2007-07-27

I got boats!

Filed under: Family,Games — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 20:43

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (203.5 / 400.0 km)

Got a cool package in the mail. It was my three (two frigates, one galleon) boats from Dragonfire Laser Crafts! Very pretty, laser-cut wooden boats perfect for setting up on miniatures. Too bad the next few adventures are going to be entirely land-based. :) But, I was reminded to finally pick them up (since I’ve been lusting after them last year’s GenCon) when they got nominated for the Ennie Awards. I wish them the best of luck and I love my boats.

Too bad I didn’t get to play with them. Instead, I spent about four hours removing carpet from the living room. 600 square feet doesn’t sound like much, until you are on your hands and knees, peeling them off 30 years of history. Tonight, I get the joys of removing tack strips, repairing about three meters of pet-ruined drywall, repairing a ceiling, and getting ready to paint tomorrow. No plan survives an encounter with the house in this case. I was hoping to have painting down tonight, but we probably won’t even start until tomorrow morning.

I just keep telling myself: “It will be worth it.”

2007-07-26

“This is Life”

Filed under: Family,Games,Writing — Tags: , , , — D. Moonfire @ 18:48

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (194.4 / 400.0 km)

Yesterday was the first day of what is going to be a week of being really miserable. But, to understand yesterday, you must understand Friday. And for Friday, we have to go back to last week Wednesday. To understand that… just kidding. Last Wednesday, we have an electrical storm come bumbling through our little part of Illinois. Nothing was really affected, didn’t even have the lights or clocks go out, but come Thursday morning, Fluffy’s precious TiVo wouldn’t turn on. She sat on the edge of the couch, helplessly punching the power button on the remote and whimpering with her bright blue eyes.

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2007-07-20

Glorious Saber

Filed under: Graphics — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 14:45

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (194.4 / 400.0 km)

Yesterday, instead of doing something I should have been doing, I decided to play around with my vector program. A little while later (read hours and hours), I came up with something that almost looks like an Exalted-based comic.

gs-001.png

If you are curious, in Exalted, they say you must have Lore • to actually read, but either because of a typo or something else, the canon stats for the Mask of Winters doesn’t actually have him with the ability to read. Its one of those things I find funny, mainly because this is one of the most terrible of entities in the entire world, razes cities, invading reality, wants to basically kill everyone, and he has trouble with “See Dick and Jane.”

2007-07-19

Moving Forward

Filed under: Technology,Writing — Tags: , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 14:55

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (194.4 / 400.0 km)

When going back to the beginning,
After almost reaching to the end,
One must remember to look back
And remember exactly how far they got
Instead of focusing on
What they almost made
Or what they nearly reached.

Interestingly, this last rejection really didn’t bother me that much. I mean, yes I wasn’t the happiest in the world, but for a form letter (Dear Creator:) it just “was.” Though, when I got home, I really didn’t have the energy to do much, so I just worked on cleaning up my Debian packages and finished a short story that has been hanging over me for a while. I’ll be submitting it today (email submissions). I’ll also be looking for a new publisher for Muddy Reflections, I think I have two more on my short list then I’ll have to start doing the Writers Market thing again. Tonight, I’ll either write or start outlining Peg and Sue are Lost in Space (title changes daily) and/or Case of the Morning Zombies.

Oh, last night, I made the entire trip from work without getting off, including the evil hill. This makes only the second time I’ve actually made it and I really need to get my bike into the shop since it is really hard without being able to use the hill-climbing gear.

2007-07-18

Rejection for Muddy Reflections

Filed under: Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 19:29

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Summer Biking: (183.8 / 400.0 km)

Got a rejection letter for Muddy Reflections today. Nice paragraph of encouragements, but ultimately, it is still a rejection.

Low-Hanging Fruit Week

Filed under: Games,Programming,Technology,Writing — Tags: , , , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 13:37

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Muddy Reflections Reading
Summer Biking: (183.8 / 400.0 km)

Today, I’m rode my bike into work again. Just as yesterday and I am very, very exhausted. I know that my body will adapt to doing 20 km two days in a row (had to walk almost three meters though yesterday), but it isn’t fun until the rest of me adapts. As my dad says, my struggle comes from the extra weight I’m carrying (i.e. a polite way of saying I’m fat). I can consistently average about 38 minutes to go 10 km, including both ways. Which is pretty good, given that the way home is uphill most of the way.

The ride in was pretty good, mainly because I was excited that I finally got something off my chest. There was some work with dh_creatclipolicy that has been hanging over me for the last couple of months, my obligations to the Open Source community, and I’ve been stalling. Last night, I finally got off my ass and made it work. It just needs some cosmetic changes, maybe a bug fix or three, and I should finally be able to say it is done.

I have no energy for CuteGod, as I knew I wouldn’t. I found a good (free) installer maker, so I’ll be able to offer an installer program the next round. I also was made one of the project developers for BooGame since I’m going to be adding some features to it. And, to my surprise, I was made one of the project leadertypes for prebuild. Again, that is because I’m going to scratch an itch I have and make it a bit better to use. One thing I like about the OSS community, sometimes you can just send in changes and sometimes you just step forward to help everyone. Admitedly, I haven’t done much with CeGui# or SDL.NET, both of which I’m developers for, though I have submitted code to both (a Irrlicht.NET backend and the “Moonfire Demos” which have since been removed, respectively).

I think this week is “get rid of small things” week. Trying to knock off a couple of things that have been haunting me. Depending on my mood, I might try to write a short story or two. I have a (hopefully better) story for Steam Punk Magazine which I want to write. Plus, getting read to tile my living room (I have 54 boxes of tile on my sun porch which thankfully has a concrete floor to handle the weight) and GenCon and my vacation next week. Oh, and gaming this Saturday.

It’s going to be a busy set of weeks coming up.

2007-07-17

Created to Fail

Filed under: Games — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 15:39

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Muddy Reflections Reading
Summer Biking: (162.7 / 400.0 km)

When you game, the last thing you want to do is have your character fail. Very few people want to roll their dice and barely struggle to do something the rest of the characters excel at. At least, that is what it seems like to me. When I create characters, normally I make them specialized in a few regions and ignore the rest. Basically “all-or-nothing.”

Last night, we played in a little Exalted adventure by fightertype. Its only going to be a few hours once a month, instead of bad movie night, but it will be set in the same world as my Sepia Throne game. Actually, it uses characters from the spin-off series from the original arc. My character, Wind-Sweat Dandelion Seeds, is not a character designed to succeed. Her average die pool is… four. If the die rolls of the night were any indication, I botch about 1 in 4 die rolls.

So, I created a character who will fail at even her primary thing. I mean, its an archer and a performance character, 6-7 dice each where I would have normally made them 9-10′s. Strange, but I think it is important to focus on “not succeeding” at times too. Regardless, I had a stitch with my botches and failures. For the same reason I think I’m a good storyteller makes it difficult for me to enjoy other storytellers. I’m too… flexible in what I want. I also run the game I want to play in, which typically means the people who have the most trouble in my game are the ones that I have the most trouble playing in theirs. Oh well, nature of the beast.

But, I’m planning on enjoying this character, not because I like playing, but because I am playing. I spend most my time running games that it is really nice to just sit back and let someone else create the stories.

2007-07-16

Weekend of Cute and Gods

Filed under: Games — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 14:12

CuteGod Development: (44 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Muddy Reflections Reading
Summer Biking: (152.2 / 400.0 km)

I spent all weekend programming fairly obsessively. I didn’t get anywhere near as much as I wanted to, but on Sunday, I got to what I would call is a “minimal game!” Very good news for me, since I won’t have time to obsess for the next couple of weeks. But, things can calm down now that I got the basics and I’ll probably be working to finish this (must finish!) within the next month or so.

Screenshots and more after the cut.

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2007-07-13

Dylan is Competitive

Filed under: Games — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 14:58

CuteGod Development: (12 / 172 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal
Muddy Reflections Reading
Summer Biking: (135.1 / 400.0 km)

I did it. For the first time in three years of biking, I made the entire 10 km trip without stopping for a breather. I wouldn’t have done it, except that Fluffy kept telling me that she could get up that last hill of Evil without stopping, so naturally I had to do as well or better than her. My front derailer needs a bit of love, I couldn’t use the 1-1 (hill climber) at all without it slipping its chain so I had to really work to get up those hills. But, I did it, which means I’ll do everything I can to keep on doing it.

Worked on CuteGod last night. A very frustrating, since I didn’t really get anything done. I found a new website (FreeSound) with a ton of samples for noises using one of my favorite licenses, the Creative Commons. So, while I only got a small amount of things actually done, I started working on most of the sounds which is around fifteen of my so-called requirements. I started to get into it, but Fluffy made me go to bed, mainly because she is worried that I’m going to burn myself out working on this since I have this deadline she doesn’t understand.

I modified my progress bars for status to actually do date calculations for me. I’m horribly lazy but I didn’t like how I only updated the Wind, Bear, and Moon and Muddy Reflections status on Fridays. So, I went back, figured out what days I started, then updated the progress bar to automatically calculate the days for me. Remember, boys and girls, good programmers are lazy programmers.

2007-07-11

Thoughts on Exalted (2 of 2)

Filed under: Games — Tags: , , , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 18:40

CuteGod Development: (7 / 171 requirements)
Wind, Bear, and Moon Proposal: (2 / 26 weeks)
Muddy Reflections Reading: (2 / 26 weeks)
Summer Biking: (124.6 / 400 km)

Here is the first bit, which I figured was actually two completely different commentaries on Exalted. Or at least my opinions on Exalted.

Needly to say, beyond the normal ideals of playing a game according to the published rules or playing based on what I think is fun, there are still aspects of Exalted that I find frustrating. Just like D20, I find most of the mechanics to be ad-hoc instead of based on a consistent system. I’m a bit too grounded into rules and guidelines, that I sometimes rail against things that don’t appear to be balanced against each other. For example, the ease that a Solar gets a perfect and how easy it is for the players to frustrate the hell out of me when my villians can’t even touch them because they negate everything. This ties into the idea that Exalted is about “being cool and slaughtering your enemies” though I’m lucky to get a good group that doesn’t go for the hack and slash approach of things; not that I would run anything like that.

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