clyde

I keep thinking that Spelunky would make an excellent cabinet-game.

I have a great idea! Fortune-cookies that have common misconceptions inside. One could be "Fortune-cookies were not invented in China."

Solid.

I'm becoming fond of the // command. http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/17/5519536/finding-treasures-in-the-code-why-the-source-code-of-classic-games

Progress-report for week #6 What were my goals? Which of my goals did I accomplish? -Veronica has a standing animation and I attached her body, so that's good. It's pretty no-nonsense (but that's weird because I've had multiple moments where I say "This is so fucking stupid" in an entertained way while testing it). Completed! -I did use the mecanim to tie the standing/hand-standing animation. The rocking legs are controlled with adding torque to the rigidbody. Completed! -I thought a lot about how to add something to my routine that would result in small but completed games. I have a few ideas, but the best one is that I'm just going to keep a library of scripts that work and art assets. Every once in a while, I plan to pull from them to make a game. I also have started to list things that I am sure I am reliably capable of. I'm not feeling the need to complete a game as strongly as I was last week, but I want to be prepared with a psuedo-plan if it strikes me again. The most useful portion of this thought-exercise was realizing that there should be a distinction between games I can make with what I know how to do reliably, and games that push me to learn more. I do want to make both, but I think that putting the two activities into separate categories may help my process. At the moment, I just want to learn more. Completed! What happened? I was mostly interested in getting that Track&Field style of controller input working. I have a game idea for it and I just thought it was interesting. When I didn't feel like doing that I tried out Blender. It's about as deep as Unity. I watched a few tutorials and figured out some stuff. I know enough to make some interesting 3d models that I can use as pre-fabs to play around with in Unity, but I haven't even figured out how to paint textures within Blender yet. I don't plan on touching animations for a while. I tried to do an animation where the scale of an object changes over time but I failed to have any success. Somewhere around Friday, I worked on the additional art asset for Veronica. It was much faster than last time, that's nice. Then over the weekend, I assembled Veronica and wrote the script that allows the dancing characters to change over time. That was much more difficult than I thought it would be. Then I found out about public static variables and it got much easier. I'd like to look into the similarities and differences between public static variables, GetComponent and SetBool. I've used them all once or twice, but I don't understand what is gong on as much as I would like. I'd really like to find a book that focuses on using stuff like dictionaries, singletons, GetComponent, enumerators, public static variables and arrays in C# for Unity. I was able to make a lot of progress when I was able to study at my job. I've looked on Amazon, but some are in javascript, others are either covering stuff I know or covering specialized stuff like AI, and the rest won't be available until August. Anyway, I did make a new build with Veronica in it: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92741283/Dance%20game/DanceGameMarchBuild/DanceGameBuild.html What is my long-term goal? -Make the dance-game. What are my goals for week #7? -I really want to get my GUI script to a complete state. Now that I know about public static variables, I think I'll be able to at least finish up when I'm trying to do. I am organizing it so that all the lines and options are editable in the inspector. Each page is a separate gameObject. I was having a hard time creating the script that would pass values to a controller-gameObject that would act as a record of all the decisions. I think I can do that now. I'd also like to polish up that texture because it looks awful. -I feel tired right now, so I'm having a hard time coming up with more goals at the moment. I have plenty of stuff that I'm enjoying working on, maybe I'll just mention them: I want to make some art-assets for the Track&Field style game. That game also requires me to get some audio-samples into Unity and do some pitch shifts that are tied to Input.GetAxis I still want to work on the 3d Hanenbow game. I haven't touched it. -Oh, I have a good goal. I want to organize that library of scripts and art-assets I mentioned wanting earlier. That's a good goal for the week. What challenges might I face and how can I prepared for them? -Completing the GUI script is totally doable if I just finish what I intend for it now. The risk is that I will try to make it more scalable. I need to remember that this is my first GUI script, not my last. I'll write other later. I just want to have one now that I can use for small games. I'm a wordy guy, I need something that can deliver branching-dialogue now. -As far as organizing the library. I guess the challenge is similar. I need to just organize it and not obsess over how to optimize it for future-proofing.

Wait, they are background-checking you for three months? Are you going to be a spy? Edit: Never mind, I re-read.

I use a controller. I installed mumble and stuff. I'm testing it out, but I imagine that planned events are the only way this will work. https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/8836-idle-thumbs-net-chat-servers/

I can see how designing a game with a loop as it's core could lead to a result that is more repeatitive; it's like writing a pop-song based on a hook. Suggesting that such a focus is necessary could certainly be detrimental. Still, I can see why game-critics would be obsessed with the role of iterating familiarity in games. Most songs have hooks, and I think that much of the subversion that makes high-art, is dependent on the expectation of familiarity from the audience. I could see the core-loop of Mario as jumping on a microcosmic scale, but I would think that explaining how jumping is Mario's dominate way of interacting with his world would be more useful. To me, the core-loop of Mario is getting past the obstacles to reach the flag. That establishment of motive through repeatition and rewards of removing player-control is worth mentioning. I don't think that the purpose of game-criticism is to prescribe methods of doing things like adding core-loops to your game; I think it's to start discussion about what games try to do and how they succeed at what they achieve, and why they fail at what they don't. No one's opinion is a waste of time, but when an author is willing to be honest about their opinion rather than hiding their own dissent it's appreciated.

I'm going with gothic calligraphied "Subbes" around the left side of her neck.

But wait! We haven't made our guesses!!

http://www.czkproject.com/lift/ via Venus Patrol. http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=36851.0

But what do you do when the fire is propagating in a forest of dialogue-trees? There's only one way to find out.

Is this just today or has it been going on for a while?

So will it be a visual-novel? I think that background looks awesome. As far as using the style for a whole game, I could see that color palette being satisfactory for outside areas. Maybe include colorful but sparse flora and fauna in some scenes. Then if you have any indoor scenes, you could have colorful decorations layered on top of the buildings structure that would have the color palette that you demonstrated here. That's my immediate thought. I get a dirt-desert vibe. I don't know if that is what you are going for, but I like it. What are you making this in?

This was actually very helpful. Once I took your advice, I was inspired to erase a few related lines and some of my problems disappeared. This allowed me to tweak the foundation and get the results I was going for! You rock. Here is the resulting code. I think I explain what is going on in the comments pretty well. Anyone who wants to use this code for a Track & Field style of horizontal moment is welcome to use it. I'd prefer if you leave the comments in (maybe add a few of your own), but I ain't gonna be mad if you don't. using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; public class PulseRun : MonoBehaviour { //How frequently valid input can be made public float timer = 1f; //Just a speed modifier for tweaking public float speedMultiplier=1; //How much speed can potentially be added to the current speed if input happens close to when the timer goes off public float potentialAcceleration=0.1f; //It's supposed to be a friction when valid input is not made. Lower values are a more sudden stop. public float gradualBrake = 25f; //speed float speed; //Which button can be pushed for valid input. It alternates between left and right. It is initialize as neither "left" or "right" so that either can be pressed first. //I said "either", but really it's neither because in the Update function, the script is checking to make sure that the current input is not the same as the previous input string validButton="either"; //A temporary variable of increasing value that is reset to zero after valid input. danimo on the Idle Thumbs forums recommended this change. Before I was making it way too complex. float timePassed = 0f; // Use this for initialization void Start () { } // Update is called once per frame void Update () { //Getting the current speed during each update for reference. speed = rigidbody.velocity.x; //Increase the value of timePassed as time passes. timePassed += Time.deltaTime; //If an amount of time equal to the timer has passed since the last input, and the alternate horizontal key is being pressed... if (timePassed >= timer) { if (((Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal") > 0) && validButton != "left") || ((Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal") < 0) && validButton != "right")) { //increase the horizontal velocity by the potentialAcceleration value divided by how much time has passed beyond the timer. I also allow the speed to be multiplied here. rigidbody.velocity = new Vector3 (speed + (potentialAcceleration /(timePassed-timer)) * speedMultiplier, 0f, 0f); //reset the time passed timePassed = 0f; //print the speed value in the console Debug.Log (speed); //If they used right, then make "left" the next valid input. if (Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal") > 0) { validButton = "left"; } //If they used left, then make "right" the next valid input. if (Input.GetAxis ("Horizontal") < 0) { validButton = "right"; } } //If the time passed isn't more than the timer or they aren't pressing a valid button, slow that shit down. else { if (speed > 0) { rigidbody.velocity = new Vector3(speed-(speed/gradualBrake), 0f, 0f); } //clyde is pretty much a technomage. } } } }

Seems like some third-party voip thing might be worthwhile; maybe steam-chat?

This is pretty much what it feels like when I'm running with my spectre-posse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=baJpkNC_ilY

I use the smart-pistol then pick up a rifle off of the first grunt I kill. As I run, I take out pilots with the rifle and pull out the smart-pistol for pockets of minions.

If I hack a spectre and then the other team kills my new robot buddy, I wonder if they get attrition points.

I find myself playing the campaign over and over. I think that it might be because it allows me to have more familiarity when just beginning. The only maps I know well are the two that were in the beta; playing the final half of the campaign over and over gives me a familiarity with four or five new maps in the context of their assigned game-mode. This is a game about mastery for me, so being able to experience some amount of familiarity at the beginning allows me to start enjoying higher-level tactics and strategies quickly. And as stupid as the story is, the short cut-scenes that start the matches do add a little bit of sense-of-place. Imagine how much better the campaign-multiplayer would have been if the story had just a little bit of game-system backing it. How hard would it be to give a team a 10 second head-start if they managed to evacuate the majority of their team in the last mission. Or maybe because they won the hardpoint mission previously, they get more spectres in the next. Maybe this stuff is going on, but if so it should be more explicit. My favorite mission is the last one because it explicitly states that if you capture a point, your team gets more spectres. Plus

After months of failure, I'll reveal my personal goal. I've been trying to get a snowball to hell for a while. The problem is that snowballs are relatively rare and when I use the ankh, I can't take an item through the door. If anyone else can do it, I pass the torch onto you. I'm hoping a message pops up that says "What are the chances?" or something like that.

Spend a few games of attrition running around behind the enemy lines with a smart pistol and minion detector, taking out minions.

Paolo Pedercini explores how the inherent ideologies of capitalism and computation are expressing themselves in our expectations of what computer games should or should not be. http://www.molleindustria.org/blog/video games-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism/ Depending on Pedercini's claims, I'd love to make a simulation-heavy game where the objective is to use a small quanity of seed-money to improve the most people's lives, the most significantly. A good name would be "Bang for the Buck! a charity simulator" I wonder if the tendencies that Pedercini identifies are actually more attributable to increased centralized power. If so, I could see why single-player games would tend towards the objectives and reduction that Pedercini describes. Single-player games which give the player increased levels of control would express the centralization of power in any environment or circumstance that they use as theme because the alternative of expressing decentralized power would end up reducing player-influence; right?

Oh gawd. Does this mean that I won't be able to paint directly on the 3d model? If I had money to burn I could paint directly on the model, couldn't I?

I think one of many reasons to speak implicitly is that subtlety is more difficult to argue with or accuse. I suspect that this may encourage the disempowered to use it more.