambitious budget/vision, you could see Gravity Duck finding a home on a major console in the retro 16 bit niche—that’s either a testament to the game’s great concept and art or it being overly simplistic.

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It’s hard to classify Hundreds as a game, per say. Developed by Semi Secret Software, this $5 universal app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch feels more like a post-modern art installation, or perhaps a Cold War torture device maliciously released on iOS. Regardless, Hundreds is one of the singular weirdest experiences you’ll find on the iOS platform—and its beauty is certainly in the eye of the individual player.

The name Hundreds draws from the number of levels of the game (100) and the object of the game: to achieve 100 points on a given level. The game’s ambient noise and lack of formal tutorial will perhaps dissuade the more casual of players, and the game’s quickly-ramping difficulty will frustrate all but the most dedicated (and masochistic) of puzzle enthusiasts.

Hundreds starts off simple enough: you press and hold down on the gray circle in the middle of your screen to turn it red and expand its size. The circle starts with a value of zero, but as it grows, its value increases. Once it hits 100, you win the round.

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Editor’s note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

Old-school role-playing games are making a bit of a comeback. Recently we saw an enhanced—but still determinedly 2D—update of Baldur’s Gate (), and now Almost Human has unexpectedly released a Mac version of Legend Of Grimrock, which originally came out on the PC about a year ago.

Legend of Grimrock aspires to be nothing more than a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, with minimal plot and character interaction, and graphics that are closer to 2.5D than true 3D. It even allows you to turn off the game’s on-screen map so that you can grab a stack of graph paper and sketch out the twists and turns of the dungeon by hand.

The plot is barely worth mentioning. Grimrock is a vast prison, a towering great spire that reaches up into the clouds. You and three other prisoners are thrown in right at the top, and have to fight your way down to freedom the base of the tower. The game doesn’t even require you to create a character, as you can jump straight into the game using a ready-made group of escaping prisoners. If you prefer to create your own party then you can choose from four different races (human, minotaur, lizardman, or insectoid) and then play as a warrior, wizard, or rogue. And, of course, you gain experience points for killing monsters, which you can then use to learn new skills and abilities.

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I have always been a great admirer of Northern European mythology, with its vivid (and sometimes disturbing) imagery that draws on the wintry beauty of the landscapes that the inhabitants of Scandinavian countries know so well.

In Simogo’s $4 Year Walk for iOS, you will plunge right into the middle of a harsh, snow-covered winter, searching for your future through what the Swedes call Årsgång, a mystical experience that can only be achieved by wandering—alone, at night, and on an empty stomach—until you make your way to a cemetery, reading signs of the things to be along the way.

Here be monsters

If this sounds like the synopsis of a horror movie, it’s not that far off: Year Walk is an intense game that is guaranteed to give you a good scare or two, and one that I suggest you play within reach of a soft surface on which your device can fall without shattering in a million tiny pieces, because you’re highly likely to drop it at some point or other. (If you don’t suffer from a heart ailment, I suggest you play the game at full volume—it’s very effective.)

As the game’s protagonist, your job is to put your Årsgång on and make your way through the night, solving a series of puzzles to gain insight into your future. Along the way, you come into contact with your beloved girlfriend (who is deeply worried by your intentions) and by a dark crescendo of bizarre creatures, strange symbols, and genuinely frightening nightmares.

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Gamers always have room for a great real-time strategy title, and it’s time to make room for League of Legends. Initially released for Windows, Riot Games ported its free-to-play multiplayer online game to the Mac. Identical to its Windows counterpart, League of Legends divides its players into two teams (3x3 or 5x5 with available cooperative and PVP game modes), each team attacking the other’s base to attempt to dismantle their opponent’s tower defenses, destroy their opponent’s Nexus, and win the round.

League of Legends lets you choose from more than 110 Champion templates (characters), and you can customize the character to round out the character’s skill set with points earned from matches and achievements. A well-designed tutorial lets you play through the basics so you can learn how to attack, how to defend, and how to control your section of the map during gameplay. The tutorial also offers beginning and intermediate matches against both live players and computer-controlled bots.

Beyond nifty graphics and sound, there’s a nigh-infinite number of ways to play League of Legends, thanks to its large library of Champions, each with their own abilities. From warriors, mages, robots, demons, pirates, ninjas, and anything else you can imagine, there’s a Champion for everyone. A self-policing online community punishes offenses such as player harassment, while rewarding positive examples like exceptional teamwork.

If there’s anything to nitpick, it’s the fact that the audio experienced occasional dropouts during gameplay. This occurred only twice and both times accompanied instances of network lag, so this may be the underlying factor.

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Are tutorials essential for new games? Though some might think it blasphemy to go without, Frogmind’s $4 Badland prefers the learn-by-doing method. The self-styled “atmospheric side-scrolling action adventure game” doesn't so much take its players by the hand as much as it chucks them headfirst into explosive environmental hazards and anticipatory piles of clones—all without a word of warning.

Believe it or not, it's an effective methodology. From the moment the light turns green, Badland has you hit the ground running—or flapping, as the case may be. The introductory sequence is about 15 seconds long: random garbage spews out of a pipe onto a sumptuously drawn world populated by silhouette-based creatures. Shortly after, your fluff-ball of an avatar gets expelled in a similar fashion.

In spite of there being no written instructions to navigate by, Badland remains delightfully intuitive; all it takes is one stray poke of the finger to get the ball flying. Granted, that may be partially because it's pretty much a one-button game: hold down on the touchscreen of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to make your globular persona rise through the air, release it to make the cutesy-looking critter sink. It's easy.

The game itself, on the other hand, is not. Though it begins slowly enough, Badland gradually escalates in complexity. Here, it makes you dodge falling masonry and floating mines. There, it demands you lead a coalition of clones down separate passages to ensure a clear path to the finish. Along the way, you'll find yourself encountering and utilizing power-ups that will cause you to expand, contract, speed up, or slow down. At all times, you must ensure that your character remains on-screen; Failure to do so will lead to an immediate return to the nearest checkpoint.

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Cute cartoon animals, physics-based puzzles, and a star-based rating system—sound familiar? Noble Nutlings for iOS is a bouncy, cart-swerving drive down memory lane. Boomlagoon, an indie team that happens to be made up of many ex-Rovio (of Angry Birds fame) developers, is the development brains behind the physics-based Nutlings. The interface, art style, and the build-a-contraption and obstacle course gameplay mechanics are reminiscent of Rovio's recent venture, Bad Piggies.

The free Noble Nutlings tasks you with guiding three squirrels out on a joy ride through various obstacle courses. Using the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch’s accelerometer and virtual buttons, you can earn star ratings on each level; you can also unlock new equipment, wheels, and power-ups. The physics are consistent, the controls sharp, and despite the cartoonish equipment (you'll have a cart made of a bathtub chassis and riding fruit wheels at one point) the game is challenging enough even for adults.

The issue with Noble Nutlings is that's its nothing spectacular. There are dozens of similar tilt-to-guide physics/race/puzzler games on the App Store, and BoomLagoon seemingly swapped in squirrels for pigs or birds.

Like Rovio's team, BoomLagoon seems to be trying to recapture Angry Birds' winning formula of challenge, cuteness, and replay-ability.

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In Twisted Pixel’s $3 Ms. ‘Splosion Man for iOS, you star as an explosive molecule that has come to life. She has the personality of a hyperactive Barbie doll with an extreme penchant for shoes… and blowing up all the boy scientists she finds. Like any good escaped lab experiment, your goal is to break free and cause general mayhem on the way out.

Twisted Pixel is the development team behind Ms. ‘Spolsion Man, a game company that’s no stranger on the Xbox Live Arcade circuit with the entire ‘Splosion Man series and other titles, including The Gunstringer. However, Ms. ‘Splosion Man is the developer’s first foray into the mobile game market on the iOS platform, as a universal app for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. 

Ms. ‘Splosion Man pretty much plays out like any side-scrolling platformer, except the twist here you don’t jump, you ‘splode (or explode, if you want to get technical) into the air. Tapping on anywhere on the screen will let you ‘splode up to three times before you have to touch a surface again to refill you charges. Meanwhile, left and right movement is handled by pair of virtual buttons on the left side of the screen.

Despite some early concerns about virtual touchscreen controls, I found that they actually lend a surprising amount of precision. I had no problems pulling off dozens of wall jumps and even “threading the needle” through a pair of deadly electric barriers.

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Usually, when a new game is released, the Mac version—if there is a Mac version—ships on a later date than the Windows version, a frustrating fact of life for many a Mac gamer. But with the new SimCity, that delay is probably a good thing.

Electronic Arts on Wednesday announced that June 11, 2013, is the official release date for the latest version of SimCity. When the Windows version shipped in North America on March 5, the release was met with one debacle after another: long wait times on servers, connectivity problems during the game, and disabled features put in place to try and cope with the unexpected server load. Now that Electronics Arts has had some time to address these problems, hopefully the Mac release will be nothing but smooth sailing.

According to the SimCity blog, the Mac version isn’t just a port of the Windows version, but a Mac native app, which should bode well for Mac gamers worried about game performance. However, SimCity requires a connection to Electronic Arts’ servers, even in single player mode, so there’s always a chance that a server issue or connectivity problem will arise.

The Mac version is available for pre-order though Electronic Arts’s Origin online store as a digital download only. The $80 Digital Deluxe version includes four bonus content sets, while a $60 standard version is also available without the bonus content. If you own the Windows version, the Mac version is free; buyers of the Mac version can also get the Windows version for free. The Mac and Windows versions can access cities created on either version.

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Google and Microsoft both return to iOS with upgraded apps designed to help you get your work done and save your most important files to the cloud. Plus, games, poems, and skeletons in this week's roundup.

Despite the patch for the latest Apple security hole, concerns remain about the company’s track record in that arena. But, hey, can you really blame Apple, when it may be busy building a game controller and a streaming music service? Say the secret word, the remainders for Friday, March 29, 2013 win $100.

Password denied: when will Apple get serious about security? (The Verge)

Apple may have patched the recent password reset security hole, but Tim Carmody argues that it’s an example of a larger issue for Apple: specifically, the company’s lack of transparency in its security practices. Strangely, whenever you ask Apple about it, it just waves its hand and mutters “You don’t need to see our security practices.”

Exclusive: Apple will launch an official gaming joypad soon (PocketGamer.biz)

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Apple’s still tops in smartphone smiles, Google’s chairman lodges a foot in his mouth yet again, and a satirical game gets the boot from the App Store. The remainders for Thursday, March 21, 2013 are on a losin’ streak.

2013 U.S. Wireless Smartphone Satisfaction Study—Volume 1 and 2013 U.S. Wireless Traditional Mobile Phone Satisfaction Study—Volume 1 (J.D. Power and Associates)

Shocking as it may seem, J.D. Power (and his merry band of Associates) have concluded once again—for the ninth time in a row—that Apple customers have the highest satisfaction in the smartphone industry. In second place … well, everybody else apparently. Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, and HTC are all within 5 points of each other. Oh, yeah, and BlackBerry is losing. Shocker.

Apple says there are no Google apps awaiting review in App Store (The Verge)

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In just the span of a few days last month, Real Racing 3 went from being one of the most-anticipated iOS games of the year to arguably one of the most-frustrating.

The latest edition of the hugely popular Real Racing franchise was the first launched since Electronic Arts bought out the game’s original developer, Firemint, in 2011. While its predecessor originally cost $10 to download, Real Racing 3 runs on a “freemium” model—no cost to download, but packed with in-game “micropayment” options to upgrade the gaming experience, with payment options ranging from $2.60 for small upgrades to $25 for a “Silver Card” good for $700,000 of credit in the game's universe.

Two things happened: First, the game rocketed to the top of the charts, racking up “significantly more” downloads in its first week (according to EA) than the first two Real Racing games combined. But even as those downloads were accumulating, users began complaining that the game was difficult to play without purchasing enhancements. For example, “time outs” force free-playing users to wait for virtual car repairs. Want to skip those breaks? Make a micropayment.

“The more you enjoy the game the more often you’ll run into these enforced breaks,” TechHive’s Nate Ralph wrote in his review, “forcing you to choose between racing conservatively, cracking open your wallet, or simply finding something else to do.”

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Apple has reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit that claimed that its app purchase policy did not prevent minor children from running huge expenses for in-app purchases.

Under the settlement proposed to a court in California, Apple has agreed to pay in cash and credits through its iTunes store to a class of U.S. residents who claimed to have paid for game currency in game apps downloaded from the App Store by minors without their knowledge or permission.

Plaintiff Garen Meguerian, who filed the initial class action complaint in a court in California in April, 2011, alleged that he discovered a series of in-app purchases charged by his then eight-year-old daughter in third-party apps between January and March 2011 without his knowledge or permission, according to court records.

Apple requires its users to authenticate their accounts by entering a password before purchasing or downloading an app or buying game currency, according to the 2011 complaint. Once an iTunes password was entered, a user—even if they were minors—could buy game currency for the next 15 minutes without entering the password again. Apple altered its in-app purchase model with the iOS 4.3 update, after a backlash from parents and government agencies.

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If the Wii has taught us anything, it’s that technology can help us get off our butts while still enjoying the fun and excitement of gaming. The BowBlade looks to catch in on the archery craze (that’s a thing, right?) and add an upper-body workout to your first-person shooting.

Jonathan Seff

Described as “the most versatile active-gaming device on the planet,” the BowBlade is a bow with a clip for iOS and Android devices that lets you play more than 35 target, shooting, sniper, and other games by drawing back on the bow and pulling the trigger—with enough resistance to make you feel it in your shoulders the next day.

The BowBlade will come in three different sizes depending on your height. Expect for it to ship in April for $185.

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I’ve spent so much time the first two days of Macworld/iWorld looking at really useful stuff—iOS-related items that help users travel abroad, do their jobs, earn money, and even simply get organized—that I’d nearly forgotten one of the best features of iOS devices.

They’re fun.

Luckily, the folks at White Basket Apps came along to remind me that my iPhone can be the source of cheap, pleasant diversions. They make the Birthday Video Greeting Card app, and soon will introduce a game called PicTris to the market.

But my favorite of their offerings is Video Charades, which is exactly what it sounds like. This iPhone app lets you play silly games, acting out characters and situations for the benefit of your family 1,000 miles away. Which is exactly how I plan to use it. You have five seconds to record your video clue; I could spend a dollar on an in-app upgrade to the “pro” version and double that time allowed, but that hardly seems sporting. There’s nothing earth-shattering in this app. It’s just fun.

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Gaming has become an increasingly popular part of what we do with our Macs and iOS devices, and Apple finally realized that. In iOS 5, the company introduced Game Center, a social network service and set of frameworks that developers could use to handle common gaming-related tasks, such as tracking friends, accruing achievements, and playing multiplayer games.

Chances are you’ve encountered Game Center’s green felt background on one of your many Apple devices. Maybe it popped up when you were trying to start a game of Letterpress, perhaps you got a notification letting you know it was your turn, or maybe you were just wondering about that multicolored icon Apple dropped on your home screen. If it had your confused, don’t worry: Let us walk you through how to get the most out of Apple’s online gaming service.

What’s your handle, good buddy?

The first thing to do is to create a Game Center account by launching the service on either your Mac or your iOS device. Regardless of where you choose to create the account, it will be accessible on both iOS or OS X, and the options you’re presented with will be the same.

Among the most crucial decisions you make when creating a Game Center account is picking a nickname. This is the name you’ll be known by online, and it will show up in leaderboards and in multiplayer games. You’ll want to pick carefully—once you've created it, you can’t change your nickname without making an entirely new account, in which case you’ll have to go through this whole procedure again.

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Update: In a recent Mac 911 entry a reader asked how he might transfer Angry Birds saved game data between one iOS device and another. It turns out that not only is this possible, but it's also possible to transfer this data between an iOS device and the Mac App version of the game (and vice versa). It's all the same file. Read on to the end learn how this is done.

Reader Will Colvin begins the new year on an unhappy note. He writes:

Over the weekend I attempted to update my copy of Angry Birds on my iPad but something went wrong. The second attempt worked but now I’ve lost all my saved games, and I had a lot of three-stars and golden eggs. My girlfriend’s iPad has just about the same number of three-star levels and eggs. Is there any way I can copy her achievements from her iPad to mine?

Yes indeed. What you want to do is move a copy of the highscores.lua file from her iPad to your Mac and then replace the copy of this same file on your iPad with her copy. If both iPads are jailbroken you can find this file by going to private/var/mobile/Applications/(the Angry Birds folder)/Documents. (This bit about “the Angry Birds folder” means that it’s not named Angry Birds, rather this folder has a name like 0CEE22AC-1234-4C54-21E3-66AB51F25F68.)

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Today’s tip is a simple one, targeted at those who of you who enjoy the occasional diversion via a quick Flash game in your browser—perhaps an old-school classic such as Space Invaders or Pac Man, or something different like Binball Wizard or Desktop Tower Defense.

Whatever your preference, the problem with many Flash game sites is that they’re loaded with busy graphics, overly-intrusive ads, and hard-on-the-eyes color schemes. Some sites also require you to click through a few screens before you can get to the game itself. All together, these issues change what should be a fun and relaxing diversion into something that seems more like work (which may be what you were seeking relief from in the first place).

With just a bit of work using Safari 3 (or Safari 4 Beta), you can turn your favorite Flash games into Dashboard widgets. (If you prefer Firefox, you only need to use Safari long enough to do the conversion.) Once converted, your favorite Flash game is no more than a press of the Dashboard key away.

Converting a Flash game to a widget takes nothing more than a Safari’s often-overlooked Web Clip tool and a few seconds of time. Web Clip lets you turn sections of web pages into Dashboard Widgets, and is often used for pictures, headlines, and other such often-updated content. But Web Clip doesn’t care what you clip; it just creates a window into whatever region of the web page you select.

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It’s not hard to count the number of bundled games in OS X (not counting games available via Terminal). The total count is one—Chess, which you’ll find in the Applications folder. While you can run this game easily enough in the Finder with a double-click, that really wouldn’t make for much of a hint. Instead, we’re going to take a look at how you can directly access the engine that runs Chess from Terminal.

Why would you want to do this? Honestly, I’m not sure—perhaps you’re a chess addict, playing for hours on end, and you’re tired of all the beautiful 3-D eye candy in the GUI version. Or maybe you’re a purist, and you prefer to enter your moves in algebraic chess notation, instead of dragging pieces around. Whatever the reason, here’s how to access the guts of Chess via Terminal.

Chess, it turns out, is powered by Sjeng, an open-source chess engine. To access Sjeng, open Terminal and type this command:

Once in that directory, you can launch Sjeng by typing (in OS X 10.5) ./sjeng.ChessEngine or (in OS X 10.4) ./sjeng. When the program launches, you’ll see some initialization output, and then a lovely rendition of a chess board done in ASCII—here’s a board after a few moves have been made (black pieces are denoted with a *, and are shown at the top of the board):

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The game of go is a strategic board game invented in China more than 2,000 years ago. It is played on a board with a grid of 19-by-19 lines. Two players take turns placing stones (one player gets white, the other black) on the intersections of the lines. The goal is to create a territory; space delimited by the stones. At the end of the game, the players count up the points (intersections) in their territory, and add any stones they have captured (you can capture stones by surrounding them). The person with the highest score wins.

That was a very, very succinct description of the game of go (baduk in Korean or weiqi in Chinese). While the rules are simple, it does get more complicated than that. The game is played professionally—mostly in Japan, Korea, and China—and has developed a long tradition of strategy and tactics. Go is popular enough that Asian newspapers feature columns about the game with game records and analysis, the way western newspapers may have chess or bridge columns; some go games are even televised.

Go is often compared to chess—not because the games are played in the same way, but because both games involve similar types of strategy and deep reflection. Unlike chess, however, go software has not yet reached the top levels of play. If you’re a go fan, or simply want to discover the game, you can get some go software to play on the Mac. And if you’re a serious player, your Mac—and even your iPhone or iPod touch—can be the gateway to a whole world of go.

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You’ve no doubt heard the buzz about Second Life, the online world where people create virtual second selves. Mac users are as welcome as anyone else in this world, but the simulation was originally developed for Windows, so some aspects of Second Life work differently on a Mac. Here’s how to make yourself at home in Second Life with the least amount of real-life stress.

Getting started

Even if you’ve never explored Second Life—or any other virtual world—it’s easy to start the process. Download the program, install it, and follow the prompts to create a new account. Log in, and a series of prompts guides you through the basics, such as how to interact with the environment and how to customize your character’s look. This avatar can be whomever (or whatever) you want. A free-spirited beach boy? A seductress in stilettos? A cat with tattoos and a wizard’s cap? Your appearance is entirely up to you.

This freedom also applies to what you do with your new persona. You can simply wander—or fly—from one location to another, taking in the sights and chatting with your fellow virtual residents. Or you can stake a claim, buying some virtual land (with Second Life’s currency, Linden Dollars) and starting your own virtual business (which some Second Lifers are turning into real-world bucks).

For further tips in Second Life, click on the Search button at the bottom of the screen to open the search tool. Type in

orientation island
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Welcome to another installment of Geeky Friday. Today, unfortunately, it seems we’ve reached a …

Dead end.
You are at a dead end of a dirt road.  The road goes to
the east. In the distance you can see that it will
eventually fork off.  The trees here are very tall royal
palms, and they are spaced equidistant from each other.
There is a shovel here.
>get shovel
Taken.
....

And so begins a few hours of wasted time. Well, at least for those of us who grew up in the “good old days” of computer gaming, it may. If the above doesn’t look familiar to you, it’s probably because you’re quite a bit younger than I am :). For those who aren’t familiar, before we had color screens, hard drives, or anything resembling OS X, we had text-based computer games.

As you can see from the quotes above, all you need to play a text-based game are a keyboard, a screen, and an active imagination! This particular game is called dunnet, and it’s included with every copy of OS X—I’ll tell you how to launch it in just a bit.

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