#Spark creativity

[openstorygames]

Time is running out! You've got just over 50 hours to grab my kids' games for 25% off!

Go for a backyard adventure with Whither & Whence, be a spy with Encode, or adopt a creature of mischief and chaos in Lil Gremlins. Or triple the fun and get all 3 at an extra discount!

[animeworldoor]

Proven Strategies to Increase Organic Website Traffic in 2024

Increasing a website's organic traffic is a top priority for the majority of businesses, no matter how big or small they are. Getting quality visitors without relying solely on paid advertisements is the key. Organic traffic is the lifeblood of long-term online growth because it comes from people naturally finding your website through search engines.

We'll go over tried-and-true methods for increasing organic website traffic in depth in this blog. You can increase your visibility online and attract visitors who are more likely to engage with your content by using these suggestions.

Optimize Your Website with SEO to Increase Organic Website Traffic

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the cornerstone of growing organic website traffic. SEO is essentially about making your website more accessible and appealing to search engines like Google, which can initially appear overwhelming.

On-Page SEO Keywords,

 meta descriptions, and headers are all part of on-page SEO. You must ensure that your pages are optimized for the terms your audience is searching for in order to increase organic website traffic. Utilizing tools like SEMrush or Google Keyword Planner, conduct keyword research first. Concentrate on long-tail keywords due to their lower likelihood of ranking and lower competition.

Make sure your chosen keywords are strategically placed in your content's title, header, and body, but don't use too many. Your goal should be to produce content that is still optimized but still feels natural.

Technical SEO

 You must also consider the technical aspect of SEO in addition to the content itself. Your search rankings are affected by things like how quickly your website loads on mobile devices, how responsive it is, and how well it is indexed. Make your website more accessible to search engines by making use of tools like Google Search Console to check that it is being properly crawled and indexed. This will help you increase organic website traffic.

 Produce High-Quality Content 

Content still reigns supreme, particularly in terms of organic traffic. Your website ought to be the source of useful information for people who use search engines to find answers.

 Articles and Blogging

 Regularly writing informative articles and blog posts is a great way to boost organic website traffic. You can answer frequently asked questions that your target audience is looking for on blogs. Your site's rankings will likely be favored by search engines if your content is valuable and consistent.

Focus on providing value rather than keyword stuffing when writing blog posts. Try to answer real questions in detail by naturally using keyword variations. This not only enhances SEO but also builds audience trust.

Content Updates Keeping your content current is essential. Websites that regularly update their content are favored by Google. Revisit previous blog posts and update them with new information, examples, or insights. By doing this, you can keep or even raise your rankings, which will help you get more organic traffic to your website over time.

Utilize Social Media Despite the fact that social media does not directly affect your search rankings, it can significantly contribute to the growth of organic traffic. To increase your visibility, share your videos, infographics, and blog posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Engage with Your Audience Engaging with your audience is an essential social media strategy for increasing organic website traffic. Respond to comments, inquire, and promote sharing. Your content is more likely to reach a larger audience if it receives more engagement, which may result in an increase in website visits.

. Content Distribution To ensure that your content reaches a larger audience, distribute it across multiple channels. Utilizing platforms like Medium, Reddit, or even guest blogging on well-known industry websites can bring new readers to your content and increase organic traffic to your website.

Create high-quality backlinks Backlinks are an important part of search engine optimization (SEO) that can increase organic website traffic. Search engines learn that your site is trustworthy and useful when other websites link to your content. However, not every backlink is created equal. Concentrate on acquiring backlinks from high-authority, reputable websites.

[ismailfazil1-blog]

Brainstorming Technique: Generate Ideas, Solve Problems, and Spark Creativity

Are you struggling to come up with innovative solutions or fresh perspectives? This comprehensive guide introduces you to the powerful tool of brainstorming. Discover how to unleash your creativity, solve complex problems, and generate a wealth of ideas through effective brainstorming techniques.

Key Topics Covered:

• Understanding Brainstorming: Learn the fundamentals of brainstorming and its various applications.

• Essential Techniques: Explore traditional and modern brainstorming methods, including mind mapping, reverse brainstorming, and rolestorming.

• Facilitating Effective Sessions: Discover strategies to create a conducive environment for brainstorming, encourage participation, and capture valuable ideas.

• Harnessing Technology: Leverage online tools and virtual platforms to enhance your brainstorming sessions.

• Applying Brainstorming in Different Areas: Learn how to apply brainstorming techniques to business, problem-solving, creative endeavors, and personal development.

• Overcoming Challenges: Address common obstacles, such as groupthink and fear of judgment, to ensure successful brainstorming outcomes.

Whether you're a business professional, entrepreneur, student, or simply seeking to boost your creativity, this book provides practical insights and actionable advice to help you master the art of brainstorming.

[summerfoxcrafts]

Overcoming Creative Blocks and Sparking Inspiration

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?  We finish a project that we’ve been working on and get ready to start on something new.  But as we’re sorting through our various colors of yarn, as we flip through the cross-stitch patterns, as our thoughts jump back and forth from candy molding to soap molding, we find that we’ve hit a wall.  What do we want to work on next?

Crafters are creatives, the same as writers, painters, or sculptors.  Our work is best when it is inspired and full of passion because we put part of ourselves into the crafts that we make.  Of course, the movements can become routine – I don’t stitch a garter stitch any differently if I’m making a scarf for my step-mom or for a stranger.  But you can’t convince me that there’s not an extra element of heart that goes into making something that we care about.

When we’re hurting for inspiration, there are plenty of places that we can look to get motivated and find our creative passion for our next project.

[Link to full article]

[ancientroyalblood]

Let Your Imagination Soar: Fun Writing Exercises to Spark Creativity

Writing is an adventure where you’re both the storyteller and the explorer. If you’re looking to stoke your creative fire, or simply want to infuse some fun into your writing routine, you’re in the right place. In this post, we’re diving into a world of writing exercises and prompts that will unlock your imagination and set your creativity free. So grab your pen, and your favorite notebook, and…

[o0kawaii0o]

"I've been thinking of a new recipe lately.."

[ellie-makes-mbs]

name moodboard for “kodi” for anonymous

[captain-astors]

Reading through Witch Hat Atelier, extremely slowly because the art is amazing and I have to stop to marvel at every chapter. Everything about this series is a delight thus far, I would definitely recommend it.

(This is a panel redraw from the first chapter. I'm only on the second.)

[serendippertyy]

patchwork now vs. their very first design from june 🫢

just wanted to say again his new design is heavily inspired by a commission I got from cattywampus.woods on IG! anyone who draws patches is welcomed and encouraged to do their own patterns and colors and I just loved the colors they used so much so now it is immortalized forever!!

my goodness I am just so happy with how not only patches evolved but also my style in such a short amount of time!! ^^

[davidtennan-t]

My laptop just randomly died and I was 2 hours into writing out a plan for a future fourteen fic, 2500 words, no recovery possible 💔

[sandreeen]

"I'm just Ken a mere S-class." ーSung Hyunjae, The S-Classes That I Raised

[writingwithfolklore]

15 Ways to Spark a New Idea

Revisit an old project

Take inspiration from classic stories/folk tales

Follow your interests

Start with genre (or a unique combination)

Start with a character

Start with setting

Combine or reinvent some classic tropes

Ask someone to share a story they don’t usually tell (be curious about the people around you)

Use something from your past

Focus on a hard to define feeling

Experience something new

Brainstorm with a writing friend

Read outside of your comfort zone

Talk to a stranger about their life

Twist the normal, normalize the magical

[everygame]

Special Delivery: Santa’s Christmas Chaos (C64)

Developed/Published by: Dalali Software / Creative Sparks (Thorn EMI Computer Software) Released: 1984 Completed: 05/12/2024 Completion: Got a high score of 8750. I’ll take it!

Writing about old video games for an audience of very few could seem like a thankless task–especially when they’re as awful as Christmas Crackers. But there’s a reason I do it. One, I just love playing games, even if they’re so crap I give up on them in minutes. Two, I just love learning. I love discovery, I love finding out things that are new to me about video games and their history. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, I find out some things that no one has really paid attention to before.

I never thought playing a completely random Christmas cash-in on C64 would bring me anything like that.

Special Delivery: Santa’s Christmas Chaos is a game for C64, Spectrum and Atari 8-Bit released by Dalali Software under Thorn EMI’s “Creative Sparks” imprint. At the time it sank without trace due to, apparently, a lack of marketing. After playing it–and I will get into that–I did my usual investigation into the developer, and was quite prepared to dismiss Dalali as one of the many fly-by-night British game developers of the 1980s–they appeared to be only a going concern between 1984 and 1989 and didn’t have any particularly notable games to their name. They were responsible for ports of Rescue On Fractalus and Lilttle Computer People to Amstrad CPC, but largely seem to have had the bad luck of being most related to 1986’s Biggles game. The weirdest thing about that is that not only did I really like the movie on which it was based (which I’m sure no one else remembers but me) when I was a kid, watching it on telly several times, I’ve actually played the game! It was on Amstrad Action #68’s covertape (along with How To Be A Complete Bastard!) and, as vague as my memories of it are now, I’m sure I played it loads of times. Less than How To Be A Complete Bastard, admittedly.

This led me to dig a little further, and sometimes things just fall into place, because I found an astonishingly in-depth article from Sham Mountebank’s When Were They Now? blog (a new one to me) all about Dalali. I think Mountebank slightly buries the lede however, because digging into the linked articles it seems absolutely remarkable that Dalali is not only in the ranks of the earliest companies to have been founded (or co-founded) by a woman, but very likely the first game company founded by a Palestinian: Hanan Samara.

Hanan Samara, pictured in Computer & Video Games March 1985.

Game companies had been co-founded by women before–most famously Sierra, by Roberta Williams and her husband Ken in 1979–but I think Samara’s story might be unique.  According to an interview with ANTIC The Atari 8-bit Podcast she believes she might have been the first female assembly programmer in the UK, starting out by converting software to work for the Arabic market. Moving to work for Thorn EMI, she’d see a Humpty Dumpty puzzle game–programmed by her future husband(!) Chris James–and be “hooked.”

After coding Jumbo Jet Pilot for Atari 8-Bit for Thorn EMI, it seems that she made the leap to founding Dalali–named for her mother’s maiden name (as her mother said go for it, while her dad said to get a job at IBM...) with another ex-employee, Adrian Wadley.

Something I really appreciate about Samara’s story is that she immediately brought herself to game design, with Dalali’s first game “Jinn Genie”. While this kind of Arabic-theming undoubtedly seems stereotypical today, in an interview with Popular Computing Weekly it is clear that this is an early example of someone trying to represent their culture via the art of video games:

“Jinn Genie is a game that incorporates many of the basic myths and children’s stories of my culture–I am an Arab, a Palestinian, and all the ideas of genies and so on are familiar to me.”

Jinn Genie, on C64.

The most disappointing thing, to me, is that Samara is, at this point, unheralded outside of a blog post, one short podcast, and about… three short articles featuring three pictures that can be found on archive.org! She’s one of the UK’s earliest female programmers, game designers and founders, perhaps the first Palestinian game developer, and she has managed to run Dalali since 1984 because it’s still going–they just stopped making games.

Samara’s story isn’t mine to tell, so I hope that institutions like GDC, The Video Game History Foundation or The Strong can find out more and champion her. Figures such as Muriel Tramis have gone from overlooked to winning the Legion of Honour, and if I can help get the word out about Hanan Samara, just a little bit, I’ll feel I’ve done my part.

But I know what you’re asking now.

“But how good is Special Delivery: Santa’s Christmas Chaos???”

So let's return to regular programming. First, I’m going to note that I believe I have played the wrong version of this. When it came to games, Samara was an Atari 8-bit coder, and it is absolutely transparent that Special Delivery is based entirely on Jinn Genie–both feature a flying section, a climbing section, and a section with floors and ladders. It does feel like I should have played the Atari 8-bit version to experience the most representative version, as I did with playing the C64 version of Pirates, let’s say.

(It’s worth mentioning here also that the ANTIC podcast–recorded seven years ago now–even notes that the version of Jinn Genie that Samara coded, for the Atari 8-bit, seems to be lost, although Samara does say that she has a copy of it somewhere. Aforementioned institutions could probably help with that too. What that largely means, though, is that the Atari 8-bit version of Special Delivery is the closest you can get to playing the original Jinn Genie.)

To be fair, the C64 version seems pretty close to the original (the ZX Spectrum port is… not).

As I’ve said previously, my expectations for a Chrimbo cash-in have been low, and no matter how much this is sort of a reskin of a previous game, that it’s got an idea and an actual design exceeds anything I’ve expected. At first glance you might go “well, isn’t this just Santa Claus again?” (or even Santa’s Sleigh Ride.) But it’s honestly much more–even if it is still a bit weird.

In Special Delivery, you’re first flying across the screen in Santa’s (somewhat confusingly drawn) sleigh, collecting presents that… angels are dropping. Which implies that this is in fact the historical Saint Nicolas, or maybe I’m just overthinking it. You’re trying to collect a target number of presents, but you lose them if you crash into clouds (odd) or accidentally collect a demonic present dropped by a devil (who appear rarely, but look very much like angels, annoyingly.) Losing presents won’t kill you, but Santa has a set amount of hours in the night, and you lose an hour if you get struck by the lightning that occasionally appears from the strangely firm clouds.

If you collect enough presents, you get to land on a big house to put presents under the tree. First this requires you climb down the chimney, which in this situation is: huge, full of ladders, and lit so flames keep climbing the ladders that you have to dodge. Once you’ve done that, you’re actually in the house, where you have to Solid Snake your way to the tree, drop off the present, grab the front door key, and then leave through the front door, while the residents run wildly from one room to the next, seemingly out of their nut with either excitement for Christmas or hatred for Santa. Get hit by a flame or grabbed by a resident and you’ll lose an hour.

Interestingly, if you don’t collect enough presents, you don’t get to go into any big houses, but you do get to drop presents down the chimney of some wee houses. You only really pick up big points for going into big houses, which raises the concerning idea that Santa only gives a fuck about you if you’re rich enough to live in a big house.

But to be fair, the people in big houses seem absolutely determined to not get pressies, keeping their fires roaring and attacking Santa on sight, so perhaps he just likes the challenge. “I hope Santa doesn’t show up” they’re saying, “we’ve got all the stuff we need in this big house. We don’t need wooden toys or whatever the historic Saint Nick would be handing out, he should give those to the poor people in the wee houses.”

More fool them, I checked Wikipedia and he was dropping off bags of gold coins through people’s windows. (Admittedly to stop them being sold into prostitution.)

Anyway. Even before I knew the exciting context for Special Delivery, I was struck by how… weirdly ok it was! Maybe it’s just how bad the other Santa-em-ups have been (well, I guess I didn’t hate Merry Xmas Santa) but the different sections largely make sense together, undoubtedly because it’s based on Jinn Genie. The main problem really is that it just doesn’t control very well. Flying the sleigh is stiff, and when you’re actually controlling Santa himself, he reacts very slowly to your input, meaning you have to time presses based on the lag, and I probably lost most of my lives in the chimneys as a result–it might be better on the Atari 8-Bit, so more fool me.

Special Delivery is not really the kind of thing that’s going to hold your attention for very long, but it does actually manage to be playable and feels properly festive. I’ll celebrate that.

Will I ever play it again? I was surprised to see a non-zero number of people say online that playing this is a bit of a Christmas tradition. Well, I don’t think I will be taking it up, but I do fancy playing Jinn Genie at some point now--maybe once that Atari 8-bit version is found!

Final Thought: In my research I was surprised to discover not only had I played a Dalai Software game before, I’d also played a Creative Sparks game, similarly loads of times: Danger Mouse In Double Trouble. Strangely, it has the same multi-game design as this (and I guess, a lot of the computer games of the era) but suffered a lot more for them not having any meaningful connection and mostly being rubbish. Even as a child I remember enjoying just the jungle level and suffering through the rest to get through that. The things you’ll do when you’ve got nothing else as a child.

Every Game I’ve Finished 14>24 is OUT NOW! You can pick it up in paperback, kindle, or epub/pdf. You can also support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up digital copies of exp., a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[sparkp18]

Took a stab at turning the command trine into some ✨girls✨inspired by the bishoujo designs :D

I’ll do my real bishojuo redesigns at some point soon I’m sure, but for now this was a fun little exercise :))

[pininiu]

Thinking about short hair, also have a leek larcenist

a demon took over me or something idk

the orange proceeded to burn my eyes but giving him a cheap plastic file case he probably had since he was 10 is integral to me

[missmisnomer]

When I tell you the absolute STRANGLEHOLD this fic has had on my throat for the past week! If you're looking for a longer story in the RotTMNT universe, steeped in elements of psychological horror and suspense, that explores the concept of The Boys being weapons engineered for war and what that could mean for their relationships with each other as well as their own sense of self, this is the fic for you!

What are you waiting for, go read The Lemonade Leak on AO3!!

I am genuinely obsessed with all of the imagery and mood you've been able to capture, so here's a treat for @turtleinsoup that's a little experimental. I had so much fun playing around with the colors and composition, hope you like!

I drank the lemonade man, it is living rent free in my brain 24/7. 🍋