Puzzle Bobble 2

Puzzle Bobble 2 is a tile-matching video game by Taito. The first sequel to "Puzzle Bobble", it was titled in Europe and North America as Bust-A-Move Again on the arcade and Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition on the home consoles. Released into the arcades in 1995, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64 and Windows conversions followed. The game was included in "Taito Legends 2", but the US arcade version was included on the US PS2 version instead.
The game builds on the original by adding a tournament style variation on the two player game for play against the computer and by adding a branching map to the one player game, allowing the player to periodically select one of two groups of five levels to play next, leading to different game endings. Some of the contestants in the new tournament mode are based on characters from Bubble Bobble, including variations on a "Monsta" and a "Mighta".
Some versions of the game, including the PlayStation, feature time trial competitions in which a single player attempts to finish simple rounds quickly enough to beat previous time records or two players simultaneously attempt to beat the records and each other.
Completion of the single player game gives the player a code which can be entered to unlock 'Another World' for the single player game, which features subtle changes to the existing levels to increase their difficulty and changes to all backdrops to resemble levels from Bubble Bobble. The various enemies from Bubble Bobble also make an appearance in the background of the credits sequence.
North American version.
The North American version of the original arcade release is much different than the other versions. One of the most major changes in this version is that Bub and Bob were removed from the game and replaced with a pair of disembodied hands. Also, the characters that were in the Vs. CPU mode were removed and replaced with a generic computer. The backgrounds from the original version were also removed and replaced with 15 new backgrounds, but this also means that the backgrounds get looped in the Puzzle mode, which is 30 stages long. The audio was also changed, and the voices in the game were removed, even though they were in English anyway. These changes were only made for the Taito F3 System version, since the Neo Geo and console releases are based on the original Japanese version. If this version was played in an emulator, it would have the Japanese audio, although the music would cut out in some levels. This emulation error was fixed in 2006 - although not before it appeared in Taito Legends 2.
Bust-A-Move 2X.
Taito later repacked "Bust-A-Move 2" with an optional alternative set of levels and some new attract mode animations (including holiday-themed ones) as "Bust-A-Move 2X" (also known as "Puzzle Bobble 2X").
Ports of "Bust-A-Move 2" to MS-DOS and Sega Saturn are of "Bust-A-Move 2X" and additionally include a level editor/designer. A port of "2X" was made to the PlayStation but was not released until some time after a port of "Bust-A-Move 2" was released, and didn't see an international release.
North American cover art.
In North America, print advertisements for the Saturn and PlayStation editions featured a picture of several large blue balls with human faces trapped inside, moaning in apparent agony, with white sticks forcing their eyes open. The shots of the game packaging in the lower right corner of the ad show that the North American release of the game was to use the same cover art as the PAL release. Instead, possibly due to a mix-up by Acclaim's marketing department, the North American release of both Saturn and PlayStation editions uses the main art from the advertisement as their cover art. This cover earned a place on GameSpy's Top Ten Worst Covers list, with journalist Kevin Bowen pointing out that the disturbing imagery was likely to frighten away the game's young target audience. The later MS-DOS and Nintendo 64 releases from Acclaim would use the proper cover art used on the PAL releases.
Reception.
Critical reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Puzzle Bobble 2" on their October 15, 1995 issue as being the fourth most-successful arcade game of the year. "Game Machine" also listed "Puzzle Bobble 2X" on their February 1, 1996 issue as being the ninth most-successful arcade game of the year.
A "Next Generation" critic gave the game a rave review, calling it "One of the most addictive puzzle games in the arcades right now". He praised the challenging gameplay and the "fascinating" trick of bouncing bubbles off the walls to ricochet into the right spot, and concluded, "It's fast, fun, and because of the title's bright, innocent looks and unpretentious simplicity, it's almost unfair."
A brief review of the PlayStation version in "Next Generation" said it was "sure to please, especially in two-player mode." The four reviewers of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" applauded the game for its addictive puzzle play, its large amount of content, the usage of tricky bank shots in addition to the color-matching traditional to action puzzlers, and the fierce competitiveness of the two-player mode. Rad Automatic also commented positively on these aspects in "Sega Saturn Magazine", and said that though the game is best with two players, the single-player Puzzle Mode makes the game worth buying even for those who have no one to play with. Echoing "Next Generation", he remarked that "whilst "Bust-a-Move 2" maintains the sweet harmless exterior of a sherbert bonbon, inside beats the addictive heart of a malteser."
"Electronic Gaming Monthly" named the Saturn and PlayStation versions a runner-up for Puzzle Game of the Year (behind "Tetris Attack"). It was also a finalist for the Computer Game Developers Conference's 1996 "Best Trivia or Puzzle Game" Spotlight Award, but lost the prize to "You Don't Know Jack XL".
"PC Zone" critically called the Windows version a bad conversion with slowdowns, clunky animation, jerky aiming and blurry high resolution. They recommended buying the Game Boy version instead.
Promotion.
The game was showcased at the JAMMA 95 along with Dangerous Curves and Gekirindan.


Odell McLeod

Odell McLeod 1916–2003 (known by his stage name Mac Odell) was an American country-gospel singer, radio entertainer, and songwriter.
Early life.
McLeod was born May 31, 1916 in Roanoke, Alabama. He grew up on country music, listening to artists such as the Skillet Lickers, Deford Bailey, and Jimmie Rodgers. About 1939 he married Adeline Myrtle Wood, better known as Addie. She was from Arkansas and six years his junior. In 1940 they were living in Benton Township, Berrien County, Michigan.
Career.
McLeod's began his career by working with Slim Bassett. During the 1930s they traveled regularly with McLeod popularizing his own songs by performing them on radio stations throughout the southern United States. The duo landed a regular show in New Orleans in 1935, known as "Mac & Slim." He continued to work with Bassett until he married his wife Addie. He continued his career as a radio entertainer alongside his wife Addie on WJJD in Chicago. "Mac and Little Addie",as they were known, played for the station's Supper Time Frolic show until the start of World War II. During the war, McLeod worked in a factory in Michigan. He continued to write songs during the war and resumed his career at WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee once the war had ended. He was with the station until 1957, appearing both solo and as Mac and Little Addie.
McLeod was with the Mercury Records label from 1949 until 1952, leaving to join King Records. He wrote numerous songs throughout his career, including "The Battle of Armageddon" which was recorded by Hank Williams. Additional songs included "Thirty Pieces of Silver" made popular by Wilma Lee Cooper, and "From the Manger to the Cross" sung by Hank Williams, both of which became country music standards.
Later life.
McLeod moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan in 1957 where he became the business owner of "Odell Signs." He had given up songwriting at this time before suffering a heart attack in 1974 which led him to give up his business. In the late 1970s, he began writing and performing again, penning new songs as well as re-recording some of his earlier songs for the Folk Variety label of Germany. He traveled to the Netherlands in the 1980s where he and Addie toured with A.G. and Kate, a popular gospel duo. He died on January 11, 2003 at his home in Benton Harbor, Berrien County, Michigan.


Chris Granner

Christopher P. Granner (born 1957 in Mt. Kisco, New York) is a freelance music composer, best known for composing music for video games and pinball games.
Career and biography.
Granner's father is organist/pianist, so he was interested in music since his childhood. He studied composition and computer sound/music at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign under prolific musicians Ben Johnston, Herbert Brün, Salvatore Martirano and Scott Wyatt. After finishing university with a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Fine Arts in music composition he moved to Evanston-located Northwestern University's music lab. There Granner heard that Williams Electronics (which evolved in Midway Games) was looking for composer, and he took the job and became leading composer in coin-op and pinball industry. After leaving Midway Granner set up his own sound production studio CGMusic and produced music and sound for many video games, advertisements and pinball games.
From 2006 to 2011, Granner had retired from composing music for games, after he was finished with Stern / Steve Ritchie Productions' pinball, "World Poker Tour". In 2011, Granner came out of retirement and joined the newly formed Jersey Jack Pinball, where he served as the composer and audio director for their first pinball game, "The Wizard of Oz". In April 2012, Granner began audio work with Spooky Cool Labs, a Chicago-based startup company developing social games for Facebook and mobile platforms. He joined Spooky Cool, in-house, as Audio Director in October 2012. In June 2013, Spooky Cool was acquired by Zynga; Granner is currently serving as Audio Director of that studio, now known as Zynga Chicago, which produces games for the Hit It Rich! social casino.
Granner's Works.
"Note: The titles shown are in chronological order."
Pinball.
Jersey Jack Pinball.
"The names in superscript are the designers from the pinball machine, PLD stands for Pat Lawlor Design, SRP stands for Steve Ritchie Productions"


BioMed Central

BioMed Central (BMC) is a United Kingdom-based, for-profit scientific open access publisher that produces over 250 scientific journals. All its journals are published online only. BioMed Central describes itself as the first and largest open access science publisher. It was founded in 2000 and has been owned by Springer, now Springer Nature, since 2008.
History.
BioMed Central was founded in 2000 as part of the Current Science Group (now Science Navigation Group, SNG), a nursery of scientific publishing companies. SNG chairman Vitek Tracz developed the concept for the company after NIH director Harold Varmus's PubMed Central concept for open-access publishing was scaled back. The first director of the company was Jan Velterop. Chemistry Central was established in 2006 and the PhysMath Central journal imprint in 2007.
In 2002, the company introduced article processing charges, and these have since been the primary source of revenue. In 2007 Yale University Libraries stopped subsidizing BioMed Central article processing charges for Yale researchers.
In October 2008, it was announced that BioMed Central (along with Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central) had been acquired by Springer Science+Business Media, the second largest STM publisher. The Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central brands have since been retired.
In November 2008, BioMed Central became an official supporting organisation of Healthcare Information For All.
Journals.
BioMed Central's flagship journals include "BMC Biology", "BMC Medicine", "Genome Biology" and "Genome Medicine". It also produces the BMC Series of journals covering the fields of biology and medicine. Most of the other journals published by BioMed Central are owned and produced independently by societies and academic editorial boards, with BioMed Central providing the hosting, publishing platform and marketing.
All journals are published online; some of the flagship journals have in the past also been available as print subscriptions, such as "Arthritis Research & Therapy". Publications in BioMed Central journals are, immediately upon publication, released under the Creative Commons "Attribution" license which grants permission to reuse publications and produce derivative work. The only exceptions to this (as of 2010) were the flagship journals, which reserved rights on review and commentary content; those articles were available to purchase on a subscription or on a pay-per-view basis, becoming freely available (but not fully open access) to all after six months; however, as of January 2015, "no subscription fees apply to these journals or to any articles published in them."
Open peer review.
In 2001, BioMed Central was the first publisher to carry out open peer review as default, by openly posting named peer reviewer reports alongside published articles as part of a ‘pre-publication history’ for all medical journals in the BMC series. With currently 70 BMC journals operating fully open peer review.
BMC Series.
The BMC Series is a collection of several dozen online research journals published by BioMed Central. Like all other BioMed Central journals, they have a policy of open access to the research articles they publish. Between them, they cover all major subject areas within biology and medicine. Two of the journals, "BMC Biology" and "BMC Medicine", have a broad scope, and aim to publish particularly significant research. A third journal, "BMC Research Notes", publishes scientifically valid research outputs that cannot be considered as full research or methodology articles across all scientific and clinical disciplines, while "BMC Proceedings" publishes conference proceedings. The other journals specialise on a particular subject area. Due to their free licensing, images from BMC journals can be reused in other places.
Most BMC Series journals have an impact factor. As of 2016, for the 53 journals with impact factors, "BMC Biology" had the highest at 7.98.
Databases.
The company also has hosted biomedical databases, including Current Controlled Trials, a database of clinical trials. The Biology Image Library and the Cases Database, a database of medical case reports, were closed in 2014. The company also provided hosting for institutional repositories of publications based on the DSpace platform under the brand Open Repository. The Open Repository activity was sold to Atmire in 2016.


Michael H. Riley

Michael Harold Riley (born November 1, 1968, in Palo Alto) is an American motion graphics designer, art director and the founder of design company Shine. Has directed the television title sequence for "", the film title sequence for "Kung Fu Panda", film sequences for "How To Train Your Dragon", and worked on the redesign of the animated MGM theatrical logo. He has been nominated for an Emmy Award six times including for the main title design on "Temple Grandin".
Early life and education.
Riley grew up in Palo Alto, California. As a teenager, he ran a T-shirt silkscreen business called No-wear with a friend. In 1991, Riley earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design. He had a design internship at M&Co. under Tibor Kalman.
Career.
In 1991, Riley joined R/GA in New York City. In 1996, he became a partner at design company Imaginary Forces in Hollywood.
Riley created the title design for "Gattaca" with Andrew Niccol.
In 1998, the film won the D&AD Black Pencil Award for main title design.
Riley was nominated for an Emmy Award, Outstanding Main Title Design, for "Band Of Brothers" in 2002.
In 2005, Riley founded design company Shine in his garage and serves as creative director. Riley's wife Laura came up with the name "Shine." Riley later recruited Bob Swensen as executive producer. The company moved to a studio on Los Angeles' Miracle Mile.
He received an Emmy nomination as creative director for Outstanding Main Title Design in 2007 for "Standoff", 2009 for "Taking Chance", 2010 for "Temple Grandin", in 2011 for "Too Big to Fail", and in 2013 for The Newsroom.
In 2020, Riley's studio Shine designed the end credits sequence for "Birds of Prey". Also in 2020, Riley designed the title sequence of the HBO series "Perry Mason".
Riley is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Television Academy. He was an adjunct faculty member at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.


Vittorio Nino Novarese

Vittorio Nino Novarese (May 15, 1907 in Rome, Italy – October 17, 1983 in Los Angeles, United States) was an Italian costume designer who found great success in Hollywood after decamping there in 1949. In his first year there he scored an Oscar nomination for his work on the film "Prince of Foxes", winning the Academy Award 14 years later for the grandiose epic "Cleopatra". He was also nominated twice in 1965 for both "The Agony and the Ecstasy" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told", and won a second Oscar in 1970 for "Cromwell".
Novarese was trained as a militarist, but contrary to what one might think from the name, this only gave him the classical training to know how soldiers of different ranks were dressed and armed throughout history.
His daughter is the actress Letícia Román who starred with John Saxon in "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" and with Elvis Presley in "G.I. Blues".


Digia

Digia Oyj (formerly SYSOPENDIGIA, SysOpen Digia and SysOpen) is a Finnish software company listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Digia focuses especially on financial services, the public sector, social welfare and healthcare, trade, services, industry and energy.
In 2020, Digia has more than 1,200 employees in Finland and Sweden (Stockholm). The Finnish offices are located in Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Lahti, Oulu, Rauma, Tampere, Turku and Vaasa.
History.
SysOpen (1990–2004) and Digia (1997–2004).
SysOpen was founded in 1990 by Kari Karvinen, Jorma Kylätie and Matti Savolainen. SysOpen was listed on the stock exchange in 1999 and grew strongly through corporate acquisitions until around the turn of the millennium.
In 1997, Pekka Sivonen, Mika Malin and Jarkko Virtanen founded Digia Oy.
SysOpen Digia 2004–2007.
SysOpen Oyj and Digia Oy merged on 4 March 2005 to form SysOpen Digia Oyj. According to Talouselämä magazine, the merger was a cheap way for Digia to get listed on the stock exchange. In the new company, Digia employees were granted the positions of both Chairman of the Board (Pekka Sivonen) and CEO (Jari Mielonen). The reason for this was Digia's better profitability: its earnings before interest, taxes and goodwill amortisation were 15 per cent, while SysOpen's were 9 per cent.
The new company's main customers included device manufacturers, such as Nokia, operators and corporate customers. In addition to Sivonen, SysOpen-Digia's Board of Directors included Kari Karvinen (Vice Chairman), Pekka Eloholma, Pertti Kyttälä, Matti Mujunen and Mikko Terho.
In the summer of 2006, SysOpen Digia Oyj acquired the integration and production management software company Sentera Oyj and Sentera's business was merged into SysOpen Digia. The company's name was changed to SYSOPENDIGIA Oyj in 2007.
SysOpen Digia's Pekka Sivonen won the Services category of the Entrepreneur of the Year competition for growth companies organised by Ernst and Young in 2004–2006. SysOpen Digia was Finland's leading integrator of information system and communications, employing 1,100 people with a turnover of EUR 61 million in 2005.
Digia 2008–2016.
The company was renamed Digia Oyj in 2008.
In March 2011, Digia acquired Nokia's Qt commercial and open source licensing and service business.
As a subcontractor, Digia suffered from Nokia's problems, resulting in several employer-employee negotiations. The end of Nokia subcontracting led to the loss of one third of turnover as well as employees, but the company's IT services sustained it through the worst times.
In 2012, Digia acquired the entire Qt development environment and related business from Nokia. With the acquisition, Digia took over all operations related to Qt technology, such as product development. The most important goal of the acquisition was to improve Digia's position in the Qt ecosystem and to expand the availability of Qt technology to an increasing number of platforms. The Qt investment of EUR 4 million yielded at least tens of millions of euros to shareholders. Digia's CEO Juha Varelius negotiated the Qt deal with Nokia after Nokia had abandoned its old subcontractors. In 2016, Talouselämä magazine estimated that the deal was made at a dumping price. Nokia had acquired the Norwegian company Trolltech and its application development environment Qt for EUR 104 million in January 2008.
In August 2015, Digia Oyj's Board of Directors decided to explore a possible spin-off that would separate its domestic and Qt businesses and create two distinct companies, with identical ownership, listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Digia's largest shareholder was Ingman Development, owned by the Ingman family, which held a stake of more than one fifth. Digia's turnover totalled EUR 108 million.
Digia 2016–Present.
Digia Oyj's Annual General Meeting decided on Digia's partial demerger in March 2016, and the demerger was registered in the Trade Register on 1 May. Digia's Qt business was transferred to Qt Group with Digia's domestic business remaining under the Digia brand. Digia's CEO Juha Varelius became the CEO of Qt Group while Timo Levoranta, who had started as the head of the domestic business unit early in the year, took up the post as CEO of the new Digia. In June 2016, Digia acquired Igence, a consulting firm owned by Transaktum, to improve its position in the e-commerce market. Igence employed 24 people and its service portfolio included e-commerce, product information management, order management and personalisation software as well as expert services, with a turnover of EUR 2.26 million in 2015. In October 2016, the Finnish Tax Administration announced that it had selected Digia to implement the National Incomes Register.
In the spring of 2017, Digia acquired Omni Partners Oy and its subsidiary Oy Nord Software Ltd. In May, Digia's Board of Directors announced that it would organise a rights issue in order to raise approximately EUR 12.05 million in net assets for corporate acquisitions, growth investments, to bolster the company's capital structure and for general financing needs. The rights issue was oversubscribed with over 6.8 million shares subscribed, representing approximately 115% of the shares offered. The issue generated gross proceeds amounting to approximately EUR 12.5 million. The company established Financial Operations to support the growth of its product and service business and combined Horizontal Services with the functions reporting to the CTO. In December, Digia acquired Integration House. Digia had more than 800 employees and its turnover totalled EUR 96.2 million.
In March 2018, Digia acquired Avarea Oy, a Helsinki-based company specialising in analytics software, which had a turnover of approximately EUR 3.6 million. Avarea's product business was excluded from the acquisition and transferred into its own company. 41 employees joined Digia. In the summer of 2018, Digia announced the acquisition of Mavisystems and its subsidiary Mirosys Oy. The companies, which employed a total of 34 people, specialised in Microsoft Dynamics ERP systems and CRM software and their turnover totalled approximately EUR 3.2 million in the financial period ended in June 2017. Digia's turnover totalled EUR 112.1 million and it employed 1,069 people. The company's operating margin was 5.8 per cent.
In June 2019, Digia announced the acquisition of Accountor Enterprise Solutions, a subsidiary of Accountor focused on business platforms and services whose software centred around Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Oracle NetSuite services. The purchase price was EUR 9.4 million. Accountor Enterprise Solutions had a turnover of EUR 12.7 million in 2018 and it employed 114 people in June 2019. Digia's turnover was increased especially by good demand for online business, integrations and software interface services, Microsoft ERP systems and business analytics.
Organisation.
The company's CEO has been Timo Levoranta since 2016.
In 2020, Digia's Board of Directors included, in addition to Chairman Robert Ingman, Seppo Ruotsalainen, Martti Ala-Härkönen, Päivi Hokkanen, Santtu Elsinen and Outi Taivainen.
In December 2019, Digia's largest shareholders were Ingman Development, Ilmarinen, Etola, Tiiviste-Group, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Matti Savolainen, SEB Group, Nordea, and OP Financial Group.
In 2020, Digia's services were divided into six categories:
Customers.
Digia's customers include Gasum, the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority, the Emergency Response Centre Agency in Finland, the Finnish Defence Forces, St1 and the Finnish Tax Administration. Digia has redesigned, for example, the Stockmann online shop and its ERP platform is used by Etola, among others.


Daniel Stahl (game designer)

Daniel Stahl (born 1971) is an American game designer best known for creating German-style board games. In 2002, his game "Pirate's Cove" (with Paul Randles) was published by Amigo Spiele in Europe (under the name Piratenbucht) and then in the United States by Days of Wonder.
A former member of the ImagiNation Network, He became a webmaster in 1994 and later created Alphastrike.com, a BattleTech trading card game fansite. He was also an online producer at Wizards of the Coast during the Hasbro acquisition where he managed development for the Star Wars: TCG, and MagicTheGathering.com websites.
He was a member of the Xbox 360 and Zune launch teams while working at Microsoft and later went on to work for Cryptic Studios where he was a game producer on Champions Online and Star Trek Online.
On July 1, 2010, the current Executive Producer, Craig Zinkiviech, for Star Trek Online announced he would be leaving Cryptic/STO. At this point Daniel Stahl became the executive producer for STO.
In September 2011, it was announced on the Star Trek Online website that he would be leaving Cryptic Studios and in an interview with Trek Radio, he revealed is taking a position at Zynga
In December 2011, Stahl posts on the Star Trek Online forums that he has returned to Cryptic and will now be the Sr. Producer managing the Foundry (UGC) tools at Cryptic Studios. This announcement was discussed in detail as it was revealed on Subspace Radio.
In January 2014, Cryptic Studios announced that Stahl would once again be stepping down as Sr. Producer for Star Trek Online, to pursue a yet unannounced project that Cryptic is working on. Stephen D'Angelo is now the current Sr. Producer for Star Trek Online .


Ralph Pappier

Ralph Pappier ( 16 January 1914 in Shanghai – 29 August 1998 in Buenos Aires) was an Argentine production designer, set decorator and film director.
Career.
Pappier was most prolific in Argentine cinema in the 1940s, and contributed to a range of acclaimed films during the period. He was production designer for the Silver Condor Award for Best Film award-winning "The Gaucho War" (1942) and Best Cinematography winner "Three Men of the River" (1943), and director of the Silver Condor for Best Film winning films "School of Champions" (1950) and "Caballito criollo" (1953). He was also cinematographer for the 1945 film "Circus cavalcade". The Argentine Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences gave him awards for Best Scenography for "En el viejo Buenos Aires" (1942) and "Su mejor alumno" (1944).


KFYN-FM

KFYN-FM 104.3 FM is a radio station licensed to Detroit, Texas. The station broadcasts a Country and Red Dirt Country format. KFYN is owned by Vision Media Group, Inc.


Democracy and Its Critics

Democracy and Its Critics is a book in American political science, written by Robert Dahl. The book was published by Yale University Press in 1989. In the following years "Democracy and Its Critics" won the 1991 Elaine and David Spitz Book Award and the 1990 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award.
In the book, Dahl "examines the most basic assumptions of democratic theory, tests them against the questions raised by its critics, and recasts the theory of democracy into a new and coherent whole. He concludes by discussing the directions in which democracy must move if advanced democratic states are to exist in the future."


List of model checking tools

This article lists model checking tools and gives a synthetic overview their functionalities.
Overview of some model checking tools.
The following table includes model checkers that have
(1) a web site from which it can be downloaded,
(2) a declared license,
(3) a description published in archived literature, and
(4) a Wikipedia article describing it.
In the below table, the following abbreviations are used:
Comparison of model checking tools.
Scientific publications.
There exists a few papers that systematically compare various model checkers on a common case study. The comparison usually discusses the modelling tradeoffs faced when using the input languages of each model checker, as well as the comparison of performances of the tools when verifying correctness properties. One can mention:
External links.
Other model checkers that do not yet have a Wikipedia page:
and


Scandroid

Scandroid is an electronic music project created by Klayton, and which previously included Varien in 2013. The project released its debut single, "Salvation Code", on August 6, 2013, which was added to the debut album "Scandroid" upon release. Scandroid can be described as encompassing the retro synth melodies of the 80s while still adapting to modern production, thus creating a new retro sound.
Biography.
Pre-album release (2013–2015).
An image was teased of a skull-like logo, via the Celldweller Facebook page on July 16, 2013 hinting at an incoming project. On July 24, 2013, an official announcement was posted to Celldweller, simply titled "What is the Salvation Code?" In continuation with the teaser, their website SalvationCode.com launched, requiring a password for entry; this password could be found using hints from previous videos as well as from a riddle sent out to users who submitted a "forgotten password" form. After entering the password ("2513"), the users could access an extended preview of the unreleased song used in the previous teaser, and were given the hint that August 6, 2013 would be the release of the full song, "Salvation Code".
During the teaser of the second video, an image of Klayton (as Red) and Varien (as Raven) can be seen implying the duo working together on this new single. Both musicians posted to their individual social pages, along with the newly created Scandroid page. The post stated that Scandroid's music would consist of elements of 1980s retro and electronic music with what they described as a "Neo-Tokyo" theme.
Their first single "Salvation Code" was released for free download on August 5, 2013, with an official store release the next day. New merchandise was teased via the Scandroid Facebook page, with a link to the download.<ref name="Merch Tease/Release"></ref> The project was promoted on both the Celldweller and Varien social pages.
On November 8, 2013 it was hinted by both Celldweller and Varien that a new Scandroid track would be released soon. Then on December 7, 2013, Scandroid released an image, with a comment stating that "Hidden in this flyer lies a clue regarding the next transmission...". Another teaser image released on the 11th, teasing a date ("12.13.13") alongside a quote "Get lost in the Datastream." On December 13, 2013, a new single titled "Datastream" was released with a new riddle; "Alter the extensions of a new beginning in order to READ what others can only SEE." When the single was released, an image was released along with the purchase of the track. This image's file extension could be changed to .pdf; in doing so the user would unlock a short story titled "Scandroid Origins" featuring both Red and Raven, written by Brenton Ryan.
Varien, signed as Nick Pittsinger on the label, announced a departure from Scandroid, deciding instead to focus purely on Varien on August 2, 2014. Three days later, Scandroid's new single "Empty Streets" was released.
"Scandroid" (2016).
This self-titled album, was officially released on November 11, 2016, which charted for one week at No. 20 on the "Billboard" Heatseekers Albums chart, as well as the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums at No. 5.<ref name = "Scandroid - Scandroid Top Dance/Electronic Chart History"></ref>
A cover of the Tears for Fears song "Shout" was premiered on November 10, 2016. Klayton intended to record it since first hearing it back in 1985. Roland Orzabal explained that the song is about the political protests from the aftermath of the Cold War, and that it was encouragement to protest. Tapping into this core meaning for inspiration, Klayton felt that in light of the political unrest of 2016, that it was time to finally cover the song. The song is described as remaining faithful to the original, while still adding its own flair using amazing synths that are reminiscent of classic 80s pop.
Although Varien was the writer for "Datastream" and "Salvation Code", according to the credits provided, Klayton produced, performed, mixed, and wrote the rest of the songs that debut on "Scandroid" (with the exception of "Shout", written by Ian Stanley and Roland Orzabal).
"Dreams of Neo-Tokyo" (2017).
On March 31, 2017, a new album, "Dreams of Neo-Tokyo", was released featuring remixes of the ten vocal tracks released on "Scandroid". The release was remixed by artists such as Dance with the Dead, Pylot, Maks_SF, and Waveshaper. The remixes have been described as being subtle, still sounding like Scandroid, but also standing out as their own tracks.
"Remix Compilation Contests" (2017).
A contest held by Klayton in partnership with NewRetroWave would create three remix albums: "Awakening With You (Remix Contest Compilation)", "Aphelion (Remix Contest Compilation)", and "Neo-Tokyo (Remix Contest Compilation)". The contest was announced on March 9, 2017 and was held from March 12 to April 30. Participants could choose from three songs to remix; they would enter for a chance to be included on the official FiXT Store (on the Remix albums), as a NewRetroWave YouTube upload, as well as general cash prizes, merchandise prizes, and "more". As well as releasing information in regards to the winners of the competition, all three dates were released for the remix albums via NewRetroWave: "Awakening With You" on June 16, "Aphelion" on August 4, and "Neo-Tokyo" on September 15.
"Monochrome" (2017).
Released on October 27, 2017, "Monochrome" is considered the second full-length album of Scandroid. It charted for one week at No. 18 on the "Billboard" Heatseekers Albums chart, as well as on the Top Dance/Electronic Album Sales at No. 3.<ref name="Dance/Electronic Album Sales Chart Archive - Nov. 18, 2017"></ref> The album has numerous previously released singles, as well as new vocal and instrumental tracks that range from synth-pop to darkwave. Some notable covers include "The Force Theme", "Thriller", as well as the popular single "Rendezvous".
"The Force Theme" debuted on May 4, 2014 as a special single for Star Wars Day but was also included on "Monochrome"; Klayton had commented on "The Force Theme", stating, "I was inspired by artists like Tomita who re-imagined iconic Star Wars themes with synthesizers...I was excited to cover 'The Force Theme' because I wanted to blend classic analog synthesizers with a re-orchestration of the original song. Not only was I influenced by the classic Star Wars films, but I am inspired by the possibilities of the new films. Enjoy this May 4th release and may the Force be with you."
As a teaser for the upcoming release of "Monochrome", Scandroid released a single of the popular Michael Jackson Halloween classic "Thriller". Its premiere was on October 12, 2017 however, its release was set for Friday the 13th, of October 2017, to fit in with the overall mood of the month. It is available on "Monochrome", and remains its own single for individual purchase. A special remix by Pylot is also included on the full album. Klayton has been quoted stating he wanted to include this Halloween-themed track on "Monochrome", admitting that he loved the song since he was a kid. The signature track of "Monochrome", "Monochrome", premiered on October 25, 2017. The track is described as having layers of pulsing synths, and a robotic vocoder-infused vocal track. Its layers break away from the simple, often repetitive melody of most synthwave, which has become an oversaturated market due to rising popularity of the genre.
"The Darkness" and "The Light" (2018–present).
Scandroid released an EP, "The Darkness", on December 4, 2018. A second EP, "The Light", was released on December 13, 2019, with both EPs combined into an album called "The Darkness and the Light", released on December 11, 2020.
In 2019 Scandroid appeared in the documentary film "The Rise of the Synths", appearing alongside various other composers from the synthwave scene, including filmmaker John Carpenter who also narrated the film which explored the origins and growth of the genre.
Musical style.
The aim of this project was to create music that consisted of elements from 1980's retro and electronic music with what the duo have described as a "Neo-Tokyo" theme. DJZ called the duos first song "Salvation Code" a "...retro synth-pop tune that harkens back to past visions of a cyberpunk future." and that it was a sci-fi narrative song.


Albert Lamorisse

Albert Lamorisse (; 13 January 1922 – 2 June 1970) was a French filmmaker, film producer, and writer of award-winning short films which he began making in the late 1940s. He also invented the strategic board game "Risk" in 1957.
Life.
Lamorisse was born in Paris, France. He first came into prominence – just after "Bim" (1950) – for directing and producing "White Mane" (1953), an award-winning short film that tells a fable of how a young boy befriends an untamable wild white stallion in the marshes of Camargue (the "Petite Camargue").
Lamorisse's best known work is the short film "The Red Balloon" (1956), which earned him the "Palme d'Or" Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and an Oscar for writing the Best Original Screenplay in 1956.
Lamorisse also wrote, directed and produced the well-regarded films "Stowaway in the Sky" (1960) and "Circus Angel", as well as the documentaries "Versailles" and "Paris Jamais Vu." In addition to films, he created the popular strategy board game "Risk" in 1957. In the mid-sixties Lamorisse shot parts of "The Prospect of Iceland", a documentary about Iceland, which was made by Henry Sandoz and commissioned by NATO.
Lamorisse died in a helicopter crash while filming the documentary "Le Vent des amoureux" ("The Lovers' Wind"), during a helicopter-tour of Iran in 1970. The helicopter was left where it crashed as a memorial to the filmmaker, and was still visible . His son and widow completed the film, based on his production notes, and released it eight years later. It was nominated for a posthumous Oscar for best documentary. The title "The Lover's Wind" is translated into "Bad-e Saba" in Persian. A saba wind is a gentle wind that blows from the northeast, symbolizing the whispers of lovers.
Lamorisse and his wife had three children: a son named Pascal and two daughters named Sabine and Fanny. Pascal and Sabine were featured in "The Red Balloon".
Filmography.
Short films
Feature films
Documentaries
Awards.
Wins
Nominations


P. M. Satheesh

PM Satheesh is an Indian film sound designer, sound editor and mixer. In 1999 he received the National award for best sound recording and design for his work on "Kumar Talkies". He has worked in Hollywood, Hindi,Telugu,Tamil and Malayalam films.
Biography.
He was born in Kerala, India. He is a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India or FTII, Pune, India. He has worked as sound recordist and sound designer on numerous documentaries for BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, National Film Board of Canada and the CBC and feature films like 15 Park Avenue and Dreaming Lhasa, and Fakir of Venice. For six years he held exclusive contract for MTV India for sound on live music events and broadcast.
He is Chief sound designer and founder of Fireflys Post Sound P.M Satheesh has over two decades of experience in location sound and sound design.
PM Satheesh established Scuba Location Sound, painstakingly putting together high end location sound equipment and a dozen freelance sound recordists working under his guidance. This set up allowed Scuba to record location sound for documentaries and television where there was hardly any time for post dubbing.Braving all logistical nightmares PM Satheesh used Pro Tools on location in the Himalayas for a multi track hard disk based recording for the Tibetan feature film Dreaming Lhasa.
P.M Satheesh is working for S.S Rajamouli’s ', scheduled to have been released in April 2015. Regarding his experience with the film, he said "' is one of the very few films in South where a lot of importance is being given to sound recording. We dropped the idea of shooting with sync sound since the dialogue delivery has to be modified accordingly. The sound design team embeds various types of micro-phones throughout the set to record the ambient sound, which will lend a natural feel to the film. It's necessary, because some of these sounds aren't available in the market. It's quite a challenge for everyone".


Payal Jain

Payal Jain is an Indian fashion designer.
Early life.
Jain was born in New Delhi and graduated summa-cum-laude in 1993 from Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, California.
Career.
She returned to India to work. She designed corporate dressing for The Leela, Goa in 1993. She later designed for over 40 hotels. She participated in various international fashion shows including in Toronto.


3D Pixel Racing

3D Pixel Racing is an arcade-style racing game developed by Vidia, published by Microforum Games and released on July 14, 2011 in the United States, and September 8, 2011 in Europe. The Game was released as a downloadable game on WiiWare and in the App Store for iOS devices. "3D Pixel Racing" heavily capitalizes on its graphical uniqueness. Unlike most 3D games, every object in 3D Pixel Racing is made of multi-colored voxels that are reminiscent of old 8-bit games from the 1970s and 80's.
Gameplay.
The gameplay in "3D Pixel Racer" is similar to other basic driving games. Players choose a driver, car and gameplay mode, and compete in a series of events in that mode to unlock new cars, tracks, and drivers. Every track in the game has several checkpoints at which player's total race times are logged, so players can replay tracks to get the best time. The game controls in the Wii version are nearly the same as those in "Mario Kart Wii"; the Wii Remote is held in the sideways position and used to simulate a steering wheel. The iOS version of the game uses the iPhone's built in accelerometer as a steering wheel, and two buttons on the touch-screen to control the cars' gas and brake.
Gameplay Modes.
There are five different gameplay modes in "3D Pixel Racing": Single Race, Championship, Time Trial, Capture the Flag, and Hot Pursuit. Every gameplay mode supports both single-player and multiplayer games with up to four players.
Single Race.
Players choose a driver, track and vehicle from the ones they have unlocked, and compete against seven computer-controlled drivers, or other players in a three-lap circuit race. Single race is the only mode in the game that does not count towards unlocking items or completing the game.
Championship.
In Championship mode players choose a vehicle and compete against seven other drivers in a series of eight races called a cup. At the end of every race in the series each driver is awarded a set number of points based on their finishing position. The driver with the most points at the end of the last race wins the cup. Winning cups in Championship mode is the easiest way to unlock new items in "3D Pixel Racing", and is mandatory for completing the game.
Time Trial.
Players race against the clock around a series of tracks in Time Trial mode. A time trial event is lost if the time on the clock expires before the set number of laps has been completed. In multiplayer time trials all the players race on the same track, but are clocked and scored separately.
Capture the Flag.
Capture the Flag is similar to a circuit race with the addition of a checkered flag on the ground just past the starting line. The flag is picked up by the first car to touch it and is carried by that car until it is hit by another vehicle. When the car carrying the flag gets hit possession of the flag changes to the offensive car. Gameplay continues in this fashion for the remainder of the three-lap race. The race is won by the player who possesses the flag at the end of the third lap.
Hot Pursuit.
Players are pursued by a police car around any one of the race courses while being timed. The event is lost if the player is caught by the police car, or fails to outrun the police car before the clock runs out. In multiplayer one player drives the police car and the other players must outrun them.


Superliminal

Superliminal (previously Museum of Simulation Technology) is a 2019 puzzle video game released by Pillow Castle. The game, played from a first-person perspective, incorporates gameplay elements around optical illusions and forced perspective; notably, certain objects when picked up can be moved towards or away from the player, but when placed back down, scale to the size as the player had viewed them, enabling the player to solve puzzles to complete the game.
The game was released for Microsoft Windows and MacOS in November 2019. Ports for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch were released in July 2020.
Gameplay.
"Superliminal" is a puzzle video game played from the first-person perspective. The player-character is a participant in a dream therapy program, but during the study, the character becomes trapped in a recurring dream cycle, and is guided by the voice of the study's overseer, Dr. Glenn Pierce, on how to escape from the dream.
Most puzzles involve traversing through a series of rooms to reach their exits. The exit door may be closed and require a button to be held down to open, or atop a higher platform out of reach, or may not be immediately visible. To reach the exit, the player can manipulate certain objects in the game world. The bulk of such interactions are based on the use of forced perspective: the player can pick up a waist-high cube, which is then kept at its apparent current size from the player's perspective. The player can then look elsewhere around the room, with the cube maintained at the same viewpoint, and drop that cube at that location (at the furthest distance observed), where the cube will scale up or downwards in size based on the new perspective. Taking the waist-high cube and looking downwards towards the floor when dropping it will make the cube shrink in size, while looking upwards towards the ceiling and dropping will make it grow large. This process can be repeated indefinitely, allowing the player to manipulate these scalable objects as to create platforms to reach the exit or clear obstacles blocking them.
Later areas of the game introduce new mechanics to this. Some objects exist as "trompe-l'œil" illusions with segments of two-dimensional art on various walls and surfaces, and the player must find the appropriate angle to view the object and make it appear whole to then be able to grab it.
Plot.
The player heads to the Pierce Institute to help test its SomnaSculpt technology which is designed to provide dream therapy to patients. They are put to sleep and placed in a testing environment constructed in their dreamworld, where they are capable of performing reality bending feats such as changing the size of items based on perspective or instantly creating copies of them. However, the player fails to wake up at their appointed time, ending up back inside the dreamworld. A Pierce Institute doctor, Dr. Glenn Pierce, communicates to the player through radios, explaining that they have completely lost track of the player, and that the player is likely traveling through successive dream layers. Meanwhile, the AI administering the dream therapy advises the player to initiate an "Explosive Mental Overload" in order to trigger the "Emergency Exit Protocol" and escape the dreamworld.
Eventually, the player travels through enough dream layers to trigger the Emergency Exit Protocol, but it fails due to an unknown error. The AI concludes that SomnaSculpt therapy failed to eliminate the player's negative emotions; hence they cannot leave the dreamworld. The AI then advises the player to find their own way out. With the player now trapped, the dreamworld becomes increasingly surreal. Eventually, the player creates a dream paradox and ends up in the realm of Whitespace where all sense of reality is lost.
The player is eventually able to navigate their way out of Whitespace, and Dr. Pierce congratulates them, revealing that the entire journey occurred just as planned, as it was a hidden test to see if the player could solve their problems by viewing things from every different perspective, which will help them grow as a person. Dr. Glenn also advises that even though the test occurred in the dreamworld, everything the player learned is as real as they want it to be. The player then returns to the room where they began in, where Dr. Pierce tells them to wake up.
Development.
"Superliminal" was developed by the six-member team of Pillow Castle, led by Albert Shih, a student from the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University. Shih had developed the foundation of the game while an undergraduate student at ETC around 2013 as part of a programming assignment, looking for "what kind of interesting first person game can I build by just moving cubes around?" He improved upon the concept during his graduate work, establishing Pillow Castle in January 2014 and obtaining assistance from four other ETC students to build out the game. Shih had been inspired by successful games like "Risk of Rain" and "Antichamber" that had been made by small teams to continue his work on "Superliminal". "Antichamber" was particularly influential to Shih, as it directed and encouraged the player to think outside the box to discover the solutions to its puzzles, an idea he wanted to recapture in "Superliminal". In a similar fashion, Shih likened "Superliminal"s scaling puzzles to the portal-based ones in "Portal", designing the puzzles to create moments of epiphany for the player.
The core concept behind "Superliminal" is based on forced perspective, with Shih referencing the common tourist photos of people using forced perspective to appear as if they are pushing or holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Achieving the scaling mechanic in the Unity engine was itself straight-forward according to Shih. When the player picks up an object, the game tracks the object's size and the distance. Then, as the player looks around, the game figures the new distance to the farthest point directly in front of the player, and scales the object's size proportional to the change from the original distance. The more difficult factor Shih had found was accounting for the complex shapes of some objects and where the player expected the center viewpoint to be at. Other puzzles in the game involving the projecting and de-projecting of 3D objects onto 2D planes used Unity's camera and projector objects with the only challenge being related to the camera depth, something that Shih said was not well-supported in Unity, but credits programmer Phil Fortier for solving. The scaling puzzles proved to have some trouble in playtesting since players could come up with possible solutions that ultimately were not working and the game unable to provide feedback for why. Instead of having players being able to jump, which the scaling made inconsistent, they instead let player mantle up ledges making it easier to guide players to a solution.
The game was revealed as "Museum of Simulation Technology" as a tech demo. The demo was first featured at the 2013 Tokyo Game Show during its "Sense of Wonder Night", an event dedicated to indie games. The demo won the event's "Best Technology" and "Audience Award". The tech demo was publicly released in January 2014, along with submission into the Independent Games Festival (IGF) Student Competition for 2014, where it won along with "Risk of Rain" and "Engare". The public tech demo became of high interest, with the Reddit subforum "/r/gaming" voting Shih's post announcing the demo as the 4th highest post as of 2015 with strong comparisons to "Portal".
By 2015, most of the ETC students who were working on the game had graduated and left Pillow Castle. Shih worked part-time on the game while working at other jobs. Shih spent much of the time since 2014 to evaluate the direction to take the game, eventually working full time on the game and hiring additional staff to complete the title.
The game was formally announced under the new title "Superliminal" in June 2019, It was announced for Microsoft Windows as an Epic Games Store timed exclusive in August 2019, along with release of its full trailer.
A PlayStation 4 version was announced in December 2019 with plans for release in April 2020. The PlayStation 4 release was delayed to July 7, 2020 alongside ports for the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
The game was released on Steam for computers on November 5, 2020. This version includes a developer commentary and a challenge mode.
Reception.
"Superliminal" received "mixed or average reviews" according to review aggregator Metacritic. The game's core mechanic was praised, but generally reviewers felt the game was short and lacked some of the potential that could be used with that mechanic, as well as having a lackluster story.
Accolades.
The game was nominated for "Game, Puzzle" at the NAVGTR Awards.


Return to Mysterious Island 2

Return to Mysterious Island 2: Mina's Fate is a 2009 adventure video game developed by Kheops Studio and published by MC2 France under their Microïds label. It is a sequel to the 2004 video game "Return to Mysterious Island", and is again based upon the 1875 book by Jules Verne, "The Mysterious Island".
Gameplay.
The character of Mina is back, but now her monkey, Jep, becomes the second playable character; the player will switch back and forth between the two. Each character has their own abilities—Jep, for example, can go to inaccessible places and communicate with other monkeys, whereas Mina can read documents and use complex tools.
The game could also be synchronised with the player's iPhone, allowing parts of the game, like puzzles, to be completed away from the PC, and then reintegrated again. Players are also able to communicate with other players online.
Plot.
During the game the player will fight for their survival on the island, and they must also save the island from an environmental disaster. "Return to Mysterious Island II" starts with the crash of the helicopter that attempted the rescue of Mina. She survives the crash, but is still on the island. An unknown disease suddenly begins to attack plants, then animals. Mina searches the island, and discovers an external source of pollution. It appears that the only way to save the island is to turn the shield back on, which would prevent her from returning to civilization, like Captain Nemo.
Development.
On November 25, 2008 Microïds announced that a sequel to "Return to Mysterious Island" had been in development by Kheops Studio since April 2008. On 14 August an email was sent to the Microïds mailing list noting that the game had been released for download in English and French for PC and iPhone.
The game website also displays the Cryo Interactive logo, a company which Microïds acquired in 2008, from the publisher of the original "Return to Mysterious Island", The Adventure Company. The game website also encompasses Microïds other games which are based on the works of Jules Verne; "The Secret of the Nautilus" and "Journey to the Moon".


John Lavin (artist)

John Lavin is a production designer, art director and painter from Seattle, Washington. He works mainly in film, music videos, commercials, and photography.
Early life and education.
Lavin was born in Olympia, Washington, but later moved to Seattle, Washington.
While attending graduate school for painting in New York City, Lavin dressed the windows at Barneys.
Career.
Lavin makes sets and props for film, takes still photography, and works with many local and national clients, including advertisers, retailers, and independent filmmakers.
Lavin is known for his work on "Your Sister's Sister (2011)", "Laggies (2014)" and "Lucky Them (2013)".
Lavin has worked alongside music artists such as Macklemore and Ed Sheeran, and was the art director of Bill and Melinda Gates's "Annual Letter" video.


Elizabeth Henstridge

Elizabeth Frances Henstridge (born 11 September 1987) is an English actress, model, fashion designer, YouTuber, podcaster and director. She is best known for starring as Jemma Simmons in the ABC superhero action drama series "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (2013–2020), set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Early life.
Henstridge was born in Sheffield, England, attending Meadowhead School and King Edward VII School. She graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2009. She studied at East 15 Acting School and later moved to Los Angeles.
Career.
Henstridge made her professional acting debut in the 2010 short film "Easy Under the Apple Bough". She made her television debut in 2011, appearing as Emily Alexander in the long-running British soap opera "Hollyoaks". She starred in the short film "And the Kid", which she also composed.
Henstridge was cast in the lead role of the 2012 The CW pilot "Shelter", which was not picked up to series. She went on to co-star in the horror film "The Thompsons" (2012), the crime drama film "Gangs of Tooting Broadway" (2013), and the ensemble drama film "Reach Me" (2014).
In November 2012, Henstridge was cast as Agent Jemma Simmons, a series regular character in the ABC superhero action drama series "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", which was set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series was ordered on 10 May 2013, and premiered on ABC on 24 September 2013.
For her role in "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", she gained further recognition and acclaim from critics. In 2015, Henstridge received positive reviews for her performance in "4,722 Hours", the fifth episode of the third season of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." In contrast to the ensemble nature of the series, the episode contained none (except Iain De Caestecker) of the main cast and was centered around Henstridge's character. The episode's positive critical response focused praise on the bottle episode nature and Henstridge's performance. It was later named one of the best television episodes of 2015 by "The Atlantic".
In 2016, Henstridge reprised the role of Jemma Simmons in animated form in an episode of the Disney XD superhero series "Ultimate Spider-Man". That same year, she was cast as Abigail Folger in the horror film "Wolves at the Door", loosely based on the infamous Manson Family's murders. The film was released Direct-to-DVD in the United States on 18 April 2017.
In 2019, Henstridge starred as Jessica Cooper in the Hallmark Channel Christmas romantic comedy film "Christmas at the Plaza". In March 2020, it was announced that she was cast in a leading role in the Apple TV+ drama thriller series "Suspicion", alongside Uma Thurman.
Personal life.
Henstridge is in a relationship with actor Zachary Abel. On 22 April 2019, she announced their engagement with an Instagram post. She has a dog named Maggie. She supports Smile Train, a charity organization.


Lorenzo Baraldi

Gianlorenzo Baraldi (born 30 October 1940 in Parma) is an Italian costume designer and film producer. He won a Nastro d'Argento for Best Scenography and a David di Donatello for Best Sets and Decorations for the film "Il Marchese del Grillo" by Mario Monicelli in 1982.
Biography.
Lorenzo Baraldi studied at the faculty of set design of the Istituto d'Arte Paolo Toschi in Parma, Italy, and attended set decoration classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. He taught set decoration at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Viterbo from 1993 to 1995, at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia from 1994 to 1995, at the Accademia di Costume e Moda in Rome from 1995 to 1998, at the Associazione Scenografi Costumisti e Arredatori from 1998 to 1999, at the Istituto Europeo di Design (I.E.D.) during the academic year 2005–2006, and at the campus for arts students of the Sannio Film Festival in the years 2008 and 2009. He made a series of lectures on scenography and scenotechnics at the Istituto d'Arte Paolo Toschi in Parma in th winter of 1996 and in 2000–2001.
Baraldi began his career in cinema as a set decorator for the film "Tepepa" (1968), directed by Giulio Petroni. He created the sets of various films and television productions, including "The Roses of the Desert", "The Two Lives of Mattia Pascal", "Bertoldo, Bertoldino e Cacasenno", "All My Friends Part 2", "Il Marchese del Grillo", "Hurricane Rosy", "Lovers and Liars", "An Average Little Man", "Goodnight, Ladies and Gentlemen", "My Friends (film)", and many others.
Baraldi has also worked for directors outside Italy, such as French director Georges Lautner, on the film "Le Guignolo" (1980), and Michael Radford, on "" (1994).
Baraldi was involved in the creation of the 43 columns of the atrium of the Cultural Centre of the Alhóndiga Bilbao in Spain. The history of this project is the subject of a 2010 documentary film.
Filmography.
Production
Production design
Costume design


Albert Wolsky

Albert Wolsky (born November 24, 1930) is an American costume designer. He has worked both on stage shows as well as for film, and has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design seven times, winning two awards for his work on the films "All That Jazz" (1979) and "Bugsy" (1991).
Early life, military service and early career.
Wolsky was born in Paris, France, but during World War II, he and the rest of his family fled to the United States to escape the German occupation. After graduating from the City College of New York, he served in the army from 1953 to 1956, spending most of his enlistment in Japan. Once he returned to the United States, he began working in his father's travel agency. However, he decided to change careers and took an assistant's job with notable costume maker Helene Pons.
Career.
Wolsky became a well regarded costume designer, working both on Broadway and in the motion picture industry.
The first film Wolsky worked on was "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter". He worked on many films including "Harry and Tonto", "The Turning Point", "Grease" and "Manhattan". He worked with Bob Fosse, a leading Broadway director, on "All That Jazz" and won his first Academy Award. He won his second Academy Award for "Bugsy" in 1991 and has been nominated five other times, most recently for his work on Julie Taymor's Beatles-inspired musical "Across the Universe" (2007) and Sam Mendes's "Revolutionary Road" (2008).
He began his career as costume designer for the theatre by assisting costume designer Ann Roth on "A Case of Libel" (1963); he later assisted Roth on "The Odd Couple" (1965), Patricia Zipprodt on "Fiddler on the Roof" (1964), and Theoni Aldredge on "Illya Darling" (1967). His first work as lead costumer was "Generation" (1965). He went on to serve as principal costume designer for both plays and musicals, including "The Sunshine Boys" (1972) and "Sly Fox" (1976). Wolsky has been announced as the designer for the 2012 Broadway production of "The Heiress".
In 2010, Wolsky donated his costume design sketches to the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Memberships.
Wolsky is a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Personal life.
His partner of thirty-nine years was actor James Mitchell who died in 2010.


Nightfall (video game)

Nightfall is an American computer game released in 1998 by Altor Systems, Inc. Although claimed to be the first real-time 3D first person adventure game, there are earlier examples of 3D first person adventure games, however, such as Total Eclipse, released in 1988. It employs a three dimensional world and sprites for objects such as vases and rats, as well as true 3D objects such as blocks and statues. Essentially, the gameplay is a combination of 3D first-person shooters such as "Doom", the gameplay found in Myst, with some additional elements.
Story.
The player takes the role of an archaeologist exploring an ancient Egyptian tomb for a wonderful secret. Unfortunately, an earthquake occurs, sealing the entrance with rubble. Rather than waiting to be rescued, the archaeologist decides to explore the tomb for another exit and the treasure he was searching for.
The game is patterned after the journey of Ra through the underworld in Egyptian myth. After the game's first level, which serves as an entrance to the underworld, there are twelve levels corresponding to the twelve hours of Ra's journey. Many of the game's puzzles are based on the actions of Ra in the underworld. From the thirteenth level it is possible to escape the tomb and thus win the game. However, there is also a fourteenth "secret" level, which can be accessed from the thirteenth, and which leads to an alternative ending. This level has no basis in mythology.
Gameplay.
The gameplay hand based interface is detailed in a Game Developers Conference paper that compares Unreal, Quake, , Tomb Raider, Myst, and Nightfall styles of interaction. Gameplay is also described in the reviews listed in the Reception section.
Players can move and turn using arrow keys, but can also point and click via the mouse pointer (symbolized as a hand icon) to move or turn. In addition, the hand provides a means to grab 3D or sprite objects in the view, move them closer or further away, re-arranging objects on top or underneath each other, and drag/dropping them onto a user satchel icon. The objects act according to game physics – i.e. dragging an object next to another pushes the other object along if it's lightweight, or restricts the ability to move the grasped object if the other impacted object is heavy. In a novel interface behavior, if the grasped object is immobile, the user location is moved – a bit like grasping a protrusion and climbing or swinging from it.
The game can be completed by solving the puzzles, or in some cases utilizing alternative means to bypass puzzles such as climbing, throwing objects to trigger remote locations, or finding alternative routes to the objective. This solves a problem with Myst's gameplay – that some puzzles cannot be solved, so gameplay cannot proceed as the player is "stuck". In the case of Myst, a workaround is that the player obtains the solution from elsewhere – e.g. friends, hint books or websites, breaking out of the game. While playing Nightfall, alternative solutions can be found within the game itself.
The user can alternate between a first person 3D view of the world, and a top down map based view of the world. The map dynamically refreshes to show the areas the user has visited or can see, much as games like Marathon do. In addition, the map coloring changes relative to the users altitude, so they can see if rooms are above or below them, or if they are falling or rising.
A plot-line is also revealed through notes located through the levels. This reveals the experiences of another person who traversed the complex at some earlier date. The fourteenth levels also has notes revealing a hidden purpose to the complex.
Technology.
According to the Altor website, the engine was custom written for the game. The 3D Engine List site lists attributes of the engine, which contribute to the appearance and gameplay. These include "Volumetric real-time light model", "Dynamic depth cued colored fog and dust', 'Physics model for collision, gravity, and object stacking", and a 'VR hand to select and pick up objects during game play or editing'. The game had both hardware 3D and software rendering support.
Both the Altor Web Site and the 3D Engine List give details of the ability to customize the game. A game editor was shipped with the game, and code could be written via a "Plug-in DLL architecture with source code".
Reception.
The critical reception was generally favorable according to the Altor web site, but few of the linked reviews still exist. Some are available from the Internet Archive.
Mac Gamers Ledge gave it 5/5 and states that 'Nightfall has breathed new life into the adventure genre by truly allowing you to explore a vast and interesting new world. You are no longer confined to a few preset paths but can instead go where you choose to.'
Just Adventure gave the game a rating of B+, "a bit below a perfect score, just for what I felt was a redundancy on the design of the levels and some puzzles", with music, sound and puzzles receiving the highest praise. On a technical note, the reviewer states 'Nightfall was designed using a first-person engine, and it was designed from scratch, a feat involving writing two million lines of code, which should get an A even though we don't give scores for programming!'.
A MacObserver article gave it a 'Pretty Cool' rating, and it received a 'gold star' from Four Fat Chicks.
Legacy.
The game is only compatible with Apple computers which use the Mac OS running on PowerPC processors, and it was not ported to other operating systems.
While not directly related, other 3D adventures such as realMyst followed, and some of the gameplay mechanics were similar to those in Nightfall. A review of realMyst compared its freedom of motion to 'Altor Systems with their ahead-of-its-time game, Nightfall'.


Firearms (video game)

Firearms is a first-person shooter mod for "Half-Life" which originated from a "Quake" modification. Initially developed in 1998, "Firearms" was created as a quasi-realistic team-based FPS. The mod's main feature is the large amount of usable weapons in the game.
Gameplay.
In "Firearms", players are divided into red and blue teams and are tasked with completing objectives. Objectives can vary from controlling areas to destroying objects. The main objective in all maps is to reduce the number of the opponent team's reinforcements to zero. Reinforcements determine the number of times players on a team can respawn. A team loses reinforcements when killed players respawn. The loss of reinforcements on a team can be stifled by completing map objectives and the direct and indirect actions of medics on the team. As long as a team has more than 0 reinforcements, players can respawn instantly. Firearms was the first FPS game to feature player-deployed parachutes.
Unlike other games, players are free to choose what weapons they want to use. There are no classes (although players can choose predefined and editable weapon configurations) or a money system used to buy weapons. Instead, Firearms uses a credit system where every player can spend 30 credits on weapons. Every player receives a free knife regardless of the weapons configuration they choose. Players can spend their credits on weapons and equipment, ammunition is free and can be obtained from ammunition boxes available throughout most maps for when a player runs out.
Players can buy skills by spending skill points. Every player starts out with 1 skill point and can earn another skill point for every 10 points they have. No more than 7 skill points can be obtained this way. The skill points can be used to buy skills which help the player. There are seven different skills to choose from, three of which have a follow-up skill.
Map objectives.
There are five map objectives:
Development.
The final build is Release Candidate (RC) 3.0 which was released on April 18, 2005. FA was originally created by Caspar Milan Nielsen, Christian Øelund, and Brian Fuller. Versions 2.0 through (RC) 2.5 were developed under the leadership and lead programming of Eric Smith (Zerk). Firearms 2.4 was included in the "Counter-Strike" retail package and was later awarded "PC Gamer"'s Mod of the Year award and "PC Gamer"'s Best Multiplayer Game of the Year Runner-up in the year 2000. Firearms was at one time the #3 most popular mod based on the Half-Life engine, after "Counter-Strike" and "Team Fortress Classic". Later versions, (RC) 2.6 through (RC) 3.0, were developed under the direction of Ben Irwin.
Reception.
"PC Gamer US" named "Firearms" the best mod of 2000.


Cassie McFarland

Cassie Maeve McFarland (born October 4, 1985) is an American graphic artist based out of California. She is best known as the creator of the winning design for the common obverse of the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coin program.
Biography.
Cassie McFarland grew up in the historic railroad town of Roseville. Her parents are Robert and Wendy McFarland.
Education.
She attended California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, CA, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Studio Art and Design degree in 2008.
Works and awards.
Cassie McFarland works in the fields of figurative painting and photography. There is a strong narrative tendency to her work, shaped by personal nostalgia and the grandeur and sweep of the American landscape.
While attending Cal Poly, she received the following awards:
She has also used her art training to improve the mental and physical health of the elderly by assisting with the art therapy portion of a respite day program that specializes in multi-sensory activities, with an emphasis on developmental communication.
Based out of San Luis Obispo, Ms. McFarland maintains strong ties to the local arts communities. This includes working with a small group of other local San Luis Obispo artists as part of a professional collective called Yoke. The group seeks to make the visual and performing arts an even more active presence within their community. Yoke also facilitates collaboration between its members while helping to produce and exhibit each artist's work individually.
2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin.
On September 4, 2013, the United States Department of the Treasury selected her design as the winning entry in the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coin competition, which ran from April 11 to 11 May of that year.
The contest was authorized by the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act (Public Law 112-152), signed into law by President Barack Obama on August 3, 2013. All told, the Treasury Department received 178 original entries - including McFarland's, which she submitted on the last day of the contest (11 May) after having happened across the competition online while researching another art project involving Shell gas station tokens.
Contest semi-finalists were chosen by three U.S. Mint sculptor-engravers and one banknote designer from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The four judges scored each entry according to artistic merit and suitability or adaptability to a coin format.
16 finalists were then selected based on scores given to the semi-finalist designs by a group of five members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, including Joe Morgan, Brooks Robinson, Ozzie Smith, Don Sutton, and Dave Winfield. The finalists were then reviewed by the United States Commission of Fine Arts, the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Acting Director of the Mint Richard Peterson then culled together the preceding reviews and comments before making a final recommendation to Treasury Secretary Jacob "Jack" Lew.
Due to the government shutdown of October 2013, there was no public unveiling ceremony. The Mint announced McFarland's design as the winner on its website on October 8, 2013
McFarland herself didn't find out until "Coin World", an American numismatic and coin collecting magazine, contacted her for an interview.
Design.
Cassie McFarland's winning design, entitled "A Hand Full of Gold", was modeled on a time-worn, "well-loved" baseball glove that had been in her family since she was a young girl.
However, her initial design concept was "quirky" and "abstract". She briefly considered designing the coin to have the feel of a peanut shell due to peanuts being so strongly associated with ballparks and nostalgia for the game of baseball. McFarland soon decided against the idea out of deference to the feelings of people with peanut allergies, and eventually decided that she didn't want her final design to be "harsh and geometric".
She then settled on the simple baseball glove as the main motif of her design due to its inherent Americana and nostalgic appeal. It also made effective aesthetic use of the concave shape of the coin's obverse. The 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame commemorative coin is the first scyphate coinage ever produced by the U.S. Mint, as authorized by Section 3(d) of the 2014 National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act.
Specifically, the law calls for a coin produced
"in a fashion similar to the 2009 International Year of Astronomy coins issued by Monnaie de Paris, the French Mint, so that the reverse of the coin is convex to more closely resemble a baseball and the obverse concave, providing a more dramatic display of the obverse design chosen pursuant to section 4(c).""
A few drafts later, McFarland submitted her final design. It featured a wheat motif that curved around the bottom of the glove, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger. She included the wheat not only as another nod to a nostalgic American past, but also as a reference to the Grange movement with which her family has been involved for so long. U.S. Mint Sculptor-Engraver Don Everhart - who also designed the common reverse for the Baseball Hall of Fame coin program - removed the wheat from the coin's production design, presumably in order to facilitate its reproduction on actual coins.
Cassie McFarland received $5,000 for her winning design, and her initials appear on the obverse as well.


Hum Award for Best Actor Popular

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role Selected by Viewers is one of the Hum Awards of Merit presented annually by the Hum Television Network and Entertainment Channel (HTNEC) to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the Television industry. Since its inception, however, the award has commonly been referred to as the hum for Best Actor Viewers Choice. While actors are nominated for this award by Hum members who are actors and actresses themselves, winners are selected by online public votings.
History.
Hum Television Network and Entertainment Channel presented this award to one of the finest actors of Pakistani TV industry, this category
is introduced at 2nd ceremony in order to select an actor by public choice through online voting's.
Winners and nominees.
In the list below, winners are listed first in the colored row, followed by the other nominees. Following the hum's practice, the dramas below are listed by year of their Pakistan qualifying run, which is usually (but not always) the drama's year of release.
For the first ceremony, the eligibility period spanned full calendar years. For example, the 1st Hum Awards presented on April 28, 2013, to recognized actors of dramas that were released between January, 2012, and December, 2012, the period of eligibility is the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.
Date and the award ceremony shows that the 2010 is the period from 2010-2020 (10 years-decade), while the year above winners and nominees shows that the dramas year in which they were telecast, and the figure in bracket shows the ceremony number, for example; an award ceremony is held for the dramas of its previous year.


Ilya Bogdesko

Ilya Trofimovich Bogdesko (; April 20, 1923 in Botushany near Rîbnița, Ukrainian SSR – March 29, 2010 in St. Petersburg, Russia) - Moldavian Soviet graphic artist, People's Painter of the USSR (1963), member of the Academy of Arts (1988).
Member of the Great Patriotic War. Drafted into the Red Army was in 1942.
One of the most famous works, illustrations for the Jonathan Swift novel "Gulliver's Travels", uses in the technique of engraving on metal cutter, widespread in the days of Swift. For this work at the National competition "Book Art" in 1980, Bogdesko was awarded the diploma of Ivan Fedorov.
Over the course of five years, For about five years Bogdesko created a series of 33 illustrations for the Miguel de Cervantes novel "Don Quixote". He illustrated the Ion Creanga book "Punguța cu doi bani" ("Wallet with Two Coins").


Harry Kernoff

Harry Aaron Kernoff (10 January 1900 – 25 December 1974) was an Irish painter. The Irish artist of London/Russian extraction, is primarily remembered for his sympathetic interest in Dublin and its people. He depicted street and pub scenes, as well as Dublin landmarks with sympathy and understanding. This is particularly evident in his woodcuts. While living in his adopted Dublin Jewish community he produced picture illustrations of his local scenes for a neighbourhood writer and friend, Nick Harris for his book called "Dublin's Little Jerusalem".
Harry Kernoff spent the vast majority of his life unappreciated, and made little or nothing from his paintings until a few years before his death, when he began to be appreciated by contemporary critics.
He never married.
Outside his home in Dublin, where he lived with 2 unmarried sisters, there was a long-standing sign in the front garden which said "... Descendants of the Abravanels..."
The Abravanel (or Abrabanel) family was one of the most famous Sephardic Jewish families in history, noted for their large quotas of Rabbis, scholars, and members of a variety of scientific and artistic fields, dating from about the 13th century in Lisbon. The emergence of the famous philosopher and scholar Don Isaac Abravanel in the middle of the 16th century brought his works to greater universal recognition.
Career.
Born in London, Kernoff moved to Dublin and became a leading figure in Irish modernism. Influenced by Seán Keating, Kernoff painted the Irish landscape, genre scenes, and portraits. In 1930, Kernoff visited the Soviet Union as part of an Irish delegation from the friends of Soviet Russia led by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington. While visiting, he was influenced by the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia. Kernoff is famously associated with Davy Byrne's pub. His paintings and woodcuts of Davy Byrne's pub are documents of his friendship with the original owner.
His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.


Judge Dredd (pinball)

Judge Dredd is a four-player pinball game produced by Bally Manufacturing in 1993, based on the British comic strip "Judge Dredd" in "2000 AD". Nearly 7,000 were made.
An eight-page full colour promotional comic was released by Bally and Egmont in 1993, which reprinted the story "Pinboing Wizard" from the "Judge Dredd Annual 1981", written by Judge Dredd creator John Wagner and illustrated by Mike McMahon.
Gameplay.
There are 2 types of games to choose from in Judge Dredd. Regulation game for 1 Credit, or Super Game for 2 Credits. In Regulation, the player must resolve the 9 crimes/issues.
Completing these 9 modes will result the player entering the Ultimate Challenge, Being congratulated by Judge Death, Ultimate Challenge features all the normal Crime Scenes and modes to be twice the amount. In Super Game, a fictional host named Anita Mann will dispatch you to one of 4 Crime scenes, Mad Bomber, Deadworld Attack, Traffic Jam, and Prison Break. Super Game uses 2 Balls and a Drain Shield with an Extended amount of time. Judge Dredd utilizes a 100,000,000 point super shot, this shot can only be achieved in Super Game. To do so, you must advance the crime level from Warning, to Class X Felony. You will have 3 Seconds to make the shot, if you make the shot, 100,000,000 points will be scored. Classic modes are found in Super Game but are doubled the value and marketed as Super.
To activate Multiball, shoot the drop targets to spell JUDGE. The planet Deadworld will begin spinning, and you must shoot the ball up the left ramp to lock a ball. If 3 balls are locked, they will be dropped onto the playfield and 3 extra balls will be ejected onto the playfield. This will result in Multiball. Players are greeted by Judge Death on the Dot Matrix display. You will be able to collect the Jackpot, collecting 4 Jackpots will result in Judge Death notifying you have entered the Ultimate Challenge.
Shoot the 5 JUDGE drop targets, Shoot the ball into the Subway tunnel, and begin the 6 ball Super Multiball. You will also have a chance to collect the Super Jackpot.
Later releases.
In prototype builds, Judge Dredd pinball was intended to lock the balls in the atmosphere of Deadworld, but there were issues so that the ball would be locked, picked up by the crane, and be dropped back onto the playfield. The code to drive this lock feature was removed in later game versions, along with the physical lock mechanism itself.
Digital version.
"Judge Dredd" pinball was released as enhanced digital version for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows in 1998, but differs significantly in both gameplay/rules as well as its presentation (e.g. sound and graphics).
"Judge Dredd" was available as a licensed table of "The Pinball Arcade" for PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Android and iOS from January 2016 to June 30, 2018. After this date, this table is no longer possible to buy due to WMS license expiration.


Gypsy Gyppo String Band

The Gypsy Gyppo String Band was an American an old-time music band, based in Seattle, Washington.
Active in the 1970s, it brought a contemporary sensibility to this music, treating it "as source material rather than holy writ." The band played a key role in reviving this music, bringing it out to the dying milieu of Grange halls and the somewhat-staid milieu of organized Modern western square dance to a hip, young urban audience. It laid the foundation of a square dance and contra dance scene in and around Seattle that continues to this day.


List of sock manufacturers

This is a list of sock manufacturers.


Seaman 2

 is a virtual pet video game for the PlayStation 2. It is the sequel to "Seaman" on the Dreamcast. In this game, players act as god of a miniature island, charged with the task of rearing Gabo, a 20-centimeter tall Peking Man, communicating through a custom microphone-equipped gamepad.
Gameplay.
"Seaman 2" plays much like the original "Seaman", but instead of playing as an actual inhabitant the player is much more of a god, with the ability to alter environments to give things to the island's inhabitants.
Reception.
"Seaman 2" was the top-selling game during the week of its release in Japan at 33,000 copies. The game sold a total of 61,878 copies in the region in 2007.


Stars!

Stars! is a turn-based strategy, science fiction 4X game. "Stars!" was developed by Jeff Johnson and Jeff McBride ("the Jeffs") for their own use, and initially released as shareware in 1995. A retail version was later produced for, and published by Empire Interactive, with developer Jason Gaston added to the team for QA, although the shareware version continued.
Gameplay.
Starting with a small fleet of ships and one or two planets, players develop their empire, meet other races and conquer the galaxy. "Stars!" games begin with race design, choosing one of 10 different primary racial traits, a selection of lesser racial traits, habitability, growth, economic and technology settings. The graphics are entirely 2D, and consist of the main map view and static pictures of planets, ship hulls and components. Battles consist of moving static icons around a grid. Because of the high level of micromanagement and diplomacy requirements many games take place over a period of months between players spread across the galaxy.
Players initially send scouts out to scan for suitable planets which may be later colonized and developed, enlarging the player's empire and providing additional resources. As a player's empire expands the player must balance the management of population, minerals, research and ship/infrastructure constructions. When other players' races are encountered, a variety of diplomacy options allow for alliances, trading mineral resources or technology, large-scale wars, and even the complete destruction of other races. If the random events game option is enabled, players will also have to contend with (or take advantage of) the Mystery Trader, comet strikes, wormholes and environmental changes.
Modes of play.
The game is well adapted to the Play-By-Email (PBEM) style of multiplayer gaming. One player takes on duties as host, and the other players send their instructions (turn files) by email to the host. The host then generates the results of those instructions and emails back the results.
An alternative to play-by-email is to use an online system such as the Stars! AutoHost. This system automates most of the hosting duties, and can handle a large number of games simultaneously.
Many games are run at a rate of 1 turn per calendar day, giving plenty of time for strategic thinking. In large games this can be quite necessary, with turn generation dropping to only 3 times per week in cases, due to the complexity of the game and the level of micro-management required to effectively control a large empire competitively. To foster better understanding of the game, Mare Crisium paid members of the player community to write and edit (Kearns, Clifford, Steeves) an in-depth Strategy Guide in 1998.
There is also a reasonably competent artificial intelligence (AI) that can take part in the game. The player can opt to play against AIs only (up to 15 of them), and this is the way that new players typically get to learn the game mechanics before launching into multi-player games. A well-regarded tutorial helps with getting started.
Another style of play is referred to as a Blitz game. In these games, turns are played every 15 minutes or so, and all players must be at their computers at the same time. Blitz games are generally more tactical and less political in nature, due to the time constraints involved.
The duel has become more popular. These are similar to regular turn-a-day games but are between two players only. Again, with only two players involved there is no political side to these games.
Compatibility.
"Stars!" can be run on most versions of Windows from Windows 3.1 up. It can even be run on Linux systems through the Wine system. However, under Wine, version 2.70 crashes during combat if combat sounds are enabled. "Stars!" does not run directly on the 64-bit version of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, which cannot run 16-bit software. However, it can be played on a virtual machine like Virtual Windows XP on Windows 7, or in VirtualPC on earlier 32 bit versions of windows. Another alternative is VirtualBox. It also runs quite well using Windows 3.11 installed in DOSBOX. Preview version (32bit) of Windows 10 plays version 2.60i. On 64 bit Windows 10, version 2.70i runs well on Wine for Windows version otvdm-v0.7.0.
Development.
The game was originally developed in 1995, with version 2.0 released early in 1996. Later that year the newsgroup rec.games.computer.stars became active, facilitating public discussion of tactics and allowing players to find new games.
By the end of 1996 shareware version 2.60 had been released, and the game has remained essentially unchanged ever since, although there have been numerous updates. Version 2.70 is the retail version which has battle sounds and allows research past Level 10 (the shareware version is restricted). The latest file date on the retail version CDROM is January 8, 1997; it sold for $41 before tax at Media Play in the southeastern U.S. in February, 1997. The manual was 15mm thick (over half an inch), but the game only needed 2MB of installation space. The most recent patch version, 2.60j RC4 (release candidate 4) was released in December 2000. Versions 2.60 and 2.70 are compatible as long as the minor version letter is the same (e.g.: 2.60i can play with 2.70i players). Over the years a number of third-party developers have provided tools and utilities to help players manage their empires.
Reception.
"Stars!" has received some generally positive reviews. PC Gamer UK's reviewer Andy Butcher gave the game a rating of 79% in its February 1997 issue, commending it with the following comment: "What makes it stand out from the many games based on a similar idea are its depth, and that it's been designed right from the start with multi-player gaming in mind". Pitfalls he mentions include that the large number of options available can make the game confusing, and that the game is likely to be less appealing to single players.
GameSpot's reviewer T. Liam McDonald rated the game 7.3 "Good", applauding "a solid Windows interface, plain graphics, a wide range of custom options, deep strategic content, and compulsive playability" and stating that the game outdoes the similar game Spaceward Ho! 4.0. In "Computer Game Review", Tasos Kaiafas wrote, ""Stars!" may not be brilliant, but it is fun and well designed."
Sequels.
The huge popularity of the original "Stars!" game convinced the developers that there would be a market for a sequel. The developers of "Stars!" formed a company called Mare Crisium Studios and began development of "Stars: Supernova Genesis". This was intended to be a much more advanced game, with significantly better graphics, and also to remove some of the irritations of the original, such as the high level of micro-management.
However, there was little interest from games publishers, who by that time had become focused exclusively on the video game console and high-end 3D games markets, and so the project was eventually abandoned. Rights to the ingame graphics remained with Empire, until they were acquired by Zoo Games.


Crystal Key 2

Crystal Key 2, known in Europe as Evany: Key to a Distant Land, is a 2004 graphic adventure game developed by Canadian studio Earthlight Productions, together with Kheops Studio. It was published by The Adventure Company, and is the sequel to the 1999 title "The Crystal Key".
Gameplay and plot.
"Crystal Key 2"s plot builds upon that of the original, and casts the player as Call, who seeks to stop the minions of Ozgar and save the world of Evany.
Development.
"Crystal Key 2" was revealed by DreamCatcher Interactive's Adventure Company label in April 2003, at first under the name "Crystal Key II: The Far Realm". It was among a slew of announcements in preparation for the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and Marek Bronstring of Adventure Gamers called it one of the publisher's "top titles premiering at the show", alongside "". Earthlight Productions developed "Crystal Key 2" with Virtools and V-Ray. It was designed to feature spherical 360° panoramas, unlike its predecessor's more limited viewing areas. According to John Matheson, Earthlight sought to overcome the problems that had affected "The Crystal Key"s production pipeline and give its art team more room "to be as creative as possible".
Initially developed by Earthlight and set for a late-2003 release, "Crystal Key 2" underwent "many years" of production and took longer than The Adventure Company had wanted, Benoît Hozjan of Kheops Studio later remarked. As a result, Kheops was hired to co-develop the game late in production, which Hozjan said included "the programming and the integration, hand in hand with John Matheson." In July 2003, Matheson estimated "Crystal Key 2" as 75% complete and on track for December, but it ultimately launched in March 2004.
Reception.
According to the review aggregation website Metacritic, "Crystal Key 2"s critical reception was "mixed or average".


Mitch Murder

Johan Bengtsson (born 1980, known under his stage name Mitch Murder) is a Swedish electronic musician from Stockholm, known as one of the many artists that popularized the synthwave genre. His first EP, "After Hours", was released in 2009, followed by "Current Events" and "Burning Chrome" on Rosso Corsa Records in 2010 and 2011. He explained in an interview of his inspirations being "jazz, cheesy 1950s bossa nova, 1970s motown or 1980s pop", and mentioned Paul Hardcastle, Jan Hammer, and Vince DiCola as examples. His primary software for music is the tracker program Renoise. In 2013, he was contacted by director David Sandberg regarding his film project Kung Fury, where he would compose the majority of the music. Prior to the movie's release, he collaborated with David Hasselhoff for the single "True Survivor". Both the single's music video and the movie went viral upon their releases, gaining considerable acclaim. In 2014, he released his third album "Interceptor" on Mad Decent.


Digitalism discography

This is a discography of the German electro house duo Digitalism.