Games2024-03-28T17:39:17Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/categories/games/D. MoonfireCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 InternationalThings Moving Forward2023-05-01T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2023/05/01/status/The last two weeks have been a lot more relaxed than the previous ones. I got things done and life is settling down, which is nice. Plus I had a really good week with the family.
<p>I found that sometimes <a href="/blog/2023/04/15/obligations/">listing what is bothering me</a> lets me concentrate on easing those roadblocks. As such, my obligations post helped a lot with getting things done or at least letting me get a better handle on it.</p>
<ul>
<li>Work has eased up a little, but mostly I'm accepting what is changed (baring getting frustrated in an end-of-day Friday meeting). I also have a longer term plan to handle that, so I have plans which helps with my anxiety.</li>
<li>I went through two rounds of formatting Randy's book. Once I get the updated cover and make changes, I'll have the proof out by end of May.</li>
<li>I caught on my monthly writing obligations. Since May just started, that means another 10k words is thrown on the stack, but at least I'm not in arrears.</li>
<li>Rewrote a couple chapters of the commission to get over my roadblock. This was a case that my gut feeling said what I had was wrong, it just took me a while to figure out “what” was wrong so I could fix it.</li>
</ul>
<p>Related to that, I also set up a <a href="/now/">now</a> page on my site. It is hooked up to a different repository (no surprise there) which is easily editable on my phone using <a href="https://gitjournal.io/">Git Journal</a>. That way, I can add and remove things as I need and it gives me a little bit of self-accountability.</p>
<h2>Household</h2>
<p>On the household side, there were also a lot of ups and down.</p>
<p>I was missing a piece to put the trampoline up for Child.1. Sadly, Sports Power has terrible customer service and I couldn't find a replacement except on eBay. After a week of waiting for it to show up, I found that they sent me the wrong kit. So now I'm waiting for them to find out what happened and hopefully give me the correct pieces to fix the trampoline. Otherwise, I'm not sure how to fix it.</p>
<p>On Saturday, I finally got a set of grinding wheels to repair the damage from the tiling. But when I got it down on my in-laws, I couldn't find the Dremel to use said wheels. So now I'm looking for that with no idea where it is.</p>
<p>Going home, I decided to fix the kitchen light because the ballast went out. I got LED replacement bulbs, but then I needed just a little length of wire. But my tools were down at my in-laws so I got stymied. Fortunately, when the kids came home, they brought it back and I spent a half hour getting the lights working again. So at least one out of three isn't bad?</p>
<h2>Allegro</h2>
<p>Outside of that, sending <a href="https://fedran.com/allegro/">Allegro</a> through the writing group has been encouraging. It is nice when everyone says its fantastic, they read through it, or forgot to edit. At least for the ego. They also give feedback and requests. Some I can't really do but there are others that I follow my basic rule:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One person is an opinion. Two is a suggestion. Twelve means it's wrong.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Related to that, someone I didn't know (always important) started to read the novel after reading about it on Gemini and gave feedback. Much of it has been very useful plus I found a bug with Fedran's generation. More specifically, the Git repositories linked to the individual stories are not automatically made public. Once I get back to the maintenance CLI for Fedran, that will be the first thing I change.</p>
<p>I'm really hoping to work on my other obligations because I've been feeling the urge to write in <a href="https://fedran.com/">Fedran</a> again and that's a nice feeling.</p>
<h2>Git and Spam</h2>
<p>That does lead into what to do about my Git repositories. I have lot of them (couple hundred) because I do one Git repository per story. But my <a href="https://src.mfgames.com/">personal Gitea instance</a> hasn't had a lot of traction or feedback. 99% of the registrations are spam (innocent until proven guilty) and, so far, 100% of the comments and issues are spam. The temptation to just turn off public registration is fairly high, but I want to give the opportunity to post issues there instead of email if someone wants.</p>
<p>(That said, if you want to make any suggestion about anything I do, please don't hesitate. Feedback is feedback and it doesn't matter if you think you are “good enough”. You having trouble is enough for me to look at it and see if there is something that can changed. I also make a <em>ton</em> of trivial typos and can't see them until they are pointed out to me.)</p>
<p>Automated spam is also why I don't have comments on my site. For a long time, I was getting about one good comment every five years and a few a day that were spam. It was worse when this site was on WordPress, less so with Discuss. Even when I put in a bot filter, it wouldn't relent and I spent most of my time shoveling crap off my site than doing anything useful.</p>
<p>The other problem with the Gitea is the “Yet Another Account” that I understand. I don't have a good answer to that one either, but I hate the idea of needing to create an account just to report a typo. I would, but I can't expect others to do that for me.</p>
<p>There is something about the allure of <a href="https://sourcehut.org/">SourceHut's</a> focus on email patches that I really like. The email infrastructure is not a bad one. At least that wouldn't require “just another account” because it would be just sending emails to a mailing list. There are other things that could benefit, like “email to comment” that I've seen. SourceHut would have also been my first choice if it wasn't for some initial feedback that soured me on it (telling me that “http access to a Git repository is stupid” is not a good way to respond to feedback to anyone. I don't like being told I was stupid when, even after trying rather hard to be SSH-only, I still find I need the occasional HTTPS access).</p>
<p>I'm not sure of the answer, to be honest. Switching to SourceHut would be a major undertaking to say the least, mainly because I'm still in the middle of the GitLab/GitHub to Gitea migration. But it is food for thought as is considering an email-based way of allowing comments again, if that ends up being something of interest.</p>
<h2>Family</h2>
<p>This last week has been a relatively fun time with the family.</p>
<p>Child.0 and I finished working on a LEGO Technic kit, the Pangigale V4 R1 (#42107). That bugger has over two hundred steps. And, despite being a LEGO fan for decades, was my first real Technic kit ever. It took us about a month to build since we do a few steps, we talk about videos like <em>Murder Drones</em> or anime, and just be together.</p>
<p>In the other hours, Child.1 had their birthday and we went to see <em>The Super Mario Bros. Movie</em>. That was a very well paced and entertaining movie. While I'm biased toward any Mario movie, it was nice to see the continuation of the threesome relationship between Peach, Bowser, and Mario. For some reason, that has been my allure and the trailers for <em>Paper Mario</em> (Bowser wanted to make sure Peach had enough to read and was comfortable) and the end of one of the more recent games (after the interrupted wedding, Peach playfully left both Bowser and Mario behind to chase after her) really shifted my perceptions as them being in a fairly stable, though competitive, relationship. I don't care if that is true or not, it's just nice to enjoy the fantasy.</p>
<p>Speaking of romance, Partner and I ended up having another parent's night when the kids went to their grandparents. This time, instead of saying in and watching movies and having steak, we decided to see the <em>Dungeons and Dragons</em> movie and go to a sit down restaurant. It was a real date night and it was… very nice. It's been a long time since we tossed the phones aside and just held hands.</p>
<p>May is our anniversary month. On the 13th, we will have been married twenty-three years. We've been together about twenty-six or seven years, not entirely sure on that one.</p>
Obligations Hanging Over Me2023-04-15T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2023/04/15/obligations/It has been a busy month with many obligations intruding in my life.
<p>It's been a rather busy month since I last posted. Like most good plots, the plans I had for the month have not survived contact with the enemy. This will be the not entirely happy post for some of it, but there are good parts at the end.</p>
<h2>Work Obligations</h2>
<p>I took two weeks off from work to try to decompress but the massive project that was being rammed through meant I had to work way too hard before going on vacation. The end result was two weeks of burnout, sickness, and basically crashing harder than I have in a long time.</p>
<p>Coming back was just more of the same, just slightly less frantic. I've been calling them “meeting trains” where I end up getting pulled into two to six hours of back-to-back meetings with no break between each one. I've always struggled with carving out time for myself, which isn't helping but it starts at 08:30 CT and frequently goes until my lunch at noon.</p>
<p>I don't know what to do, because it isn't a simple “just assert yourself” type of answer. I'm working on it, thankfully I have a fairly good support network but it still feels like I'm “quietly quitting” (e.g., not having meetings for eight hours and trying to frantically work the other four to keep up with other obligations).</p>
<h2>Writing Obligations</h2>
<p>I have two current writing obligations: my monthly submission of 8-10k words that has to be done and a commission I took on so I could try getting a little more money. The commission is a 60k word novel, but like all commissions, I can't really share it with anyone which means I write it, and then it goes away forever.</p>
<p>My original plan was to blast through at least the monthly and get a sizable dent in the commission. That didn't happen and I had to end March with an apology that I wasn't even remotely close. Since then, I've managed to get the 10k words for March and about a quarter of the April obligation done.</p>
<p>The commission is at 10k words, but I ended up deviating from the plot because I couldn't get into it unless I rub some of my own favorite plots into it. So, even though I'm 10k words in, I honestly don't think I can say I can charge them for that; but even so, still have 50k words to the <em>minimum</em> of that commission. Thankfully, I have a few months for that, I just have to keep showing reasonable progress from month-to-month on that.</p>
<h2>Publishing Obligations</h2>
<p>I publish book for Typewriter Press. It isn't much, just me and some writing friends for the most part. In some regards, I'm just formatting ebooks and print while others I manage sales (but not marketing).</p>
<p><a href="https://randyroeder.com/">Randy Roeder</a> is in the process of publishing his third book and I've been working to make it as good as I can. For the most part, I have this down to a fairly simple pipeline but it still takes time.</p>
<h2>Service Obligations</h2>
<p>This is a harder one. Over the years, I stumble into helping people and I have a tendency to keep doing it because it is the right thing to do. Right now, there are two of them.</p>
<p>A local wine store that had their website infected with viruses and I rebuilt in WordPress right before Covid struck. I don't do much other than make sure their website has a backup, occasionally download it to give it a second location, and patch their custom WordPress plugins to do the fancy things they wanted. Despite the fact I really don't enjoy coding WordPress anymore, I still do it because the owner is also only person I've volunteered to help that actually pays me on occasion, which is nice.</p>
<p>The other is a forum that I helped saved twenty-something years ago. I've helped the owner save a couple thousand dollars a month and been doing maintenance every six months or two. Unfortunately, he died and left a mess. A large mess that his widow couldn't handle, so I ended up helping her by being the technical support for his end-of-life but also separating the forum from her so it could stand on her own.</p>
<p>That also meant that I went from only checking on the software every few months to the new owners needing constant attention. Partner says I should stop, so I'm working to walking away from that but… they need help and I struggle to say no.</p>
<h2>Personal Obligations</h2>
<p>Mentally and emotionally, I've been spiraling for months. I really need to do something about that, but it feels like I'm treading water at this point for so long that not much feels like “fun” anymore.</p>
<p>A bunch of that was my <a href="/tags/entanglement-2021/">entanglement</a> that has haunted me since October 2021. At the beginning of March, I thought we were over it, but then Partner comes in with an announcement that the bumper to the minivan fell off. Fortunately, I had a bonus which paid for that so it felt like things were getting better.</p>
<p>Then we had a short ice storm. I thought the driveway was ice free, but I missed a patch while I was taking garbage out. One nasty slip and I smashed my right knee hard into the concrete. I've been in pain ever since so I honestly can't say things are better but I'm trying really hard <em>not</em> to notice the every three week pattern in hopes that it will finally resolve itself.</p>
<p>It's hard to explain the drain of having things go wrong so consistently. Using the water analogy, it is like swimming on a windy day. Every few seconds, the chop shoved you away from your destination and you have to push yourself to keep your head above the wave to avoid it. On the shallows, it isn't so bad, but as you are swimming, that extra effort starts to pull down on you.</p>
<h2>Writing Obligations (Redux)</h2>
<p>Because of the spiraling, Partner insisted I go back to the writing group. Writing is what makes me feel good, ideally writing about my topics instead of others, so I need to focus on doing something that isn't an obligation.</p>
<p>So, I started submitting <a href="https://fedran.com/allegro/">Allegro</a> to the <a href="https://noblepencr.org/">Noble Pen Writing Group</a> in Cedar Rapids. Feedback has been nicely positive, but I kind of feel like that is normal. But it is nice to be able to just <em>talk</em> about my plans for <a href="https://fedran.com/">Fedran</a> and hear that the group is much more receptive of <em>Allegro</em> than the other books, mainly because it isn't centered on trauma and abuse like <a href="https://fedran.com/sand-and-blood/">Sand and Blood</a> and its sequels.</p>
<p>Then again, <em>Sand and Blood</em> was “only” going to be a twenty thousand word short story to help develop the world while <a href="https://fedran.com/flight-of-the-scions/">Flight of the Scions</a> was being considered for publication (it didn't get accepted and <em>Sand and Blood</em> turned into almost two hundred thousand words over three novels).</p>
<p>I'm proud of my writing and going back has helped me want to start writing again. So, that is a good thing.</p>
<h2>Family Obligations</h2>
<p>Finally, there is family obligations. I'm working on my mother-in-law's bathroom to tile it. This is not one of my better skills, but it has taken a while since I had to take the end of 2022 off to deal with my hospital visits and then it was freezing outside, which is hard to do tile work. This weekend, I resumed working on it in hopes of getting it done within a month or so.</p>
<p>But the shining part of the last month was the kids. They have helped with my sanity with a newfound love for video games. Child.1 has been frequently asking to play games and my priority system says their request takes priority over almost everything, simply because I want to <em>be</em> there for them as they grow up.</p>
<p>At the moment, Child.0 is really into <a href="https://fireshinegames.co.uk/games/core-keeper/">Core Keeper</a> and <a href="https://www.minetest.net/">Minetest</a>. I'll admit, I'm a little frustrated with Minetest's limitations (see <a href="/blog/2023/02/07/package-management-introduction/">the packages thread</a> for details), but there is something to be said about the joy of seeing the newest house or underground base being built.</p>
<p>Child.1 has different interests. Mostly we are playing <a href="https://www.humblegames.com/games/wildfire/">Wildfire</a> and they enjoy setting everyone on fire. It is a <em>hard</em> game though and we are coming up to the limits of our combined skill levels but we are still trying. It is also fun just to set everything on fire and let it burn.</p>
<p>They also just got into <a href="https://www.spiderheck.com/">Spiderheck</a> which is much in the vein of <a href="https://landfall.se/stickfightthegame">Stick Fight: The Game</a>, <a href="https://landfall.se/rounds">Rounds</a>, and <a href="https://www.boomerangfu.com/">Boomerang Fu</a>. There is something to be said about fighting spiders with light sabers and plasma cannons.</p>
<h2>Next Steps</h2>
<p>I try to avoid negative posts in my blog. In this case, I'm trying to bring my foes out into the open so I can address them. It also lets friends and family know what is going on, but to explain the silence but also because it is hard to ask for empathy.</p>
<p>In the end, like everything else, it will pass. In other words, my favorite motivational quotes that is also one of the inspirations for <em>Sand and Blood</em>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Just keep swimming.” — Dory, <em>Finding Nemo</em></p>
</blockquote>
Graveyard Keeper Retrospective2021-01-10T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2021/01/10/graveyard-keeper/This week, I finished Graveyard Keeper and I had some thoughts about the game, both as a player and as an occasional game writer.
<p>Back before my first child was born, I realized I had to make a choice: write fiction or write games. I didn't have time for both but I had a passion for both. For the last ten years, I've focused on the writing side but that didn't mean I stopped playing games.</p>
<p>It also doesn't mean I stopped analyzing games while I was playing. It is part of the entertainment for me, enjoying the plot and trying to figure out how they coded it. I do the same with movies, books, and almost everything else.</p>
<p>This week, I finished <a href="https://www.graveyardkeeper.com/">Graveyard Keeper</a>, a casual slice-of-life game about managing a graveyard, creating zombies, and meeting a lovely village of personalities.</p>
<p>Overall, I found this enjoyable enough to play it for just shy of seventy hours, bought all the DLCs, and finished every plot I could find. I also went through all three endings for one of the DLCs.</p>
<h1>The Controls</h1>
<p>Thankfully, this game had a nice keyboard scheme. The primary action buttons were <code>E</code> and <code>F</code>. Unlike <a href="https://www.stardewvalley.net/">Stardew Valley</a>, I found that I missed performing actions a lot less and it was clear what I was doing (most of the time). Having a bit “E” or “F” above an action item really helped.</p>
<h1>Quests</h1>
<p>Like many casual games in this genre, there is no real pressure to finish things in a hurry. If you miss a date, the worst that happened is you have to wait a week game time before you try again. Also, the order of actions isn't that important (baring two major plot pinches) so I found myself spending a day making wine and then another day just collecting honey.</p>
<p>That is the appeal for me lately. Casual games are nice being able to play for an hour or so before walking away to deal with family, food, or cleaning.</p>
<p>Graveyard Keeper had a somewhat nice quest reminder system. This is also something I missed from Stardew Valley, but having a screen where I can go and remind myself I needed to get a bucket of blood to a vampire or rustle up a gold-star burger. Part of the indicator also showed the person the quest was related and the game helpfully pops up with the list when you approach them.</p>
<p>Where it didn't work for me was I couldn't remember where I saw said characters. More than once, I randomly walked through every location in the map trying to remember who in the world this figure was. Having a “currently located” (since many characters have a schedule) or “sleeping” would have made it a lot easier.</p>
<p>Sadly, almost every quest in the game is “get X of Y” or “go talk to X” which quite a few things intended just to slow you down. Again, this is an artifact of this style of game but it started to get tedious in the last few days when I started just buying/plowing through plots.</p>
<h1>Crafting</h1>
<p>Crafting, like Stardew Valley and <a href="https://www.crashlands.net/">Crashlands</a>, is a critical part of the game. There are a wide variety of different devices along the way ranging from a wood pile to a printing press. A number of them have upgrade and most (but not all) can be upgraded in place.</p>
<p>I like how most of the crafting devices have use even to the end of the game. Crashlands had the opposite, a bunch of devices that would be used for a short period of time and then abandoned for the next set.</p>
<p>Improvement wide, having a consistent ability to upgrade in place would have been nice for quality of life. Also, once an object is placed, it cannot be moved. It can only be destroyed (with recovering most but not all of the ingredients) and rebuilt in a new location.</p>
<p>One of the fun parts is that you can place the devices wherever you want… sort of. The game gives build spots that ensure there is room for the plot critical ones.</p>
<p>I'll admit, the places where the devices can be built had to be specifically shaped and designed to annoy someone with a touch of OCD like me. There is no way to fill every spot, no optimum arrangement. Also, there are some good chances where you can build two devices that prevents you from getting to the third.</p>
<p>Still, build and arranging is definitely my thing so it was nice to build.</p>
<p>Of course, having dozens of different devices spread out across multiple locations also meant a lot of time walking from place to place. Go to the dissection table, get some flesh from a corpse, go to the church table, make some paper, then over to the writing desk to create a chapter and then a book and then a prayer.</p>
<p>Thankfully, crafting devices can use every container in the area but with stack and space limits, I spent too much time arranging shelves because I couldn't just grab something from any shelf in the area. However, the game at least <em>showed</em> the contents of every container in the area which made it easier to know one of the twelve bookshelves had what you want.</p>
<p>This is probably one aspect that most of these games have. I have to lug stuff from one place to another. Arrange in boxes, try to remember where in the world I left the skulls. Or, in some of the later quests in the game, try to figure out <em>which</em> device had the mystical recipe that I needed to complete the plot.</p>
<p>In terms of casual games, it would be fantastic if there was some way to search all the recipes for all the devices and let me know which one I need to head over to (and ideally what I needed before I got there). In this regard, I think <a href="https://www.satisfactorygame.com/">Satisfactory</a> has a great pattern for this.</p>
<p>Another thing Satisfactory and Crashlands have is a build like, where you can say “I want to build a confession booth” and the HUD gives a list of ingredients. Satisfactory was just a tad nicer though.</p>
<p>Also, I'd love if there was a way to access all the craft benches and devices from the area. So instead of threading my way to a desk, I could just open up and see a control for the workbenches, mixer, and study table in one place.</p>
<h1>Zombies</h1>
<p>I loved that you can raise the dead to be zombies to do the tedious work. Apparently this came from a DLC, but it was at a point where making one more ceramic bowl was annoying. Being able to toss a zombie in front of the pottery wheel with a build list made things a lot more enjoyable for mid- to late-game actions.</p>
<p>Zombies also had zombie-specific crafting devices. So, you could install a zombie to make wine. You couldn't use it, but if you threw a zombie into it, they would build forever.</p>
<p>This is probably one of my favorite parts of the game by far.</p>
<h1>Base-Building</h1>
<p>I first encountered a game with base-building in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suikoden_IV">Suikoden IV</a> and fell in love. The ability to customize an area and see it grow just brings so much joy to me. Two of the DLCs have the ability with a tavern and a refugee camp. Both of them drew most of my attention (beyond the zombies and a desire to automate as much as possible). If that was the only part of the game, I would have played it without question.</p>
<p>Those two DLCs also provided supplies and money which made the rest of the game easier too. I'm glad I started them early in the game instead of finishing the main game first before starting them.</p>
<h1>Plot</h1>
<p>Overall, ignoring the quests to slow them down, the plots were enjoyable. The main one was the least emotionally engaging, but hearing the stories of everyone else really help make the game enjoyable.</p>
<p>I did not like the witch-burning plot though. That was detestable and non-skippable. On the other hand, the donkey plots were all entertaining.</p>
<h1>Representation</h1>
<p>This game had little in terms of representation. There were no queer characters, everyone was some shade of white, and no plots related to any of those. It was more of a Roman but there were still the Euro-centric social structures (king and church).</p>
<p>The game also had a depressing lack of female representation also and most of it was not positive. Every woman in the game was firmly in stereotypes while the men had more variance: the witch was ugly and old, the wives deferred to the husbands, the daughter was owned by the father, the singer was desired and beautiful.</p>
<p>(There was one nice bit related to the singer and her eventual romance which was a pleasant surprise.)</p>
<p>There were no children in the game. One of the DLCs explains why, so I'm actually okay with this.</p>
<p>With the DLCs, there was some nice displays of romance and loving relationships but… it was just a flash during Ms Charm's dance and a cut scene.</p>
<h1>Replayability</h1>
<p>To be honest, I don't see myself playing the game though. While the plot and nature really drew me in, once I lost a goal to keep going, I quickly lost interest. I need to work toward something and I don't have the time to try discovering every alchemy recipes or try to get all the achievements.</p>
<p>Baring a new DLC, I going to hang this game up while still recommending it. It caught my attention and gave me a lot of joy for seventy hours and that isn't something I'm just going to ignore.</p>
<p>If you like slice-of-life games like Stardew Valley, I think this is a solid, polished entry in that genre. There are some Inquisition plots that have to be experience, but I feel that was the only really major turn-offs being representation.</p>
A rather stressful week and then another2014-02-10T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2014/02/10/a-rather-stressful-week-and-then-another/<p>Last week was rather stressful. We are now three weeks from our code cutoff at work, which means I'm working a <em>lot</em> of hours to try getting as much as possible done. This means that I'm not really planning anything very extensive beyond doing taxes until that goes through.</p>
<p>Plus another week to burn out since I won't be getting that much sleep.</p>
<h1>Games</h1>
<p>Beyond that, I just had a weekend of single parent with a Sunday of being childless. I got a chance to play some more <a href="http://playstarbound.com">Starbound</a>, <a href="http://pixeljunk.jp/library/Monsters/">Pixel Junk Monsters</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costume_Quest">Costume Quest</a>, and <a href="http://www.brokenagegame.com/">Broken Age</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Starbound was great for a while, but I got tired of the grinding for a while. I tried a mod pack and got overwhelmed with options. Then I realized I didn't really have time for grinding and happily cheated for about five hours before I accidentally screwed up my ship. Note to others, if you are removing the floor, be <em>very</em> careful not to lose the captains chair. That is why makes it fly. And I was a quarter done redoing Firefly as my ship.</li>
<li>Pixel Junk Monsters: Eh, it's a tower defense game. Very smooth on Linux, though.</li>
<li>Costume Quest: A bit laggy on my machine even at a lower screen resolution. And I don't like navigating isometric games that much. But, a fun plot, great characters, and I like the fight scenes.</li>
<li>Broken Age: This was a lot of fun, but I only played it a few hours because of the other games.</li>
</ul>
<h1>Editing</h1>
<p>I did a lot of editing this last week. And, after eight months of waiting, I got a large hunk of <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/tag/sand-and-blood">Sand and Blood</a> edits Sunday night. Which means I'm going to do another week of major editing because that was one of the major blocking things for getting the book out.</p>
<h1>World-Building</h1>
<p>I did write two world-building posts over on Reddit, though. Both of which are directly related to one of my existing novels (mostly <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/tag/flight-of-the-scions">Flight of the Scions</a> but some <em>Sand and Blood</em> too). They are <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1x6v30/weekly_challenge_logos/cfbibwx">here</a> and <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/1wpkqx/j_webbs_worldbuilding_challenge_february_2014/cfbhmjj">here</a>. So, if you like to reddit and want to see a bit more of my world, that's a good place to look.</p>
<p>I still need to figure out the curses, swears, and insults.</p>
Board games and broomsticks2014-01-13T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2014/01/13/board-games-and-broomsticks/<p>This was a pretty eventful week of board and computer games, a bit of writing, and moving forward.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h1>Writing</h1>
<p>Another week end and it was actually a relatively productive one. I managed to rewrite one story and resubmit it and also wrote a new chapter for <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/tag/sand-and-love">Sand and Love</a> that will hopefully fill in a gap in the plot (or at least understanding).</p>
<h1>Boardgames</h1>
<p><a href="http://weirdauthor.com/">Shannon Ryan</a> and his wife came over for board games, along with two of our friends from Iowa City. We played <em>Redneck Life</em> and <em>Deadwood Studio</em>. Both of those games have a much different feel with six players, not quite what I expected.</p>
<p>Of course, that meant cleaning. I was up until two in the morning cleaning the house because it was the first time they had been there and SMWM had a maternity photo shoot a few hours before that. So, it was clean everything I could, set up a studio, take down a studio, and clean some more.</p>
<h1>Starbound</h1>
<p>https://twitter.com/ilona_andrews/statuses/422434271609884672</p>
<p>(I never tried to embed a Tweet before.)</p>
<p>After some comments on Twitter, I realized that I had <a href="http://playstarbound.com/">Starbound</a> but had never played it. Sadly, this seems to be true with a number of kickstarted projects, but it was a little fun for a few hours. I don't know how long I'll play it, mainly because I usually have to make a decision between "playing a game" and "writing". And I usually pick writing.</p>
<h1>ownCloud</h1>
<p>It may not be obvious, but I'm uncomfortable with cloud companies. No doubt, they are very useful and I don't think I could live without my Gmail or Dropbox right now, but that doesn't mean I don't try to find alternatives.</p>
<p>For a while, I've seen <a href="http://owncloud.org/">ownCloud</a> but I dismissed it because it looked like it was just a web file system. Last night, however, I noticed it appeared to have a Dropbox-like client to it. And it is controlled entirely by me, which means there isn't a constant pressure for referrals and "buy me for more than 2 GB" notices.</p>
<p>No idea if it will work, but I'm willing to try it. I'm (almost) always willing to try new things.</p>
<h1>Plans</h1>
<p>Speaking of that, I have no plans for this weekend. I ended up working through my lunch the last couple days of the previous week, mainly to try getting something done that was my idea (so naturally, I didn't want it to fail).</p>
Game consoles2013-02-22T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2013/02/22/game-consoles/<p>A month or so ago, I finished <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_%26_Clank_Future:_A_Crack_in_Time">Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time</a>. It only took me about three days to finish it, spread out over a few weeks. I would have done it earlier, but I was trying to finish <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_fantasy_xiii">Final Fantasy XIII</a> for over a year before giving up on it.</p>
<p>There are a few reasons that I'm just finishing a relatively old game. Three are the easier ones: I have a 26 month old in our house and he has a higher priority, I've been writing heavily this year and that takes a significant amount of my time, and I seriously don't relax enough for my own health.</p>
<p>The last one is the hardest: I've gotten into a philosophical disconnect with my PlayStation 3 and Wii. This is the strange thing, but I just <em>don't</em> want to play it because of the system (and company) itself instead of the individual games.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h2>The Death of Consoles</h2>
<p>Just this week, I read an article about how consoles are going to die. I don't happen to believe it, mainly because people have been saying that since Super Nintendo. Consoles will be around for as long as people want things that Just Work™.</p>
<p>My reasons for drifting from console systems are probably not normal. As my coworkers mention (more than a few times), I don't represent pretty much anyone besides myself. In this case, I've just thought about it for a long while before I realized I was already drifting away.</p>
<h2>Rachet and Clank</h2>
<p>Let's start with the positive. I <em>love</em> this series. I've played it pretty much from the beginning and it has the right amount of humor, responsiveness, and enjoyability that makes it fun to play. The game is just fun. Now, it is created by Sony (see below), but I'm a strong believer that disliking one part of a company/group doesn't mean you have to abandon the whole thing.</p>
<h2>Final Fantasy XIII</h2>
<p>I used to love this series, but the last few that I've played really haven't excited me. In the case of 13, I was getting bored of the constant cut scenes. It felt like it was ten minutes of playing for an equal amount of cut scenes. Not to mention, I had no empathy for any of the characters. But I tried, I really did. I just ended up giving up on the entire game.</p>
<h2>Removing Features</h2>
<p>Many years ago, Sony came out with the PS3. I managed to get one from my mother for various reasons. I thought it was fantastic because they let Linux run on it and it played all of my PS1 and PS2 games (this is a first generation PS3). The second generation PS3 removed the hardware support for PS2 games and made it software. The third removed it entirely.</p>
<p>I got rid of my PS1 and PS2 (which still had fun games) because my PS3 could handle them. It was the only console that had backwards compatibility and it was <em>amazing</em>. It made me a convert despite the PlayStation being a lot more expensive than any other system (at the time).</p>
<p>Then, they removed the Linux option entirely. It was a neat option because it had potential. I didn't use it to its full strength, mainly because Sony limited it pretty badly to start (couldn't use the Blu-Ray drive), but I hated that they removed Linux entirely as part of a mandatory upgrade.</p>
<p>Having the removing those features broke that charm I had for the PlayStation. I can understand why Sony chose to remove it (reducing cost and encouraging you to get the PS3 versions of old games), but that doesn't make the sting any less.</p>
<p>It is their choice, though.</p>
<h2>Handling Hackers</h2>
<p>A year or so ago, someone hacked the PS3 and figured out the master key. They were inspired by Sony's removal of the Linux feature (from what I understand). Naturally, Sony went after them. Microsoft does the same with XBox hackers and Ninentdo goes after their hardware.</p>
<p>And that is perfectly fine for those companies.</p>
<p>But, I didn't like that choice.</p>
<p>I'm a hacker. I like to mess with things and I really enjoy homebrew and indie games. I'm a bit of a script kiddie in this aspect, but I love following directions to side-load something. To see something that it a work of love that only thirty people would enjoy is a thrill. To get something working that doesn't follow the normal path, that's a joy. To have the comfort that I have an option besides a single store (re, Kindles and Amazon, i* and Apple, XBox and Microsoft) helps me fall in love.</p>
<p>There are games that will never show up in a game store now. For example, Sentinel Worlds 1 (one of my favorite games of all time) or the original Bard's Tale.</p>
<p>Sony couldn't allow that. If anything, to defend their regional sale (which I don't care for). They felt the need to sue, just as Microsoft did verses its hackers. It is also why they have so much effort during the DMCA review sessions to perfect it from becoming an exception.</p>
<p>I don't have to like it. Just as Sony is in the right to defend their property, I'm allowed to stop playing and tell people why. The money I spent on games is tiny and it won't matter to Sony. I'd just rather spend it on <a href="http://humblebundle.com/">Humble Bundle</a> games and books.</p>
<h2>Legal Agreements</h2>
<p>I read user agreements. All 25 pages of Sony's agreement that you must agree to <em>every single time</em> you do an update. It takes me about a half hour to read it and I'm still finding things I don't remember reading the previous times. It is a painful experience, mainly because I'm not an expert at legalese. I only understand about 30% and I do this far more than anyone else.</p>
<p>It bothers me that it is so long. It frustrates me that they put in verbiage to prevent class action suits when the entire point of class action lawsuits is because they just did something to harm a <em>large</em> section of their users.</p>
<p>(Related note, I find it interesting that companies are now putting anti-class-action stuff in their documents but still create lawsuits with 100+ John Does.)</p>
<p>It is their right to require it, just as it is my right to say no.</p>
<h2>Alternatives</h2>
<p>I've been enjoying plenty of alternatives for my games. I play <a href="http://www.glitch.com">Glitch</a> fairly inconsistently until it was shut down. I occasionally play <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Town">Triple Town</a>. I have just about every bundle there is and I enjoy a lot of those games. I buy from indie game developers. I feel more of a connection with those developers and it gets me more emotionally connect to them; I buy from them because of that.</p>
<p>I have high hopes for <a href="http://www.ouya.tv">Ouya</a>, but I'll take that when it happens to (I am a kickerstarter for it though).</p>
<p>One of the key parts is that they don't try to defend their product at all costs. Humble games don't use DRM. I can walk away from Glitch without a problem, I just think it is cute.</p>
<p>None of those games require 20+ pages of legalese. Yeah, they aren't as pretty as Final Fantasy or Ratchet and Clank, but at this point in my life, I'm okay with that.</p>
Glitch2012-11-15T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2012/11/15/glitch/<p>I don't play a lot of games. There are two big reasons. The first is that both EDM and my writing take a higher priority than that mythical "relaxing" thing. And when I'm relaxing, I feel like I'm wasting my time. Ignore the fact that relaxing actually makes it easier to write and I have more energy, but that's a hangup I've been struggling with for the years.</p>
<p>The second is that the programmer side of me starts to pull apart games. I think about "how could I write that" somewhere in the 30+ hours that I end up playing. Most of the time, the grind coupled with the what-ifs ruin it for me.</p>
<p>Of the games I do play, <a href="http://www.glitch.com">Glitch</a> is probably the longest I've played a social game in <em>years</em>. I loved its quirky charm so I was sad to see that it is <a href="http://www.glitch.com/closing/">shutting down</a>.</p>
<p><!--more--></p>
<h1>Honor</h1>
<p>I think how Glitch is closing their doors to be honorable. They are willing to give back all the money made in the last year if the players wanted. Yes, they went back into beta and didn't make promises to succeed, but I think the fact they are offering to do that is something worth to take note. They did the right thing.</p>
<p>Now, it would be nice if the <a href="http://www.glitch.com/closing/refunds/">refund page</a> had a slider much like <a href="http://humblebundle.com/">Humble Bundle</a>. I got quite a few months of enjoyment out of it, but I'd rather have only a small percentage of the money back, not all of it. Likewise, I'd be willing to kick some toward the charity but I'd like the spread it around.</p>
<h1>Open Sourcing</h1>
<p>In the Question and Answer below, they had this entry:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Why don't you give the game away or make it open source or let player volunteers run it?</strong></p>
<p>Glitch looks simple, but it is not. Any massively multiplayer game is several orders of magnitude more complex than a multiplayer game (and those are usually an order of magnitude more complex than a single player game). The state of the world changes hundreds of thousands of times a second, and each of those changes has to be immediately saved in a way that is safe and redundant. Most of those changes — decrease in a chicken's lifespan, the regeneration of a rock, the health of a tree, the movement of every player — have to be sent from server to server and from server to player's local computers. If you're in a busy place in Glitch, your computer might be receiving hundreds or even thousands of messages about stuff that's happening around you every second.</p>
<p>It takes a full-time team of competent engineers & technical operations personnel just to keep the game open. Even if there was a competent team that was willing to work on it full time for free, it would take months to train them. Even then, the cost of hosting the servers would be prohibitively expensive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This entry bothered me for more than a few reasons (and actually why I'm writing this post). But, I have multiple reasons for feeling that they should open the source and assets to the world (ideally on Github, but that's me).</p>
<p>Now, these reasons are hinged on the assumption that Tiny Speck is walking away from the game instead of keeping it back to repackage at a later date. But, if they want to keep their assets in hand for later, then just say that. If you give the above reason, then I think there are things they can do.</p>
<h1>Technical Complexity</h1>
<p>Glitch is a complicated game, there is no doubt about it, but the answer given isn't the right one. There <em>are</em> people who do things like that, simply because they love the game. I had a friend who played Daggerfall for <em>years</em> because it was the game they liked. Browncoats have been clamoring for Firefly for over a decade. There are still people trying to recreate Elite because they love it. When <a href="http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/06/Aquaria-goes-open-source">Aquaria</a> went open-source, there was a flurry of activity to expand the game but there are still people making changes to the game on various sites.</p>
<p>I'd rather that folks at Tiny Spark didn't make the assumption that people don't want to take on that risk. Even if the full version of Glitch isn't a possibility, I could easily see fans rebuilding the front end in HTML 5 (or the API of choice), reworking the back end and generally making it more efficient or specialized. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus%27_Law">Linus' Law</a>, most technical hurdles are shallow when viewed by many fans.</p>
<p>In college, I was really into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD">MUDs</a>. That is a game that required a reasonable amount of effort and programming to get anything done. I spent hundreds of hours in the ROM, Merc, and custom code bases simply because I could. Years later, a few of those patches showed up in other MUDs. Likewise, I spent hours creating MUCK areas because I just like creating things.</p>
<p>The complexities of the system isn't a hurdle for people who really enjoy the game. Also, if the game isn't at the commercial scale (e.g., just for a few hundred players), then one probably wouldn't need the infrastructure that the full version required.</p>
<h1>Assets</h1>
<p>I <em>love</em> the avatars from Glitch. I also like the trees, the rocks, and everything else. If nothing else can't be done, please go the route of Danc at <a href="http://www.lostgarden.com/">Lost Garden</a> and open up the visual assets. Give them a good <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> license. Use BY-NC-SA if you don't want people making money off it or some other, but please give the general world those graphics and music. Ideally, the original Flash/vector versions. The game might not live on, but there would be thousands of game developers out there who would love to use them either as a prototyping set or simply a base to start off from.</p>
<p>The look of Glitch is gorgeous but relatively similar. If the game was opened, then people could add to the graphics and give it more variance. There is a large enough mod community out there that I think people would love to create areas (including tiles) and expanding the game to include more elements. Yeah, some of them will look terrible, but others will fit right into the game and spread out into other projects that use it.</p>
<p>As a side note, I have a small project on the back-burner to do the same thing with Lost Garden's tiles, for a game inspired by Glitch. So, I think it would be awesome if they did the same.</p>
<h1>Lessons</h1>
<p>This is a harder one, but no developer works in a vacuum. Instead, we build our work off other's, including using them as examples or to get ideas. Releasing the source code would give people another chance to see how things worked or how it was put together. The code might be Code That Man Was Not Meant To See, but there are no doubt thousands of lessons in what worked, what didn't work, and how to do better in the future.</p>
<p>If Speck doesn't want people to make easy money off the code, giving a restrictive license like GPL. If they don't care and just want to see what happens, go with a permissive one like MIT.</p>
<p>I'd say "think of the children" but I hate that phrase. So, think of the indies. You might help them succeed with the lessons you already learned.</p>
<h1>Respect</h1>
<p>I like Glitch, but the way Tiny Speck is handling itself earned my respect. A long time ago, I had a company that we decided to shut the doors. We did the same thing, gave money back and helped all our customers migrated to our competitors. Seeing another person doing the same thing means a lot to me.</p>
<p>In the end, I thank Tiny Speck for all the time they spent on the game, the hundreds of hours I enjoyed, and I wish you the best in the future.</p>
Configurable options2011-11-05T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/11/05/configurable-options/<p>I've picked up all of the <a href="http://humblebundle.com/">Humble Games</a> as they've come out. I enjoy them greatly and I love support indie game writers as much as I do writers. This means I've also been playing a lot of games.</p>
<p>There are two things that have really stuck out for me, things I wish every game would do. First is control where the same game goes. I <em>absolutely love</em> Linux games because that is my preferred platform. What I don't care for is games that put saves in my /home/dmoonfire folder. I want that clean, pristine, anally controlled. I want my save games to go into /home/dmoonfire/games/nameOfGame or /home/dmoonfire/.config/company (the latter follows the Linux file system standards). It is foolish, but something important to me. Related to that, I want to control were save games go on Windows also, if they aren't in AppData.</p>
<p>The other is controls. I play on a laptop and the WASD doesn't always fit for me. So, giving me custom controls (as some of the more recent update have done) is a wonderful thing. <a href="http://www.lexaloffle.com/voxatron.php">Voxatron</a> became playable for me when they gave me custom controls. Otherwise, I couldn't get my big hands in the places the developer liked.</p>
<p>They are two minor things, but also two things that really help with organization. </p>
Game Console Ideas #32011-06-28T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/06/28/game-console-ideas-3/<p>So, still writing down my ideas to get them out of my head. These 5 km walks for lunch are great for a lot of things, but since I can't think about <em>Flight</em>, it wanders towards things like this.</p>
<p><!--more-->Operating system is one of those critical things in a console. Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 all have a custom operating system, one that has limited inputs to provide consistency. For something like OGC, I think a more accessible operation system would be good.</p>
<p>For those who know me, the surprising thing is that I considered Microsoft Windows first. It has two graphics systems (DirectX and OpenGL) and probably the best supported development studio I know (I love Visual Studio with ReSharper). It is also where the bulk of the games are already written, so it would have a lower threshold to implementation.</p>
<p>There are a few drawbacks. First, Windows does cost money to license and I'm trying to keep the costs down. I prefer everyone keep things legal. Two, on three occasions I had a Windows machine decide that it wasn't genuine and I had to go through the process of re-registering it. In the limited functionality of a game console, I don't know if I want that to show up. Finally, it would be harder to strip out things from the operating system to get a nice base system. Finally, Microsoft already has a game console; it's called Xbox 360.</p>
<p>I considered Mac OS X for about ten seconds. Sorry, I really don't like Apple's development methodology, their ecosystem, and generally the company. I'm biased, but I'm going to be up front with my dislike for them. That doesn't mean I complain about Fluffy's iPod or Mac laptop (much), I just don't want to work with their hardware and operating system.</p>
<p>Linux is my favourite OS, but it is one of those operating systems that is not used by 99% of the population. Very few, high quality games are written for it. However, it is easy to strip down. It also doesn't have a licensing cost. It also has a good, dependency packaging system (apt-get is my preferred), though Nuget is pretty awesome on Windows. I think I could create a controlled system using Linux.</p>
<p>Given that (there's a bit more), I'd go with a custom distribution. I'm comfortable with apt-get, so I'd probably use that for the distribution method for installation and upgrade. It also lets game producers create a repository and have a well tested mechanism for allowing developers to have control over the distribution of their games.</p>
Game Console Ideas #22011-06-26T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/06/26/game-console-ideas-2/<p>So, continuing my ideas for a game console. Today, I want to get out the ideas I had for hardware. Hardware is actually the hardest bit, if I ever want to implement these ideas. Mainly because I don't want to force someone to get a specific CPU, a specific graphics card, a specific motherboard.</p>
<p>(Side note: One reason I'm letting my mind get distracted by this is because I'm at a point where I can't really focus on the novel. I have to write the things in my head, not come up with new ones.)</p>
<p><!--more-->My idea is that all the consoles would use off-the-shelf hardware. The PS3 has the Cell processor, which is very interesting, but the technology curve on normal computers improves at a faster rate and is cheaper because of consumer quantities. I'd rather go with AMD processors and known GPU that a custom processor. Plus, the whole idea of being hackable and improvable is making it easy.</p>
<p>However, this flexibility is also going to break the idea of consistency. So, I think that if there is a standard, it would be the minimum requirement. I'm thinking of saying a single quad-core AMD processor. That means that any console that conforms to OGC 1 would have a minimum of 4 cores and a AMD. Game developers can work with that minimum and know that it will work on every machine.</p>
<p>The same with graphics card. Fortunately, there are a lot more standards to work with. We can say OpenGL 1.3, a specific set of extensions, a certain support of OpenCL, etc. Again, it works with the idea that they can program for a specific hardware and it is responsibility of the console maker (assuming that people are going to build their own) has to conform to a specific set of standards.</p>
<p>I'd also go with a 10/100/1000 network, USB and SDHC cards. I wouldn't go with a CD, DVD, or BluRay drive because I'm trying to avoid moving parts. Plus, a SDHC is cheap, reusuable, supports read and writing, and goes up to 32 GB capacity. I'd also require Bluetooth. That way, we can steal controllers from other systems and hackers can build controllers that work for them and maybe get those nifty head-mounted controllers or controllers that work with people that have disabilities (I recently read about a guy who made controllers for paraplegics and quadriplegics).</p>
<p>For drives, I think two drives would be good. A relatively small, 16 GB SSD drive and a 1 TB data drive. Games would be installed on the TB drive and the operating system on the first. The sizes are less important on the data drive. My PS3 only has a few GB and most of the Xbox 360s are in that range. (The difference between my MythTV and the commerical DVRs was much of the same: 1 TB verses 30 GB.)</p>
<p>This would also lead into OGC 2. If the standard requirements of OGC 2 are based on OGC 1, then all OGC 1 games would be compatible with the newer platform. This is a selling point of the PS2 and PS3 (gen 1 and 2 only) and handles one of my complaints.</p>
Game Console Ideas #12011-06-25T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2011/06/25/game-console-ideas-1/<p>I have a few guidelines in life. One of them is if I don't like something, I should have an alternative. Otherwise, I'm just doing unproductive whining. I complained about Sony (PS3) and Microsoft (Xbox 360) and how they were handling the hacking community. Therefore, I have to come up with an alternative of what I would do (if I could).</p>
<p>(Some of this is notes and ideas since I don't know if anyone who reads this blog is interesting in game consoles and open-source as much as me.)</p>
<p><!--more-->Hackers are like writing fans who create entire websites, document every single bit character in a series of novels, or create entire histories of what happens. They are fans, obsessed fans who love things enough to expand on it. The people who took the Kinect and made it do more than just play games. The Sony issue is a different one, mainly when Sony took out features that people were excited about.</p>
<p>It is hard to "vote with my dollars" when I don't buy that much. I don't buy a game every week, mainly because I spend most of my time writing. I'm behind on my reading pile too. So, if I decide not to buy the PS4 or the Xbox 720 (or whatever they call them), neither Sony or Microsoft is going to care. It isn't even a blip.</p>
<p>But, I still think of alternatives. I would love to have a gaming console that embraces people who hack or write indie games. Open-source games would also be cool, but I have a bunch of opinions on those too (for later).</p>
<p>The main draw for developers who aim for console is consistency. Anyone who has tried to get a game working on a hundred different platforms knows that pain. Having a consistent platform and environment reduces those variances. With consoles, you know that if it works on one, it will work on every other one pretty much until the end of time. Homebrew NES (Nintendo) game writers still use the original NES hardware to play games (side note, there are some amazing demakes for NES). On the other hand, few people play the NES system because the graphics are rather dated.</p>
<p>People like the new toys but console game developers prefer to have stability. To do that, I would say a platform is under active development for eight years, but have two platforms with overlapping schedules four years apart.</p>
<p>For example, OGC 1 (Open Game Console, a placeholder since I don't come up with good generic names) would be considered active from 2012 to 2020. OGC 2 would go from 2016 to 2022. If we spent four years of development (2012 to 2016 for OGC2), then as soon as the next platform goes live, then we can start working on the next one (OGC 3 would be developed from 2016 to 2020 so it would be available as OGC 1 is retired).</p>
<p>It would have a schedule, something that could be planned for.</p>
Walking challenge2009-08-19T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/08/19/walking-challenge/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (7.4 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (15,238 of 15,000 words)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Steps (5,372 of 500,000)</div>
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<p>There is a walking challenge at work for the next six weeks. Trying to get as many steps as possible, so I'm aiming for 500,000. It is a doable goal, but will require me to push a lot harder than I have been. Which is perfect since I really need to push if I want to keep losing weight. I got my 5% by GenCon so I'm hoping to hit my 10% goal by the end of the year.</p>
<p>Bah, decided not to do a day-by-day for GenCon right now. Basically, the second day was great. The games got a lot more exciting, except for Shooting Ladders. While Fluffy and I were looking forward to it, the game ended up being more tactical and tedious than we expected. Just too many things to keep track of and too much strategy in the type of games we like.</p>
<p>I also played in the League of Unextraordinary Gentlemen, set in a HERO system. That was a fair amount of fun, mainly because we had a GM who could handle anything we threw at it. While it still had the normal railroaded plot that I expected in a con game, it was fun playing Mario from Super Mario Brothers and Lydia Deets from Beetlejuice.</p>
<p>On the third day, Saturday, I lost half the day for other reasons. Sen So looked like a lot of fun; Fluffy played that without me. She said she loved it so I went to buy it. One of the other players was right in front of me and basically cleaned out the store of all the cards. Bummer, but the next day I found out they had more so I got to get almost everything for her. This will definitely be showing up at our next board game night.</p>
<p>I also got to play a Desolation game (kind of fantasy post apoplictic game). I playtested that a few years ago at GenCon at it was cool to see how it evolved (including a few rules that came up during our session).</p>
<p>The last game, at just about midnight, was Snakes on a Train. A very fun HERO 6 game. I got the "worthless" character who couldn't tell anyone he was using his powers or have anyone use them. But he had a 75 point VPP pool. So, I got to play an old-style Mage from World of Darkness. Except, my weapons were "look out for the cow!" and the world's second largest ball of twine. Overall, definitely worth playing until three in the morning.</p>
<p>I only had one game on Sunday. I was an hour late (didn't pay attention to the start) and they stopped an hour early (car checkout was 14:00). But, for the little bit I got to play, I had fun.</p>
<p>When I got back, I was seriously ready to head home. We actually got all the driving done on Sunday: four hours to Illinois, an hour getting dogs and my luggage *sigh*, then another four getting back to Iowa.</p>
<p>This was probably the most miserable GenCon I ever had, but I still had a lot of fun. Just took the effort to not let my pain ruin my having fun and it actually seemed to work. I missed a lot that I wanted to do: I missed some comics I wanted to pick up, hunting down Anton Strout to say hi, and going to some of the writer seminars. I'll post about the authors as soon as Fluffy uploads her pictures; might as well have images for those who enjoy it.</p>
Sitting without a date2009-08-11T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/08/11/sitting-without-a-date/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
<div style="border: 1px solid #cccccc;width: 20em;margin: 2px 5px 2px 0;padding: 1px;clear: left;float: left;background: white;height: 18px">
<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (7.4 of 14.7 kg)</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #d8e4a8;height: 18px;width: 50.3%"></div>
</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (15,238 of 15,000 words)</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #e3d1a8;height: 18px;width: 52%"></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 1px solid #CCCCCC;width: 20em;margin: 2px 5px 2px 0;padding: 1px;clear: left;float: left;background: white;height: 18px">
<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px"><a href="http://tracker.mfgames.com/roadmap_page.php">MfGames.Tools</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #bae3a8;height: 18px;width: 2%"></div>
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<p>Sitting in my living room, waiting for my date. I'm anxious to get going for GenCon though I'm pretty sure I forgot something along the way. Got the clothes and food pack. Just don't have a wife. She isn't packed and I'm pretty much out of things to do unless I get into the "hard to walk away from" list of things.</p>
<p>And my commission, but I'm avoiding that until next week.</p>
<p>I even distracted myself for three hours playing with KoLmafia so I can get some tedious stuff done while at GenCon (i.e. it will do my daily quests for me). It is cheesy, but I like the challenge of figuring out how to do it without abusing the server.</p>
<p>I'm excited, just anxious.</p>
Things just happen2009-07-15T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/07/15/things-just-happen/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
<div style="border: 1px solid #cccccc;width: 20em;margin: 2px 5px 2px 0;padding: 1px;clear: left;float: left;background: white;height: 18px">
<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (6.3 of 14.7 kg)</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #d8e4a8;height: 18px;width: 41.0%"></div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (823 of 15,000 words)</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #e3d1a8;height: 18px;width: 5.1%"></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 1px solid #CCCCCC;width: 20em;margin: 2px 5px 2px 0;padding: 1px;clear: left;float: left;background: white;height: 18px">
<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px"><a href="http://tracker.mfgames.com/roadmap_page.php">MfGames.Tools</a></div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #bae3a8;height: 18px;width: 0%"></div>
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<p>Life has been interesting in the last week or so. Somewhere around the middle of the week, they dragged up my entire department into a "private meeting". That is <em>never</em> a good sign, more so when it is a hush-hush type of gathering with no formal announcement or something put the calendar. I have a job still, which is a good thing, but I don't have a job for next week. Basically, I'm laid off a week to help reduce the costs of the company. It would be two weeks, but I'm considered "critical" to the operation of my department which confused the hell out of me. I didn't think I was that important yet.</p>
<p>While this is bad news, it really isn't that bad. Just... stressful. I'm not talking about it publicly, since I don't want to get in trouble, but it will put a crimp in my original GenCon plans. I'm going, just won't have as much to play with since I'm going to be having a very light paycheck right before my trip. But, at least my tickets are already paid for and sitting in my cute little purple folder. So, I'm right on track for actually getting to GenCon. I just won't be able to wallow in the obsessive consumerism for four days. Well, I don't do that anyways, but I do use GenCon as a chance to gather up new books for the year, new RPG's to read when I'm bored, and board games to play with Fluffy.</p>
<p>In many ways, GenCon is the "new year" for my game life. Last year, I stopped my comic right after the last one and things kind of went downhill. But, I also get inspired by what I see at the convention. I get to meet people and play author's groupie, which is just fun. The convention makes me want to game, to write, to program, all good things.</p>
<p>Had to insert another large bill between me and GenCon though. My license plates are about to expire, so I'm working on getting them migrated over to Iowa. Apparently, two cars will run me just... over $600 to get new plates for them.</p>
<p>Ouch.</p>
<p>I'm not really depressed about this, but just wary about what is coming. It makes me want to work harder, which my normal response to stress, but this coming week of doing "nothing" is a killer. I'm planning on writing, programming, and basically doing things I keep whining about not getting done and treat those tasks as my normal nine hour work day. Maybe I can actually get some things done.</p>
Chattering monkeys2009-06-26T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/06/26/chattering-monkeys/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (2 of 4)</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #e3d1a8;height: 18px;width: 81%"></div>
</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">DG Edit (0.5 of 33 chapters)</div>
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<p>Having trouble sleeping tonight. Part of it comes from the drugs flowing through my veins. Drugs for pain and ones to prevent infections. The aftereffects of surgery were not too bad; Fluffy said was I all cute and groggy when I finished up. I managed to sleep better part of fifteen hours today, which also contributes to the lack of sleeping and me making a blog post at two in the morning.</p>
<p>The rest of this is just a list, probably not interesting for most people.</p>
<p><!--more-->One of the major things keeping me up in just me reviewing things I want to get done in general. Not in the next week, but in the next month, year, or even an indeterminate periods of time that will be disrupted by the rest of life. I could say that most of my life is broken into function areas: writing, programming, and gaming. I like to say writing is the best, but I honestly couldn't chose between those three. They are my <em>Big Three</em>.</p>
<p>Writing:</p>
<ul>
<li>DG editing: I want to get this self-published and out the door. There are a few things that will slow it down, mainly because I am using someone else as an artist both for the full-color covers and the chapters per page.</li>
<li>DL + DL editing: This will be two novels. I wrote the first draft last year and it stands as the only novel I've written that got fan art and people still asking for it a year later.</li>
<li>HSASC: This is a book of poetry that I've been working on for a while. One of those little things that I just want to get done.</li>
<li>My Father's Bike: This is a gift for my father. I wrote the first draft but it didn't quite come out the way I wanted it to. I'm going to rewrite it, just need to find time.</li>
<li>Morning Zombies: I like the idea of the book, just need to rewrite it to see if I can actually do it justice.</li>
<li>Flight of the Scions: Been working on this one for a while, better part of a few years. I have one more rewrite planned (again).</li>
<li>Peg and Sue: This is the novel I planned to write this year. Haven't really started it, to be honest, just making up the time.</li>
<li>Commissions: I like making money writing. I haven't honestly had a lot of luck with submitting stories to places but I have with people asking me to write stories for them. So, I'm going to keep on doing that in my quest to be a honest writer.</li>
</ul>
<p>Programming:</p>
<ul>
<li>MfGames.Tools CIL: Library for making command-line tools that can also be used to create MSBuild and NAnt tasks. (Requires MfGames CIL)</li>
<li>MfGames.Template CIL: Templating library that I created some years back. I just need to bring it up to speed with new command-line tools. (Requires MfGames.Tools CIL)</li>
<li>MfGames.Updater CIL: Software updating library, this seems to be one of those frequently implemented things and I haven't found a good managed version that would let you update data files and software (i.e. for games) or even allow for addins and plugins. (Requires MfGames.Tools CIL)</li>
<li>MfGames.RelaxNG CIL: I haven't found a library for this. There are ones that handle XSD schemes, but I think there is some advantage to having one that works with C# and makes generic lists. This will make MfGames.OpenDocumentFormat CIL <em>much</em> easier. (Requires MfGames.Tools CIL)</li>
<li>MfGames.SqlDom CIL: This is something that comes up from when I did my work at my last job. Basically a CodeDom that is for SQL scripts. I want to be able to parse and write them out, not to mention convert from one DDL to another. (Requires MfGames.RelaxNG CIL).</li>
<li>MfGames.OpenDocumentFormat CIL: When writing Balance, I liked the idea of writing in ODF (i.e. OpenOffice.org) and putting in sections that could be substituted with out the output of text. I wrote the basics in a few week and it really made some components really useful (like list of skills are ensuring consistent formatting within the game). I want to polish this out and do it properly. (Requires MfGames.Tools CIL and MfGames.RelaxNG CIL).</li>
<li>Unit Performance CIL: One of those "big libraries" ideas. This is actually at the tail end of the dependencies but I think it has some merit of being useful to a large number of people, so I want to do it to contribute to the community. (Requires MfGames.RelaxNG)</li>
<li>MfGames.Input CIL: Generic input library for handling GUI's and other useful eventing. I like keyboard chains (C-c C-x to quit) and I want it generic for BooGame. (Requires MfGames CIL)</li>
<li>MfGames.Scene2 CIL: A 2D scene graph library with some C# things.</li>
<li>MfGames.Scene2.Gui CIL: Like CeGUI# or other graphical GUI systems, I want something I can write good game interfaces with. (Requires MfGames.Scene2 CIL)</li>
<li>BooGame: BooGame is a library that I "inherited" but still try to maintain. It is rather specific, OpenGL and CIL code, and there are alternatives, but this one fits my programm style at this point so I keep on working on it.</li>
<li>Prebuild: I got control of this, mainly because I still have some interest in it. So, I should produce a release sooner or later. Even if it is a complete re-vamp of the project.</li>
</ul>
<p>Gaming:</p>
<p>Most of these are out there, because it would be interesting and I like the idea. I really want to see at least one of them get into the "polished" state; you know the entire reason for Moonfire Games.</p>
<ul>
<li>Scroll of the Lands</li>
<li>Pirates CCG with Exalted</li>
</ul>
<p>Computer Games:</p>
<ul>
<li>CuteGod</li>
<li>Baby Squid God</li>
<li>Ponies Among Us</li>
<li>Wordplay</li>
<li>Ceimaha</li>
</ul>
<p>There are a few other catch-all items that are out there, waiting...</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://gs.mfgames.com/">Glorious Saber</a>: The top item to finish the fourth arc of the story. Ideally, I'd like to learn a new graphical style, but it also ties into some of the game projects I have in mind. I feel uncomfortable finding someone else willing to do graphics for me. I can work purely on the need to finish something in hopes that someday, just someday, it might turn out to be something more... commercial.</li>
<li>Finish my masters: I'm 2 classes and 2 petitions away from this.</li>
<li>Decide if I want a doctorate. Obviously, I have a lot of things going on, and if I do the doctor route, it will slow everything else down. But, I still can't honestly decide if I want to do it or not.</li>
</ul>
<p>Well, that is my list of personal projects. Most of these won't show up on my TODO list at the beginning of my posts. I'm going with only listing the three most important items on the list up there, so if I want to do more, I need to finish the ones already there.</p>
Making a list2009-05-28T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/05/28/making-a-list/<div style="padding: 2px;float: right">
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #d8e4a8;height: 18px;width: 27.9%"></div>
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<div style="border: 1px solid #CCCCCC;width: 20em;margin: 2px 5px 2px 0;padding: 1px;clear: left;float: left;background: white;height: 18px">
<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">College Petitions (1 of 4)</div>
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<div style="font-family: Tahoma, sans;float: left;margin-left: 2px">Commission (1,300 of 10k words)</div>
<div style="font-size: 10px;background-color: #bae3a8;height: 18px;width: 13%"></div>
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<p>This morning, I got a wake-up call when my eldest kitty decided that she needed some water and she is willing to get it from the kitchen sink. The dishes on the counter, on the other hand, took offense at the idea and committed suicide in protest.</p>
<p>I liked that bowl. :(</p>
<p>A small bit of drama, but no big deal.</p>
<p>But, I couldn't get back to sleep. As soon as Fluffy settled back to sleep, I just stared at the ceiling, thinking about projects and things I want to get done. It is mostly little stuff, writing and programming, but a few around the house items. And that all-important lose weight to avoid diabetes bit. I won't go into the specifics, mainly I don't think anyone is interested in my to do list.</p>
<p>I gave up around five this morning and finally got up. Ended up fixing the DNS settings on the house servers to handle the piss-poor Qwest DNS settings, doing some disk maintenance, and upgrading the main MythTV front end to hopefully get rid of the annoying delay to pause (about 3 minutes at this point) while watching Mythbusters.</p>
<p>Oh, and I also finished up the next ascension for <a href="http://kingdomofloathing.com/">Kingdom of Loathing</a>. I'm planning on jumping into the gap as soon as I get home and maybe playing a few sauce/pasta classes to pick up a few more skills. I got the two things I really wanted this ascension, Ambidextrous Funkslinging and the Hilarious Grimore for cocktail ingredients. This will be my <a href="http://koldb.com/player.php?name=cakyrespa">17th ascension</a> in the game (all hard core except the first). I'm still enjoying it, but there is a bit of a grind that started around ascension 14.</p>
<p>I did make a list of everything I wanted to get done. It is a big one, but also filled with things I can get done in a reasonable amount of time. Just need to focus, which seems to be my problem. Making a list also makes me feel better. It gives me that structure I need to realize everything is solvable. I won't be putting the entire list on my blog, mainly because I don't think anyone cares, plus it would just be noise. But, I'll put the current ones I'm focusing on the blog, not only to nag me but also the encourage me.</p>
Another ascension2009-03-23T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/03/23/another-ascension/<p>Happily, I managed to ascend again in the <a href="http://kingdomofloathing.com/">Kingdom of Loathing</a>. This would be my 15th ascension and not even remotely my <a href="http://koldb.com/player.php?name=cakyrespa">fastest</a>. But, still, 30 day hardcore ascension is nothing to sneeze at since I took over double that the first two times. The key part is that I still really enjoy the game and every morning, first thing, I get online to burn through my turns.</p>
<p>Though, I kind of rushed the ascension itself because I was running late to work. Ended up being a "just one more thing" type of morning. Going to be worse in the new house (week from Wednesday!) because I think I'm 10-15 minutes further from work which means I'll need to get up twenty minutes earlier to get my fix in.</p>
<p><!--more-->I play in the morning for a few reasons. One is lag. There are about a thousand or so players on in the morning, but close to three or four when I get home from work. That can turn a twenty minute burn into an hour game, simply from the load on the servers. And during Crimbo, their christmas holiday, an evening play is three or four hours. The other reason is because it lets my brain wake up, like coffee.</p>
<p>Yeah, right.</p>
<p>KoL is one of those games for me. It triggers a desire to complete the game, either to get all the items or to experience all the plots, but also has enough pattern to the play that it doesn't require a lot of effort to really appreciate.</p>
<p>It also gets my creative juices flowing. Not that I think I could do a better job, Jick and company are a lot better a humor, but it makes me wonder if I could write a game that is as simple, yet enjoyable, as this game is to me. And, in those moments when I'm not really doing anything, I work on plans for my version of the game. If only to see if I could write a Good Game™</p>
<p>And, to write a game requires a good commitment. Something I've been whining about the last few months about not having time for anything. It is easy to start new projects, hard to do them right and get to a finishing point. A game like this, it really doesn't have an end, if done right. In fact, it would be an evergreen project.</p>
<p>Still, fun to dream about. And while I do, I fire up the game every morning for my twenty minutes of meat, booze, and the quest for every (useful) hardcore permanent skill.</p>
It nets out to neutral2009-03-20T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/03/20/it-nets-out-to-neutral/<p>Today has been a relatively good and somewhat frustrating day at the same time. A bit long and wandering though, both the good, the eh, and idle thoughts.</p>
<p><!--more-->I decided to mark my <a href="http://critters.org/">Critters</a> membership as inactive, which I hate doing. I like critiquing, but I feel that if I'm not posting something new at least every few months and letting my critiques slip, I'm not really participating. I figured once I get back into writing heavily into topics they deal with, I'll active my membership and get right back into the mix.</p>
<p>I also sent a letter to my landlord telling them I'm leaving in a month or so. I don't feel I have to, we have a legal contract and it ends in 40 days. There is no auto-renewal clause, there is nothing beyond it. But apparently it's one of those excuses the landlord takes for not giving back a deposit. It doesn't matter if it is polite or not--I already planned on doing it--I don't like when I <em>have</em> to, despite the fact my understanding of legalese says I don't.</p>
<p>Oh well.</p>
<p>I also talked to my brother. In these discussions about what we would do with the economy, one of my opinions is that the auto makers (and their unions) should be reminded that they have a business model that needs to drastically change. One of the consequences of this, sadly, might result in one going under or really close to it. It is hard when you have family in that industry, more so when you find out they were laid off. Me and my brother both like plans. We have our "master plans" for the future (though he doesn't call it the Salmon Plan like me). Both of us have been hit with some really nasty distractions on that aspect (one of them has the potentially of <em>really</em> throwing a wrench into my plan). But, when compared to my misery of the flood in Iowa, being laid off in Detroit is devastating. I really hope he gets back on his feet and his wife, also in the car industry, manages to survive this.</p>
<p>Even with all that, it didn't really temper the email that gave me the results of my first college petition.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>One down, four to go. They accepted it without any comments, which makes me feel really damn good about it. Apparently, I write at an appropriate level of a master's course and I can prove it with supporting documentation and well-reason arguments.</p>
<p>Yah, me!</p>
<p>I've been focusing on this move in the next two weeks. Instead of relaxing and playing a video game, I ended up filing the last of my DVD's into the filing cabinet. I know have just about every DVD I own entered into the computer... for the week at least. I'm also working on getting my finances entered into the computer, sorting my LEGO toys, and generally knocking things off my TODO list.</p>
<p>I did do one naughty thing today. For the last few (i.e. five including all my commission income) months, I didn't spend my entertainment fund because I kept using it to pay bills. With the refinance and everything, I actually got it back and decided to blow it on something I wanted: a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N810">Nokia n810</a>. No, I don't need it. But, I know I'm beginning to forget what books I really want to pick up, what DVD's I'm missing (like having 1-5 and 8-10 of a series), and a list of addresses. It's a little PDA, a bit pricey, but I think I could use it. Plus, it would be just like Fluffy when she plays Scrabble in bed on her phone... I too shall have a hand-held computer to play games. And mine will be Linux! Bwahahaha!</p>
<p>Yeah, I want to write a game for it.</p>
<p>Speaking of games, I'm beginning to want to write a game. A massively single-player online RPG (MSPORPG). This is frustrating, mainly because I had that self-imposed desire to finish CuteGod and Baby Squid God. Not sure of those really should just be trunked or not, though. I want to finish, but you know what, I should also learn when to let things go.</p>
World of Goo for Linux!2009-02-14T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/02/14/world-of-goo-for-linux/<p>Today is the happiest day of the last week. Not only is it Valentine's Day (which I don't really celebrate but it gives me an excuse to get Fluffy stuff), but I also found out <a href="http://2dboy.com/2009/02/12/world-of-goo-linux-version-is-ready/">World of Goo is out for Linux</a>!</p>
<p>*squee*</p>
<p>Yeah, it is silly for most people, but I love Linux. It fits my personality, and while it isn't the easiest thing to work with, it just happens to be, well, me. It also is "a path least traveled" which is one of my general guides in life. Along with "may you live in interesting times".</p>
<p>Not only are they supporting Windows and Wii (apparently from the download center, though I haven't had a Wii to check it out), they also support Macintosh. Which is something most game companies don't really do. And, I have to utterly respect that and the complete lack of DRM, knowing that it won't make that much of a difference.</p>
<p>I also love <a href="http://www.worldofgoo.com/">World of Goo</a>. It's a great little casual game. And not only do I enjoy playing it, but I also look up to 2D Boy because they succeeded. They did my dream, to go from nothing and blow through all expectations to be brilliant. I have the same dream. Not only for writing but programming.</p>
<p>I don't see people who succeed at what I really want as a terrible thing. Anyone who can succeed has my best wishes. Interestingly, I don't really get jealousy either, one of those foreign emotions for me. So, for all those programmers who write the perfect game or all the writers who find themselves staring at their book in the bookstore, I can only feel joy for them.</p>
<p>And maybe a little bit of hope that I'll be doing the same some day.</p>
<p>Now, time to run off and play obsessively.</p>
How do I waste the time?2009-02-12T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/02/12/how-do-i-waste-the-time/<p>Ended up working late last night on a customer issue. Fortunately, I'm not inclined to ignore the phone in the last three minutes of my work day in the off chance I'll spend an hour and a half trying to fix things. However, it is <em>highly</em> annoying when I can't figure out the problem. I'm suppose to be this impressive programmer, damn it.</p>
<p>After a quick trip to the grocery store for healthy food, I brought home the results of my unhealthy (Subway club sandwhich) lunch because I forgot to do groceries the day before. It isn't that Subway isn't bad, it is the pawn shop next to it that isn't (financially) healthy. <del datetime="2009-02-13T01:35:17+00:00">30</del>10 DVD's for $30. "I got me some BAD movies!" including <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370032/">Ultraviolet</a>, an absolutely terrible movie with some neat colors I like.</p>
<p>Since I didn't get home late, I didn't try to write. Instead, I just did little things. Like figure out how to get my VPN working from Linux, including a remote desktop to my work machine. Now, I don't have to use Windows again except for <a href="http://www.worldofgoo.com/">World of Goo</a> and <a href="http://www.crayonphysics.com/">Crayon Physics Deluxe</a>. And the second those turn Linux-friendly, I'll be ecstatic.</p>
<p>Then I spent an hour moving Glorious Saber to its <a href="http://gs.mfgames.com/">new home</a>. Not pretty right now, but it uses <a>ComicPress</a> in a shared environment (update one place, update them all) which means it has all those features I spent a week writing before. And, sadly, probably more secure, faster, and better developed.</p>
<p>Going through the strips, I still enjoy read it and looking at how my own graphical style is getting slightly mature. And getting depressed that its been over a year. And almost two years since my Exalted in-character journal has been updated. I always worry about the abstract nature of the Glorious Saber. I get complaints about the lack of arms and legs, but I like it. I also like <a href="http://www.absurdness.us/">Absurd</a> comic and the Oblongs probably for the same reason. Though, both of those go with limited mobility where I go with not rendering arms and legs.</p>
<p>And, in the constant need to go to sleep on time, I managed to take almost <em>three hours</em> to get to bed. Apparently, in the middle of my shower, I decided I really wanted to get text-to-speech working on my computer.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>What is wrong with me?</p>
<p>So, my computer can do some pretty talking. And I sort of added the programs to do some musical backgrounds. And was reminded that I really, really want an IPA dictionary to correct some of that really bad speaking. And that I liked Running Bomb but it needed help. And a tone of other things.</p>
<p>Guess what, apparently I'm exhausted.</p>
<p>Go figure. </p>
Websites2009-02-06T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/02/06/websites/<p>In my master's class, something about communication, I'm doing a <a href="http://vle2.capella.edu/1068135">new</a> website for <a href="http://mfgames.com/">Moonfire Games</a>. It's a fun little thing, but it got me to thinking. Organizing websites.</p>
<p>I have all these ideas of how to set up a site, what it should include, what it shouldn't include. The hard part is, I'm never sure what should go where. For example, should I put the world settings in the same site, along with the forum, or use the domains I have to set up a <a href="http://forum.mfgames.com/">forum</a> and a dedicated site for a <a href="http://fedran.moonfire.us/">single</a> <a href="http://sepia.mfgames.com/">world</a>?</p>
<p>Even for the Moonfire Games site, I'm trying to figure out where I put Exalted or HERO stuff, where the software libraries should go, and everything else.</p>
<p>I think part of the answer is that I need to have a clear idea of what I want a site to be. It's pretty obvious that <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/">my personal site</a> is mostly about writing. The same for the Moonfire Games site is mostly about games and programming. Though, I can't describe how much I want to mix these two up.</p>
<p>I want a good writer's site for my personal one. Part of me thinks I should first get to be a better writer before I worry about these things, but I like web design and playing around with sites. I also haven't found the "Making Flawless Author Sites in 103 Easy Steps" at my local bookstore.</p>
<p>Just something to think about.</p>
Good thoughts2009-01-07T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2009/01/07/good-thoughts/<p>I had a terrible bout with depression last night. A bit of talking with Fluffy helped a little bit. So did the somewhat high maintenance cat--well the cat who wants to be petted all the time but I still love her--helped with pulling me out of my dark mood.</p>
<p>This morning, it was better. Could be the decision I wasn't going to stress out about work or money today probably helped.</p>
<p>I also <a href="http://koldb.com/player.php?name=cakyrespa">ascended</a> today on the one and only online game I play, <a href="http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/">Kingdom of Loathing</a>. KoL was driving me nuts actually, since I was getting upset about missing out on an once in a lifetime event because I jumped the gun with the last ascension. I know it was a game, but it took me a few days to just let it go (a skill I'm normally really good at). In the end, I missed out on a bunch of loot, but it wasn't too bad (if I ascended two days earlier, I would have made it). Oh well, I had my fastest speed run ever (14 days from end to end, because I missed out on the once in a lifetime event, go figure), bought the once in a lifetime event item from the store, and rolled into the next round.</p>
<p>I also solved a major problem at work with a customer, got everything off my plate, and basically managed to take a long, deep breath.</p>
<p>When I get home, I start my college class.</p>
<p>Today is going to be good.</p>
The winds of change2008-12-01T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/12/01/the-winds-of-change/<p>This holiday week may be signaling a rather interesting change of pace in my life. Obviously, it started with putting Smokey to sleep, but it also marked the point where Fluffy gets a roommate to hopefully help with our financial woes. Sadly, my refinance didn't go through, nor an extended line of credit, so its probably the one way to help. Not to mention, it means that Fluffy has an adult in the house and a two-year old running around. Which might help the biological alarm clock ringing every time I visit. :)</p>
<p>It was also a chance to watch Firefly again (yah for Nathan Fillion's's butt! I mean, everyone else too... :P), Invader Zim, and Absolutely Fabulous. If you can't guess, most of the week was watching DVD's and just spending time with the wifetype in a happy martial bliss.</p>
<p>We also picked up Rayman Ravin Rabbid 3. They really figured out what they did wrong with #2 and made it good for #3. The WiiFit board really worked out well for some of the games, Fluffy is pretty good at the dancing games if they involve full-body movement instead of the pure timing/rhythm games that I excel at. I also ended up playing DarkStar One until it crashed four times in two hours and a few hours of Jak II, which I'm borrowing from a co-worker.</p>
<p>Driving wasn't pleasant, but not terrible. Its about 230 miles or so one way to Illinois and going there at night wasn't too bad. FiL annoyed the hell out of me right before I left, mainly with his opinions of what you should do with gays. I hate that he won't see any other opinion, but what can I do? He won't change probably as much as I won't change. He doesn't really care if he's a bigot, it is what he is and he sees no reason to change it. I decided a few weeks ago to stop talking about it, but he keeps bringing it up. Besides that, it was great going to Illinois, but it started snowing on the way back to Iowa. So, I had to suffer with the frequent slowdowns as people rubbernecked the accidents.</p>
<p>Remember boys and girls: it is the passenger's job to look at the accidents and the driver's job to keep moving forward. After the fact, its the passenger's job to tell the driver all about it.</p>
<p>Obviously, I missed the deadline for Baby Squid God. This time, I mean it, I'm not going to do another game writing contest until 4E7 and just focus on the game I already have to fin: CuteGod, Wordplay, and Baby Squid God. I'm going to focus on writing and finishing stuff this month, around all the holiday trials, of course.</p>
<p>Started working on a longish story. It won't amount to much, other than just the simple joy of writing (its pretty much non-publishable since I'm going to be posting it on a story site). After that, I'm planning on working on my two commissions (one from April of this year). I'm dealing with the fun of a new writing project, when all the characters are so... new. Its like a first date all over again.</p>
What is a name?2008-11-25T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/11/25/what-is-a-name/<p>I've been using the term "Moonfire Games" since I legally changed my name in 2000. I even have a domain (<a href="http://mfgames.com/">http://mfgames.com/</a>) that uses that name and it shows up on pretty much every search term for "Moonfire Games". So, imagine my surprise when I do a random search for Moonfire Games and I find that someone created a group called MoonFire Games at <a href="http://moonfiregames.com/">http://moonfiregames.com/</a>. According to the `whois` record, they registered the site in 2008. Eight years after I started using Moonfire Games. I assume it is either an honest mistake or oversight. But, I also worry that it is something more. Not to get against me, but simply because moonfire is a cool name. </p>
<p>Its annoying, since it means that I either have to trust in my fellow man not to abuse using the same name, risk the chance of not being able to use it anymore, or to defend it. Part of me says defend it, mainly because some of the things I've been waiting on have finally happened (I moved to Iowa) for creating my own S-corp and getting a proper trademark.</p>
<p>Its frustrating that someone would have done this. Part of it is my own fault for not really pushing it myself, but I'm kind of mixed on what to do.</p>
<p>EDIT: Actually, I got a very nice response back from the other Moonfire Games. It looks like we can figure something out, so it isn't such a terrible thing. It really helps when you <em>don't</em> respond negatively in emails. Though, I probably should incorporate Moonfire Games anyways, just because I've been using the name for nearly a decade now. And using it on my GenCon badge. And my emails. And my forum... :D</p>
Writerly and gamerly trudging2008-11-04T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/11/04/writerly-and-gamerly-trudging/<p>Had a pretty fun weekend, though a bit too much work and self-inflicted stress. Worked on Baby Squid God for most of it, after cuddling with the kitties (7 more days and they go home). Managed to get a bouncy baby squid on the screen, but not much more. Last night, I managed to get the beginning of a stage displayed, but again, not much more. Its going slow, but its moving forward. Kind of like NaNoWriMo, I just have to "keep on swimming". Instead of 1,400 words per day, I'm trying to average about 200 LOC a day.</p>
<p>In writing news, I got some feedback from <a href="http://www.dropsofcrimson.com/">Drops of Crimson</a>. And the news is... wait until December. They got swamped and never got to the bottom of the slushpile I'm assuming. December should also tell me if White Wolf liked my story submission I gave back in September. I also worked on expanding my commission and got that out, hopefully they'll be happy with the response and I'll get some precious monies. So, it was definitely a writerly weekend despite the game writing.</p>
<p>Revamped my <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/wishlist">wishlist</a> yesterday, mainly updating and removing the duplicates. Not that anyone buys me much, but occasionally someone uses it and I felt the need to clean up. And Fluffy hates getting me anything on the list, I have to give her special requests that no one else knows about. Not entirely sure why, but its part of what we are. And I love her enough not to bitch about it; just not sure what to ask her.</p>
Weekend followups2008-10-20T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/10/20/weekend-followups/<p>Today, I earned the right to bitch about the president and congress for another four and two years respectively. In other words, I voted. With all the stuff going on with the flood, I decided to do an absentee ballot. I got it on Friday, got to see all the candidates, look them up online, and and send my ballot out this morning. Kind of cool, I've never tried it before but I think I like doing it this way. I was also surprised to see eight groups for the presidential list, which is six more than most people really think about and three more than I thought was on the list. I won't say who I voted for, but I'm really glad I had a chance to add my 0.000000004% contribution (estimated, I don't know how many registered voters there are) to the next four years.</p>
<p>It was an interesting weekend. Went back to Illinois to spend time with my honey, discuss our future, and spend six hours in a car entertaining myself. In this case, I got to thinking about a novel I've wanted to write, so I sketched out the chapter outline. It is about a retired hero of the world who's grandchild ends up following in his tracks. Just the idea of writing about a man in his seventies who used to be the most powerful warrior in the world just seems appealing to me. Just the idea of what happened after "happily ever after" appeals to me. And it has a great ending, I think.</p>
<p>I came home to notice that the <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3286.0">Lovecraft Commonplace Competition</a> started while I was enjoying time with the wife. And I have six weeks to figure out something. Which is really cool, since I'm ignoring the contest's basic rule (use a phrase from the commonplace book) and going with something I think will be fun. Not that the phrases won't be awesome, the screenshots and mockups are great. I just want to write Baby Squid God. Time will tell. I also got feedback from my old gaming group (they are old because I haven't played in six months). Good feedback on the squid I posted, ideas on how to advance, and they are starting all these fun games without me. Oh well, makes me almost wish I pushed a bit harder to do something new at the beginning of last arc. There are times when putting things up to a vote ends up not the way you expected.</p>
<p>Finally, Fluffy and I are switching gears on the house. Today, we are going to pull the house off the market and wait out this credit crunch. If things go well, I can juggle monies for a while I try to get things a bit more even (secret plans!). It is... painful to do, but realistically, I don't think we are going to sell for the next four months, so why spend all that time keeping the house presentation-friendly. It also interrupts some of our (secret) plans on cleaning up the finances. Okay, not that secret, but one involved my old boss and shouldn't be aired. It also means two of my kitties are going back to Illinois for human contact and interaction. Paks is staying with me at the apartment; I almost have her toilet trained.</p>
<p>No, I'm not going to work for her.</p>
Random thoughts2008-10-16T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/10/16/random-thoughts/<p>This week has been a nice busy one. I managed to finish the second draft of my commission on Sunday and sent it out Monday (always one more day for the <em>OMG, did I write that?</em> moments). Got feedback.</p>
<p>They loved it.</p>
<p>Four little change requests which I'll get out tonight and then I'll be "done" with that commission. I think I should also put a hold on commissions for a while, just until I'm struggling less with them. These last two were killers; I haven't had that much trouble putting words on a page in years.</p>
<p>Still feeling guilty about stopping Scroll of the Lands. But, in a contrast, I'm looking at Glorious Saber and wondering if I could actually finish that up in a reasonable period of time. Trying to seek closure I guess. It also got me to thinking about another comic idea I had while driving back from kitty cuddle time (flea population is 0.1% of last week's, so I actually wanted to cuddle). The new comic idea, if I do it, would be fun, since it would be a fictional diary for me and Fluffy's attempt to have children. Of course, if I could actually pull it together, that's a different story. Or if I have time.</p>
<p>Baby Squid God is advancing in my thoughts. I considered doing pixel artwork, but I'm hesitating. The other I'm looking at is doing it in the same style as <a href="http://mfgames.com/comics/glorious-saber/022">Glorious Saber</a>. I already have some code to use this style and I've also spent six months working on the skills to make it, which means less to learn when trying to write the game. So, here is my quick sketch idea of the baby squid god:</p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/baby-squid-god-4.png"><img src="/assets/baby-squid-god-4-150x150.png" alt="" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-859" /></a></p>
<p>If you are curious, here is the pixel version:</p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/bsg.png"><img src="/assets/bsg.png" alt="" width="32" height="32" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-864" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/bsg.png"><img src="/assets/bsg.png" alt="" width="128" height="128" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-864" /></a></p>
<p>I'm also trying to upgrade my artwork style a little. Mainly with the dual-layer hair (i.e. so they look different based on what direction they are looking at). And the hands. Not entirely sure what to do about it, but I might lean toward circles when they aren't do anything but something while they are holding things. Any opinions?</p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/glorious-ideas.png"><img src="/assets/glorious-ideas-150x150.png" alt="" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-861" /></a></p>
<p>And, I'm heading back to Illinois this weekend. Not accusing Fluffy or anything, but the phone system has completely died at the house and the MythTV box is misbehaving (I think it misses me). So I'm going to go for a different type of kitty cuddle, picking up paperwork, and fixing the technical things.</p>
<p>... and maybe spending time with Fluffy. :)</p>
I think I fired myself2008-10-14T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/10/14/i-think-i-fired-myself/<p>Not from my job or anything. But, last night, I decided I was going to work on Scroll of the Lands since I really haven't touched it for a month or so. Instead, I wandered around my (rather tiny) apartment for an hour, putzing around instead of actually working on it. When I finally managed to sit...</p>
<p>... nothing.</p>
<p>An entire hour of nothing. I also realized that I've been having "nothing" problems on that project for a while now. So, after another hour of fretting, I decided to <a href="http://forum.mfgames.com/index.php/topic,100.0.html">make a statement</a> about it. In effect, saying I don't think I can give it justice until after my life settles down, I live with my wife again, and I hopefully only have a single house to worry about.</p>
<p>That, to say the least, is painful. I hate not finishing things, specially with so much interest in it, but after six months of really getting nothing done, should I continue to keep trying to get to it? I'm not playing Exalted, which makes it hard to write Exalted stuff. I'm not playing any role-playing games right now, which I feel makes it hard to write RPG material. And the hope to use it for becoming a White Wolf writer... well, I don't think I have the focus to do that justice.</p>
<p>I also don't have the drive to do it, which means I feel like I'm letting people down who got excited about this project. And, there is one thing I hate, and that is disappointing people.</p>
<p>There is also time. I have homework for class (1-2) nights and I'm spending 2-3 nights a week to visit the kitties. That leaves 2 days, I know, but when I pack stuff into those days, I start feeling like I'm burning myself out.</p>
<p>I might be waffling over this decision.</p>
<p>I hate this.</p>
Horrible, evil monkeys...2008-10-09T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/10/09/horrible-evil-monkeys/<p>Had a monkey night. The type of nights where you manage to get into bed on time, get all nice and comfortable and then, instead of drifting to sleep and nice dreams of food processors, you end up staring at the ceiling and thinking. While I love to think about things, it gets annoying when you can't sleep because of it. I call it the monkey, since its your consciousness chattering away like a pissed off monkey.</p>
<p>Things I thought about:</p>
<ul>
<li>I got another five thousand words on my commission. Almost done with this and I'm very happy about that. Plus, it means I'll get a bit of money hopefully in the near future to help relieve the stress of...</li>
<li>Not having enough money. We'll just leave that one in the box, shall we?</li>
<li>Ascending on <a href="http://kingdomofloathing.com/">Kingdom of Loathing</a> and writing my own version of KOL Mafia, despite not having enough time or energy. Not to mention way too many projects to do already. I tried to bribe my thoughts by getting up and playing my 40 (well, 137) turns but that didn't help.</li>
<li>The brownies in the fridge. Tried to bribe myself by getting up and eating all of them, but it didn't help either. They were good though.</li>
<li>Ultra Mega Super Premium Mall and if I should use crayon-style images to distinguish it from Kingdom of Loathing, which its obviously inspired by.</li>
<li>Flight of the Scions, but mostly to berate myself for not working on it. But, also working out some of the outfits and dresses in the book. And if I really should have a specific kissing scene in book two.</li>
<li>2D scene graphs. This was the bulk of my distractions since I think I found a good way of organizing my various code projects between BooGame and MfGames.* to handle Baby Squid God and CuteGod equally. Of course, it requires me to rewrite things again, but I think I needed to do that anyways. Plus, I inherited BooGame and need to clean that up and make it more useful.</li>
<li>Wondering why I still can't find a good generic C# game engine that works with 2D? Likewise, wondering if I really should create yet another vector/matrix library just because no one else will work together? I want someone else to figure out all this hard part. Its thankless and probably why I'm doing it.</li>
<li>Are there fleas in the bed? I'm pretty sure I got rid of them, but when you are lying there with nothing else, every little twinge and itch seems to bring up the idea that there might be critters with me. Having a cat clean herself for two solid hours on your chest doesn't help. Even if that is what she normally does.</li>
<li>And finally, just wondering what life is going to be like in the next three months. I have absolutely no clue. Utterly no clue, not even a hint of what I'm doing in month, much less the end of the year.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, busy night. And I overslept and was two hours late for work.</p>
<p>Oh well, its a <em>special</em> day.</p>
Not working ahead, I swear!2008-10-03T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/10/03/not-working-ahead-i-swear/<p>Over lunch, I started playing with the new version of <a href="http://gimp.org/">Gimp</a> (*squee* floating-point numbers in my favorite program). To play around, I'm working with the general idea of what I want Baby Squid God to have. Obviously, I'm not working on the game but its going to take a while to find an "artistic style" I need to use (baring Fluffy blowing me away as she usually does).</p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/test.gif"><img src="/assets/test.gif" alt="" width="32" height="32" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/test.gif"><img src="/assets/test.gif" alt="" width="128" height="128" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://d.moonfire.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/panda.png"><img src="/assets/panda.png" alt="" width="128" height="128" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-838" /></a></p>
<p>Just an initial start and it isn't perfect. But I think it gives a minor idea of what I'm hoping for the game. I am planning on having the game scaled from the get-go, probably x2 or x4 depending on resolution. Most of the game is going to be white-based, with colors being rather important in various parts.</p>
<p>Other than that, not much. I only got a couple hundred words on my commission before the cry of Zelda called me back. I did manage to register for my next college course, which starts next week, so that little TODO item is pulled off. Moving forward is good. :)</p>
<p>I'm also getting ready for having a kitty in the apartment. Worrying about things like where to put the food, how to set up the litter in the tiny place (and how to toilet train her). I worry too much, since its going to be fine, but up to that point, its going to lurk over me. Then, when it happens, I'll be fine.</p>
<p>Because I said so.</p>
Planus interruptus2008-10-02T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/10/02/planus-interruptus/<p>I am not working on Baby Squid God.</p>
<p>At least that is what it looks like until November 1st. Due to communications, half the people thought "for Halloween" though it meant it ended on Halloween and the other half thought took it to start on Halloween. Since there is no formal announcement by now, I'm going to say "for Halloween" means "starting on Halloween". I'm disappointed, but there really isn't any reason to pout about it.</p>
<p>So, changing gears. I'm good at that. Naturally, I really won't work much on the game itself, I haven't done what I wanted to in September to prepare for it, so I probably won't take October to prepare for it. I can, on the other hand, finish up the commissions, work on Scroll of the Lands, and maybe get a bit of writing done. And finish my website migration to <a href="http://d.moonfire.us/">http://d.moonfire.us/</a> and do the Moonfire Portal site. Good thing I wasn't doing <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo</a>, otherwise I'd be really frustrated (the same thing happened last year with a game contest and November).</p>
<p>One of my kitties, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deed_of_Paksenarrion">Paksenarrion</a> (Paks for short), is moving in with me. Of the three, she is having the worst trouble with the in-laws basement and is tearing out large hunks of her fur. Most of her neck and shoulders are bloody from her scratching which is only getting worse as time goes on. Poor stressed kitty. After talking to my landlady, I'm allowed exactly one cat in my studio. Given that, on Friday, I get that roommate--a high maintenance, adorable little roommate who <a href="http://darkfluffy.livejournal.com/">Fluffy</a> won't mind me sleeping with. On Saturday, I start trying to train said roommate on how to use the toilet. Maybe this time it will work. And if I can get one to use the toilet, then maybe the others will start doing the same.</p>
Don't eat the crayons2008-09-30T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/09/30/dont-eat-the-crayons/<p>I saw an interesting quote in the middle of a highly inappropriate website last night. It was a small essay called "Don't eat the crayons." I started reading because the next sentence, "Even the purple ones, despite them being the tastiest." I don't remember the essay but it talked about the different crayons in life: television, video games, worrying about your body and hair. All time wasters when you just do it mindlessly. It took me a few second to realize what they were saying, don't waste your creativity (it was on a writing board so that makes senses). You can spend your days watching television or playing games, but you aren't really creating anything. There is some use in it, recharging your batteries, but I think a lot of people watch too much television or play too many games compared to the amount needed to recover their energies.</p>
<p><!--more-->I suspect that is why I don't watch television really. I play games, but I'm back on the keyboard pretty much the minute I recovered. Okay, sometimes a little too soon, sometimes a little too late (mainly to finish those last ten hours of a game), but even my favorite RPG's will take weeks to finish simply because I go back to writing or programming in the middle of it. I always know the point since I'll be grinding through level fifty of some RPG when I realize I just spent the last hour reviewing every interface element, AI program, and story in the game. When I start looking at the game and pulling out what I like, what I don't, and what I would do differently. That is usually the point I'm ready to create again.</p>
<p>One day, I was browsing through the Internet while struggling with this flood-inspired writer's block and found a strip of a mother holding a game programming book. In front of her, her two boys were playing a game. "We don't have time to write a game, we're playing one."</p>
<p>Same idea, different artist. I'd rather write the game. Yes, Running Bomb and Lethe's Yarn weren't good games (i.e. they sucked), but they were stepping stools to reaching where I do want to go. All the blood, sweat, and tears put into them is just putting me on a path. I have a good idea where it ends, but getting there is just as fascinating as reaching the goal. Same with writing. I love writing and I keep doing it. All those short little stories I write are the same stepping stools for another goal, to be a professional and competent writer who makes fascinating worlds. The key part is, I'm creating things with my crayons instead of eating them.</p>
<p>I have my own distractions in life: anime, movies, and video games. The hard part is peeling yourself away from them sometimes. This flood has done some of that, I stopped a lot of what I was doing because of it and I think I'm happier because of it. It was painful and helpful, terrifying and frustrating. But, in the end, I have a handful of new crayons to play with.</p>
Only five days?2008-09-25T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/09/25/only-five-days/<p>Only five days left until I officially start on <em>Baby Squid God</em>. Only five days, that's kind of scary. And, for once, I don't have a 1-2 week vacation right in the middle of it so I might actually have time to complete this entry. I'm looking forward to it, but it is still had the stage where everything is new and everything else is possible.</p>
<p>Ask me again in three weeks, everything will probably change.</p>
<p>Until then, I'm trying to focus on commissions, getting ready for the next quarter of classes, and basically just keeping a clean house. Commissions are doing well, almost done with the second draft of the first and about a quarter done with the second one. Having some writer's block still on the writing side of things, despite the story I posted earlier wanting me to really write a yaoi romance novel (that story has potential, I think).</p>
<p>I hate it when I have two good ideas but only the time to work on one. The game will probably win, simply because I have a good idea of what to do and I have the first part already planned out. The 30 day challenge of the TIG games is nice, since I have to keep terse about my ideas and its forcing me to identify my boundaries in a way that my meandering projects just can't do.</p>
<p>Edit: Actually three ideas since I had this idea for a web game called Ultra Mega Super Premium Mall that has been distracting me when I hit the point of too much paper planning for Baby Squid God.</p>
Love(craft) of Temptation2008-09-10T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/09/10/lovecraft-of-temptation/<p>This year, I've been having some seriously difficulty in staying focused on the writing side of things. The contests that produced Running Bomb and Lethe's Yarn are two examples. After Lethe's, I said I was going to focus on writing and resist doing another game contest this year.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=700.msg72680#msg72680">this</a>, then next game writing contest will be Lovecraft themed. Damn it, I was suppose to resist. But, its Lovecraft. And just hearing the theme gave me a wonderful idea for a game: Baby Squid God. With a tag line of "Insanity is Inherited."</p>
<p>I'm going to have serious difficulties focusing on writing in October if that ends up the official theme. It also means I better write lots in September since I might not be doing much in October.</p>
<p>There are some things I can resist, squid gods are not one of them. Baby squid gods are another one. I mean, it will have a pacifier and big puppy eyes (and tentacles).</p>
<p>*sigh*</p>
<p>... doomed.</p>
Writing, sort of, or Programming2008-08-01T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/08/01/writing-or-programming/<p>Remarkably, I spent a lot of time thinking about <em>Flight of the Scions</em>. In specific, how to arrange some of the scenes and working on character personalities. Now, what I didn't really do was actually start writing said novel rewrite or anything as productive. Instead, I worked on 3 essays for college that I'm going to submit today. I figured 1.5 hours of essays counted as "writing for the day" or something approximating that.</p>
<p>And today, the <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=2376">TIG Demake Competition</a> starts. I wasn't planning on doing this, but I had an idea for the contest this morning as I was waking up. Of course, that means either I'm putting aside writing for 1 month to work on it, or ignoring the idea and chomping at the bit. I thought it was for September though, which wasn't as bad but its apparently... um... today.</p>
<p>I hate having to pick which fun and interesting project to play next. Well, I guess I have about 24 hours to decide if I want to do it. :)</p>
Character Flaws: Basis of Decisions2008-07-25T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/07/25/character-flaws-basis-of-decisions/<p>I'm going to change this a little bit in attempt to remove some of the personal whining and actually write something that might be useful. Heh, imagine that. Probably be more interesting than me whining about people who have decision making processes that I don't really understand, but I do use in my character creation. Don't worry, there is personal bits in here. I also give you a dose of healthy emo on top of your salad.</p>
<p>I consider one of my strengths to be creating characters quickly and, for the most part, giving them a fair amount of depth and making them interesting. One thing I do struggle with is making characters significantly different from myself, so I use a few tricks as part of the building process. A good part of that is actually coming down with a list of beliefs and preferences, but also the reasons behind those beliefs. You can get a lot out of knowing why characters have their quirks.</p>
<p><!--more-->The main reason is a decision-making process helps flesh out a character's personality. If someone usually makes decisions based on their own point of view, then you can realize how they'll react to something new. On the other hand, if everything they do is based on some book, say <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=BcsxAAAACAAJ&dq=are+you+there+god">Are You There God? It's Me, Margret</a>, then knowing or creating that book will really help define a character's reactions. Naturally, people make decisions for different reasons and at different times. And putting them together can really make a complex character with some baffling traits and some honorable but annoying ones.</p>
<p>Let's start with a great character with flaws: me. :)</p>
<blockquote><p>I don't use syrup.</p></blockquote>
<p>I couldn't tell you where this came up with. Somewhere when I was 8, I suddenly announced at some unknown meal, that I didn't want to use syrup anymore. To this day, I still don't. This is an absolute baffling decision that really has no basis. I also consider it a <em>flat character</em> flaw since it was like someone put a post-it note on my forehead: "Doesn't use syrup."</p>
<p>The problem with it is you really can't do much with these type of decisions. They just are, they don't really define a character.</p>
<blockquote><p>I don't like sauerkraut.</p></blockquote>
<p>On the other hand, despite this being very close to the one above, this is not a flat character flaw. I know why I don't like sauerkraut. It is the one food that I really can't eat, but every few years I actually try it again to see if I like it yet. If you are curious, the first couple of times I had it, I really didn't like it and there was this one... incident at my dad's where I had to eat it and not throw up. After that, it became my one-and-only despised food.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, bleu cheese used to be on this list, but somewhere in the early 2003's, I had something with it and found that I actually liked it. But, not saurekraut. Not even when its only Fluffy's lovely Canadian bacon, pineapple, and sauerkraut pizza, I still can't eat it.</p>
<p>I consider the second quote to be a much better one for fleshing out a character. Yeah, the importance of why I don't like sauerkraut isn't going to show up in a story, but it gives a writer a framework for handling other decisions. For example, knowing why I don't like sauerkraut gives you an idea of what happened when the first cup of coffee I had was the sludge on the bottom of a camp pot in Boy Scouts. It was horrible. The second was so bitter that it could strip an engine block. Now, try to guess if I drink coffee?</p>
<blockquote><p>MC: I'm against gay marriage since when BN and I were together, we couldn't get insurance, but the gay couples could.</p></blockquote>
<p>Oh, woe is I. This isn't my quote, because I can't find an example where I made a statement like this. But, this is a decision that has a basis but makes a leap of intuition that I cannot comprehend. Well, I can, but I wouldn't have made it. It was from a discussion on gay marriage. She was against it since the company in question had to make an exception for gay couples because it wasn't a legally binding union but she couldn't get any because she and BN were just living together and not married. I tried to explain that if gay marriage was legal, then there wouldn't have been this exception, but its one of those things where MC doesn't want to change her mind, so she won't.</p>
<p>I call this a shallow decision. It has a reason, which is good for details, but it works on a basis of an immediate observation, without going into the depth of that observation. She doesn't care about the religious reasons or even the legal ramifications. Just simply on the fact she couldn't get insurance with a live-in lover where a gay couple who was not married could. That was as far as the basis for that decision was made.</p>
<p><em>Side note: I'm in favor of gay marriage, though I will probably never actually be in one. I simply want it to exist so gay couples have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples and we don't have exceptions like these. Don't care about the religious aspects. I just don't want to ever see a gay man crying in the waiting room because he can't visit his lover (family only). Or hearing the sick man's father telling the man's lover to go away, 'because he has no right to be there'. I hated that, and I never want to see it again. Love is love, I don't think physical form has anything to do with it.</em></p>
<p>Its pretty easy to build a character's beliefs on this. You just have to go with what they observe and react from there. Say someone broke into their house and stole $100, the character would make a decision based on that, not on the thief needing the money to save their life or something to that effect.</p>
<blockquote><p>MJ: Actor is a horrible actor because of Movie.</p></blockquote>
<p>Sadly, I hear this one a lot. You can change the actor's name and movie to just about anything, but it is still a damnation. MJ is big into those. One bad experience basically damns it forever. A good example: she used to go to the corner bakery every two days for the yummies. Every two days, she would be in my office, "wanna go?" Then one time, she found some mold on one of the pieces. Forevermore, the place was horrible and she actively tried to convince me not to go because there was mold once.</p>
<p>This is damnation. Its related to the decisions above it, but goes far beyond it. Judging from the reactions of this country, we do this a lot. It takes one thing to tear a person from political office. One indiscretion and they are basically ruined. It doesn't matter what good they did or bad, all that matters is that one thing.</p>
<p>Sometimes, you can reverse a damnation in a character, but it takes a lot of effort. On the other hand, it is really easy to see how a character would respond to their Subaru breaking down on the side of the road.</p>
<blockquote><p>I suppose, expotential money is out. The majority has spoken.</p></blockquote>
<p>Back to my flaws. When I was working on Balance, I wanted an abstract monetary system based on exponential numbers. Both MJ and bJ hated it with a passion. After a lot of discussion, they said "vote on it" and I had to follow the rules I set up, which is majority vote on any major disagreement. I win all ties. So, we voted and I lost. I still wanted it in, I really did, but I made a decision based on rules I made and I obeyed them. This is also related to the characters who can say "I know that someone planted that pot on you, but its against the law and I'm arresting you."</p>
<p>This is a decision based on an external framework. It can be something as rigid as a German legal system (which appears to be more regular than our own), to our own laws, to even belief in a book (obviously, the Bible). The rules don't have to be literal (good thing in some cases), but it is an external framework.</p>
<p>Now, a character who doesn't agree with them might push the rules or even break them. A good example is in Lethal Weapon 4, when Murtaugh brought the Chinese family into his house. He didn't agree with the rule, but he pushed or even broke them with an overriding decision came from a different basis.</p>
<blockquote><p>I can't stand you, but I'll fight for your right to speak up.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is related to the one before it as being a philosophical decision. I happen to be relatively behind free speech, even with people who don't agree with me. MC was surprised that, after an hour and a half of heated debate on a topic, I could put it aside so easily, wish her the best of days, and head out to work. But, knowing the above quote along with "don't hold on to anger" could easily show how I can set it aside and move on. I don't hold grudges, it isn't worth the energy or effort to do it. And, as a character, its pretty easy how I respond to things like having a close friend steal a couple thousand dollars from me. Or why I paid for SW's apartment and never asked for it back.</p>
<blockquote><p>Flip a coin.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p>Can't decide? Get them both.</p></blockquote>
<p>These are two things I frequently use. Mainly because when you really can't decide on something, it doesn't really matter which one you pick. In the end, it just is and there is nothing to worry about. This is kind of random, but you have those decisions on occasion. My first house was like that. I saw three houses that day of looking. I didn't like the third one, but I liked both the second and the first. So, I literally flipped a coin and bought the first one. And you know what? I was happy with the decision.</p>
<blockquote><p>Talk to mom.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is avoiding a decision. But, people do that. They try to avoid making one by directing it to someone else. This works better in situations of authority, but you rarely see leaders with it.</p>
<blockquote><p>There is never one reason.</p></blockquote>
<p>Recently, almost every decision I made has multiple reasons. And, because of my introspective nature, I can usually tell you why I made any decision and what the basis of it. Some characters only make it for a single reason ("I don't like cheese") while others need multiple points. Some weigh the risks while others just do it without caring about the conquences.</p>
<p>But this also reflects that you can have multiple decisions of a character. You can have someone who follows scriptures for almost every decision in their life, but is willing to kill someone for their wife (obviously not a scripture thing). But, having the ways someone makes a decision, regardless of how, can add some depth to a character and let you create someone who can respond to others instead of just following a scripted response.</p>
<p>One of the things I do with most characters is think about three significant events in their life. And just their decision. And why. With those three events, three decisions, and three reasons, I have a lot to work with. Most of the time, I will never tell the reader what those three events were. Like a properly designed public-key encryption, you keep your seeds private and then just let people see the results.</p>
<p>Well, I don't think I've ever tried to write something like this, but I hope it helps. Or at least, gives you an idea of how I do things.</p>
LEGO Minatures?2008-07-24T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/07/24/lego-minatures/<p>Now, this is going to be pretty obvious for just about everyone in the world but me, but I was wandering around the Internet for a break of doing programming and I came up to <a href="http://www.brikwars.com/">Brikwars</a>. Now, I'm not really into the mechanics in general, but reading through the rules gave me an interesting idea: using <a href="http://www.lego.com/">LEGO</a> (and related) products as miniatures.</p>
<p>I love miniatures in general, more so for gaming. And those little suckers are rather extensive in pieces and parts and I could rebuild them more easily than the plaster models I've been lusting after at GenCon all these years, and relatively speaking, more flexible than anything else I considered for doing scenes. I would spent hours working on something that would only be used once then never seen again. And mixing and matching the figures would let me create a wide variety of characters with very little effort.</p>
<p>They also have a set measuring system built in (the studs) and you could easily say a 4x4 stud square is a "square" for purposes of the game. That isn't normal, but since a figure stands on 2 studs, give them a 1 stud to the side to handle their arms and you're golden. Assuming you want a grid system, that is. Of course, I'd have to give up hex grids, but I could live with that.</p>
<p>Wonder if it would work?</p>
<p>Wonder why I never even thought of this before?</p>
<p>Wonder why I just gave away all my bricks two months ago?</p>
Brokeback Ice River2008-07-21T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/07/21/brokeback-ice-river/<p>No, no hot yaoi action for me this weekend. Or slow, dramatic yaoi either. But, I did end up forcing myself to get through my writer's block and somewhere around Saturday afternoon, it finally just shattered around me. It was almost like downshifting from 5th to 1st in the middle of the I-90 when I went from struggling with <strong>every damn sentence</strong> to filling in three pages in 40 minutes. And, it happened in the same place as last time, in the middle of a romantic interaction. Then, on Sunday, I managed to get out another five thousand words in a few hours; not my full speed, but still pretty zippy for me.</p>
<p>Back on May, I decided I was going to make June my writing month. Work on <em>Flight of the Scions</em> and the choir of angles would sing out in acute tenor and the world would be great. Then, there was that couple billion cubic feet of water that interrupted everything just settling into place and I just faltered. And it took me 1.5 months just to recover from that. And it took a card table in a basement with miserable cats to get me past it.</p>
<p>I'm working on an older serial, the Exalted/World of Warcraft crossover (DNW), that I never finished. It is filled with yummy romance and splashes of blood everywhere. Completely and utterly, non-sellable on any market. *sigh* I suspect that is one reason I've drifted from Exalted in general, I can't really use it to further my career significantly--the odds of White Wolf looking for an Exalted writer approaches nil, but I keep hoping. I'm going to finish 2-3 chapters, then take a break to do a short story for the White Wolf fan contest (must. enter. again.), then just work on it to the end. I finished DL's in 62 days, but I'm not going to write to burnout this time. But, I need closure on this, otherwise I'll keep feeling it is a nagging todo list item on my notebook.</p>
<p>I'm also hoping Fluffy will finish giving me some corrections to <em>Victim of Love</em> so I can submit it to <a href="http://www.edgeofpropinquity.net/">The Edge of Propinquity</a> this month. She found a few typos here and there, but I don't really have anyone else to ask for help, so I'm just going on faith of my writing skill.</p>
<p>Yeah, it will push back <em>Flight</em> seriously, but I'm going to extend my writing period for a few months and set aside most of the programming bits (baring website design on 4 sites). Part of that is coming from this feelingthat I have to choose, at least for the next few months, one or the other of my primary interests. And I suspect this choice might extend further than that, then be reinforced by the Salmon Plan (i.e. Master Plan).</p>
<p>If I'm sticking with writing for a while, I might actually try to find a writers group and commit again. Too bad, I can't seem to find one in the IC-CR corridor.</p>
<p>Of course, like salmon on the icy rivers, this plan is subject to getting screwed and killed, probably one right after the other.</p>
Running Bomb disappointements2008-07-01T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/07/01/running-bomb-disappointments/<p>Well, someone posted the <em>real</em> voting record for the <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=9.0">TIG Procedural Game Contest</a>. As much as I hoped from someone's comment, it wasn't three votes I got. It was closer to zero. In fact, it looked a lot like a zero. That is, naturally, the lowest score I could have gotten compared the 99 votes for <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1816.0">Rescue: Beagles</a>, which you should play if you have a chance.</p>
<p>I thought about bringing it back, but... I guess I won't. I'll go with my original gut feeling which is to treat it as a learning experience, set it aside (at the bottom of a landfill) and move on. Maybe the next game will be more exciting and entertaining. Too many things to do, and some things needs to have a closure.</p>
Running Bomb votes are in! (and a snippet from Scions)2008-06-26T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/06/26/running-bomb-votes-are-in/<p>Well, voting closed on the TIG contest. Hopefully, the masses of my readership downloaded the game, played it, and decided it was the best game of the entire contest.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>*cough*</p>
<p>But, surprisingly, it actually got three votes. And none of them were mine, since I won't vote on my own stuff. So, that means 3 major features update rounds and polishing before I sit back from it and see if it should be continued. After the writing, of course. <em>Flight of the Scions</em> must be written. I need to get the damn story out of my head and see if these new ideas take off.</p>
<p><!--more-->Having a doubt, of course. The story is obviously about three characters: Kadansú (Kadan), Dyfan, and Sonjar (Sonja). From the old version, that would be Welf, Dyfan, and Sonja. Welf had a major rename to separate it from Maef (known as Ryo in this one) and to make it conform to the language he was named in (hoping to get a few racial issues popping up here). It also makes his mother a lot more logical since she had an insta-change emotion in the book that I hated.</p>
<p>I managed to avoid using ' in my words, but one of the languages ended up with accented characters (mù, mú, and mû). Got the idea from the Chinese language and it fit with the desert tribes. A bitch to write, but I think it will still work out. The grammar, a bit harder, but its slowly coming forward and I'm building up a dictionary as I go, even though I don't expect to have much of the language in the book itself.</p>
<p>After thinking about it, I'm going to have a bit of flavor text, but then translate as fast as reasonable.</p>
<blockquote><p>Miô smiled grimly as she walked across the tavern floor. Her hands caressed the bone dagger strapped to her wrist as she stared at the back of the desert traveler, wondering if he was a friend or foe. Her lips cracked open and she swallowed before speaking the wary greetings of two strangers on the sands, "<em>GanÃsu gi</em>."</p>
<p>She watched as the muscles of his back and neck tensed up and she quickly drew out the dagger, holding it firmly as her heart began to pound. One foot slid back for balance as she regarded him. Behind her, she heard Vortam's voice trail off as he watched with idle curiosity. As she held her dagger in a fighting position, she heard his sword being drawn and could almost feel the pressure of the room building with every heartbeat.</p>
<p>The stranger slowly turned around. His dark skin looked like a brand in the tavern, if it wasn't for Miô's own color. His eyes widened with fear and he held out his hands, palms facing her.</p>
<p>"I mean no harm, I swear," he switched to Miô's native language as he continued, "Please, sand sister, I am from the ..."</p></blockquote>
World Building!2008-06-09T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/06/09/world-building/<p>This weekend was somewhat productive, baring 92% of Saturday where I did nothing but chat for 12 hours. Just relaxed, though a lot of work since it was world creation of a different sort. I haven't done it for a while, but I managed to get one entire page of ideas out in the entire day.</p>
<p>I made up for it on Sunday by cleaning the apartment, making proper meals, watching a movie, wiring up some speakers, finishing my homework (though with complaints), doing an update to Running Bomb (got a <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1988.0">good review</a> of it this morning), installed a new Wiki software, and basically started writing out Wikipedia-inspired articles for my <a href="http://fedran.moonfire.us/">fantasy world</a>.</p>
<p><!--more-->There isn't that much there right now, mainly because I have all these ideas in my head or things I wrote for <em>Muddy Reflections</em> and <em>Wind, Bear, and Moon</em>. I'm rapidly heading toward renaming that to <em>Flight of the Scions</em> which is also helping me framework this new introduction very nicely. And is helping me work on making the characters more interesting. The conflict, it feeds my soul...</p>
<p>*cough* Well, I started working on a small part of the world, the Isle of Vo which is where Dyfan is from. It is easy because it is a relatively isolated place that uses its own view of magic, language, and history. It is also a parasitic island which makes it easier for me to wrap my mind around it and get used to writing up the articles. Though, it did change Dyfan around more than I originally planned.</p>
<p>You know how characters have a tendency to be similar? For example, I am a highly tolerant person with relatively view biases. So, my characters share the same. When writing up Vo, I realized that Dyfan could be so much more unique and still fit with the story. The language I wrote up, <a href="http://fedran.moonfire.us/volis">Volis</a> gave me that idea. Instead of him being "Dyfan Selcribe", it fit better with "dyfan et gison" <em>and</em> built up his entire backstory at the same time. Even started learning <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet">IPA</a> while working on Volis, mainly so I had something that could be pronounced and has a proper grammar. And a writing system.</p>
<p>Because I'm enjoying creating it.</p>
<p>I also started writing up the <a href="http://fedran.moonfire.us/crystal-compass">Crystal Compass</a> which is the modern view of magic in that world. I developed it pretty heavily in <em>Muddy Reflections</em> and it ties into the sacrifice for power that is so integral to my stories. Just a first draft out there, but it also isn't the "one true rules" of the world. I know how magic works internally, but I'm planning on never writing it up exactly. Just people's imperfect understanding of the laws of magic. Ditto for science.</p>
<p>Last night, while watching a proper movie instead of writing, I also started on the map of Fedora again. I have like six of them, but I packed away most of them for this move, so just decided to redo it. This time, the ideas of plate tectonics and super continents managed to slither into my brain (damn you, Wikipedia!) so I'm building them up to hopefully look a bit more realistic. And, I always had the idea of Fedora being a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangaea">Pangaea</a> type of place, so I'm hoping it will improve things.</p>
<p>And, since I'm that far back, I decided to create a map of the continent, then do a rough 10,000 year history. Nothing major, just taking the map, then showing the various countries and nations as they move and conquer and disappear in 1,000 year increments (probably down to 100 year in the last millennium and 10 year increments for the last century). That way, I could start mapping out the influences of the various nations and also where there would be ruins (cities are frequently built on older cities). It would also give me a neat way of having languages change over time, which would let me start with a base language (like Latin), then split it apart over the centuries into different ones (French, Spanish). Hopefully, that will give me similar languages but different enough that it feels more like a living world.</p>
<p>Its a fair amount of work, but it feels right. I like having foundations for my writing and I want a world that doesn't feel like I just threw together a bunch of names for areas, then just created worlds. Well, I did that, but it feels hollow to me. I'm not planning on putting said languages into FS (or WBM) but the fact they are there helps name the countries and characters and puts a bit of history into it. Well, maybe a bit of Volis, because its pretty and it would be a homage to Tolkien putting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengwar">Tengwar</a> into his books.</p>
<p>Now, you'll probably notice that I actually put up my <a href="http://fedran.moonfire.us/">world</a> up on a public website. Yeah, I did that on purpose. It is <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Creative Commons by-nc-sa</a> licensed and, frankly, I think public development is in many ways just as enjoyable as the world itself. Plus, judging from years of past experience, maybe 1 in a 1,000 people will read it and, if I'm lucky, I'll get three comments on it. So, it will stay public and hopefully someone will enjoy reading about what happens behind the scenes of my (unpublished) novels and ("published") stories.</p>
Decisions and Breathing2008-06-05T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/06/05/decisions-and-breathing/<p>Feel a lot better today, just had a chance to de-stress and play a <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=9.0">bunch of free procedural games</a>. That and things got a little bit better in the last 24 hours that I don't feel like I'm in a garlic press all the time. Mmm, garlic.</p>
<p>So, while playing other games, I decided that I'll add one major feature to <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1891.0">Running Bomb</a> for every vote it gets in the final competition. No votes, it gets trunked. More than no votes, then I'll work on it and keep on polishing it.</p>
<p>Other than that, I'm doing a bit of world-building...</p>
<p><!--more-->I'm looking forward to writing next week, but I really do need this break to decompress. Though, I seem to switch gears to thinking about writing programs to help me make maps of my fantasy world, because that would make things "easier". At least get the relationships between the various parts of the novel more in focus (a steam-powered train leaves one town at X km/hour, how long would it take for the plot to get started?).</p>
<p>Another thing I keep coming up with is languages. I love Tolkien's thing with creating languages. I do that, at least to some degree, with all of my fantasy worlds. However, there is a problem of readers. Even Tolkien has most of the text in English. :) Because you shouldn't force a reader to learn a fantasy language to read the book; though writing a bilingual book would just be artistically awesome.</p>
<blockquote><p>As she rubbed the splatter of fruit juice from her cheek, Talisa said, "De caf doi esso evolik."</p></blockquote>
<p>Instead, you get flavor words, little things throw in the text to give it a fantasy feel but still using English.</p>
<blockquote><p>As she rubbed the splatter of fruit juice from her cheek, Talisa said, "I think you are a bloody <em>evolik</em>."</p></blockquote>
<p>And then you get the "everyone speaks English" approach to fantasy:</p>
<blockquote><p>As she rubbed the splatter of fruit juice from her cheek, Talisa said, "I think you are a bloody idiot."</p></blockquote>
<p>If I could, I would have picked the first one every time. Why? Because I love languages, but they are hard to integrate when you are writing for an audience. I mean, if I wrote a book that used English, German, Lojban, and Klingon based on the characters, I'd have maybe 4 readers.</p>
<p>Still be cool though.</p>
<p>I'm happier with my decision to spread out the characters in the beginning of the book. It seems like a better approach and I might make things less stressed in the beginning. The key part, is of course, making a really kick-ass first chapter that makes people want to read the book. I'm not sure why I can write some stories that have that and some that don't. It is very... inconsistent on what I write. I know that I can do it, I've done it, but I can't put a finger on exactly what makes DL (the novel with fan art) so popular and <em>Wind, Bear, and Moon</em> so not.</p>
<p>I was also thinking about the naming of <em>Wind, Bear, and Moon</em>. Mainly to see if a different title fits better (and doesn't have the comma problem).</p>
<ul>
<li>A Father's Pride: Obviously dealing with the major plot line.</li>
<li>Wrenches in Gears: A lot of the story is about plans interacting with each other... poorly.</li>
<li>Awakening of the Moon: More of a focus on Welf.</li>
<li>Three Scions: This is more of a reference to the other books that I could follow as sequels. Also "Three Cions" for a slightly archaic spelling.</li>
<li>
</li>
<li>Flight of the Scions</li>
<li>Awakening the Scions: More of a reference that this is an introduction and the beginning of the powers thing.</li>
<li>Tricions: Okay, that is just combing words, but sounds cool.</li>
</ul>
<p>Hrm, not sure if any of those sound right. Actually, I like a couple (Tricions in the next minute), but its one of those things that I think needs to change.</p>
Bad Day2008-06-04T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/06/04/bad-day/<p>I am remarkably stressed. Financial reasons, of course, it feels like as soon as I get ahead, I get slammed back. The economic stimulus check is currently AWOL, the IRS doesn't know where it is much less anyone else (despite the fact they already pulled the money for what I owed months ago). My former employer is currently heading for her "death bed" which is another word for "I'll be sick so I can avoid people who want money" time. According to her, I'll "maybe" get money in mid-July. Its a juggling thing, which I hate. I know it will pass, but it is really hard to keep faith when you are in the middle of this.</p>
<p>I also ended up working on Running Bomb for "just one more day." It bothered me that I screwed up so much that I spent the night tracking down the problems on Windows and submitted it. A day late, of course, which means it won't be a viable entry into <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?board=9.0">PGC</a>, but it was important to me that I didn't submit something that was entirely crap.</p>
<ul>
<li>http://mfgames.com/games/running-bomb/running-bomb-0.1.zip</li>
</ul>
<p>Other than that, my heart is still beating and I'm still breathing.</p>
<p>Think I'll write.</p>
Running Bomb Epilogue2008-06-03T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/06/03/running-bomb-epilogue/<p>There is a part of me that always expects things to be easy. I never really struggled with writing at the beginning and I quickly got good at it. I have the stories and compliments, so I feel it is just a matter of time before I get published. I think I'm missing stuff, of course, but it is more of a matter of refining my craft more than just trying to get something down on paper. Programming? I learned C when I was six. And I was good for a six year old. Actually, I was good for a 15, 20, and 25 year old, which is probably why I had a major problem with ego as a programmer. If I could imagine it, I could write it. Pure and simple.</p>
<p>But, game writing? I'm not so good. I don't seem to have a large well of talent to draw from. A hunk of me wanted my first game entry to be amazing, like in the top 10% of the entered games and one that people would seriously consider talking about a year later.</p>
<p><!--more-->No... no, that didn't happen. Even working up to the last minute, I had way too many bugs. It ran in Linux but not in Windows, which was one of the requirements. It wasn't really... fun. In the end, there was simply too many things that made the "amazing game of the year" fade back until I was focusing more on "an entry." And that's what it became. I entered the contest. It was the first time I entered a game writing contest, finished something I started but I hate the game. It wasn't what I started to write and looking at it, I wonder what the hell I was doing for three weeks of late hours, obsessing, 40 pages of notes, and everything else. I wonder how I could produce crap after all that time.</p>
<p>Looking back already, I can see it is the same as my first published novel. My goal was to be published. And I was. The publishing company was a small one, but it was a publishing company. They went out of business, which happens, but I succeeded. I just didn't realize that I needed to be more specific, which is why my next goal is be "well published" or "published by a good company." When I did <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo</a>, my goal was to write a 50k word novel in 30 days. I succeeded, though it wasn't a good novel. Three months later, I wrote a 180k word novel in 61 days, got fan art from it and still have people asking for copies. Two different goals, very difference responses.</p>
<p>I learned a lot about writing games from this project. It isn't a complete waste of time, but I'm not proud of it. I am proud that I managed to wrap my head around the <a href="http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~toby/alan/software/">GPC</a> library, including its port. I understand <a href="http://code.google.com/p/physics2d/">Physics2D.NET</a> a lot better. I'm beginning to understand translating into OpenGL space for coding. I managed to get a lot of code done "under the hood" as it were that will make the next one even easier. I even learned about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet">IPA</a> for speech creation which might be a viable thing since I don't want to look for voice actors who want to work for free.</p>
<p>When it comes to foundations of thoughts and ideas and tricks, I learned a lot by this contest. When it comes to the entry itself, it sucks. Its a <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/fangs_fur_fey/381124.html">trunk game</a>, a game you throw into the bottom of your closet.</p>
<p>Part of it is expectations verses skill. In writing, I know that if I can think about it, I can write it. If I can wrap my head around an idea, there is no doubt that my fingers will type it. In programming, I usually can do this. Right now, my head and my fingers don't quite agree with computer games. If I keep doing it, eventually they'll agree as my skills move up and my brain moves down until they mesh together. Then, I'll be "good". The question is, do I keep trying until I get good?</p>
<p>Well, I don't give up and I've been wanting to write good computer games since I was 6. I don't have a talent for it, but it is one of those things I want to do. So I will, or at least keep trying. Might be a long path, with that "child" thing coming up way too fast, but... I don't want to give up.</p>
Unplanned Time2008-05-30T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/30/unplanned-time/<p>Last night, I had the high expectations of finishing up the last big part of my game, Running Bomb. Got home a bit late because I gave a coworker a ride home and because I talk too much at work. Then, I had to make dinner *sigh* (I hate this dependency on protein some days). And then...</p>
<p>A friend's website went down. Now, I don't get paid to maintain the website, but I do it because I feel its right. So, I ended up spending about three hours trying to get the network to run smoothly with only 40 people hitting it at a time. Failed. Failed miserably actually, which annoyed me more than anything else since I should have been able to fix it.</p>
<p>So, that put me in a sour mood for the rest of the night and I got about, ten minutes of coding in. Plan? What's that? I'll throw it on the laptop before I go home for <a href="http://darkfluffy.livejournal.com/">Fluffy's</a> black belt test, but I doubt I'll get to it. Unless I'm really lucky on Sunday and Monday nights, I'm pretty much done. :(</p>
<p>In other news, I got paid today. Two in a row on time. Its still an amazing feeling and really helps with the stress levels. With Fluffy getting laid off, we are still juggling, but someone gave me an advance on five short story commissions, so that will really help later next week. The other cool part is I get to see what yen looks like, and then what a currency exchange looks like. :)</p>
<p>I know it works out in the end. Faith tells me that, but it doesn't mean its painless to get there. Next week, I'm planning on doing nothing productive except enter DVD's into the computer. Then, I start a round of editing with Wind, Bear, and Moon. And maybe to give it a new title? Something better sounding that <em>Wind, Bear, and Moon</em>.</p>
Up late on Running Bomb2008-05-29T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/29/up-late/<p>Something happened last night. When <a href="http://darkfluffy.livejournal.com/">Fluffy</a> called to wish me a night, it was 22:15. I said I would go to bed "soon". Somewhere around 23:41, I realized that I just lost an hour of my life and I really, really should be in bed. Needless to say, I was obsessing about my computer game. :) And I did a half hour of cleaning yesterday <em>before</em> I programmed.</p>
<p><!--more-->Last night, I got the start of the voice overs working in code. It generates them using <a href="http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html">mbrola</a> or <a href="http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/">festival</a> voices and play the role of the ship's computer, traffic and police controls, and general announcements. I'm hoping to have a hundred little phrases between the four, including a couple that are "voice over plots" as the computers talk to each other as the countdown continues.</p>
<p>In the <a href="http://mfgames.com/svn/runningbomb/trunk/assets/story.txt">back story</a>, you were "volunteered" to take the bomb out because you were the only one who was left on the dock as they tried to find someone. Mainly because you still haven't figured out how to turn on your brand new ship. This leads, of course, to some of the voice overs since in the middle of you running out of time, the computer asks if you want to register your ship. And, if I get the module code in this weekend, if you lose one of your modules, it will helpfully say "Door is ajar" when what it meant was "you just lost your right engine."</p>
<p>Well, that's the goal of course.</p>
<p>I also added a stress rating which is just a little measure of how panicked you "should" be at some point. Basically just a [0...1] number with 1 being "boned." I'm using that for the background color, as you get higher stress, the background turns red. Little touch, but it helps with the progression.</p>
<p>And finally, procedural background noise. It was an idea I wanted to always try and so I finally got it working. Basically, I grabbed <a href="http://freepats.opensrc.org/musix/samples/drums/">a bunch of short samples</a> (a GPL'd drum kit from Hydrogen) and threw them in a directory. Then, every time I reset the background music, I grab eight random samples and give them a random beat rhythm (bit flags, different for each sample). At the beginning, it only uses the first 4 bits in a slow sound but as the stress goes up, it speeds it up and uses more beats until you get a rapid background noise.</p>
<p>For a first attempt, it sounds pretty cool. Almost jazzy but not quite. Sometimes, kind of jarring, but I thought that would work out. And, every few seconds, it flips one of the bits for the rhythm, so it slowly changes as you go through the game. Then, as the countdown stops... silence. :)</p>
burn out day2008-05-28T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/28/burn-out-day/<p><b>burn out day</b> <em>n</em>: The day after obsessively programming a computer game for three days. Symptoms include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Spending nearly two hours just playing a mindless hack-and-slash flash game.</li>
<li>Start up chat, then decide you didn't really want to talk to anyone.</li>
<li>Talking to your dad for two hours about 3D modeling and finding out you have yet another thing in common with the man. And you might be able to help.</li>
<li>Enjoying said conversation with your dad.</li>
<li>Feeling frustrated that you can't work on your game though you only have six days left.</li>
<li>Preparing to go to your <a href="http://darkfluffy.livejournal.com/">wife's</a> black belt test, which means you actually only have three days left on the game.</li>
<li>Being depressed that everyone is a better programmer than you.</li>
<li>... and can do more in four weeks than you.</li>
<li>Feeling a bit better realizing that this is the first contest that you actually are entering.</li>
<li>... and only the third game you've ever created.</li>
<li>Still manage to go to bed two hours late.</li>
</ul>
<p>I'm going to say, I didn't "do" anything last night. :)</p>
Running Bomb Progress2008-05-27T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/27/running-bomb-progress/<p>You know, I really should stop doing these major coding weekends since it they slightly burn me out and in the end, I realize I'm not as good as I hoped. :) Well, it did help me not think about my financial situation, but I pretty much spent from Friday evening to Monday afternoon programming way too many hours.</p>
<p>I got a minimum "game" done Monday, with a main menu, help, credits, back story (about lettuce), the game itself, and the game over. You have a score and it play. So, I have a game. However, it is isn't polished, but I realize that I simply don't have the experience or tools to make a really polished game in three weeks. Its one of those skills that takes time and effort to do and I haven't done it yet. So, my game is rather spartan in appearance. It also, in the words of <a href="http://lostgarden.com/">Danc from Lost Garden</a> might say, "where is the fun." I mean, its fun to see how well you can get a ship through the procedural maze, but its still missing things.</p>
<p><!--more-->I'm going to spend the rest of the week working on the polish of the game, to make it a bit more fun and work on one feature I think will help the game. And maybe sounds. Actually, ship construction and sounds are pretty much my two plans for the end of the week, though I'm taking Friday/Saturday to Sunday off for <a href="http://darkfluffy.livejournal.com">Fluffy's blackbelt</a>, assuming I can scrape up enough money to afford driving back to Illinois.</p>
<p>I also have screenshots.</p>
<p><a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss1.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss1-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: Main Menu" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-641" /></a></p>
<p>This is the main menu, pretty isn't it? I'll direct your attention to the font. While it isn't the most impressive thing, I did create it this weekend. Yep, starting my first font ever. TrueType and all. I have every letter you can type on a US 104 keyboard, curly quotes, and the Euro symbol on it. Sadly, Fluffy beat me to making a font and she does a better one; imagine that, a professional graphic designer being good at graphics. :P</p>
<p><a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss2.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss2-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: Back Story" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-642" /></a></p>
<p>I made a scrolling text mode to display the back story, credits, and help for now. I got the idea from <a href="http://www.asceai.net/meritous/">Meritous</a> on how to do it easily. Later, I'd love to make the back story a small video using the graphics from <a href="http://mfgames.com/comics/glorious-saber/">Glorious Saber</a> but I simply didn't have the time.</p>
<p><a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss3.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss3-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: Initial Screen" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-643" /></a></p>
<p>The first thing you see when you start playing the game. The little square is your "ship" right now. I want to make it a bit more procedural. Actually, I want you to be able to pick up ship parts through the game.</p>
<p><a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss4.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss4-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: End of Junction" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-644" /></a> <a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss5.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss5-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: New Junction" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-645" /></a></p>
<p>The basic stage has a junction with 1-n junctions hanging off of it. As you fly toward one of them, the game automatically creates more stages and swaps out the junction (rather smoothly actually) so you can keep on flying. That way, you only see a small section of the entire map, but you can pretty much fly forever. And, if you are feeling silly, you can pretty much go back at any point and see the same junction, even 3, 10, 100 stages before.</p>
<p><a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss6.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss6-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: Another Junction" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-646" /></a> <a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss7.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss7-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: More Junction Building" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-647" /></a></p>
<p>More junction loading. I'm doing some neat trick with background threads to do this so the game doesn't really pause as it is working. Instead, it preloads the area as you get close to the swapping point. I was pretty happy with the results, once I tweaked the physics setting so it takes less than a few seconds, in case you are going over 300 m/s.</p>
<p><a href="http://brokentypewriterpress.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/running-bomb-ss8.png"><img src="/assets/running-bomb-ss8-150x150.png" alt="Running Bomb: The End" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-648" /></a></p>
<p>And finally, games must start and games must end. The basic "score" of the game is the number of people you save. Not how many you kill, what things you blow up, just how many people you save. I'm pretty happy with the basis of the game, it seems... right.</p>
<p>So, I hope you like these. It's pretty much three weeks of my life right there. This week, I hope to have a download so people can try to play it (though I know you won't :P).</p>
New foundation and some tunnels!2008-05-23T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/23/foundation-and-tunnels/<p>Yesterday, I got my replacement <a href="http://www.selectcomfort.com/">SleepNumber</a> foundation. Yeah, I just got the bed, but the frame it sits on died already. The bed itself, oh, that's so lovely and even on the floor it is one of the most comfortable beds I ever had. Actually, it was just the foundation (basically the box spring without the spring) just got bent and I blame the legs. I'm giving up on the legs from SelectComfort. For our king, it was redundant and the installers promised they would be in a return request for us. They never did and we didn't really push it until the day we just tossed them. For the queen, this bed, the legs are on the edges but weight caused the middle to buckle where there were no legs. Armchair engineer says that you really should put at least two feet in the middle to prevent that, but what do I know?</p>
<p>So, this time, I took the legs off and left them off. The bed is about 12 cm too close to the ground, but far more comfortable than being just on the ground. And, since it is supported in the middle, it won't break on me.</p>
<p>I'd still recommend these beds to people, just don't bother with the legs for the queen (the king is two pieces so it is supported in the middle). So... comfortable...</p>
<p>In other news, I'm getting the bug to write and edit again, which is appropriate since I have but <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1646.0">a week to finish this game contest</a>. Focus issues abound in the mid-project depression. Last night, I got the start of the actual game started *gasp* with a bright red square flying around the screen, bouncing into another red square. Yes... exciting isn't it? Well, tonight, if I don't do board game night with some friends, I'll have it bouncing around the tunnels I just spent a week working on. Once I get it so you can go from junction to junction and the timer, I'll have the minimum "game" entry. Probably by Monday night.</p>
<p>Then, it will be a matter of making it more fun and maybe setting it up so you can actually make all million meters to "win" the game. Million meters starting in five minutes. :) And there is nothing in the game that adds to the time, but I'm planning on there being things that slow the time down, even if for just 30 seconds of real-time. Kind of like bullet-time in a space flight game.</p>
Addiction v. Sleep2008-05-21T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/21/addiction-v-sleep/<p>I hate being addicted to creating things. Last night, I was up way too late working on <em>Running Bomb</em>. Late enough that I promised that I would do a writing project next. Also late enough that by the time I went to bed, I was just drifting off to sleep... when I figured out how to solve my reverse tunnel problem (the game lets you go backwards despite it being a very bad thing). And then, an hour of trying to strap myself to the bed to prevent myself from hopping right up and fixing that problem right then and there.</p>
<p>I hate being addicted.</p>
<p>I do the same when I write. I know I'm getting obsessed when I start with wish that I didn't have to sleep anymore and dread going to bed because of the hours wasted with mere sleep! I know that sleep is "important" but there are times when I really rather program or write. I also noticed that I'm creeping up to getting less and less sleep again, I need to make a point of going to bed early tonight so hopefully I'll stay off the computer.</p>
I can has tunnels?2008-05-20T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/20/i-can-has-tunnels/<p>I have tunnels. Took me most of the night and about 1.2 hours past my normal time to sleep, but I have relatively good-looking tunnels for my game. All nicely and procedurally generated using a good-quality random number generator. At this rate, I should have the first part (create the empty layout) done by Wednesday night. I still have to make it generate past the first one (relatively easy) and allow moving backwards (despite being not the point of the game, I'll still need it). And remove the overlap and I will be done with that part. :) I might even ignore the "no computer one day a week" for this, in my obsession, but I haven't decided that. If I behave, then it will be Thursday night.</p>
<p>Writing computer games is fun. There are so many little details, little systems that have to be solved to make it work. Its like writing a novel, but... different. Though, I get the same rush when I finish a difficult bit of code as I do finishing a chapter.</p>
<p><!--more-->Part two of <em>Running Bomb</em> will consist of making the tunnel do something. In this case, sending a bright red ball bouncing down through it at high speed (steerable by arrow keys). That will test both the physics system and the basic controls for the game.</p>
<p>I also decided to have a badge system. Basically rewards for doing some accomplishment. And, since I pretend to be a scientific-person, most of them are based on science and SI elements. Since the game is based on there being one trillion and one people in the asteroid, the first badge is going to be σ (sigma). If you save 68.2689%, you get the σ badge. If you manage to save 95.4500%, you get the 2σ badge. All the way up to 6σ for saving 100.0000% of the population, including yourself. Obviously, only four decimal places with standard rounding. I got all of those from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation">Wikipedia</a>.</p>
<p>Related to that will be the top-speed one. Mainly because it is possible to save yourself in the game (you have to travel 2 Mm in five minutes*), I'm going to have a speed score. So, the first one will be dam/s or going faster than 10 m/s. And all of the numerical prefixes after that: hm/s, km/s, and Mm/s. I'm not going to go faster than Mm/s because I don't think the game should let you do that and Gm/s is faster than the speed of light.</p>
<p>Other than that, I think I have only two others right now. Pacifist which you have at the start, but lose as soon as you fire your gun. And a negative badge, Killer, which you get if you kill someone in the game (which also lowers your chance at the σ rewards).</p>
<p>I want to write games that allow you to finish without resorting to violence. This is just one of the little ways I'm planning on doing that. Badges add to your score, I haven't figured out the exact formula, but probably: <code>(log(people saved) * 10000 * (1 + sum(all badge weights) / 10))</code>.</p>
<p><em>* I'm planning on having things that will slow down the clock, so you'll get more than five minutes depending on luck.</em></p>
CuteGod and Running Bomb2008-05-19T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/19/cutegod-and-running-bomb/<p>So, I was feeling a bit weird and did an ego search on "CuteGod". Why? Just because, and I found that <a href="http://sweemengs-tech-world.blogspot.com/2007/12/cutegod-fun-but-laggy-game.html">someone actually reviewed the game</a>! Very cool. I love reviews, even if they are negative. Yeah, it wasn't that positive of a review, but at least I have some areas to focus on. Actually, the stuff I'm doing for Running Bomb are also for CuteGod. As soon as <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1646.0">that contest</a> is over, I was planning on returning back to CuteGod to polish it up. That and redo the graphic tiles since I'm still not happy with them.</p>
<p>I also <a href="http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/mfgames.com/downloads/11881456/">found out</a> that CuteGod has a very low nuisance score and no viruses. I knew that, but it is neat that McAffe scans the web for installers. And that I pass.</p>
<p>As for Running Bomb, that is the WIP title for my procedural game. Struggling a bit with the tunneling interface. The basic setting for the game is that you are in a hollowed-out asteroid with lots of tunnels leading out from the center. Your home, Bubble City at the moment, is in the center, 1 Mm away from the surface of the asteroid. Which is fine, except that as you were docking on a slow day, they found a bomb in the city. And, since you were the only person in dock, you got "volunteered" to take the bomb as far away as possible. With full freedom to break any and all speed limits, blow up things, as long as you save people. Of course, you'll die in the process, but this is a game about how many people you can save.</p>
<p>It seemed like a pretty simple idea, given that I only have two weeks left to write it. The game is going to be procedural, which means that it will change every time you play it. In this case, the tunnel system is different every time, along with the random stuff inside it. If I have time, you'll also be able to customize your ship during play, giving yourself higher speed or turning rate (it's physics-based), shields, or weapons.</p>
<p>The idea sounds like fun, the question is can I actually do it? :)</p>
Lovely Distractions2008-05-13T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/05/13/lovely-distractions/<p><a href="http://darkfluffy.livejournal.com/">Fluffy</a> is in the area, helping with the dire problems of her aunt. And, to kill some time, she started the house hunt here in Iowa. We've found some nice ones in our range ($150k - $250k) including a geodesic dome home, which naturally we had to make an appointment to look because dome houses are just cool. Fluffy is going to look at a dozen or so houses, then reduce it to her five best choices. That way, she can do it during the day, where she is bored, and I'm limited in how much driving I have to do.</p>
<p>Of course, that makes it difficult to get back to the Chicago area to see Eddie Izzard. We think we have a plan, an overnight trip back home, then back here so she can help her cousins and I can do that not-job thing for a few more days.</p>
<p>Overall, things are stressful but moving forward enough I don't feel it is helpless. Plus, I found a new game contest, the <a href="http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=1646.0">Procedural Generation Competition</a>. It's only four weeks so I'm seriously considering trying it, or at least seeing how far I can get before I burn out or screw up.</p>
<p>As a minor note, I know I'm in not that great of shape, but walking up 12 flights of stairs got me rather winded. On the other hand, I actually <em>walked</em> up 12 flights of stairs in less than 10 minutes. That part is pretty good.</p>
Scroll of the Lands2008-04-25T05:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/04/25/scroll-of-the-lands/<p>Last night, I started working on Scroll of the Lands again. Not quite ready to work on a short story or anything, mainly because I want to focus until I finish the book I'm working on getting republished. Kind of strange, coming back to something, it is hard to remember the rules and situations you set up, but also easy to see where something that made sense four months ago now doesn't.</p>
<p>I think I want to finish this, and relatively soon. Getting it "mostly done" which is as far as any fan supplement can go, is probably doable and would get it off my plate. Plus, work starts on Monday and I'm looking forward to that.</p>
<p>Also still trying to figure out what to do with <em>Wind, Bear, and Moon</em>. On one hand, rewriting parts of it would make it a better story, on the other, it is rewriting it for the fourth time. I've picked up more of a feel for steampunk as my thoughts on it get more refined and comfortable; I still like it, but I'll probably never write "proper" steampunk since I'm not entirely that fond of the Victorian age. On the other hand, I like messy engines, massive mechanicals made of brass and powered by steam engines, and the slightly absurd way of seeing things. So, I'm at least interested in some of the key parts of steampunk.</p>
Gary Gygax :(2008-03-04T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/03/04/gary-gygax/<p>You know, I'm a gamer. My first memory of gaming was my mother playing with her friends in the basement. I wasn't old enough to game at the time, but I was old enough to page through the Monster Manual and look through the pictures. Later, the AD&D books were one of the first ones I've read while killing time, just browsing through the books and looking at the black and white pictures and reading all the stats. My first character was when I was seven, Jok the Mage, who proved why you should never, ever, ever give a seven year old player an unlimited charged wand of wonder.</p>
<p>But, I found out today that Gary Gygax died. He was one of those people that I always wanted to meet, mainly because he helped create probably the most influential game system I've ever played. AD&D was part of why I became a writer, and a gamer. I gamed because it was something that brought me closer to my mother, and for my brother for a short period of time, and it was a game I spent the hours enjoying.</p>
<p>So, hats off and Blessed Be, Gary.</p>
DL and Keyboards2008-02-29T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/02/29/dl-and-keyboards/<p>I think I realized the balance in my life. It really isn't a writer, as much as I want it to be, and it isn't a programmer. Right now, it's both. And while that makes it harder to excel at both. Mainly because I, through this blog for example, doesn't show someone obsessed with the writing craft. Likewise, this blog doesn't show a pure programmer. But, you know what? I'm both and there really isn't much I can do about that. I love to write, it makes me whole. I love to put words on paper, to see the word counts slowly rise up as I find myself creating these fascinating characters that make me <em>want</em> to write about them.</p>
<p><!--more-->So, I've been doing this short story, call it DL for the abbreviations since it is under the other byline. Obviously, I'm telling everyone where I'm posting it. It won't be a proper published novel, mainly because it is "published" on a free website. Though, I think with that byline, I may just self-publish these self-contained. Yeah, they'll only make $5-10 dollars in their life, but I'd be happy with that. :)</p>
<p>As for programming, I spent last night working on a generic input library. Now, for those who actually are curious, I'm writing a library that consistently lets you say "someone pressed down the 'A' key" and do stuff with it. Very, very basic stuff.</p>
<p>The main question comes down to, why? This is reinventing the wheel, flat out. There is no question that I am redoing what endless other libraries have done and yet I'm moving forward. It came down to one thing.</p>
<p>Simplicity.</p>
<p>I have my Sprite3 library. It has a GUI layer on it, so I need to know what characters are being pressed. I also help maintain, well am the only user, of <a href="http://boogame.sourceforge.net/index.php/Home">BooGame</a>. BooGame is an abstraction layer on top of <a href="http://taoframework.com/">Tao.Sdl and Tao.FreeGlut</a>. FreeGlut, SDL, and System.Windows.Forms <em>all</em> have their input methodologies, each of which is separate than the others. Each one deals with character input in a different way. When I first touched BooGame, it was just a FreeGlut backend, so it used FreeGlut characters. When I added the abstracted backend, so I could have SDL or FreeGlut, I had to write a generic keyboard input. Which then I wrapped around my own generic input methods.</p>
<p>Well, that's a lot of abstraction layers.</p>
<p>At some point this week, I realized as pretty much the sole user of BooGame, why don't I just write something that agrees with the entire library chain and reduces the complexity of the system? Plus, add the features I really want in a game, like chained keyboard commands.</p>
<p>Chained keystrokes are an expansion on the "control-s", I'll refer to it as "C-s" based on Emacs. Visual Studio 2005 uses this, as does Emacs, but you can have a series of commands to result in something. For example, "C-x C-c" (control-x, control-c) to save a file. Yeah, it's a bit strange, but it lets you have more complicated commands. Not that I plan on writing a game that requires "C-x C-s S-x" because I hate people, but it will let me do things like have commands that require you to press two keys ("C-s" or "z-x" or even "RMB-LMB" for both buttons).</p>
<p>It's a small library, but it will really make my life easier as I focus on <a href="http://mfgames.com/games/cutegod/">CuteGod</a>. And, at the moment, that is what I need.</p>
Writing and Code2008-02-25T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/02/25/writing-and-code/<p>Ah, the two pleasures of life for me: writing and programming. I've been writing a short series lately. Just 2-3k words per day, but I'm enjoying it. Not entirely polished and pretty though. I'm trying to work on my writing craft, trying to make my words a bit more interesting to read about. I'm posting it on a random forum where it is on-topic, Like usual, I don't get a lot of comments on it. So, my goal is to write so people want to comment on it. That and I have this idea that I'm not a good writer. Mainly because people don't really get excited about most of my work. There are the few pieces that will get 20-30 comments, but most of them average about 0.1 comment, which is not a good trend. And I want to succeed as a writer, it is something I love to do.</p>
<p>On the other side, I'm working on <a href="http://mfgames.com/games/cutegod">CuteGod</a> still. Mostly with getting things organized and maybe documenting my sprite library. I rushed CuteGod out the first time and it shows. I need to polish up some of the core libraries, like the GUI processing. I also pulled PlanetCute library out from the Sprite3 library and put it into CuteGod. No reason to make that generic when I'm moving away from it.</p>
<p>Yep, I decided that PlanetCute is nice, but there should be a different style, one that is easier to select things. So I think I'm going to create an isometric version of the game and let you pick between the PlanetCute and isometric depending on your preferences. Bit more work, but I think it will create a more entertaining game.</p>
<p>I also realized that the music I picked up from the always excellent <a href="http://www.toucanmusic.co.uk/">Toucan Music</a>, while free isn't the right "free" for <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses">Debian</a>. So, I need to find different music and sound effects for the game. If I can't find a musican who wants to work for the right type of free, I'm going to have to make music that is the right type of free. Free is such a complicated word, you know. There is <a href="http://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> by-sa license (byline and share-alike), which is the most common CC license you can find for music, but only CC sa/3.0 is apparently considered "free" in Debian's eyes. On Toucan, all the files are licenses CC by-sa/2.5. So, free isn't free enough for Debian.</p>
<p>Why Debian? Because I use it and I want to see my game packaged and shared to others. And, if Debian accept it, chances are, the threshold for being put into other distributions is also lowered.</p>
Lack of gaming... *sniff*2008-02-24T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/02/24/lack-of-gaming-sniff/<p>Most of yesterday and this morning was dedicate to getting my game ready for Changeling. I thought I'd be all proactive and create the character sheets, figure out the points, and even have everything there. I knew that <a href="http://darkfluffy.livejournal.com/">Fluffy</a> and <a href="http://mirysien.livejournal.com/">Evyl</a> weren't going to make it, but I still had two of the four gamers.</p>
<p>So, after listening to <a href="http://scienceprincess.livejournal.com/">Science Princess</a> for a minute, I suggested that we cancel. She sounds horrible with that head cold. So, we just have Ranger Tom who I can't get ahold of, but the game I was looking forward to all week isn't going to happen.</p>
<p>Oh well, time to work on <a href="http://mfgames.com/games/cutegod">CuteGod</a>.</p>
Too awesome for words2008-02-20T06:00:00Zhttps://d.moonfire.us/blog/2008/02/20/too-awesome-for-words/<p>I was browsing the White Wolf forums when I found this <a href="http://forum.white-wolf.com/viewtopic.php?t=70849&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0">thread</a> about Exalted. In specific, how powerful Solars are and when one player complained that their Storyteller (ST) didn't want high level charms because they were too powerful. Well, I commented on that, but given the response, it's pretty obvious that I'm probably playing the wrong game system.</p>
<p><!--more-->I play Exalted because it has some cool concepts, the polarization of Exalted types is nice, and it has a over-the-top feeling that works well with having a good game. However, I don't know the escalation of players where each new charms or spell is just more powerful than every other one. Mainly because I have a harder time coming up with a really <em>epic</em> opponent for my gaming group after a certain power level.</p>
<p>But, I think Exalted, more so with Solars, comes down to one thing:</p>
<blockquote><p>Exalted is about being awesome, then going somewhere else to be even more awesome.</p></blockquote>
<p>That thread really points it out. Most of the time, it is people claiming that it is the right to have army-slaying powers in the sake of balance with other army-slaying powers in the game. Everything needs to be more and more powerful until you can basically rule the world.</p>
<p>Which is fine and all, but what challenge do you have when you can kill gods? Primordials? The game already has rules for doing that now, and these new charms (from the First Age) are going to be even more powerful to make it more efficient to kill gods and Primordials.</p>
<p>It comes down to challenge. When I run a game, I want to make sure that every adventure is a challenge, something you feel good about succeeding at the end of the night. I don't want to run a game about letting the players just win, then set up another situation they can just win the next session. But, that seems to be overall belief that Exalted is, from multiple different communities. It's the movie 300, in a way. You know the beefy guys in red are going to win, its just a matter of how impressively they do it.</p>
<p>I think Exalted is getting a bit too awesome for me.</p>