| What has Krel been doing for the past 10 weeks? |
[19 Jun 2008|07:35am] |
That.
Six roommates/friends and I made a neat little tower defense game. It's a 3D online multiplayer game involving cooperative building of towers along a spiral path up a mountain to defend against monsters. The monsters are trying to reach the top of the mountain to grab villagers and carry them back down the mountain.
We were the only group that made our game supported on OS X, Linux, and Windows. We're pretty proud of that; while it made lots of things harder, it was an important goal for us from the beginning. I pretty much exclusively played and tested the game on my MacBook.
The website is http://www.neathat.com although it's been down a lot recently (home server, and Trac is... like a fine aged cheese or wine with a lovely bouquet, except Trac eats all your memory and shits on your VM, while cheese and wine are simply tasty. Subtle difference.)
The video is our presentation for the game's demo. Paul Knight's the one talking the whole time, I'm the awkward one with terrible public speaking skills rushing through the question about monster goal seeking at the end. You can tell that I've begun talking when you're blinded by a flash of light; I'm frighteningly pale. I should stop wearing black shirts.
I'm the "graphics guy", which is to say that 10% of my work was spent on graphics, and the other 90% was spent on game logic/engine. I implemented things like projectile seeking, splash damage, barrel rolling (oh yes), dancing, tower build animations, creature/player movement, item pickup/drop animation and logic.
In retrospect it was a whole hell of a lot of fun; our group suffered from organizational problems fairly often, and my personal solution to these problems was to pick out fun things to work on and work on them until someone objected. Quite effective and fun.
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| Anti-Teen Sound |
[24 Apr 2008|03:17am] |
So maybe I'm the last person on earth to hear about this, but the BLOGOSPHERE has informed me that there exists something called an Anti-Teen Sound. Someone designed a particular sound at a particular frequency that is painful for people under 25 or so, but completely harmless to people older than that.
An article about this sound, and how it's being used in devices in the UK to discourage teenage loiterers. It's recently being used stateside as well.
The link to the actual sound file itself. If you just hear general crowd noises, well then, I guess you're over 25. If it drives you nuts, then enjoy not being able to rent a car for another few years.
At the Ripe Old Age of 23, I find it slightly irritating but completely tolerable. Curious what you younger/older folks think about it.
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| On typing speed |
[22 Apr 2008|02:30am] |
So Rands's latest post was about keyboard shortcuts and how they save us precious milliseconds of our daily lives. Alright, alright, I'm not a complete geek here because I actually do use my mouse and don't care all that much about keyboard shortcuts. Case in point: I still launch Safari with ctrl+space, sa, enter. I realize Quicksilver makes it very easy to simply make this cmd+ctrl+shift+sexydance+option+S, but I don't actually care that much. I guess I'm still fine with wasting a second or two out of my life. Maybe a newfound Silicon Valley corporate productivity drive will change this. I doubt it.
Anyway, a bit of the way through the article he linked to a typing speed test. Hm, sure, I'll bite. Keep in mind the last typing speed test I took was, oh, 7 or 8 years ago when I was looking for temp work in data entry. Hoo boy, memories. I scored a blazing fast sixtysomething words per minute, and I was damn proud.
I've been typing a bit since then.
92 wordsSpeedtest
Tried it three times to see if I'd improve noticeably. 92 my highest word count, but 385 points was my highest score. Zero errors on all the tests, of course. Oh, and I'm typing on the wired one. Out of curiousity, I dusted off my old Microsoft Office Keyboard to see if it'd make a noticeable difference. 91 words, 384 points. So it looks like my typing speed's pretty much unaffected, which is nice considering it's about 10 times smaller and quieter. Maybe I'll borrow a Model M to see whether it's worth the noise.
Really, for anyone but a data entry clerk, anything above 60 words per minute is fine.
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| On Metroid Prime 3 (spoiler-free) |
[03 Sep 2007|07:35pm] |
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Okay, the game's great. Good interface, blah blah.
MADDENING bit, though. This is along the "walkthroughs should never ever be *required* in order to finish a game" thing, a gripe that many people have in many games. It's generally considered a flaw in a game to have a point of no return, from which your only option is to start at the very beginning, and, to a lesser extent, a point at which the next thing to do is so completely nonintuitive that your only option is to completely explore the massive world.
This goes all the way back, for me, to the Phoenix Cave in FFVI, where, if you saved inside, the only way to progress was to complete the cave and defeat the boss. No way out of the cave aside from beating the boss. So, if you saved over your only save slot and were underleveled enough to make leveling *inside* the cave impossible, your only option was to start the game over from the very beginning. Since that's a good solid 30 or so hours into the game (or like 60, if it's your first time through, as it was mine), that's a bit of an annoyance.
The Zodiac Spear chest thing in FFXII is similar, but less maddening.
In games where you only have one save slot, such as the Metroid Prime series, this is an even more pressing issue.
Go to the GameFAQs forums for Metroid Prime 3 and you'll see a couple hundred threads bitching about, in one way or another, the Energy Cell quest. There is a point in the game, towards the end, where, in order to progress, you need to get a code. In order to get the code, you need six energy cells. The energy cells are found, much like keys in MP2 or artifacts in MP1, *anywhere*. While most of the game is surprisingly linear, with map hints and obvious references helping you along, these energy cells are scattered across the various worlds with absolutely *no* hinting as to their location.
Fortunately, in the progress of the normal plot, you happen upon 5 or 6 of them without any effort. So, for people who never used them, the quest is simple. However, the last 4 or so energy cells are positively *maddening* to get (the Bryyo one took a solid 4-5 hours of wandering around, alone). The thing is, there are slots on the ship for *nine* energy cells.
So, if you go on this ship, and insert your energy cells found normally through the plot into the wrong slots (these yield missile expansions, ship missile expansions, and lore; read: completely fucking useless), then you can be faced with this situation. Two energy cells left. Two slots on the ship for them. Need to find them in order to proceed in the plot.
They can be anywhere. Zero unexplored areas in all of the four worlds and zero map hints (a la Metroid Prime 1) to indicate their general locations. Commence days and days of wandering.
tl;dr: Don't use energy cells on the ship until they're required to advance in the plot; you'll have 150 missiles instead of 145 (oh no! missiles are useless anyway), and you'll be *forced* to consult a walkthrough to continue in the game. And to game designers, put some fucking thought into your design next time, it's a stupid flaw in a game where they're otherwise rare.
EDIT: Okay, after beating the game just now, I'll revise this opinion a bit. Having not checked the Valhalla lore, I didn't know that they give you the general area in which the energy cells are located. This doesn't help for ones like Bryyo's, though. Then again, the satisfaction on finishing Bryyo's quest was quite significant... that quest alone spanned like 10 different sub-puzzles and went from one end of the world to another and back again, while using almost every single suit expansion available as well as a healthy (but not insane) amount of problem solving. Delicious fun.
So it's really no big deal. Christ, though, the amount of missiles given to you in that game was simply *ridiculous*. I ended up with about 150, and never used more than, oh, 30 between weapons refills. Ever. The puzzles just lose some of their fun when there's nothing but another useless missile expansion at the end of them. Well, aside from the spider ball trails, those were fucking sweet as hell.
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| def con |
[03 Aug 2007|02:40am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 sleepy |
] |
brb
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| Yey |
[29 Jul 2007|02:16pm] |
I finished Harry Potter, so now I can Internet again!
(blogs about Japan to follow when I get around to it)
Also, t-shirt:
Front: Harry Dies
Back: (well, eventually)
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| Holy crap, I got a passport. |
[10 Jul 2007|11:51pm] |
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I should probably wait until I have time to properly blog about this, but yeah. My flight's tomorrow, and USPS didn't know where my passport was last night, so I decided to go up to the Los Angeles Passport Agency this morning. Left San Diego at 4:45am. Brought my pictures, my flight itinerary, my passport locator printout, everything.
7:10-9:00: Arrived. Was sent to the pickup window, as I requested my passport to be held at the agency a week ago. They ignored the request, and told me they'd already shipped my passport. Since I didn't want to risk my trip to Japan on the United States Postal Service's STELLAR reputation for getting packages there on time, I decided to go through the process to get it reissued.
Funny story, the guy a few spaces in front of me in line, wearing a bike helmet, upon receipt of his passport he yelled with joy and ran around screaming YEAAAAAAAAH YEAAAAAAAAH ALRIGHT I FINALLY GOT IT WOOOOOOO ALRIGHT YEAAAAAAAAH and was almost out of the complex entirely before people shouting after him finally conveyed that he left the passport at the window.
Was sent to huge "Stand By" line. Waited in huge "Stand By" line.
9:00-9:15: Was given a ticket with an estimated wait time of 22,000 hours (not kidding). Got sent into the main building (it's an AWESOME looking building). Gave the ticket at the door, and was sent to stand in a relatively short line. This was in the main building, where there were 17 windows with very thick glass, numbers being called every 5 minutes or so, and about 250 people crowded around waiting.
9:15-2:00 (not kidding): Gave my information to the lady at the window when I reached the front of the short line. She made sure my papers were in order, gave me a form to fill out for claiming "non-receipt of passport", gave me a ticket numbered C6694, and sent me to wait with the other people. They were currently working on C6661.
My estimated wait time was 1 hour and 15 minutes.
After about 4 hours of watching the one, bad TV in the room, tuned to CNN, with no volume, I was amused by a couple things. Not only is it more fun to watch Bush's audiences watch him speak than it is to watch him speak (try it sometime), but I realized that I can't stand to watch Michael Moore speak, EVEN WHEN I CAN'T HEAR HIM SPEAKING.
The numbering system, I soon realized, had people divided into categories. The A numbers were for people with *brand new* applications, needing passports the same day. The C numbers were for people with "special circumstances". I noticed very soon that they were processing about 15 A numbers for every C number. It was past noon by the time they got to C6680, and I had almost given up hope that I'd get a passport at all.
Turns out, the "special circumstances" tickets needed to be handled by a supervisor, and there was one supervisor on duty. Each special circumstances ticket (including mine, processed eventually) took roughly 10 to 25 minutes to handle.
I was almost *PANICKING* when the queue reached C6688 and it was already 1:15, because I had heard from someone who talked with them earlier that no tickets issued after 2pm would result in passports issued the same day, as the pickup window closed at 3 and it took a bare minimum of 1 hour to prepare a new passport.
Luckily, around 1:20, they finished all the A numbers for the day (HUNDREDS), and supervisors were freed. Five supervisors were now brought on to handle the C numbers.
You can imagine my panic as, at 1:50, the lady assisting me had been gone "working on it" for 5 minutes already. Fortunately, not only did she show up by 1:55 with my application in hand, but she said that after the window closes, they take everyone back inside the building, and don't leave until everyone's been helped. That, of course, was QUITE a relief; I was almost completely resigned to not being able to make my flight (tomorrow, by the way).
Whew.
2:00-3:00: Waited in a line outside (HO GOD YES FRESH AIR) to pick up the passport. Figured that by the time I got to the front of the line, they'd have finished preparing it. People near me in line had been through the line 3, 4 times under the same hope. What else can you do?
3:00-4:45: At 3, reached the window. The lady quickly told me that my passport was still being prepared, but gave me a ticket to go back inside and wait (nooooooooooo) for my name to be called (okay good) when my passport was ready.
Went inside with Joe, who I'd met up with by then. Waited a while, talking with various people I'd befriended throughout the day (I got to see a Chinese birth certificate! It's cool!)
In the end, they finally called my name "BenHAMEEN Morris" and, soon enough, I was walking out the door with passport in hand.
...Straight into LA rush hour traffic. Got home at 8. >_<
I deserve a vacation now :(
Well, time to pack, and I fly tomorrow. Might blog a bit, but will mostly be saving things for a big update when I get back here. I'm traveling with Joe, my roommate, so we might joint blog a bit about it, dunno. Yay japan!
*pof*
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| Another krel dream log~! And update maybe? |
[20 Jun 2007|06:26am] |
13:20 < krel> wow
13:20 < krel> I dreamt I had midterms today that I hadn't studied for
13:20 < krel> then I had the massive mental rush the moment I woke up
13:21 < krel> the one you get when you wake up and have the sneaking suspicion
that you slept in for like 8 hours
13:21 < krel> and were supposed to go take a final
13:22 < krel> oh THAT'S what I dreamt
13:22 < krel> i dreamt that I had an ECE midterm (wtf?) at 11am
13:22 < krel> and that we were talking here, at 3918, and it was 11:08, when I
realized it
13:22 < krel> asked rushi to rush me to school (which looked nothing like UCSD?)
13:23 < krel> when I got there (brought my pillow?) the professor didn't give a
midterm, or a lecture, he just talked about random shit for the
whole time
13:23 < krel> so yeah
13:24 < krel> when I woke up, I was in panic OH SHIT OH SHIT WHAT TIME IS IT
I'M SO LATE AUGH mode
13:24 < krel> it took me a few moments to realize
13:24 < krel> A: it's 6:15am
13:24 < krel> B: it's summer
13:24 < krel> C: i'm not taking classes, and I'm unemployed
13:24 < krel> :(
On that note, I have a resume now, thanks Scott for the headstart on the TeX formatting, and I've applied to three different places, all of which pay at least $4/hr more than my previous job.
Did that yesterday, as I realized that lazing around and doing absolutely nothing for a *full week* would be kinda pathetic. I get antsy after doing that for even a few days; the other day, I ACTUALLY UNPACKED BOXES AND SOMEWHAT CLEANED MY ROOM for the first time (boxes have been left packed, sitting in a corner in my room, since I moved in here a full year ago, and I haven't really cleaned my room at ALL in 2007).
Oh, also, Joe challenged me the other day to go a full year without getting a haircut (being single, I can do stuff like that). You're ON.
June status: (disclaimer, pic taken on a whim at like 2am when I was sleeeeeepykrel)
( cut for huge )
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| Krel had a dream, yay~! |
[08 Apr 2007|12:07pm] |
When I dream, which is seldom enough, I try to write it down so I don't forget, because they're often very strange.
In this case, the closest medium was IRC:
12:05 < krel> Okay okay *z*
12:05 * krel ~
17:19 * krel yawn
17:21 < krel> Weird. I had a dream about a thriller movie involving teenagers
starting a revolution, and Mel Gibson was in it, and he was
showing me around his house, and it was really expensive, had
things like showers that simulated actual rainfall, and he went
outside to show me the plumbing behind it, and my jacket got
caught on the edge of the screen door
17:21 < krel> and he was a horticulturist
17:21 < krel> was showing me how he uses the vines from some plant or another
to support the plumbing (?)
17:22 < krel> it was like an 8 story house
17:22 < krel> anyway he was showing this to me and talking when a parrot flew
over, and landed by him, and he started talking about how he only
names birds that perch on his right hand
17:23 < krel> so the parrot perched on his left hand, and said "Fuck off!" in a
scottish accent and flew away
17:23 < krel> the room started spinning around him as he repeated his previous
sentence, and had a stroke
17:23 < krel> the scene changed to a gang of teenagers hanging an old banker
17:24 < krel> while the spy pleaded with me not to betray him
17:24 < krel> i don't dream often, but when I do, it's rather odd D:
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| Disgaea 2 is completely insane. |
[22 Mar 2007|08:54pm] |
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How to max out an item's stats in only 27 easy steps!
1. Go inside the item, if there is no specialist you can subdue, reset.
2. If there is a specialist, subdue it then gency out and save.
3. Repeat steps 1-2 until the item has no more unsubdued specialists, then
transfer them all out and put in 6 gladiators, then save.
4. Go back into the item, if there is no Mystery Gate, reset. (If you have
reset a lot of times and haven’t seen the gate, go into another item for 10
levels, then try again)
5. If there is a Mystery Gate, go inside of it; if you encountered the 7
monsters and you and defeated them within 2 turns, or if you encountered the
Fortune Teller and got Good/Great luck then go to Step 6, else reset
6. Proceed 2 levels (ie, if you were on floor 1, go to floor 3), then gency
out and save
7. Proceed 1 more level, and if there is no Mystery Gate, reset
8. If there was a gate, and you got the 7 monsters or Good/Great luck, go to
Step 9, otherwise reset
9. Proceed 2 levels (ie, if you were on floor 4, go to floor 6), then gency
out and save
10. Proceed 1 more level, and if there is no Mystery Gate, reset
11. If there was a gate, and you got the 7 monsters or Good/Great luck, go
to Step 12, otherwise reset
12. Proceed to the boss (you should have done 3 mystery gate so far since
the last boss or since the start of the item, each giving you an item level
increase). Kill the boss, do not finish the level, gency out and save.
13. Go back into the item, kill the boss again (the double kill), and run
into the portal to the next level. If there is no Dark Assembly Chicken in
Innocent Town, or if you didn’t go to Innocent Town, reset.
14. If there was a Dark Assembly Chicken, pass the bill for ‘More ATK growth’
15. Repeat steps 4 to 14 until you reach floor 30 (do not kill the Item
King, but rather follow the instructions from step 16 onwards).
16. Kill the floor 30 Item King, gency out and put a 7th gladiator on your
item, then save.
17. Go back to floor 30, kill the Item King again and run to the portal to
the next level. If you did not get the Dark Assembly Chicken, reset.
18. If there was a Dark Assembly Chicken, pass the bill for ‘More ATK
growth’ then leave the item and put on your 8th gladiator
19. Repeat steps 4 to 14 until you reach floor 99. It is important to note
that you can no longer see anymore Dark Assembly Chickens after floor 30, so
just double kill the bosses and forget about the Innocent Town reset.
20. You are now on floor 99. If your Item Level is less than 199, go to
step 21, if it is 199 or higher, go to step 25
21. Gency out, save, and go into another item.
22. Proceed three floors (in the other item), and if you see a Mystery Gate
on any of the levels, reset. Otherwise, gency out and save.
23. Go back to your original item, if there is no Mystery Gate, reset.
24. If there was a Mystery Gate and you got either the 7 monsters of
Good/Great luck, then go to step 20.
25. If you are in Holt Village Item World, gency out and save.
26. Go inside the item in LoC, steal the legendary item from the Item God,
kill him, then gency out.
27. Go back inside the item and kill the Item God again (double kill), and
finish the level.
Byebye spring break :')
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| Interesting. |
[07 Mar 2007|05:50am] |
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I possess the remarkable ability to sleep too much, but only when I shouldn't.
The catch, oh and there's always a catch, is that I can never sleep when I should.
See timestamp.
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