Game News

You may be wondering why there hasn't been any ColourFire news. I don't think anyone actually reads this, but that's OK! Soon there will be a blog for SPG rather than for me, and this one will fade into obscurity! But for now, in case anyone does read this, here's what we've been working on.

Well. That's what one screen of the tutorial looks like at the moment. The game itself is playable right now! And it's hopefully under a year from being released. Before that we'll have an indiegogo campaign to get the funds to get onto Steam's Greenlight system and such. Stay tuned! Once we're closer, the new blog will be started and then we'll try our best to keep people updated on progress weekly.

I made the item storage page that I was talking about before

And you can access it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1467119/TF2IIS.html (pertinent info is on that page)

It's on Dropbox because that makes it much easier to update it quickly! I assume people would want to see the results of their payment as soon as possible.

Happy Philosophy Time

I just thought it might come in handy in the future to have my feelings on yoomanity written down somewhere, so here they are! Note that these are only my beliefs; I acknowledge that my views may be inaccurate. Sorry that it's long.

To put it simply, I believe that humankind is wretched, abominable, and boundlessly cruel. I'd say that describes a perfectly ordinary human, as well. Some people really enjoy being helpful and feel bad about hurting people/things, but they are rare. However, they are common enough that you are HIGHLY unlikely to go through your life without at least hearing someone talk about someone who happens to be like that.
I think most people are very stupid, because they have a predisposition toward being so, or they didn't have the opportunity to realise their potential, etc. Most people are evil, too, because of a predisposition or because they were raised to be, etc. The rarest type of person is the one that is neither stupid nor evil. I have no idea how common people who are evil and smart, or people who are dumb and not evil, are, but each is somewhere between the "evil dumb" and "non-evil smart" people. Of course, nobody is purely good. Some people are probably purely evil, though. And then there are amoral folks and all the various shades of these things, but the main distribution is clear.

Everyone is fallible. Anyone can make mistakes. A good person can do something evil by accident, and a bad person can do something good while trying not to. A smart person can mistakenly do something dumb, and a dumb person can do something smart that was not what they intended to do! So on.

Overall, I consider myself evil. HOWEVER! While I may view a person that I see on the street as likely to go on a killing spree for fun, I try to be nice to everyone. I would like for everyone to get along with each other, and to be friends with me. I hope that anyone I encounter will be friendly, while fully expecting them to harbour desires to stab everybody that they see. That said, I have noticed that my compassion is not given very freely at all. It is difficult for a person to rank beyond "dangerous bag of water that talks." If someone dies I'll probably think it's terrible (as my certainty that they were NOT evil increases, so does the probability of me thinking it was terrible for them to die), sure, because I think life is a cool thing and it's a shame to have it cut short. However, beyond that, I'll just think of them as a resource that's been wasted, instead of a person for me to care about. If I've known someone for a while and they seem to check out, THEN I'll care about them as a person. I was slightly disturbed to notice this, but there it is.

More video game news soon maybe!?

Rope, Lamp oil, Bombs?

Actually just a rope and a lamp.

You can't see the cursor in the above image, but it's holding onto the rope, right next to the word "circle."
And here the rope is partly resting on a circle. The lamp itself is not being simulated in this case, so it passes through said circle.

For ColourFire purposes, I'll mostly keep the ropes from interacting with things in that way (although nearby explosions will jostle them). Too much computational strain for barely any gain except in special cases.

Download here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1467119/HangingLamp.rar

You can actually use any model made in COF as the lamp or the rope. Some will have much better results than others.

The Worst

The person launched TF2 before I could get to them. The crate is lost forever! D':
*cries manly tears*
It would have been so cool...
Let me know if you find that anyone somehow still has one. I'm willing to make a webpage to feature such transient items, and who owns them, while storing the items on the account I made to store the one that just got away. That way people can say they have the items, but can also launch tf2 with impunity after trading them to the storage account and at the very least not be completely certain of losing them.

Plan #2: safer bet?

Here's a different tack: I store an item in another account's inventory limbo. This account will NEVER launch TF2 and the item will remain in limbo until I can determine whether or not I can get it out without losing it. The trouble is that the person who currently holds the crate has it in their ACTUAL INVENTORY, not in their limbo, and limbo may be a more volatile state to put it into. But if I don't do something before the person launches TF2 themself, then the item will definitely be lost. A stressful day for SCIENCE!

I have a plan

Game-development-related posts will come later! Right now it's time for a scheme I have cooked up.

If you're not familiar with Team Fortress 2, this might not interest you. If the former is true and you're still interested, there's a wiki right here that can clear things up.

According to the TF2 wiki, Every series #22 crate, "Refreshing Summer Cooler," expired on 11 July, 2011 and was removed from player's backpacks.

But I know that there is at least one player who still has one.

I don't know if they're willing to entertain my plan, but I sincerely hope that they will, and not try to gouge me on a price when there's no guarantee that this will work. Here's the plan: I fear that if they should launch TF2, it will detect the item and delete it. IF I can contact them before they do that, we might be able to trade it over Steam. According to the plan, I will have TF2 already open, so that it will not immediately disappear from MY inventory. If it does not get deleted immediately once I click on the "new items" notice, then I should be able to gift wrap it and store it in my inventory indefinitely in that state. All crates should be gift-wrappable...

There are numerous places where this could fail. If it works, I could be the only person on the entire planet to have a stable series #22 crate! The only other crate I'm missing is Series #6, the Festive Winter Crate, which had a similar expiration condition. My goal is to get one of every possible item. If I can get one that should be impossible... well! That alone is practically boastworthy. Not that I'm one to boast. Wish me luck!

I'm done... with nightmares!

Dealing with an human body as I am forced to, I've been subjected to some nightmares.
I read on some lucid dreaming sites that if you have a nightmare featuring some entity, and you can gain control of the dream, you can ask the entity what it represents and it must tell you. This is true in my experience, which consists of a single time. I haven't bothered since that time, and I think that occasion said something about the state of my mind.
I can't remember much, but at the end there was some crazy lady with knives. I remembered the websites' advice and assumed direct control, grabbing her knives by the blades and tossing them away. She tried to grab me or something so I grabbed her hands, which would normally have been a dream-end condition but I was in control and I had something to say! "What do you represent?" She said "I don't know," apparently frustrated by the fact. I was frustrated too, so I said, "thanks, BRAIN." The part of my mind responsible for setting up the dream was also frustrated, because it had gone to all this trouble and now I'd messed the dream all up and it didn't have anywhere to go. So I woke up. I should try asking again some time, though I rarely have nightmares so it could be a while. And there had better be a meaning.

Why COF is so great

This is most of the instructions for the game drawing a cyan enemy, as it stands right now:


dir=direction

x+=lengthdir_x(1,dir+180)
y+=lengthdir_y(1,dir+180)


temp=lengthdir_x(2.4,dir-22)
temp2=lengthdir_y(2.4,dir-22)
temp3=lengthdir_x(2.4,dir+22)
temp4=lengthdir_y(2.4,dir+22)



tx[0]=x+temp*6
ty[0]=y+temp2*6
tx[1]=x+temp3*6
ty[1]=y+temp4*6
tx[2]=x+lengthdir_x(10.8,dir-90)+lengthdir_x(6.48,dir)
ty[2]=y+lengthdir_y(10.8,dir-90)+lengthdir_y(6.48,dir)
tx[3]=x+lengthdir_x(10.8,dir+90)+lengthdir_x(6.48,dir)
ty[3]=y+lengthdir_y(10.8,dir+90)+lengthdir_y(6.48,dir)
tx[4]=x-temp3*5
ty[4]=y-temp4*5
tx[5]=x-temp*5
ty[5]=y-temp2*5

tx[6]=x+temp*10
ty[6]=y+temp2*10
tx[7]=tx[6]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir+90)
ty[7]=ty[6]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir+90)
tx[8]=x+temp3*10
ty[8]=y+temp4*10
tx[9]=tx[8]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir-90)
ty[9]=ty[8]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir-90)

tx[10]=x+lengthdir_x(13.44,dir+133)
ty[10]=y+lengthdir_y(13.44,dir+133)
tx[11]=x+lengthdir_x(13.44,dir-133)
ty[11]=y+lengthdir_y(13.44,dir-133)
tx[12]=tx[10]+lengthdir_x(12.24,dir)
ty[12]=ty[10]+lengthdir_y(12.24,dir)
tx[13]=tx[10]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir-90)
ty[13]=ty[10]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir-90)
tx[14]=tx[11]+lengthdir_x(12.24,dir)
ty[14]=ty[11]+lengthdir_y(12.24,dir)
tx[15]=tx[11]+lengthdir_x(4.8,dir+90)
ty[15]=ty[11]+lengthdir_y(4.8,dir+90)

draw_line(tx[6],ty[6],tx[7],ty[7])
draw_line(tx[8],ty[8],tx[9],ty[9])
draw_line(tx[0],ty[0],tx[1],ty[1])
draw_line(tx[0],ty[0],tx[6],ty[6])
draw_line(tx[1],ty[1],tx[8],ty[8])
draw_line(tx[0],ty[0],tx[2],ty[2])
draw_line(tx[1],ty[1],tx[3],ty[3])
draw_line(tx[2],ty[2],tx[4],ty[4])
draw_line(tx[3],ty[3],tx[5],ty[5])
draw_line(tx[4],ty[4],tx[5],ty[5])

draw_line(tx[10],ty[10],tx[12],ty[12])
draw_line(tx[10],ty[10],tx[13],ty[13])
draw_line(tx[11],ty[11],tx[14],ty[14])
draw_line(tx[11],ty[11],tx[15],ty[15])

draw_set_alpha(alph/1.2)
draw_triangle(tx[0],ty[0],tx[1],ty[1],tx[2],ty[2],0)
draw_triangle(tx[3],ty[3],tx[1],ty[1],tx[2],ty[2],0)
draw_triangle(tx[2],ty[2],tx[3],ty[3],tx[4],ty[4],0)
draw_triangle(tx[5],ty[5],tx[3],ty[3],tx[4],ty[4],0)
draw_triangle(tx[10],ty[10],tx[12],ty[12],tx[13],ty[13],0)
draw_triangle(tx[11],ty[11],tx[14],ty[14],tx[15],ty[15],0)

x-=lengthdir_x(1,dir+180)
y-=lengthdir_y(1,dir+180)




And that was a pain because I had to figure out all the angles and everything. Now I have a much nicer, general algorithm that I'm not going to post for various reasons, and I just have to tell an object what model file to use and it will draw it.
For some of the enemies, I used values calculated based on other values in order to determine coordinates of vertices, which is hard to translate directly into a COF-readable file. My options are to make a piece of code for each enemy that outputs coordinates, or to just remake the models using COF. I've chosen to do the latter (because dang it's fast and effective), but I'll keep the crazy instructions I made for each one (like you see above), for posterity's sake.

ColourFire is changing hosts

http://colourfire.nfshost.com appears to be the new host, since nerium.org appears to be going down in a few days and not returning. A sad thing, but SCIENCE must continue! So expect an update soon. I can't promise more than making it continue to work, but that's better than if it stopped working and I didn't update it!

A new challenger approaches!

Not actually a challenger. Gat (a good friend of mine own self) has a blog at http://pletcy.blogspot.com/ which you should look at. So far it's entertaining, and he's only 1 post in! Now that's talent.

Also, ColourFire will in future use the latest IDE version, so the load times will be faster and the runtimes will be slightly less slow but we'll have to work out a bunch of glitches! YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Elizabeth Maxwell=awesome

Or I could be nerdy and say
if (Elizabeth_Maxwell==awesome){
blog_post();}
but I'm not go-... oh, too late. Well.

Anyway, here's her blog.
So! In celebration of her coolness, I got her a platinum upgrade for her Something Awful Forums account for x-mas. In return, she offered to draw me anything I wanted! Whoah!
I took a while to figure out what to ask for (sorry :<) but long story short here's the image:
Sweet! Baltarstar Galactica meets Team Fortress 2. :D

CF version .9h is out. Also, I'm going to rant now.

Ranting is what people do in weblogs, right? Time I had a proper one. Or something.

I find rude people funny. Not just people who are kind of jerks, but full-on scumbag types. The kind whose redeeming values just aren't enough to offset their overbearing wretchedness. Now, I don't like to be around them for very long. I prefer the company of people who are at least reasonably polite toward me. Every once in a while, however, I like to see someone who is outright nasty, for no good reason. It's such a great contrast! I don't mean like, "they make everyone else look better." That would be kind of pretentious. It's more like "haha, how did that get there?" Condescension optional, depending on the desired irony of this reading.
Anyway, I've only met a few people like that. They were awfully refreshing. Humans are so funny.

ColourFire version .89y

Online highscores have been working for a while now and I forgot to make a post, not that anyone reads this anyway. As it's the end of the week, I reset the list so GO GET SOME HIGH SCORES! http://nerium.org/other-stuff/CFWeekly.txt is the link for weekly scores list. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1467119/Weekly%20Archive.txt will take you to the archive of the scores lists at the ends of previous weeks.

CF website, once again, is http://colourfire.dnsalias.org/

Global score tracking for ColourFire is a go

Listening to: Oxygene 8 - Jean-Michel Jarre

Some hours ago I had the idea that it would not be obscenely complicated to get some simple server correspondence going with ColourFire. The program just has to write to a file on a server. This turned out to involve PHP and a DLL and some nonsense but if you'll download the latest version of CF then you can see for yourself that it works (the file that it writes to is at http://nerium.org/other-stuff/CFLog.txt)!

Things to work on:
-It only submits scores when you get a personal high score; I'll do... something... about that.
-If it tries to connect and you have no internet connection... I don't know what happens. It probably crashes. I'm sure it's something bad anyway.
-I want a weekly scoreboard too. I'll use a separate PHP file and a separate .txt file.
-the thing that detects if you cheated might be a little wonky. We'll see.
-there's a small matter of security localized to the .txt file (seriously, the worst thing that could happen isn't really consequential, but I want to eliminate it anyway because it would be a nuisance.)

Toribash

http://toastline.on.toribash.com

Click that link to give me ingame money. I'm not shelling out REAL money for it...
Also it's a fun game and you should play it!

*Cough* ColourFire Object Fabricator

listening to: Kero ⑨ Destiny - Silver Forest


I almost named the program "Mr. Fab," but no.
(download link is at bottom of this post)


What this allows one to do is to create the look of an object for ColourFire! Or random abstractness. It's good for that, too. What I was doing before was designing stuff on paper, then figuring out the polar coordinates I'd need for each vertex, and then figuring out which vertices needed to have triangles drawn between them... and it was a pain. This program provides a graphical interface so that I don't have to do that. Creating the Sentries' appearance took several minutes the old way. I replicated it in COF and it took less than one minute.

Todo:
polar grid (why not)
"rectangle from side" tool
"rectangle from corner" tool
"scale on axis" tool

I know, those last 3 appear in the screenshot up there. But while you can select them in the program, they don't work right now. I don't intend to add more tools after them, but it could happen.

CF website can currently be reached at http://colourfire.dnsalias.org/ (redirects to dropbox because Nerium is NOT FAST ENOUGH FOR MY MADNESS)
COF download is at http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1467119/COF.exe

Less temporary website

http://colourfire.dnsalias.org
is a redirect to
http://www.nerium.org/other-stuff/website/ColourFire.html

So there.

Temporary Websyte for ColourFire

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1467119/website/ColourFire.html !

I know that's not a very friendly link, but the Nerium guy is being busy so until I can get him to host it, that's what I have to work with. GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO

dropbox, whence you can get more things from me, and there's some Youtube too

Listening to: The Spawnship - Robin Beanland and Graeme Norgate

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1467119/Bustout.exe - a WIP Breakout game with some neat stuff
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1467119/ColourFire%20Beta.rar -The current latest version of CF, newer even than the one on Nerium
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1467119/Copy%20of%20Hardly%20Know%20Er%21.rar - A visualizer, like in iTunes or Windows Media Player. It's not as awesome as Milkdrop, but I'm using a language that's sort of limited with respect to the techniques that can be used. Comes with an editor for the colour palettes, and another editor for the visualization effects (they use vector fields! And it's really really simple to use).

Also, I posted some youtub videos.



I just learned how to embed those, just now. Whee.

edit: and now I have a counter. I'm so fancy.