Blogger and the Burning Bird

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.