2010-03-07

Support your indy game developers

Filed under: Games — D. Moonfire @ 15:50

I’m a wannabe game writer. Not to say I can’t, but I don’t even focus enough to actually finish a game besides CuteGod (which still needs work). I never really created anything slick or polished, that final step for making a “real” game instead of throwing something up. However, there are a lot of fantastic little games out there. Most of them are pretty cheap (under $20), give a lot of hours of fun, and don’t need the greatest of all hardware to even show the introduction. And, this weekend, there are a few specials going on that I enjoyed.

http://www.indiestrategygames.com/

This is three games plus expansions. The first, Gratuitous Space Battles (GSB) is this cute little game where you make your ships, set it up, and watch them blow each other up. Now, that might not excite a lot of people, but I love the creator bits of 4X games and this doesn’t require hundreds of hours of time to get working. Just set up the battles and go. And, it kind of makes me feel like Ender. There is also Solium Infernum and AI War in there. I haven’t gotten to them, but they look like a lot of fun. Basically, I bought the back to find something new and to buy GSB.

The entire pack is $50 but I think I’m going to get my money’s worth on it (under $1/hour). I believe the special ends Monday.

http://www.direct2drive.com/2/9236/product/Buy-Best-of-Indie-Bundle-Vol.-3-Download

This is a bigger game pack for only $30. It has all the winners and finalists of the Independent Game Festival.

  • World of Goo: I already own this game and absolutely love it. The goos make such adorable sounds. Hrm, reminds me, I need to ask about the profanity pack I ordered.
  • Puzzlegeddon
  • Gish
  • The Maw
  • Braid: Played this for an answer. It has some really neat puzzles, a bit on the hard part for me, but the “rewind time” is great for undoing mistakes.
  • Cogs
  • Aaaaa!
  • Osmos
  • Machinarium: This is a click puzzle adventure but it looks absolutely gorgeous.
  • Crayon Physics Deluxe: I already reviewed this game, it is still great.

I like supporting indie game writers. Much like I support people who show up at GenCon to sell their books. Yes, most of them are POD or not through the classical distribution channels, but it doesn’t mean they poured less of their heart into it. Yeah, they might not be as fancy or smooth as the $60 game, but I think they can be just as much fun. Plus, for me, it is the fact I’m supporting someone who writes in their spare time, after doing their full-time jobs in hope that they’ll make it big. Because… I hope to be that person in my own time.

2010-02-28

Trials of being a landlord

Filed under: Uncategorized, Writing — D. Moonfire @ 05:05

I don’t like being a landlord, I really don’t. But, we are bouncing between these two houses and it finally is getting put on the market to sell it. The people “renting” the place (more of occupying it for me) are out of the place and we just have all the clean up left.

And that is why I’m sitting on a hotel bed in Illinois instead of obsessing about my novel in Iowa.

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2010-02-25

Thoughts on hacking RPG’s

Filed under: Games — D. Moonfire @ 23:57

This last weekend, two friends from Illinois (Uteck and Bouncy) came to visit. I miss them a lot, mainly because there are aspects of my life that I haven’t found a friend locally. In Uteck’s case, we happen to enjoy running games and tweaking RPG’s to make them fit. He is also a Linux geek like me and we enjoy playing with programs in hopes they make our game running experience better.

We were in Half-Price Books, one of our favorite places, while Bouncy ran from shelf to shelf with child-like glee. I naturally had to mention that Anton Strout and Mark Henry had two–no doubt brilliant–books coming out this week (buy plug) but we would have to go to a non-used bookstore to get them.

But, we got to talking about RPG’s. And, more importantly, designing or taking existing systems and make them work for our styles of play.

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2010-02-22

What is in a name?

Filed under: Family, Writing — Tags: , , — D. Moonfire @ 19:14

Fluffy and I got into talking about what we should be called. She is fond of “mom” or “mommy”, but I prefer “papa” or “Dylan”. This created an interesting discussion of what children should call their parents. I’m in favor of precision: when I heard a child screaming “Dylan”, I know it might actually be me. But, “dad” is kind of generic for me. It will be interesting to see how that wanders out.

Bouncy and Uteck showed up for the weekend, mainly to chat and socialize. I got to talk about gaming (another post) and I actually brought up the entire “dad”, “papa”, or “Dylan” thing. And, as many things happened, one thing to lead to another and I mentioned the names of the characters in my novel.

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2010-02-21

A writing bump in the road

Filed under: Programming, Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 00:02

Got chapter four critiqued at Nobel Pen this week. It wasn’t what I would call really good and I seem to be having a bit of trouble getting over it. There was good advice in there, but some of it made me wonder if I’m somehow doing the wrong thing. Like missing the point or somehow creating a story with potential that never really goes anywhere. I think Wind, Bear, and Moon was in there, but I’m getting hints that Flight of the Scions might also. Its frustrating, because I really haven’t figured out what I’m doing ungood to make this story spark.

In a different part of writing, I got a short story out on Friday. The reading period ended that day, so I’m hoping that they meant 23:59:59 instead of “end of the work day”. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It’s an okay story, not what I would call great at this point, but it could be the shadow of the critique speaking.

It is amazing how fragile I can get from opinions of my writing. I think it makes sense, since we (writers) seem to put so much of ourselves into our writing. It will be a good story when I finish, just need to get there.

One of the technical side is I decided to learn Git at the same time I polish up my writing toolchains (series of programs that work together). So, I created a git repository for mfgames-writing toolchain which will have the various programs I use to write. Right now, I only have the beginning of mfgames-docbook for converting from DocBook 5 XML files to PDF. Eventually, it will include HTML, ePUB, BBCode, ODF, and text. I’m going to also add a few other programs, like the Creole version.

Update: Fixed link, renamed things.

2010-02-17

And the words keep tumbling…

Filed under: Writing — D. Moonfire @ 01:30

Looks like the pace of writing for the next few weeks is going to be a chapter a week. I’m mostly starting to write on Friday going until Sunday, which a bit of desperate editing for the last seventeen hours or so. Overall, having a lot of fun. There are little things I’m picking up to make my writing smoother and better. I’m also noticing my writing style is changing, but I honestly can’t say for better or worse, but at least I have half a dozen people enjoying it, so it can’t entirely be bad.

For the rest of the week, I’m focusing on other smaller writing projects. Last week, I finished polishing up the editing for my commission. The commissioner loved it and only asked me to change someone’s hairstyle because it resembled a friend and the character in question ended up very dead. I can’t argue with that, I really can’t.

This week, I’m working on a short, seven thousand word, transgendered cyberpunk. It is due Thursday, which means I need to get off my literary ass and get chugging. It isn’t a sure thing, but I’m really enjoying the romance part of it and it forces me to write shorter, more concise stories. My normal average is ten thousand words, so cutting a few grand helps me improve myself.

2010-02-09

Nokia n810

Filed under: Technology — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 03:16

For some reason, last Thursday, I decided to focus on my Nokia n810. I got this lovely little tablet quite a few months ago and only used it occasionally. Then I was reminded of my normal rule: value = (dollars spent / hours enjoyed).

I decided that it could make a reasonable mp3 player, which is does, and I could offload some of the music playing at work to something a bit more portable. Kind of like my 1 GB Sansa but more… capable. Jim Hines got me thinking about single purpose devices, i.e. the Kindle, and multi-purpose, i.e. my n810. Though, when I tried to get a memory expansion card, I hit some bumps. Apparently, the miniSD is a dead technology and I accidentally ended up picking the larger SD card instead of the much more expensive microSD that I could have found an adapter to. So, I have a 8 GB SD card and nowhere to jam it.

Later I found a kit to make the n810 work with SD cards. Just a little hacking, but it also fits with an expanded battery I’ve been eying. It adds to the price (and hours to enjoy it), but after five days, I was still thinking about it, so I bought the kit and battery.

I’ll find out later if it was a terrible thing.

I’m also enjoying it as an eBook reader. The various discussions got me going and I threw a couple public domain books on it. And my own, of course. Then, today, while waiting in the doctor’s office, I pulled it out and enjoyed the Wizard of Oz, complete with silver shoes and china people. Finished it actually, forgot how good that book was.

I also tried Mer, what will be the successor to Diablo for my n810. It is because Nokia is no longer producing software for the n810, now that they have the pretty n900 running around. I have a small amount of jealousy because the n900 has 3D graphics, but I’m hoping Mer will get it.

Mer itself is pretty slick… but doesn’t do much. I already know it warned that it was a beta version. And that it could format your drive. And terrible things would happen if you install it, but I did it anyways. From what I saw, it will be exactly what I want, but probably in a year or so. Not quite ready for Dylan. But, I have to give serious kudos to the Mer folks though.

I’m not really a gizmo person. This is the first real gadget I’ve gotten in years since my original Apple Newton and second generation Palm Pilot. I’m enjoying playing around with it and seeing how it could be useful, but I’m also noticing that I’m customizing it to fit me instead of wrapping my mind around what it provides. Probably the chewy Linux goodness inside, but I feel comfortable adapting it to me.

Plus, I’m getting a lot of use out of it right now, so I’m going to keep on doing that.

2010-02-07

Writing productivity

Filed under: Programming, Writing — D. Moonfire @ 16:04

Wow, I’ve had a very interesting day yesterday. It mostly involved me sitting on the bed (my current favorite writing spot) and working on the second round edits for my commission. I got it down and sent out, which is always a rush because I just absolutely love writing “END” at the bottom and meaning it.

I also worked on getting MG ready for eBooks. Yes, it is at the end of its effective life of being a niche novel with a small reader base, but print on demand (POD) gives me the chance to keep it out there, long after it is no longer commercially viable. Plus, I get the chance of learning how to do typesetting and enjoying all those little technical details about creating books I don’t exactly get as a writer.

I hate when books disappear. I’ve been trying to get copies of some of my favorite novels for years but for some reason don’t want to spend $80 for a banged up copy. I’d rather give the original author a few more dollars for the work they put into it. Traditional publishing might not allow that, except for the evergreens and classics. So, I went with POD for MG (and now eBooks). Someone might want it in a few years, so might as well keep it out there. Creating an eBook is something I’m willing to do, because it doesn’t take that much effort once you have the original manuscript.

Me keeping MG alive is much like my reviews. I write the reviews that I want to get. I keep MG up because I would love it if other publishing companies would do the same. No, it won’t make them do it, but if I’m not willing to do it myself, how could I ask anyone else to? I already know I’d pay for a POD book that I remember from my past, or one that simply doesn’t show up on the shelf anymore. Same with eBooks. Doesn’t mean you have to advertise them to avoid diluting the new novels, but I’d still like it to be out there.

But, time to work on the new again. I owe Noble Pen chapter three by tonight, so between doing cleaning, accounting, taxes, and ripping DVD’s, I need to clean up chapters one through three and get it posted.

The rest of this is about the technical side of my writing.

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2010-02-04

The end of the writing week

Filed under: Writing — D. Moonfire @ 17:13

Thursday has come around. This week at Noble Pen, we are going over chapters 2 and 3 for Flight of the Scions. It’s a bit longer piece (around 7k words), but I’m anxious to see if others like it. There are holes in it–I already found some, but I don’t think they are major ones.

I’m really enjoying writing this. It still has that “new writing project” smell. I’ve been distracted with my commission and got the first draft finished last night. Tomorrow, I’ll do the second, then Saturday/Sunday the third. I’ll send it out on Sunday.

If things go well, I’ll probably be writing a chapter or two for Flight of the Scions for Sunday again. If there are others that want to have something, I won’t submit anything, but I’m just having fun. I decided that I’ll only submit something if there is an empty slot.

In other writing news, I started getting my first novel formatted for an ePub. Remarkably, I had most of the tools already, my odt2text program dumped it into a format just slightly wrong. It doesn’t have the illustrations in, but I need to create reduced DPI versions for the reader anyways (72 verses 600 dpi for print). I’m also going to put the amazing cover I got for it. It will be easier than typesetting the book, but I think there is still a bit of effort to make the ePub file look “good”.

I still loving making my self-published books look good, be it in print or on screen. Just a matter of pride, but I find doing it from end-to-end to be just as exciting as doing just one part.

Why I don’t care (not really)

Filed under: Writing — D. Moonfire @ 04:10

I said I didn’t care about the pricing issues between Macmillian and Amazon. That isn’t entirely true. I think the idea of more flexible pricing is a rather important thing in the long run, but in the short-term, it doesn’t directly affect me. I also have faith that the market will stabilize into something workable; it might take a few starts, but given what I see in the other medias, I think I have a good idea of what it will become.

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