I bought another computer.  An Asus TF300T - android tablet with keyboard dock.  I've got the white one, which was a 'web exclusive' from Comet.. bought 2 weeks before they went down the pan.  phew!

There's no way I could justify spending money on a tablet, but the added keyboard fixed that - it has a full size USB slot, and an SD card reader.  Incredibly useful for transferring photos off my cameras, viewing on a bigger screen, and copying to an external hard drive - something I do fairly often on paddling trips away.

So it had a week in Scotland doing just that, as well as being an ereader, updating facebook with photos of other people swimming, and generally using the internet to see if it was raining enough.  Good stuff!

As it turns out, it's also brilliant for playing games on.  Having a touch screen seems to make everything slightly more intuitive to play, even though it is a massive fingerprint magnet.

I don't really do games that much.  Partly lack of patience (can't be arsed with any sort of shooting, sports, sims, or rpg type games...), partly because I exclusively run linux so things don't always work properly anyway, and partly because I have far too many other things to spend my spare time doing!

But I digress...  I do quite like puzzley games, and have quite a few on my phone to pass the time with.  I've also been occasionally buying Humble Bundles for the last couple of years - the first few with not much success on linux, but recently they've branched out to include android too.

Here are some very brief game reviews:

• Osmos.  First tried this without success on the desktop ages ago.  Then installed it on my phone, and now the tablet, where it definitely benefits from a bigger screen - the graphics are very very pretty!
• Eufloria.  My main reason for buying the newest bundle.  Planting trees on asteroids.  So much detail in the graphics if you zoom in.  Problem now is that I've reached a point where it takes hours (and several attempts) to complete each level..
• Splice. This one is weird.  There aren't any instructions, and I've got to the third stage mostly without knowing what I'm doing.. it's quite cool, I think?
• Machinarium.  Everything that comes out of Amanita Design studios seems to be amazing - fun games, lovely artwork, etc.  I've completed this (along with both Samorosts and Botanicula) on my computer, but that's not going to stop me playing it on android too!  The sensitivity of the touch screen is sometimes a bit of a pain when picking up/clicking very small things, but that's not a huge issue really.
• Crayon Physics.  Another one that wouldn't run properly on linux ages ago.  I've done all the easy levels, and am now 'stuck' on the hard ones, and kind of a bit bored of it.
• World of Goo.  Yet another that's moved from computer to phone to tablet.
• Zen Bound 2. This appeared the other day as a bonus and I've only done a couple of levels so far, so not much to say really.
• Angry Birds and Bad Piggies.  Actually, none of these are installed on the tablet.  But they are on my work phone, and still get played constantly during lunch breaks, so worth a mention.

Hmm, actually quite a long list.  Maybe this is why I don't seem to get anything else done during the evenings!

For anyone wondering, the tablet's name is Colin

tags: gadgets games linux