1. Level 1
2. Level 2
3. Level 3
4. Level 4

Level 4

• Difficulty:
• Best time remaining: 826
• Number of hens: 4
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 4 strategy

With a lift and a gap in the bottom platform, this level combines the features introduced in level 2 and level 3 and adds some tricky jumps to the mix. In particular, the top left jump nearest the caged bird can cause you to fall through if you jump from the nearest platform.

Avoiding hens is still fairly easy where the central ladder can be used to escape.

Level 4 video play through

1. Level 1
2. Level 2
3. Level 3

Level 3

• Difficulty:
• Best time remaining: 888
• Number of hens: 3
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 3 strategy

This level introduces the lift. This is three moving platforms, moving vertically up the screen. The platforms are not evenly spaced, with two appearing closer together. Missing the lift and falling down the gap between the lift and the platform will result in a life lost.

The level design makes it easy to avoid the hens, but good timing is needed to complete it quickly.

Level 3 video play through

1. Level 1
2. Level 2

Level 2

• Difficulty:
• Best time remaining: 831
• Number of hens: 3
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 2 strategy

The second level has a large number of ladders connecting the platforms. Although there is one more hen compared to level one, there are many jump-able gaps to aid escape and turn back hens.

The single gap on the bottom platform has a gap and falling through results in an instant life lost.

Level 2 video play through

This is my guide to each Chuckie Egg level:

1. Level 1

Level 1

• Difficulty:
• Best score: 2,260
• Number of hens: 2
• Speed of hens: slow

Level 1 strategy

The first level is dominated by a central ladder running through all five platforms. Two hens start in the top left of the level, moving slowly towards the bottom. They can sometimes get in the way on the central ladder, but several nearby platforms can be used to wait them out.

The bottom two platforms have plenty of ladders to avoid getting trapped and to practice running and jumping.

Level 1 video play through

1. Visual Studio

As a .net developer, VS 2008 is a fantastic Integrated Developer Environment. From code snippets to Intellisense, debugging to stack traces, Visual Studio helps me develop swiftly while concentrating on the code.

2. Firefox + Firebug extension + Web Developer extension

I recently had a problem running Firefox on my new PC and boy, did I miss Firebug and the Web Developer extension. Although some of the features overlap, the simplicity of Web Developer means that it is very quick and easy to disable CSS, view all images or check page size.

Firebug is indispensable to hunt down CSS inheritance irritations, preview quick style modifications or unravel client-side javascript complexities.

Special mention to ColorZilla, User Agent Switcher and FireShot.

3. Fiddler

A comprehensive HTTP debugging  proxy, Fiddler allows you to examine the raw HTTP traffic between the browser and server. Works well with HTTPS too.

4. Notepad++

Notepad++ is a text editor hitting all my major requirements: colour coding, quick to load, and excellent FTP integration.

5. Balsamiq Mockups

Useful, quick and easy wire framing for web applications and iphone designs.

6. Photoshop

The granddaddy of image manipulation software, I probably only use 5% of all its features. Once I got over it’s irritating non-standard menus, I really appreciated the way tools such as spot healing work so well.

7. FileZilla

A bit under-rated, FileZilla is a top-notch FTP client that is small, light and regularly updated.

Petting a kitty feels so good. But then, so does crushing my enemies.

Jeff Atwood on Twitter

“Best of the best of the best, sir!” “With honors.” Yeah, he’s just really excited and he has no clue why we’re here.

James Edwards in Men in Black

Hi, I’m Randy

Randy Smith in Edge magazine

Ergo open your yapper one more time and I’m going to architect a world of pain all over your candy ass! Ergo! Vis-à-vis! Concordidly!

Larry The Architect in the MTV Movie Awards 2003

Marriage don’t make you slow,
you make you slow!

My gym instructor Eddy after I came back from a month-long wedding and honeymoon break.

No tea break! No stopping!

Abby at the gym halfway through an intense workout class.

That makes me furious!

Neil in the office after finding out that there are no cheese and onion square crisps in the Student Union shop.

Dr. Cox: How are we going to get rid of Maddox? Janitor, would you like to get your useless ideas out of the way first?

Janitor: Well thank you Perry. Off the top of my head I’d go reindeer stampede, astronaut attack, barbed wire chandelier, photoshop, poisonous sushi…

The janitor on getting rid of Dr Maddox in Scrubs.

St James’ Hall | View from my window

The new offices on the Programmer’s Bill of Rights scale

1. Every programmer shall have two monitors

Every developer in the team has at least a duel monitor 17″ setup. Twice the monitors, twice the productivity.

2. Every programmer shall have a fast PC

We all sport at least dual-cores with a couple of gigabytes of RAM. Increasing memory is an easy request process. No time wasted staring at progress bars.

3. Every programmer shall have their choice of mouse and keyboard

I’m currently using a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and Trackball Optical, although I’m also trying out the Logitech Trackman Marble. Other keyboard and mice can be ordered as needed.

4. Every programmer shall have a comfortable chair

Nothing special — standard modern five-wheel office chair. Old or worn chairs are replaced as required.

5. Every programmer shall have a fast internet connection

The University is part of LeNSE and accesses the internet through JANET, the UK’s education and research network.

Internet connectivity and bandwidth is not a problem for development work, with a quick test on www.speedtest.net showing a download speed of about 100 Mb/s and upload of 65 Mb/s.

6. Every programmer shall have quiet working conditions

As Ted Dziuba writes about in Context Switches are Bad, but Stack Traces are Worse, interruptions and context switches can destroy productivity. The new office is up a slight hill on main campus, which reduces the number of people popping in, and separate meeting rooms are available for meetings and discussions. Although there can be as many as ten people in the office working at once, we’re all development teams and so have a similar working style.

Conclusion

The high score on the Programmers Bill of Rights reflect that the new offices are a fantastic working environment for quality development.

It’s been written about many times that modern sites incorporate services and products from open source and third parties, but it wasn’t until I created SuperFunDays Out.com that I realised the extent that this has become the norm for new startups and the maturity of free products.

As a way of exploring this idea, I’ve listed the services and products that Super Fun Days Out is built on.

Online services

Facebook

What is it? The biggest social networking site in the world.
How is it used? Helen uses the Facebook Group to share pictures and videos of SuperFun. A discussion group is automatically created and she can email the whole group.
Mashable? SuperFun just links to the group, although there are options to embed the group in the website using javascript.

Google Maps

What is it? Embed a Google Map onto a web page and manipulate it through javascript.
How is it used? The key focus of Super Fun Days Out is exploring activities easily using a draggable map.
Mashable? Widely used and simple to start with.

Geocoding

What is it? Maps deal with locations using latitude and longitude, rather than road names. Google Maps API provides a geocoding service to turn postal addresses into geographic co-ordinates, which Super Fun Days Out then uses to display company and activity details on a Google Map.
Mashable? Within the Terms of service of the API

Google Analytics

What is it? Free web site traffic data collection and analysis.
How is it used? We use this to track user journeys through the site, including map interaction and the destinations when leaving the site
Mashable? Not really. Google now has an API, but it’s more of a useful tool to access directly.

Gravatar

What is it? A gravatar is a picture associated with an email address centrally hosted at gravatar.com
How is it used? On the SuperFun Adrenablog!, people can leave comments and if they’ve registered on gravatar.com, their image will be used. The people behind Super Fun Days Out also have their images served through a gravatar.
Mashable? Very. Explicitly designed to be embedded and used in other sites, there is a simple RESTful API.

Pingdom

What is it? Web site monitoring tool.
How is it used? Pingdom checks SuperFun every couple of minutes to make sure it is still responding and will notify me by email or text message if it is not.
Mashable? There is an API, but it is not widely used.

Twitter

What is it? Hot new simple tech that helps spread the word in 140 characters or less.
How is it used? Bex builds up interest in the site with regular updates and interaction.
Mashable? Entirely. Embedded in the main page of Super Fun Days Out.

Youtube

What is it? The largest video hosting web site.
How is it used? YouTube hosts videos of SuperFun activities that are embedded on the site.
Mashable? Very. Every video has an embed code, and the API allows automatic embedding and searching.

Open source and free applications

jQuery

What is it? Open source Javascript framework that made client-side coding fun and took the pain out of cross-browser incompatibilities.
How is it used? It’s the glue that binds together standard Google Maps functionality and new Super Fun Days Out functionality.

jQuery plugins

What are they? Bundles of open source extensions to jQuery that usually do specific things.
How are they used? SuperFun uses Jörn Zaefferer’s AutoComplete plugin to provide on-demand live search of companies and activities and Christian Hellsten’s Google Analytics for better performance visitor tracking.

MySQL

What is it? An extremely open source popular database.
How is it used? SuperFun stores companies and activity details in a MySql database.

Notepad++

What is it? A text editor similar to notepad, but includes syntax highlighting, auto complete and has a plugin architecture.
How is it used? The very useful FTP plugin is used to make minor modifications to the web site without needing to redeploy or upload and download the files separately.

WordPress

What is it? Mature blog publishing system.
How is it used? It manages all non-map pages on the site such as Advertise With Us, Contact Us and Adrenablog!

WordPress plugins

What are they? Bundles of open source extensions that enhance the core WordPress product.
How are they used? SuperFun uses a bunch of plugins. From enhancing the contact form with Contact Form 7, to automatically adding social bookmarking with Social and filtering spam comments through Akismet.

Windows Live Writer

What is it? A free Microsoft desktop program that interfaces with most blog software to enable offline and rich authoring.
How is it used? Handy to compose blog entries using the built in image editor, spell checker and media embedder.

You are Alex Mercer, the Prototype, the ultimate shape-shifting weapon. With no memory and no mercy, hunt your way to the heart of the conspiracy which created you, making those responsible pay!

Game play consists of third-person hack-and-slash, roaming the city streets, optionally taking on side-missions such as races and infiltrations, and watching the infection spread throughout the city’s population.

The Highs

Hijack anything

Like the look of the Armoured Personnel Carrier? It’s yours. Finding yourself out gunned by tanks? Cheekily steal one and turn it against the others. Want to swoop through the city in a helicopter gunship? Climb a nearby building and drop onto the cockpit. A lot of fun can be had cruising the city streets either deliberately running over pedestrians and destroying vehicles or trying to avoid raising suspicion.

Two completely different sets of enemies

The army soldiers and vehicles make a formidable adversary through weight of numbers. During the later stages of the game, it is not unusual to have a tank, a couple of helicopter gunships and soldiers armed with machine guns and rocket launchers all shooting at you with ranged attacks.

In contrast, the Infected monsters are fast and hard, excel in up-close attacks, and often bound at you in pairs or small groups. Watching the Army and Infected duke it out from atop a building is a joy to watch before descending to deliver beats to both sides.

Wide range of moves and styles

From Woverine-style claws to a long range tentacle arm, there’s a body part weapon for every occasion. Some upgrades such as muscle mass allow you to hit harder and throw vehicles further, while others are more defensive such as shield, armour and disguise.

You are also able to grab machine guns, grenade launchers and rocket launchers from soldiers on the street to enhance your ranged attacks and vary the destruction.

Switching between body weapons is handled well through the head-up menu selector, with the action on screen slowing down to help.

Free running

Alex bounds along the street jumping and sliding over cars and lorries with ease. He can run up the walls of the skyscrapers before tuck-jumping over ledges without him ever feeling out of your control. Gliding and falling soon become natural ways to navigate the city, with an Achievement available for hard-to-reach collectible landmarks.

Side missions

There are several different types of side missions to optionally complete for points to level up your powers. Glides practice your in-air abilities, while war sees you taking either the military or infected side against the other. Races time you between checkpoints and killing sprees force you to become proficient with a chosen weapon.

Humanity is your disguise

No modern game would be complete without some kind of sneaky-sneaky stealth action and Prototype has it in spades. From infiltrating military bases as a base commander, to evading a strike squad by absorbing a civilian, to hijacking a tank without raising an alert, Prototype can match your game-playing mood.

Crazy moves = wonderful chaos

There’s not many games where you can run up a building onto the roof, be shot off by helicopter gunships only for you to twist in midair to glide and hijack it before turning its arnments on fellow gunships. Or run along a street, pick up a car and hurl it at a tank. It’s great fun.

The Lows

Mundane story

Wake up with no memory? Check. Secret military plot? Check. Trying to create the prefect super-solider? Check. So typical, so ho-hum. The back story is told through some nice flash-backs, but it’s not generally worth telling.

Weak end of game enemies

Tied in with the story is that the game’s end of level bad guys are not particularly epic and come somewhat as a disapointment.

Slightly fiddly controls

Lots of moves mean lots of controls. As the moves are earnt through upgrades, these do come gradually, but I found that I had to refer back to the controls fairly often. The button combinations are also quite difficult to master e.g. gliding

Lack of multiplayer

Not a biggie for me, but it has become the norm for Xbox 360 games to have a muliplayer component and Prototype is strictly single player.

Ho hum graphics

With near draw distance and heavily repeating pedestrian models, Prototype isn’t anything outstanding. It more then makes up for this with the amount happening at once on screen though.

Overall

A game that is exhilerating to play and great fun gets a Mostly Awesome recommendation.