Yet Another Graphomaniacs Compendium
Sunday, July 20, 2003

Blogger and the Burning Bird


I can confirm that Blogger works beatifully with Mozilla Firebird. Internet Explorer dutifully hidden from the desktop.

posted by John Connors at
Sunday, July 20, 2003

0 comments
Thursday, July 17, 2003

Embedded Stories


I have been thinking a bit more about Deadlock Dungeons and how to embed a backstory in the game without narrative taking over. Interesting examples of this have been noted: one is Xeonocracy, which gives you a sequence of missions, the outcomes of which affect the backstory and the balance of power between the warring factions. This seems an exceptionally good idea for Deadlock as the storyline is very similar...well, the warring factions backdrop is, anyway. The other is good old Black and White which I've been plaing recently and noting all the story scrolls embedded in the game, which very handily link exploration an narrative in a way that I find intruiging but faintly clumsy. Both are way better than the AD&D/Angband system of "go to the pub and pay to hear a rumour", thogh.

posted by John Connors at
Thursday, July 17, 2003

0 comments
Saturday, July 12, 2003

Handy Vector Quantization Links


"I've been quantizing all sorts of smeg with excellent results....", he said. Lets put the theory to the test. For one thing, they are very
handy for image compression.

posted by John Connors at
Saturday, July 12, 2003

0 comments

New blog title needed.


I really should split my personal comments and coding observations into a different blog. This is obviously the personal blog, but I'm not sure about a title for the coding blog. How about Bad Byte Bootstrap Blues or Confessions of a bit-twiddler. Deathmarch Follies and Software Project Survival have also been suggested? Any more suggestions?

posted by John Connors at
Saturday, July 12, 2003

0 comments
Sunday, July 06, 2003

It's the data. Stupid!


Sometimes you come across two-thought provoking articles that overlap in a single day: One is an article that has gone around the open source world over the last few days: Tim O'Reilly pointiing out that applications, operating systems aren't where it's at any more. Shared, distributed, data-rich, market-creating: these are the new buzzwords. The application and OS used to build them are as relevant as the CPU running the app is to the individual user. The second one is Greg Costik pointing out that the games industry is having a problem : an exponential curve - quantity of content needed for a complete game - meeting a linear one - the increase in game sales.


Serveral solutions are posited. One is more algorithimic, procedural content: this is an approach that as a programmer I'm intensely interested in: it's possible to evolve landscapes, textures, faces, plants, dungeons, and possibly gaits via an genetic programming / evolutionary approach. This can only reduce costs to some extent. Content still has to be shaped and coordinated by talented artists. Another point is that of the mod scene: the fact that given the right tools and the right framework, people will generate content for the hell of it, for free. Polycount, Desert Combat, the extensive Half-Life mods are all cited as examples. EA has tied this in with the Amazon distribution model that O'Reilly is talking about.


I imagine a peer to peer game platform based on a componentized engine that lets the users generate and swap content with ease, adjust the ruleset in their own area of the network, changing the bias in their area to storytelling, combat, exploration, whatever..but that's just probably a crazy idea. There isn't any money in it. Unless content can be sold within the network.



posted by John Connors at
Sunday, July 06, 2003

0 comments
Tuesday, July 01, 2003

The unique joy of finding notes


Usually found in the place that was dismissed as "too obvious to look", after four hours of fruitless search. My characters are resurrected back into their ethereal projected fictional existence. Life never wants to give up.

posted by John Connors at
Tuesday, July 01, 2003

0 comments
The Journal



A miscellany of topics that intersest me: deaf culture, game design, politics as soap opera, the cyborg condition and the experience of learning to hear again. Other topics presented are speculative fiction and imaginary cities. There are appearences of snippets of work in progress, public rants, pointless posts and Mish the Mouse.




The Writer

A lower middle class cyborg living an innocous life in a suburban village near Newcastle On Tyne, in the United Kingdom. Mostly autobiographical and creative notes posts and musings on the topic du jour.


Archives

May 2001
June 2001
July 2001
August 2001
September 2001
November 2001
December 2001
January 2002
February 2002
March 2002
April 2002
May 2002
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002
December 2002
January 2003
March 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
November 2003
December 2003
January 2004
February 2004
June 2004
July 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
April 2005
May 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
January 2006
February 2006
May 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
August 2007
September 2007
December 2007
June 2008
August 2008
January 2010
April 2011
September 2012
October 2012


Links

Videogame Theory

Apolyton

Game Matters

Common Ground Sign Dance

Krazy Kat Theatre

Computing for Poets

The Langauge Construction Kit

Lemonodor: mostly Lisp

Twisted Matrix

Christopher Jam

Shrydars Blog

Linux Game Development Centre

Starlines

The Rise and Fall of My First Novel

Real Writers Bounce

Mela (designer of this blog)

CyberTarp

Mish The Mouse's Blog

News Feeds

atom feed

Technorati


Adverts



Powered by Blogger

Designed by mela | Image from stock.xchng | Image hosted by CyberTarp