Imagine a vending machine. Now imagine it has legs. It walks around, sloshing it's contents around inside itself as it waddles across the landscape, gathering more contents. You can go up to the buttons, press them - maybe put money in or maybe you put money in but you've jimmied the coin collector so it simply pops out again into your hand. It's rather like those beetles that have learnt to simulate the antennae movements that will prompt an ant to give up it's crop of food to a fellow ant, since that helps the collony - but since it's a beetle, one who takes while only aping the gestures of giving, the circle is broken.
Is that what the Dunyain are?
Oh no, that's how the Dunyain see you!
You better understand what they are by understanding how they see you! Because from outward appearance they are just another ant...sorry 'person'. All benign, all loving, all waving their antenae in just the right way for you to open your wallet to them. To hand over your children to them.
Also they are part of the speculative fiction (speculative fantasy fiction, no less) 'Prince of nothing' series, by Scott Bakker.
Here's the fan forum and the link, for a few more twisted perceptions on the idea:
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1363.0
Friday, June 27, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Looking into Stencyl
Found this tutorial by a user the easiest to get into, in programming with it for the first time
http://www.stencyl.com/help/viewArticle/102
It shows the tutorial in flash with the game at the end of the tute, so even if you're just curious you can load it up to see how it ends.
It's slightly out of date with newer versions of Stencyl, but I managed to muddle through. So if you have trouble post a comment since I was able to get through it I might be able to help you do the same.
Anyway, I kind of want the flash capability but at the same time if it's more of a struggle than using Unity is, then I dunno about pressing on with it.
http://www.stencyl.com/help/viewArticle/102
It shows the tutorial in flash with the game at the end of the tute, so even if you're just curious you can load it up to see how it ends.
It's slightly out of date with newer versions of Stencyl, but I managed to muddle through. So if you have trouble post a comment since I was able to get through it I might be able to help you do the same.
Anyway, I kind of want the flash capability but at the same time if it's more of a struggle than using Unity is, then I dunno about pressing on with it.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Watch Dogs : Did hacking just turn out to be a gimmick? Do all sandboxes suffer from gimmickdom?
So it appears that perhaps just classic old GTA style driving can get you away in Watch Dogs. And even if you do hack, you don't see it because it's behind your point of view, or if they show an exploding pursuer in slow mo it tends to make you crash because of the disorientation from the camera going from the explosion back to driving.
Do all sandbox games have this trouble? Dishonoured seemed to have this problem too, where just a few powers were needed to complete a mission and anything else was just getting baroque about the matter. And the sandbox - if it doesn't force the use of hacking, then hacking becomes a throw away, unnecessary gimmick. If it is forced, then you get less of a sandbox!
That's the thing about a sandbox - it tends to make everything not matter. Just another thing amongst many things. A bit like real life!
But seriously, do sandbox game makers need to start thinking about how they implement these things, giving a secondary layer of rewards for using hacking. So someone could be rated a supreme hacker if they wanted to, or maybe they might focus on conventional escapes and fighting.
But ultimately it's the audience that might have to accept that any new thing in a sandbox will, at best, have some incentives and ratings for it - it's not going to force gameplay to be entirely different, all by itself.
Do all sandbox games have this trouble? Dishonoured seemed to have this problem too, where just a few powers were needed to complete a mission and anything else was just getting baroque about the matter. And the sandbox - if it doesn't force the use of hacking, then hacking becomes a throw away, unnecessary gimmick. If it is forced, then you get less of a sandbox!
That's the thing about a sandbox - it tends to make everything not matter. Just another thing amongst many things. A bit like real life!
But seriously, do sandbox game makers need to start thinking about how they implement these things, giving a secondary layer of rewards for using hacking. So someone could be rated a supreme hacker if they wanted to, or maybe they might focus on conventional escapes and fighting.
But ultimately it's the audience that might have to accept that any new thing in a sandbox will, at best, have some incentives and ratings for it - it's not going to force gameplay to be entirely different, all by itself.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Enquiries that try to appeal to the heart
I watched a bit on the 7:30 report I think it was on an enquiry into the commonwealth bank. The bank had released a statement that some of their employees had acted 'inappropriately'
The lead of the enquiry sort of went on to enouciate on whether that was at all the right word for what he said was flat out fraud. He gave the example of when his three year old daughter draws on wall, that's inappropriate.
With a poker face the person from the bank says they believe it was behaviour that was not appropriate.
What's the point of enquiries which make appeals to the heart?
These guys are ruthless, having sealed away their hearts in leaden jars years ago like some kind of liche.
If it were a game, it's like asking someone if they are bluffing - that can only work if they aren't good at bluffing!
Is this really how we investigate the cold, calculating mega corporations? With people who really think they can activate the guilt in one of these bank guys?
You're basically dealing with robots. And unless the legal system gives you any capacity to punish them further for showing how utterly ruthless and remorseless they are about just calling fraud an 'impropriety', there is no room for an appeal to the heart.
An appeal to the heart is something you use when your three year old daughter draws on the wall.
The lead of the enquiry sort of went on to enouciate on whether that was at all the right word for what he said was flat out fraud. He gave the example of when his three year old daughter draws on wall, that's inappropriate.
With a poker face the person from the bank says they believe it was behaviour that was not appropriate.
What's the point of enquiries which make appeals to the heart?
These guys are ruthless, having sealed away their hearts in leaden jars years ago like some kind of liche.
If it were a game, it's like asking someone if they are bluffing - that can only work if they aren't good at bluffing!
Is this really how we investigate the cold, calculating mega corporations? With people who really think they can activate the guilt in one of these bank guys?
You're basically dealing with robots. And unless the legal system gives you any capacity to punish them further for showing how utterly ruthless and remorseless they are about just calling fraud an 'impropriety', there is no room for an appeal to the heart.
An appeal to the heart is something you use when your three year old daughter draws on the wall.
Saturday, May 3, 2014
Dust 514 Clone Charity Page!
I like coming out of a battle in Dust with a profit. But in the end I'm not really spending any of that money on anything - it just sits there!
So like all blogs, I like traffic and I have idle ISK. So what happens next??
The first two people to give their character names in the comments section below will get a nice, round 5 million ISK sent to them from my character!
And on this initial foray, the next 20 people to post their character names in the comments will get 1 million isk each (in future it may be 500k of ISK each). Since not many people might post, you can post once per day for a million each time (that'll save me on writing in contacts as well!). But if you post more than once per day, it doesn't count, sorry! :)
That still wont drop my bank acount below 100 million. It was nice to get over a 100 mil (I know others have alot more!) but if I don't spend any, what's the point?
So like all blogs, I like traffic and I have idle ISK. So what happens next??
The first two people to give their character names in the comments section below will get a nice, round 5 million ISK sent to them from my character!
And on this initial foray, the next 20 people to post their character names in the comments will get 1 million isk each (in future it may be 500k of ISK each). Since not many people might post, you can post once per day for a million each time (that'll save me on writing in contacts as well!). But if you post more than once per day, it doesn't count, sorry! :)
That still wont drop my bank acount below 100 million. It was nice to get over a 100 mil (I know others have alot more!) but if I don't spend any, what's the point?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)