Off-Topic

There's a freeware Civilization clone by the name of C-Evo that I've never been particularly interested in, but I recently chanced across their design philosophy. As a bullet point under how the game should focus itself on strategy, they note:

"The fun you'll have playing the game without reading the manual is comparable to the fun it is to move pieces on a chessboard without knowing the rules of chess."

I'm going to have to point out that, in my opinion, this is a pretty lousy paradigm. I learned how to play chess by actually playing the game with my father. "This is the goal of the game. These are how your pieces move. This is what you should be thinking about at this stage." I learned as I went. I didn't read any books on the subject until after I learned how to play, and I did so in order to understand and develop my knowledge of the game's strategy, not to learn how to move pieces around the board.

A game should already know how to "play itself" and should be designed to help the player along in getting their feet wet, if the player so desires. I like have a nice thick manual at hand as much as the next person, but I shouldn't have to read a textbook just to play a video game.

No, I'm not dead just pining for the fjords. I've busy as of late with "real life": helping family move, getting ready to move myself, all kinds of stuff like that. Don't know when Swordmaster Odyssey will return, but I am working on other stuff that will hopefully be ready to share in another month or two.

As for Sketchbook Monday, I'll try to get back on top of that next week.

My rich younger brother bought a new Intuos for reasons I do not comprehend and gave me his old one. This is nice and all, but having used my tiny 6x4 Graphire. Problem is, thanks to the size change, my work flow has been completely thrown off. It's hard to explain, but basically I can't judge the distance between objects on screen anymore. I'll be looking at something, but I can't tell how far or at what angle I need to move the pen in order to undertake what I'm trying to do.

Finally, I gave up for the time being and thought "Well, maybe I can plug my Graphire back in so I can finish off today's page?" I tried this, and all I managed to do was crash my computer. :/

Guess I'll just have to keep practicing with the Intuos so I can get the page up next week.

I'm so sorry! I keep promising things that I am unable to deliver on. I said I would have some Adventurer's Guide entries up by now, but so far I haven't even gotten around to drafting them. I'm such a horrible person!

For the past week or two I've been storming through the second draft of Under a Different Moon, that is, Iccari's story. You may remember Iccari from some of the many Sketchbook Monday entries in which he has appeared. It is rare for me to keep up such an extended session of creativity and, as I near the end of the second draft, I fear it will go out again before I finish. Please understand my predicament. I still plan on getting a page up this week, but if it doesn't happen, at least it won't be due to my own laziness for a change.

Thank you for your understanding (or your lack thereof as the case may be). I really am sorry.

In the meantime, how about taking a minute to vote in the annual character poll?

So I added a function in the code that allows the player to skip scenes by tapping the Y button on the controller. I boot up the game to test this and the intro scene for the first level begins to play. My immediant reaction is "Ah man, I've got to sit through this scene again so I can test the button that lets me skip this scene!"

Stupidity.

Just completed (for the most part) the scripting language for AetherFall. It's complete with variables and if-then-else blocks and such, which should prove useful for writing the game's events. I've never completed any sort of scripting engine before, so this has been a real eye-opener for me. I now both understand and appreciate programming languages a lot more because of it. XD

Surprisingly, it wasn't as hard as I was dreading it would be, either. Granted, I still have some things to test/debug/clean-up, but the hardest part was simply working out how everything should flow.

Just got back in town a little bit ago; had a great time. It was nice to be able to meet with relatives that I haven't seen in ages.

Anyway, it's back to work for me on Monday. Or Tuesday. It depends on how tired I am. I'll definantly get some work done on AetherFall then, but Swordmaster Odyssey will likely be up in the air for awhile (I need to order more paper, you see).