Tired of losing lives at Candy Crush? All huffin' and puffin' about Temple Run and not getting anywhere? Can't sleep thinking of your Plants and Zombies? Well, lemme make an attempt to bring you out of your (current) misery and introduce you to a new addiction - Alien Hive! 

Sliding Tile Puzzle

LOL I made myself sound like a cheesy salesman there. But in good faith, if you remember the sliding tile puzzle - hours upon hours spent trying sliding and attempting to align the pieces to the proper order wither in numeric sequence or to reveal a picture, together with every frustration that came with it - you are going to love this game! I for one, am addicted to it! Much of the childhood memory planning strategies to move the pieces across the board, the painstaking effort, crunching your mind just trying to get the pieces in place without causing other pieces to go out of place came flooding! It's insane! Add move counts and limit to that - you just HAVE to try it!! 

Alien Hive is just like that - and more. It's a combination of match 3 or more and the sliding tile puzzle. What it means is that across the 6 x 6 board, one tile is left blank. You slide the tiles vertically or horizontally in attempt to create a match of three or more of the same pieces. To make it even more interesting, the pieces don't just disappear off the board, but evolves into a higher level "being". Match three or more of those to get a higher level being until you manage to get a supreme alien! 

CUTE!!!!

Get the objective yet? There are basically three different types of "beings" in Alien Hive - the crystals, match three or more of these to get more moves; the plants, also gives moves as well as Magic Fruit in the final evolution; and finally the star of the show, the aliens - match three or more eggs to make an egg-womb, three or more egg-wombs make an alien embryo, three or more of those make a baby alien, three or more of those make an alien, three or more of those makes an alien coccoon - and frankly that's as far as I could go for now. 

A look at my hives!

I'll be nice and post some tips I got from the developers website :

• Always plan a few steps ahead.
• Look at the whole board, don't just focus on the area surrounding the empty slot.
• Try to use minimum resources to gain maximum result – use as few moves as possible!
• Each powerup is valuable, try to use the proper item at the right moment.

Here's a demo video to get you started :

For you puzzle game addicts out there, I seriously recommend this game. Watch out for those Naughty Bots too, they're nasty! Visit Google Play or tap on the Play button to directly download the game into your phone! Enjoy! 

Use these links to get play  Alien Hives on your iPhone / iPad or Blackberry.

          

Enlightened Mark!

Map Link : here

Created by linking 4 portals :

Respect, Relax, Respond. That is my most general motto. I've had the most unfortunate turn of event playing Ingress one night. I was at the Kuching Waterfront area. On any night, the crowd would be buzzing from between 6 to 11pm. I got there at about 8. It was drizzing a little bit, which was probably why the usual crowd was scarce. Even the buskers along the pavement sat and talked in their groups instead of singing their hearts out. 

I planned to make a couple of rounds of hacks that night. Halfway through, I was stopped by a random guy who wreaked of alcohol. I don't remember doing anything that attracts attention to myself. I didn't have my earphones as I fear I might miss any sound that alerts me of danger, I kept my phone in my hand and eyes up ahead where I was going. Somehow this drunk guy zeroed in on me and began asking question after question and repeating them in random orders. 

This is where I messed up tho. I should've left the scene promptly. I lingered long enough for his group of friends to catch up. I pocketed my phone and fished my car keys out in case I needed to protect myself. God knows being huddled by 5 drunk guys at night while it's drizzling, I fear my own safety. 

What went on in my head there and then was where is the nearest group of people, hopefully sober and helpful. If I needed to protect myself, I'll use the keys for weapon. If I need to run, where is the best direction. Lucky me a group of patrols passed by and no violence occurred. Still, that taught me a lesson. 

Keep yourself safe. Respect your environment, know the dangers and evaluate the need of self-preservation. Relax. Keep a cool mind. Calm down and control yourself. Finally, respond to the changes in your environment accordingly. Do not resort to violence unless if really necessary. 

And as a general rule, I can't emphasize on this any less, keep yourself safe!

Dude this post is so long overdue!! New portals are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. I like how especially in the city centre most of the portals are within walking distance from one another. I'd park my car somewhere, armed with my phone and a pair of earphones I'd go around hacking one portal after another. 

Managed to get up to level 4 on my own, but it is a very slow process. Levels in Ingress depend on collecting Action Points or AP. AP is collected by performing actions, such as hacking a portal, capturing a neutral portal, placing can completing all 8 resonators on the portal, creating fields, destroying resonators, neutralizing portals and destroying fields. 

Depending on your level and stock of resonators and XMP bursters, this can be easily challenging. There's also an issue of XM amount that you have as each action requires a certain amount of XM. 

The higher the access level, the more XM capacity you can hold. Currently at level 4, I can hold a maximum of 6k XM. Almost halfway through to access level 5. 

I've been wanting to create fields now, big ones. However, I choose to hold back a little, make sure I have all the portal keys I want and then BAM! Enlightened field everywhere! For now tho, my faction mates has created the biggest field in my area ever!!

" INGRESS! The fate of the world lies in the palm of your hand. Tip the balance with the tips of your fingers. Walk to embrace change for humanity, or walk to defend humanity from invasion! Pick your faction, dive into the action! "

If you're into Augmented Reality (AR), this is THE app for you. Developed by Google's very own NianticLabs, it is essentially a game. In a nutshell, you play as part of two factions, one embraces the change for humanity called the Enlightened, and the other opposes and considers it as an invasion, called Resistance. I myself have only played it recently, but find it deeply absorbing. You literally have to walk around to collect Exotic Matters or XM used to capture "portals" scattered across the world. 

Ingress is categorized as an AR-based MMORPG. Since it is developed by Google for Android platform, you will need an Android device to play it. Now you may be intimidated by the fact that it is an AR game and you may need high end devices to play, but don't worry - a lot of  devices can support this game. There is no heavy graphical processing going on at the background. You do need at least Gingerbread (Android version 2.3) and above to play it, and good internet connection with WiFi and GPS support is recommended.  

As I've mentioned earlier, the main objective in Ingress is to capture as many portals as you can, and link them together to form a field that may span across a small area, or as large as inter-cities. I could imagine it spanning across states and countries even. Since it is an MMORPG, you will be playing as part of either one of two factions - namely Enlightened and Resistance. (To be totally fair, I will not be mentioning which faction I'm playing for, although it is tempting to recruit my readers as part of my faction)

Portals are usually unique landmarks, buildings with historical or architectural value or importance, should be highly accessible and is a permanent fixture of the area. Some of them include arches, water features, public transit stations, entrances signs etc. Some of the portals in Kuching are shown in pics. There are more in the Peninsular, especially KL and Johor, as well as the neighbouring Singapore. 

When you're near a portal, you can hack it to get items. If a portal is neutral (Grey color in the game), you can deploy Resonators to capture it for your Faction (Blue represents the Resistance, Green represents the Enlightened). You can link portals together with a portal key obtained randomly as you hack portals, and attack enemy portals to force it back to a neutral state and then recapture it.

The most interesting aspect of the game is that you will be walking around from one portal to another. You may want to drive too if it's too far, or take the public transport. Point is, you'll be moving around. Me and my friend tried it yesterday afternoon, and it took us from Tugu Pahlawan, the temple at the end of Carpenter Street and around Waterfront area. I have to admit at that time I was a little lost because I couldn't make sense of anything in the game, but now that I've read a little about it, I think I'm good to go.

The game itself is still in beta version, downloadable from Google Play for free. However, you have to request an invite and get the activation code to play. It's still free, but I got mine about two weeks after requesting for an invite to play. Let not that put you off from trying it though, because I tell you it is very addictive - more than Candy Crush Saga or Subway Surfers and the likes. 

PS : Future posts will include details about the game and some of its mechanics, guides, media and in-game items, hints and tips.