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Friday, August 29, 2008

Okay, this is going nowhere. I put more restrictions on my computer, and still I find endless ways to not work. Clearly I've got to go back to the punishing system, under which I was actually getting things done.

I have very little done so far. I've got a roughly half-complete model of how it'd work in my head, a small portion of which I've put to virtual paper. I don't think it will be necessary to write out the plan ahead of programming as I did with Smilie, so this isn't a problem. As for the actual programming, I've made a working version of the formula the whole game will revolve around. Thanks to Tamir for filling in the bit of math I was having trouble with. Anyway, it's a really simple formula which should have taken me roughly ten minutes to program. That's all I've got.

The next step is to construct a simplified mock-up of the gameplay. It will not be fun in that state but it'll get me to figure out how the actual game needs to be programmed behind the scenes. (I can't draw on experience, obviously.)

So. Starting Sunday, I get serious. No excuses.

For now, though… back to the excellent Stargate: Atlantis. I might just catch up in time for the third Stargate series to start.

Posted @ 2:37 AM    

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2 Comments:

Best thing about SGA; The best character is Canadian :)

It's been so long since the strike I'd totally forgotten that new shows were actually going to be produced again. Yay.

If you need any help with programming or design, let me know btw. I love that sort of stuff.

 
There have been six episodes of SGA's fifth and final season already. It's nice to not have to worry about spoilers anymore. Anyway, Atlantis will end with its 100th episode and then a few months later Stargate: Universe begins. There will never be a lack of entertainment. Atlantis will continue in DVD movies alongside SG-1. Speaking of which, I agree with you about Ark of Truth. It is bad.

 

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Sunday, August 17, 2008

Just let me win already.

That was a fun episode. Okay, time for bed. You know, I could watch another one. No. Why not? Because it's time to go to sleep. It couldn't hurt to watch one more. You've already watched five! So? You're hopeless. You're annoying. You need to get to sleep, so that you're more likely to work tomorrow morning. I'm not likely to work in any case. Well, maybe if you weren't so stubborn you would be! Go away. Go to sleep. No. No. No. I ought to set more restrictions on the computer. Oh, don't do that. I will. No you won't. Blah.

Posted @ 2:17 AM    

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Friday, August 08, 2008

The Plan

  1. Smilie
  2. The Right Color
  3. The March of Bulk
  4. Angles & Circles
  5. Next Door
  6. Through the Wind
I'd better get to work.

Posted @ 2:46 PM    

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Tuesday, August 05, 2008

:)

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

:)

Smilie

A game by Mordechai Buckman

Posted @ 8:59 PM    

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8 Comments:

Well done! It's fun to play.

May it be the first of many. =)

 
I hope people who play this game and don't enjoy it have the courtesy to tell me.

 
I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. Very impressed. Let me play it a few more times and think about it a bit and I will come back with more thoughts about it.

 
Hey Mory. It's not that I didn't enjoy it, more that I didn't understand it. It did bring a smile to my face for a second, which I'm not sure whether is meant to be the irony of the thing or not. But when it was over I was kind of wondering what the point was.

At all events, a first try was this? Well done then, and I second the best wishes. :) (the smilie is not ironic :D ).

 
Nu... what's your development platform? Java?

 
John Silver: The intent of Smilie is no deeper than it appears to be. There's no irony here, no intended message. It's just something I wanted to make. Actually, maybe that's a message in itself. You can certainly read all sorts of things into Smilie, if you really want to. I think certain aspects of its personality are like me.

Eric: I programmed it in an obscure language called BlitzMax. It's a version of BASIC specifically designed for 2D games. It's not all that far removed from QBasic, which I've got some nostalgia for. I don't particularly like learning new programming languages, so years ago I intended to make games in Visual Basic 6 like I used to. But you wouldn't believe how hard it is in VB to get DirectX to rotate a silly little 2D image. It's actually easier to deal with 3D! So the main appeal of BlitzMax for me is that I can just write "SetRotation(45)" and have it rotate whatever it draws next by 45 degrees. It's refreshing. But I also don't feel like the workings of the program have been taken out of my hands, since I'm programming the main loops and the backbuffer flips and all that myself.

On the other hand, it's a bit buggy and has irritating quirks with how it deals with variable types. So I'm not sure I'd recommend it to other people, but I like it.

 
Well after playing it some more here is a link to my review. Smilie

 
Well, I've joined the ranks of people who have experienced Smiley.

I find it intriguing.

Like real life (sometimes), you find yourself in an environment with no instructions. You just have to experience it and experiment a bit. You find yourself wanting to play it more than once -- you are motivated to compile a body of results to help you to feel that you understand what is going on and why. You find yourself trying to understand what makes the Smiley react in certain ways and you even find yourself wanting to get it to smile. Why?

There are elements at work here that I think could be interesting components of a game of broader scope.

Cool!

 

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Saturday, August 02, 2008

~Not Alone

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Not Alone

I saw a guy standing behind a tree, out of sight of his group.

I called over:
"Hey, what're you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Hiding?"

"I guess so."

"Don't like crowds?"

"No."



"Do you have Asperger's Syndrome?"

He looked astonished.
"How did you know?"

"Because I'm like that, and I have Asperger's Syndrome.
Really! That was just a crazy shot in the dark."

"I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to be truthful, because I'm genuinely curious:

Do you like videogames?"
"Yes."

"I have a theory, that there isn't anyone with Asperger's Syndrome who doesn't like videogames."

"It's a solitary thing, and it's a way to vent frustration. That's probably why."

"So what's your thing?"
He thought about it.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do.

..Violence."

"Goodbye."

Posted @ 11:13 PM    

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1 Comments:

It's only occurring to me now that he might not have known what I meant. Oh well.

 

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