-+@ Advanced Security System @+-
It's a nice change to be able to report that PAD is moving slowly forwards. I just tidied up the interactions of Billy and Linda today, after it was orphaning Linda's counter when Billy came into play. That was awkward in play, but code was rather easy. The other new thing is that there's now an icon to show whose turn it is. Makes it easier to see I guess. Martin has his named version of whose turn it is, I have this icon thing, which I suppose I borrowed from one of our competitors. Well, they can't trademark that idea, so I see no harm in borrowing it. That will get upgraded tomorrow (hopefully) to show the Next and Pass buttons during the adventure phase. Hopefully I'll be able to be on schedule.
I thought about doing B5 today, but really didn't want to leave it hanging halfway... it's rather a waste of time when I leave stuff hanging because then it takes me twice as long to figure out where I was last before I can continue. B5 does need an update ASAP though. I'll see where I can fit it in.
Bowling might actually take a back seat. I've got ideas for two related games that I'd like to see being adapted. The first one would be a simple "no frills" version for public release this month, hopefully since no frill games are really, really simple to do. The second one would need a bit more graphic help, but it's gonna be card/tile based which would put me back into more familiar territory. Please do realise that Bowling, being a dice game, would be new territory for me and much as I would like to do it, I hesitate to even undertake the task until I have lots of time on my hands to experiment with things and to build up the game.
Someone asked to PL Duel of Ages on the forums. I wonder if they were actually serious about it. I didn't want to discourage anyone, but they must know it's a hard job adapting games. I've seen many people with good intentions fall along the wayside and since this is my blog, I get to go on a rant. Those non starters comes in a few varieties really. Lemme try to list them.
1. People without the aptitude for programming. Here we have people like Scorpion Phantom and SuperRyoga who think that just because Microsoft Windows is drag and drop, they can likewise do the same when they adapt a game to the engine. They probably don't even understand what a programming language is, let alone try to figure out cause and effects.
2. People with good intentions but without the skills. Ultradoug, Robotron and chocobo134 fall neatly into the category. They attempt a start then realise that things are way above their heads and they give up after about a day or two because they don't understand the cause and effects of programming.
3. People with the correct skills but without time. Not many people realise how many hours it takes to adapt a game... particularly when doing it for the first time. Some of these people are NinjaX, Jero, RedCatDragon, Masn, bobafett... and it seems that amarriner might be following in his footpath. In fact the majority of the non-performing PLs fall into this category.
4. People doing it for the wrong intentions. Why adapt a game? Well, let's see, you can get more free games, you can suck up to the people in charge, or you can spy on the project leads or just get a foothold so that you might do a hostile takeover at some point. Lots of "wrong" reasons for adapting a game in my book. I'm not going to mention names for this category just because those people should be ashamed of themselves.
Having said all that, there are a few bright spots.
Rainbow was in Category 2, but with lots - and I mean lots and lots and lots and lots - of encouragement, help and support, he was able to finish Sailor Moon. TimalakofBorg was another Category 2 PL who received lots of support and help with getting Star Wars (Decipher) adapted. The experience has only encouraged him to seek out vocational training in programming.
Of course, the most famous of your Category 2 people would be yours truly. I don't think many people realised that I gave up on B5 about a week into it... but you know how that story ended. I didn't work on it for a whole month, while I did other things - maintained MND, gave WS tours, etc. It was only with the help of Tomi who very patiently showed me how the different parts interacted together and the "friendly" (non-)competition with Daniel who was then adapting Precedence's other game, Wheel of Time which got B5 out the door as a public game over a year ago. And as they say, the rest is history.
And on the LotR front... I'm testing out a new deck with some really weird cards that nobody uses. However those cards have turned the game around for me today quite a number of times. It'd be interesting to see how things go. Quite a lot of people still feeling their way around the Shadows cards looking for comboes. I have, by contrast, done the opposite to find existing cards that would prevent, or in the very least, mess up, the new Shadows strategies. We shall have to see how my experiments there go.
Enough from this windbag already. Seacrest Out!
I thought about doing B5 today, but really didn't want to leave it hanging halfway... it's rather a waste of time when I leave stuff hanging because then it takes me twice as long to figure out where I was last before I can continue. B5 does need an update ASAP though. I'll see where I can fit it in.
Bowling might actually take a back seat. I've got ideas for two related games that I'd like to see being adapted. The first one would be a simple "no frills" version for public release this month, hopefully since no frill games are really, really simple to do. The second one would need a bit more graphic help, but it's gonna be card/tile based which would put me back into more familiar territory. Please do realise that Bowling, being a dice game, would be new territory for me and much as I would like to do it, I hesitate to even undertake the task until I have lots of time on my hands to experiment with things and to build up the game.
Someone asked to PL Duel of Ages on the forums. I wonder if they were actually serious about it. I didn't want to discourage anyone, but they must know it's a hard job adapting games. I've seen many people with good intentions fall along the wayside and since this is my blog, I get to go on a rant. Those non starters comes in a few varieties really. Lemme try to list them.
1. People without the aptitude for programming. Here we have people like Scorpion Phantom and SuperRyoga who think that just because Microsoft Windows is drag and drop, they can likewise do the same when they adapt a game to the engine. They probably don't even understand what a programming language is, let alone try to figure out cause and effects.
2. People with good intentions but without the skills. Ultradoug, Robotron and chocobo134 fall neatly into the category. They attempt a start then realise that things are way above their heads and they give up after about a day or two because they don't understand the cause and effects of programming.
3. People with the correct skills but without time. Not many people realise how many hours it takes to adapt a game... particularly when doing it for the first time. Some of these people are NinjaX, Jero, RedCatDragon, Masn, bobafett... and it seems that amarriner might be following in his footpath. In fact the majority of the non-performing PLs fall into this category.
4. People doing it for the wrong intentions. Why adapt a game? Well, let's see, you can get more free games, you can suck up to the people in charge, or you can spy on the project leads or just get a foothold so that you might do a hostile takeover at some point. Lots of "wrong" reasons for adapting a game in my book. I'm not going to mention names for this category just because those people should be ashamed of themselves.
Having said all that, there are a few bright spots.
Rainbow was in Category 2, but with lots - and I mean lots and lots and lots and lots - of encouragement, help and support, he was able to finish Sailor Moon. TimalakofBorg was another Category 2 PL who received lots of support and help with getting Star Wars (Decipher) adapted. The experience has only encouraged him to seek out vocational training in programming.
Of course, the most famous of your Category 2 people would be yours truly. I don't think many people realised that I gave up on B5 about a week into it... but you know how that story ended. I didn't work on it for a whole month, while I did other things - maintained MND, gave WS tours, etc. It was only with the help of Tomi who very patiently showed me how the different parts interacted together and the "friendly" (non-)competition with Daniel who was then adapting Precedence's other game, Wheel of Time which got B5 out the door as a public game over a year ago. And as they say, the rest is history.
And on the LotR front... I'm testing out a new deck with some really weird cards that nobody uses. However those cards have turned the game around for me today quite a number of times. It'd be interesting to see how things go. Quite a lot of people still feeling their way around the Shadows cards looking for comboes. I have, by contrast, done the opposite to find existing cards that would prevent, or in the very least, mess up, the new Shadows strategies. We shall have to see how my experiments there go.
Enough from this windbag already. Seacrest Out!
posted by Novelty @ 9:42 pm
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