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Well, that's the last of the colossi dealt with. It's another great game, but I think the story is even more ambiguous than Ico. There's definitely a link between the two games, and maybe that's the part that makes the most sense, but the meaning of the game -- if there is one -- is a little less clear. It might require a bit more thought tonight, and that's no bad thing. I've never played a game, and don't know of any either, that are anything like Shadow of the Colossus. This isn't true for Ico, although perhaps that's because all of the similar games follow rather than precede it. Nonetheless, it's impressive to find such a great and original game as Shadow of the Colossus.

Not a great deal of success doing more today than yesterday, it has to be said! I did manage to dispose of a further 9 colossi or so. I've now reached 13 of them, which means there should be only 3 more to go. Not quite an achievement, but it is a very good game. It'll be a shame when it's finished.

I didn't really achieve a great deal today. Got up relatively early. Helped Tom to transport his parents' budgie, started playing Shadow of the Colossus, listened to the radio a bit. But that really is about it. That's pretty bad really. I'll have to try to achieve a bit more tomorrow. Having said that, yesterday was quite busy (and we even got to have a nice Indian takeaway), so I did need the break. The real problem, though, is deciding exactly what I should really be doing. I have plenty of things that I want to do, but many of them involve starting up new projects, and I'm not sure I'm ready to start getting into something too deeply whilst I still have so many half finished things to do. I should probably get down and finish a few things off properly.

I managed to meet with Bo today about forums and Content Management Systems for the WARP. It was a useful discussion. There've also been a couple of things that I needed to do that have been playing on my mind for a while now. I had to suggest some changes to the Chinacom Security Symposium programme, and the reorganisation was actually a surprisingly tricky thing to get right. I also had to write an important email to foster some collaboration with another organisation on some of the work that we're doing. I've finally got around to tackling these tasks, and both of them are now done. Quite a relief. It sounds really stupid, but things really begin to weigh on my mind after a bit. Of course I do have a number of other things that I still need to do -- this is a universal constant -- but these are manageable, and hopefully I will now feel a bit more free to get engrossed in some of the programming work that I've been needing (and hoping) to do recently.

Just as a quick addendum to the previous entry, whilst playing Ico it surprised me how similar many of the game elements were to the first 3D Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time. Of course, Ico predates The Sands of Time, and when Sands of Time was released, I think Ico had only been a critical but not popular success in the UK (I don't know about Canada, where Sands of Time was developed, though). At any rate, it does look like Sands of Time has taken many good ideas from Ico: the idea of protecting someone else, gradually falling in love with her, the way the camera movement when you enter a new area gives a clue as to where you should go, the general gameplay characteristics combining architectural puzzles with intermittent fighting, the need to use both characters to solve puzzles. There seem like a whole host of similarities. To some extent, Sands of Time could be seen as a more mainstream Ico (the fighting is much more involved in the Prince of Persia title, for example), and it certainly has interesting new elements of its own too (such as the ability to rewind time). None of this reuse of ideas is a bad thing of course, but it does perhaps highlight how Ico is a game that has left an important legacy. The gaming world is better for it. It might also explain why they are both such great games, probably two of my favourite. The use of two characters (only one of which you control) to solve puzzles is part of what makes both games great and also, I believe, why the Sands of Time is so much more fulfilling than its two sequels.

I just finished ico the game this evening. It was really quite sublime in many ways. There seems to be a lot of confusion about what it all means and what actually happens in the game. As far as I can tell, it seems to be an allegory on coming of age and the importance of mutual help. Ico is a misunderstood miscreant. Yorda's mother is protective of her, and not ready to believe that she is able to survive on her own. This may be true, but what we grow to understand is that whilst Yorda is able to reform Ico, so Ico can also help Yorda to grow independent of her mother. The result is that by helping each other, they are able to survive on their own, against Yorda's mother's wishes. As with anything like this, the beauty is as much in the enigma as in the truth, but that's my interpretation.

Submitted the review I've been working on. Have lots of other stuff still to do, though...

Finished reading paper S. Kremer, O. Markowitch and J. Zhou, "An Intensive Survey of Fair Non-Repudiation Protocols". Also finished writing up a review of a paper.

Today I read a couple of papers. They were J. Riordan and B. Schneier, "Environmental Key Generation towards Clueless Agents" and G. Vigna, "Protecting Mobile Agents through Tracing". I've also been reviewing a paper, and working out the Security Track timetable for Chinacom this year. Neither of these last two tasks are finished yet, though.