Platypotamus

Race for the Galaxy is one of my favorite board games (really a card game) lately, and I've been playing it fairly frequently.  A couple months back, I was linked to this digital version, complete with an absolutely brutal AI, and I lost many hours of productivity.  However, I got quite a bit better at Race for the Galaxy when playing against my friends and family, so I consider myself to have broken even overall.  Oh yeah, this digital version is free!

Race for the Galaxy's epic sci-fi storyline is all in the cards | Fidgit.

Meanwhile, as Earth's Lost Colony on the bottom of the screen, I began with a source of Novelty Goods. I also have plenty of Rare Elements on my recently settled Imperium Armaments World and Mining World, with Mining Robots ready to replenish my resources. Fat lot of good it's doing me! I have no way to process all these raw materials. While the other two players advance their economies, I've been squandering all my turns exploring for some sort infrastructure world to settle. As soon as I find it, I've got a Colony Ship ready to go.

Since I was just a noob learning the ropes in my previous Minecraft related entry, it didn't adequately show off impressive scope of constructions that players can build.  If you're interested in seeing a more impressive view of what can be built in game, a new blog offers to show off just that.  I may have to submit my current project once I finish it up...

Minecraft Creations | Share it, before Creepers blow it up.

Bad Pitch/Good Pitch is a recurring feature in which I take some sort of creative work, and pretend that I am pitching it to the executives.  One pitch is terrible, and would never get the project greenlit, and the other is presumably better.  In theory, both are factual portrayals of the content of the project.

Bad Pitch

The main character is a rich orphan living in his inherited mansion.  He drives around in an expensive car with little regard to traffic laws or public safety.  He's the creepy brooding type that doesn't really make close friends, and spends his spare time figuring out the best way to take them out, should he ever have to.

Good pitch

The main character's parents were killed before his eyes when he was just a kid, and he swore to do everything within his power to clean up the criminal element of his city.  Fortunately, he inherited massive riches, and after dedicating his youth to training and developing crime fighting technology, he now patrols the city from a gray area outside the law, specializing in those criminals that are similarly beyond the law's reach.

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The Adventures of a Noob is a recurring column in which I dive into a (potentially) complex game without reading the manual, FAQ, any help files, or playing a tutorial. I then catalog my first impressions and thought process as I attempt to figure out the game. This may end up being amusing, or it may end up being informative. Hopefully a little of both.

Note that in these types of articles, information in regular font represents my thought process/knowledge at time of first playing. Addendums in italics represent information I learned after the fact, inserted into the article to clarify which of my original thoughts were accurate and which were leading me astray.

Minecraft seems to be taking the Internet by storm lately, and after hearing about the basic premise, I felt as I had no choice but to invest my 10 Euros (approximately $13, and paypal seemed to do all the currency conversion for me).  If you haven't heard of the game yet, here's the summary of what I knew before I jumped in:

• The game is made up of cubes (kind of voxels, really).  All cubes are destructible/harvestable/buildable (ok, not quite all of them, but for the most part this statement was accurate).
• There's monsters and stuff
• There's crafting
• The "team" is one dude, who quit his job to make this indie game full time.  The dude in question is Markus Persson, who lives in Sweden, though other folks have contributed to the project and are credited at the game's official site.
  

First thing I did in the game was go to configure options, which is generally my first action in any PC game--usually to set video options appropriately.  This let me "cheat" a little bit in terms of my noob challenge, in that I saw the control configuration, at least for the keyboard.

Next I selected a save file (world) to play in, and the game generated a brand spanking new world for me.  This game features randomly generated infinite worlds.  Cool!  Here's what I was greeted with as soon as I spawned in game:

Alright, I see water in front of me, I appear to be on sand, and there's some trees on a hill in the distance.  Looking around I don't see any monsters coming for me, so that's a bit of a relief (Monsters only spawn in the dark or at night).  Let's press that I key to see what I've got in my inventory:

Nothing.  Hardcore.  I expected to spawn with a little something-something.  My eyes are drawn pretty instantly to the crafting area, which I look forward to messing with soon.  First, I'll have to acquire ingredients, so time to wander around.  As I do so, I notice that a little border surrounds a cube when I focus my crosshair on it.  Clicking plays an animation, accompanied by a particle effect, but seems to accomplish nothing.  Hmmm.

As I wander, I encounter some sheep.  I don't know if I need to eat food in the game, but maybe I do (I don't, but food heals you if you get hurt), so I resolve to kill the sheep.  I walk up to it and click and...

Cool, it got sheared rather than butchered!  That comes as a surprise to me and provides me with my first item (a cube of wool, seen down at the bottom).  I try to craft a shirt out of the wool, but crafting requires multiple ingredients apparently.  I press the number 1 and discover that it's the control to switch to the first item on the bottom (this wasn't in the options screen).  I can't figure out the control to switch back to my arm though, none of the other number keys do it.    After what was, in retrospect, an embarrassingly long period of fumbling around, I discover that the mousewheel cycles through those boxes.

While wandering about, I pick a flower.  I try crafting together the wool and the flower (don't ask me what I was trying to make), but clicking the arrow does nothing.  I guess that's not a valid combo.

I found a pig, and tried to beat it into bacon.  My punches seem to hurt it, but after several it's still alive, and I decide to let it go.  Maybe I can't kill without a weapon?

Then I found a cow and killed him (it took a lot of punches), but he didn't drop anything.  Weak (sometimes they drop leather).

I found a cool looking block and wanted to interact with it, but it hurt me.  I think it's a cactus (yep).

Decided that if cows take a lot of hits, trees must be worse, so I whacked at it for some time.  Nothing seems to happen.  So I decide to try some digging.  Still nothing... until I hold the left mouse button down.  Eureka!  Back to the tree...  Success! " Hold the mouse button down" is a major scientific advancement for my people.  Also, this is kind of cool:

I later find out that eventually, the floating tree leftovers do indeed end up on the ground.  It just takes awhile.  Apparently though, floating Pandora-style islands are possible in the game, as well as gravity defying structures, at least, at the moment.  The developer seems to push updates out very frequently (At least one update has been released between the events covered in this post and the date of posting).

I decide that it's time to try some crafting again since I have a bunch of materials...  and I hit another major scientific breakthrough:  the result of crafting shows up automatically if you have a valid combo in the crafting area.  Apparently, wood becomes lumber (the community seems to call "lumber" "planks").

Ok, so I've got lumber, I can use this to build myself a house.  Somehow.  After some experimentation, I find out how:  right clicking.  That is the "build" command("use" command, really) and places the lumber as a part of the environment.  At this point, I start building the simplest of houses, quite frankly, even simpler than the block structures I build with my four year old nephew.  I know the game has monsters, and having shelter will be a good thing eventually.  I don't know if I need a bed to sleep and heal from the cactus (nope) or save the game (also nope, players can save any time with esc).  So my goal at this point is really just a hollow cube for me to live in temporarily while I start grabbing some more materials to build a grander structure.

It gets pretty dark at night.  I bet I could craft some sort of fire source, but I don't figure out how to do so (torches are craftable but I didn't have coal, a necessary component.  I could also make fire with flint and steel, but I had neither).  Back to building my house, I climb up top to put on my roof and I see some spiders in the distance.  Not good.  Why does it always have to be snakes spiders?  They weren't there previously.  I guess the game is Simon's Quest style, in that night is dangerous, and daytime is generally less so (yep, though underground can be deadly during the day as well).

I run out of wood to build my house, but with the spiders out there, I'm not sure I should go grab more at the moment.  I think about going to another spot of trees, but I see something else that looks unfriendly (undead?).  Maybe I'll just hang out on the roof until day time?

That's ultimately what I decide to do, really hoping I don't have to clear these guys out come morning.  I don't want to sound cowardly, but I barely killed a cow, and the cow wasn't fighting back.  I don't have any weapons or armor, so I'm pretty sure fighting something would go poorly for me.  Incidentally, my fear of the enemies was warranted, as they are pretty deadly.  Particularly the green guys known as "creepers".  They are essentially suicide bombers, which is extra awesome in this game, because they leave craters in the environment.  Fortunately, my previous hypothesis was correct, and sunlight catches the guys on fire (though I later discover that the creepers and spiders don't burn up in the day time, so if any are nearby when the sunrises, they may still prove trouble):

I do a little bit more exploring and chopping and mining.  I find some sort of dark gray stone, so far not craftable with anything I've got (it was, actually, but the crafting interface isn't just a bag, the position you place the ingredients matters).  There is another dark gray stone that just takes ages to mine and gives me nothing.  I try to avoid that (it actually is an awesome source of stone, but yields nothing if punched, only dropping resources if harvested with a pick axe).

After gathering some more wood, I end up with a respectable shack:

At this point I decide that I need to actually consult some of the documentation, as I must be missing something.  I have a bunch of ingredients, butI can't figure out how to craft anything but the planks still.  I've surmised from the inventory screen that I should be able to craft items and armor, but haven't managed it yet.  I also know I must be missing something with the mining thing.   I have reached the limit of what exploring the game on my own is going to do for me (at least within a reasonable period of time -- the described took probably an hour of play time?).  So I look stuff up.  Discoveries of great import follow:

• Right click to split stacks of goods.  This turns out to be fairly vital, because some of the crafting recipes require the same good in multiple slots.
• Positions of ingredients on the crafting interface matters.
• Many items can't be crafted unless you do so at a crafting table (which can be built out of four planks arranged as a square)
• Some items require a furnace to melt them down (cool!)
• Torches are about the single most important item ever, and require a stick (craftable from two vertically lined up planks) and coal to make.
• Close second might be the various harvesting implements (pick axe, axe, shovel).

For as complex as a game as Minecraft is, I was pleasantly surprised at the initial successes I had in figuring it out.  In the long run though, the documentation is definitely a necessity (the menu offers a grayed out tutorial, but the game IS in alpha, so there you go).

Much has been said of the developer's perennial quest to create an immersive world--the cliched "living, breathing world".  Of course, one item on that agenda includes the NPCs that populate said world, and presumably are doing the living and breathing.  In this series, I take time out of playing a game to follow around a single NPC, observing the actions of that character for a single in-game day.  The character is chosen randomly from those that populate the environment but do not directly tie into the quest or narrative experience.   The idea is to see how well crafted the illusion is.  Does it hold up under scrutiny?

I direct John Marston into Armadillo in the dead of night, hitching up his horse just outside the saloon.  As John approaches the saloon, a man in a bow tie, vest, and bowler cap ambles out of it.  I decide he will be the next target of my creepy stalking.

Bob the Bowtie Butcher

I want to make it clear, I have no idea what this character's name is.  He isn't one of the guys that regularly loses money at the poker table, nor is he a character that I've engaged in any of the other mini games.  However, I'm a sucker for alliteration, so he's now going to be known as Bob.

• 1:30 AM - Observation of the subject begins as Bob first steps out of the saloon.  He walks onto the main thoroughfare and sort of watches as two swaying drinkers talk to one another.  He doesn't engage them, but he does scratch himself.  After that, he heads onto the porch of the saloon, and leans against the railing.  He remains here for some time.
• 4 AM - Bob stops leaning on the rail, and says something about an Elly McGregor (?) to no one in particular.  I didn't catch exactly what he said.  After this outburst, he moves back into the Saloon, and leans against the wall looking out a window (at basically the same scenery he was looking at from the railing of the balcony).
• 5ish AM - Bob heads back outside, sits on the stool on the porch for a few minutes before returning to leaning on the railing.  The stool was directly between the window and the railing, or thereabouts.
• 630 AM - Bob leaves the area of the saloon, heading to the upstairs balcony above Armadillo's gunsmith.  He repeatedly plays an animation that I can't quite identify from my position on the ground. He could have been coughing, shouting, spitting, playing a harmonica, or shadow boxing.  After this, he wanders over to the door up there and knocks on it a few times.  He gets no response, so he casually leans against that railing, as a change of pace from leaning against the one on the saloon's porch.
• 7 AM - Bob asks the question that's been on everyone's mind, "When we gonna stop talking, and start drinking?"  He hasn't done much talking, and doesn't seem inclined to actually start drinking either.
• 7:15 AM - Bob crosses the street to the little "produce" stand next to the general store.  Apparently he works here.  He starts butchering chickens.  This is how he got his nick name above.   I was actually pretty surprised (pleasantly) to be given the impression that he might have some sort of schedule (reinforced over the course of the day), but his attire seems a bit odd for a butcher.  I'm not positive that this is really his job, and think that perhaps a random NPC in town takes it each day?  I'd have expected to see one of the apron wearing guys over here.

  

• 9:15 AM - Bob takes a break from butchering chickens to steal an Apple from work, which he eats on the spot.  He discards the remnants, which seem to actually be physically simulated and roll around the environment.
• 9:25 AM - Bob goes back to work.  I immediately get kind of grossed out thing about his lack of sanitary butchery practices.  No handwashing between raw chickens and eating the apple?  Yikes!  Also, that table doesn't look like it's been washed, ever.  Also, he seems to have a barrel of raw unbutchered chickens, a barrel of chicken feet/heads, and a barrel of raw butchered chickens.  One of the many moments that I'm glad video games don't have smellovision technology.
• Noonish maybe - He is still butchering, but I've decided to crunch some numbers.  I time a single chicken, and it takes approximately 5 in-game minutes.  So 24ish chickens before his apple break, and maybe 33 more or so since.  Those barrels are like Mary Poppins' bag.
• 5 PM - Approximately 60 chickens later (total, approximately 117), Bob takes another apple break.  He goes right back to work afterwards.  I briefly consider the possibility that NPCs in Red Dead Redemption have needs to satisfy, but ultimately don't think so.
• 6 PM - After essentially an 11 hour day of nonstop work (and approximately 127 butchered chickens), Bob heads over the saloon, to lean against the rail at his favorite spot.
• 7:30 PM - Bob heads inside to the saloon window, wanders around inside a bit after that, then returns to leaning.  Maybe 25 in-game minutes.
• Midnight - Bob exclaims (to me?) "You look like you got run over by a wagon!"  He heads back inside to look out the window at the spot he just left.
• 12:40 PM - Bob sits on a stool inside the saloon, against the wall opposite the bar, facing inward.  This lasts just a few minutes.
• 1 AM - Bob heads back outside to lean.  He remains there until the 24 hour observation period is over.

On the positive side of things from observing Bob, his working a job and his eating were both boons to realism.  When I had passed through Armadillo and other settlements previously and seen NPCs working, I had just assumed that they spawned into that position, and would remain there until I went far enough away that they despawned.  Seeing someone start and quit their job was nice.  Additionally, while Bob was a bit boring during his off period, I did see a number of other NPCs do relatively interesting things.  Some of the folks drinking at the bar got stumble-around-and-fall-down drunk (awesome animations on that, by the way).  Some other NPCs seemed to start and stop conversations with each other.  A deputy (non-story) taunted a drunk at one point in the night.

On the other hand, he never slept all day, and he worked like a robot.  And quite frankly, for a guy who spent nearly every non-working hour at the bar, he didn't really do much.  Perhaps he's haunted by his lost love, who he last saw from the porch of the saloon.  We'll go with that.

パーティクル崩し | wonderfl build flash online.

This is definitely one of those things that seems like such an obviously great idea after someone else comes up with it and implements it.  A neat little remix of Breakout, worthy of a few minutes of your time, if for no other reason than for the awesome light show that results when things go a little crazy.

(Via Boing Boing)

I've had a lot of requests from folks to share pictures and info about when I flew on the Eureka zeppelin back in April, and since I don't have my facebook profile anymore, there's been no where for them to see the goods.  So, here comes a big repost about my great adventure.  I'm hiding the post behind a link because it is going to feature a whole bunch of pictures, so you probably don't want to expand this post if you're browsing on your phone.

Read the rest of this entry »

I'm not sure that I need to bother saying anything about this, as it kind of stands on its own.  You impatient types will find the good stuff starting about 3 and a half minutes in, but I recommend watching the whole thing.

(via Tom Chick)

Another great article posted up on Gamasutra.  This one is written by Mike Stout, formerly of Insomniac.  It's really good look at how to fix mechanics in your game that seem to get old quickly, due to lacking depth.

Gamasutra - Features - Evaluating Game Mechanics For Depth.

At this time in my career, I didn't yet understand the important distinction between meaningful skills and too-basic skills. I didn't know how important clearly identifiable objectives were. And so, lacking experience, I decided to just start adding features until the mechanic was deep enough. If you're groaning at this, then I congratulate you. I'm groaning, myself, as I write this.

Besides moving blocks around, I decided it would be great if the player could grab and drag around a wacky robot (if you're reading this and thinking "oh, you improved the theatrics," you get a cookie). The player could then drop the robot on buttons to open doors. This didn't help as much as I wanted it to -- it just still seemed way to shallow.

So I forged ahead and kept adding features (groan).

Once you have done any sort of development work, it becomes difficult to play a game without entering developer mode here and there.  This happened to me while playing Red Dead Redemption as I noticed a couple of things about the camera, and I figured I might as well share my observations.  So I sat down and did some tests with it, and noted the results.

The camera is, of course, freely rotated with the right thumbstick.  If it is left "out of position"--that is, not directly behind John Marston--it will be pulled back into position as the player walks along, unless the player actively maintains the unorthodox position.

One of the biggest challenges when implementing a third person camera is what to do about intersecting objects--those that come between the player and the camera.  Rockstar San Diego opted for "snapping through" intersecting objects, rather than fading them into transparency.  This means that if there is an object between the camera and the character, the camera quickly snaps to a closer zoom level just on the other side of the intersecting object.  Moving either the character or the camera so that the object no longer interferes causes it to snap to the default position.  The sudden camera move can be slightly disorienting, but is not particularly glaring.  Some objects are considered to interfere, others are not:

• Environmental objects all are considered interfering (buildings, trees, random art props)
• Doors are considered interfering, but the camera can zoom back out once the door opens
• Windows are considered interfering, despite being transparent, even if they are broken out by the player's actions
• Horses and people (and presumably wild animals) do not interfere, and can pass between character and camera without moving it.
• Stagecoaches do interfere with the camera, but the horses pulling them do not

When the player enters targeting mode, the camera will never snap due to interfering objects, and any such objects simply block the player's view; they do not go transparent.

Speaking of targeting mode, when the player switches to this mode, the targeting reticule attempts to position itself in the center of the player's current camera facing, rather than having John Marston simply target in front of his own facing.  This means that if the camera is looking back at Marston's face, entering targeting mode causes him to turn around, while maintaining the camera's current position and orientation.  If the player's camera is oriented in a non-aimable direction (notably, directly down, at least when using a rifle) the camera angle is preserved, but no reticule is displayed, to indicate that the player cannot target this location.  Moving the camera to a targetable position brings the reticule up, and the camera can be moved back into the ineligible location after the fact.

The developer acknowledges the camera's existence in the world in a couple instances.  Certain activities can cause blood splatter to hit the camera.  These include getting wounded, skinning animals, and messing up in the Five Finger Fillet mini-game.  Additionally, water can splatter the camera.  Thus far, this has only occurred during rain storms.  Notably, water only gets on the lens of the camera when it is inclined upwards, a keen moment of attention to detail by one of the designers on the project.