In the last two years, I got into a habit of buying games at AnimeBoston. However, unlike the first one I got, Whack a Catgirl, or the second, Collateral Damage, I couldn't find one this year that showcased personalities. Clearly, this is a deficiency that I must remedy personally! (With help.)
Any suggestions?
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Idea: Dream Sequences that actually accomplish something
So, the dream sequence has a bad rep for its role in erasing plot or showering the player/viewer with BS. (... Must... purge... mental... image...). However, I just thought of a way that dream sequences could do something useful in the course of a game: go along with the possibly-true idea that dreams are how we sort out lots of information from the day before, and make connections. The point of this isn't to be psychologically trendy or anything; what I had in mind was, in games centered around confusing reasoning, making the really hard problems tangible. That way, players can feel involved in the problem-solving without having to wrestle with a parser. So, for example, suppose, I don't know...
While investigating an ancient civilization, the main character found an inscription that doesn't translate meaningfully. Suppose further that not much is known about this civilization, because I came up with a puzzle that only makes sense if there isn't a ton of prior knowledge. So, if the main character dreams, the player can be given, in some kind of tangible form, the knowledge that they do have: the sky was believed to be a dome, and the characters they used were made in a very formal, almost mechanistic fashion that makes it difficult to tell whether a given character is, in fact, upside-down. It might be weird of me to consider it obvious just from that, but that should be all that's needed. For realism and length, there would presumably be some red herrings.
Sadly, I'm not sure how this would be shown (point-and-click adventure game?), but the basic idea seems sound and interesting enough that I figured I'd throw it out there.
While investigating an ancient civilization, the main character found an inscription that doesn't translate meaningfully. Suppose further that not much is known about this civilization, because I came up with a puzzle that only makes sense if there isn't a ton of prior knowledge. So, if the main character dreams, the player can be given, in some kind of tangible form, the knowledge that they do have: the sky was believed to be a dome, and the characters they used were made in a very formal, almost mechanistic fashion that makes it difficult to tell whether a given character is, in fact, upside-down. It might be weird of me to consider it obvious just from that, but that should be all that's needed. For realism and length, there would presumably be some red herrings.
Sadly, I'm not sure how this would be shown (point-and-click adventure game?), but the basic idea seems sound and interesting enough that I figured I'd throw it out there.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Another vaguely-related post...
This is a heart-felt request to all aspiring comedians, but also any indie developers who are also aspiring comedians:
If you ever have the urge to describe yourself as the next Monty Python, SLAM YOUR HEAD IN A DOOR UNTIL YOU COMPLETELY FORGET THEIR EXISTENCE.
You'll just be setting everybody up for disappointment, and joining the ranks of the developers of Limbo of the Lost and Stalin vs Martians. Monty Python was good, make no mistake, but their humor is mostly funny for reasons completely opposite the original now. I somewhat suspect that they were in the right place at the right time, and no amount of talent or writing or posturing will get you there. You can be funny in your own right, but it's a bad idea to aspire to directly recreate their success.
If you ever have the urge to describe yourself as the next Monty Python, SLAM YOUR HEAD IN A DOOR UNTIL YOU COMPLETELY FORGET THEIR EXISTENCE.
You'll just be setting everybody up for disappointment, and joining the ranks of the developers of Limbo of the Lost and Stalin vs Martians. Monty Python was good, make no mistake, but their humor is mostly funny for reasons completely opposite the original now. I somewhat suspect that they were in the right place at the right time, and no amount of talent or writing or posturing will get you there. You can be funny in your own right, but it's a bad idea to aspire to directly recreate their success.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
HOLY CARP KOI AND SALMON
Scary...
Anyway, the lesson to take away from that is, people will do demented things to any game that we happen to make. We're not too much closer, tbh, so far as I know, because I haven't seen anything from the others, and I've been doing exam-related stuff, like slacking off.
Anyway, the lesson to take away from that is, people will do demented things to any game that we happen to make. We're not too much closer, tbh, so far as I know, because I haven't seen anything from the others, and I've been doing exam-related stuff, like slacking off.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Random thoughts on the model for Twisted Frontier
Segments need to be able to tell whether their 'next' angle is concave or convex, in order to handle triangle division. I figure the triangles would be done via 'phantom segments', the need for which scales linearly with the number of edges, which is something, at least.
To determine whether a techpoint has been reached, iterate over all unreached techpoints, to find the closest segment. From there, it's relatively simple to work out whether the techpoint is inside or outside the boundary. The calculations are much the same as the angle calculations alluded to above. The easiest way to conceptualize checking points is to iterate around each boundary and take the lowest distance. I'm worried because all of these calculations basically scale linearly with the number of segments involved, which scales however it damn well pleases, which isn't reassuring. Anyway, there are some assumptions we can make: the 'blob', in general, is a single boundary, which may contain inverted boundaries within itself. These boundaries will never contain any more boundaries, so the only issue surrounding them is their creation.
Actually, that serves the same function as any hypothetical triangle code, so I may just use that idea instead, since I sort of understand it better.
However, all of this vector algebra stuff is kind of geometry-agnostic. I wonder if there are any efficiencies that can be derived from a more geometrical basis of calculation.
To determine whether a techpoint has been reached, iterate over all unreached techpoints, to find the closest segment. From there, it's relatively simple to work out whether the techpoint is inside or outside the boundary. The calculations are much the same as the angle calculations alluded to above. The easiest way to conceptualize checking points is to iterate around each boundary and take the lowest distance. I'm worried because all of these calculations basically scale linearly with the number of segments involved, which scales however it damn well pleases, which isn't reassuring. Anyway, there are some assumptions we can make: the 'blob', in general, is a single boundary, which may contain inverted boundaries within itself. These boundaries will never contain any more boundaries, so the only issue surrounding them is their creation.
Actually, that serves the same function as any hypothetical triangle code, so I may just use that idea instead, since I sort of understand it better.
However, all of this vector algebra stuff is kind of geometry-agnostic. I wonder if there are any efficiencies that can be derived from a more geometrical basis of calculation.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Hm, actually
I've got some plans for stuff to do with Untitled Platformer, but the stuff I'm planning to use is apparently crazy-advanced, so it might take me the better part of a year to master. Here's hoping my high score on the ability-to-get-a-high-score-on-this-test-test counts for something.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Announcement: Upcoming Break
Not that it's going to be at all obvious, but I'm taking a break soon. I have exams coming up. Coding tends to keep me awake for unhealthy amounts of time, and I really want to transfer into my major and keep up my stupidly large scholarship.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A change in plans
I've decided that the Tech Landscape project needs a game to live in. Its working title, in the venerable tradition, recently established, of making a game name by colliding an adjective and a noun at high speeds, will be Twisted Frontier.
At the moment, this means very little in terms of development. The most significant aspect of this idea is that, once I get the project into a respectable form, the landscape code will live under a "twistedfrontier" directory. I mean, until we think of a name that isn't just silly.
At the moment, this means very little in terms of development. The most significant aspect of this idea is that, once I get the project into a respectable form, the landscape code will live under a "twistedfrontier" directory. I mean, until we think of a name that isn't just silly.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Dammit
I made some significant mistakes in the latest version. I'm going to fix them now, before code gets written around them.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Work on Tech Landscape
So, head over to the Launchpad link in the sidebar, or just grab the latest revision yourself. I did some, but not all of the work, necessary to drive expansion using lines.
In short, what needs to happen now is, there needs to be code to use the Newton's method solver to find solutions, and then divide the segments into intervals. Over each interval, use the other Newton's method solver to find extrema. On each extremum, (which IS a word, thank you very much, Firefox), calculate the force, and project that coordinate out by the outward force on it. (Nothing is done when the force is negative.) Corners should be projected outward by the vector sum of the two forces on them. The most efficient way to do this would be to find a stationary corner, and then go around from it, stopping at stationary corners to write everything that came before to memory. Then, there's the issue of determining whether any vertices (that's also a word...) lie inside the shape at their new positions.
I think the trick to that is to divide the interior into triangles, and test that no points lie within those triangles.
This will all take a lot of power.
In short, what needs to happen now is, there needs to be code to use the Newton's method solver to find solutions, and then divide the segments into intervals. Over each interval, use the other Newton's method solver to find extrema. On each extremum, (which IS a word, thank you very much, Firefox), calculate the force, and project that coordinate out by the outward force on it. (Nothing is done when the force is negative.) Corners should be projected outward by the vector sum of the two forces on them. The most efficient way to do this would be to find a stationary corner, and then go around from it, stopping at stationary corners to write everything that came before to memory. Then, there's the issue of determining whether any vertices (that's also a word...) lie inside the shape at their new positions.
I think the trick to that is to divide the interior into triangles, and test that no points lie within those triangles.
This will all take a lot of power.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
