I occasionally try my hand at various crafts, because I have free time and want to find a rewarding hobby. This week/month's contender is Creating Visual Novels. I seem to gravitate towards this every summer. I know that most OELVNs ('Original English Language Visual Novel's) suck in comparison to their often much more polished productions from Japan, but I'm going to try anyways.
Well, you can't really make a game without an engine to work with. I decided to completely scrap the engine I was using last year, Novelty, because it promised a very easy to use GUI with minimal coding. Well, this is only partially true. It is heavily based on its GUI, but it doesn't really make a powerful or flexible engine and it requires quite a few 3rd party programs to do basic editing (such as creating a custom visible text box!). I'm currently using Ren'Py and I must say that so far I am satisfied with the engine. The help files are actually useful and fully localized, while the python-based programming language is high level and I am picking it up fairly quickly.
On to the next problem - media. I'm a fairly decent writer and I'm a mediocre programmer, so that isn't really an issue. However... I can't draw my way out of a paper bag and despite being a classically trained musician, I don't really know how to record myself or create music on the computer. (Besides, I don't plan on having Jazz be the main music style. (I'm a saxophonist)) Enter Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects from Partners In Rhyme. I will probably be relying rather heavily on this since its free, and more importantly, legal to use. I still haven't solved the art problem, which is rather important to a Visual Novel. Best idea I've had is to grab some pictures from DeviantArt for reference and digitally draw something based on it. Now I think I know how editors for a manga feel - I have to take many sources and make them all look like they were drawn by the same person, which is hard even when I am the only artist.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Thoughts on Transhumanism
Tonight's Internet Binge started out with checking to see if Dresden Codak had updated. Things went rather quickly from there. He had a link to a lecture on Prosthetic Culture - watched the nearly forty-minute long lecture with rapt attention. Started to think about my own particular desire for a prosthetic. Realized I'm using a prosthetic right now (the Internet). We're all Cyborgs. Read up on current Utility Fog theory and was glad to see we are making progress. Saw it was related to chemical computing and holograms. Remembered hearing about the blood powered cell phone tattoo. ... An hour later I was back to thinking about transhumanism. So, if we had chemical computers and Utility Fog, why would we need clothes anymore? It would certainly be great for me to be able to change my physical appearance at the speed of thought. Even a rather thin Utility Fog covering me would be able to successfully project a holographic image of me in a different body. Hell, I could program it to make me look like a robot or even a squid if I wanted.
Let's take it a step further (or maybe many steps). Chemical computing would theoretically make it possible to upload my consciousness into the particular Fog that makes up what used to be me. Delete body. Maintain a physical presence purely through being a Fog. It's like having every super-power you can think of: shape changing, flight, invisibility, super-strength, you name it. Who needs virtual reality if you are a machine and all of reality superimposes virtual and real reality? Reality would be even more subjective then. I would be a collection of molecules that makes up a complex machine that has a consciousness, which can take actions on its environment. Wait just a second... that's right where I am now. Just, you know, without the superpowers.
Transhumanism is exactly that. Its the metaphysical and philosophical equivalent of pulling ourselves up a mountain. We have to extend that first tenuous grasp and then pull ourselves up, or over, as the case may be. I don't think that Transhumanism is necessarily becoming a 'higher' version of humans, because once we reach that point, we won't become any more or less human. Our definition will change right along with us. We may solve many problems, but there will always be predicaments. The difference is that problems have solutions; predicaments are all about how you deal with reality. The way each person consciously their predicaments is what defines us and makes us human.
Let's take it a step further (or maybe many steps). Chemical computing would theoretically make it possible to upload my consciousness into the particular Fog that makes up what used to be me. Delete body. Maintain a physical presence purely through being a Fog. It's like having every super-power you can think of: shape changing, flight, invisibility, super-strength, you name it. Who needs virtual reality if you are a machine and all of reality superimposes virtual and real reality? Reality would be even more subjective then. I would be a collection of molecules that makes up a complex machine that has a consciousness, which can take actions on its environment. Wait just a second... that's right where I am now. Just, you know, without the superpowers.
Transhumanism is exactly that. Its the metaphysical and philosophical equivalent of pulling ourselves up a mountain. We have to extend that first tenuous grasp and then pull ourselves up, or over, as the case may be. I don't think that Transhumanism is necessarily becoming a 'higher' version of humans, because once we reach that point, we won't become any more or less human. Our definition will change right along with us. We may solve many problems, but there will always be predicaments. The difference is that problems have solutions; predicaments are all about how you deal with reality. The way each person consciously their predicaments is what defines us and makes us human.
"There are Three Great Immensities that everyone faces: Death, Nature, and Other People. Everyone dies - it is a predicament that we all face individually. Nature is what surrounds us and truly seeing the immensity of nature means having true perspective of yourself. Everything is both insurmountably important and completely insignificant in the overall picture. Other People are an immensity. It really is an amazing concept that every person we meet has their own, unique, history, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. Their own world. There may be people very similar to you, but there is never another person who is exactly you."
-- Professor Keith Green (Paraphrased from a lecture in History of Middle Earth)
Well, now for dreams about becoming a different sort of machine. I hope this inspires you to have an Internet Binge.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Facing Matters, or, When Immersion Fails
Facing matters. I'm not talking about subjective alignments or the players themselves, but their characters' position relative to other creatures on the table. I find that it makes sense for Sneak Attack to work if a character sneaks up from behind, and not just from flanking or being first in the initiative order.
The first complaint that I usually get about this house-rule is that it makes 3.5 seem like a tactics game. This, by the way, is coming from people who prefer 4th ed. and shouldn't throw stones at other peoples' glass houses. Anyways, I'm not exactly talking about implementing a full on tactics game into 3.5, but I really do like to have a tiny bit more internal realism in my games than most of the players want or expect. (Yes, I did, in fact, test to be almost completely an Explorer on the Bartle Test.) I think that if someone stabs you in the back, it should count as a backstab. I'm personally rather uncomfortable with the mental image the 'rules as written' gives of a creature constantly spinning around in place. Now, it would surprise you to know at this point that I run many combats without the use of miniatures or a grid when I use this house rule. "How do the players manage to remember where they were?", you ask. It just comes down to the people at the table paying attention to the game. I just want the player to know and to tell me where they are in relation to everything else.
I used to always take the time to describe the environment in great detail to the players so that they weren't in a featureless 10x10 room. Then my players stopped being new to the game, and didn't care what was in the room anymore because they seemed to have forgotten that the environment affects them, even when it is not a trap or hazard. If I don't setup a room, it's probably for a reason such as the characters aren't supposed to know yet or I'm not feeling up to it. That means you can ask away for something to be in there, it will probably 'have always been there'. I appreciate the help, and have only occasionally gotten requests that I denied. For example, if I do setup a room complete with lavish description and the characters and creatures involved can see everything, I see no reason for a player to suddenly ask if there is an oak tree in the middle of the castle dungeon because they forgot to grab an acorn or something five minutes ago.
I like my players to say, "Hey, Erik, are there boxes or something tall enough to take cover behind?" or, "I think that this room could use/would likely have _". That's just good logic on part of the players and it makes me feel that they care enough about my game that they pay attention to which side of the room that dresser was on without having to have a picture of a dresser in a room with diagrams of every little thing in it, because if they forget it was there in the first place, they can't pick up the gems that the Count put in his underwear drawer for safekeeping. Not that I always stash valuables in every hiding place, but I do want to reward my players for actually role-playing by exploring and interacting within the world I set up. This is something I do because I want the reward to be the story itself, but sometimes it takes a bit of role-playing XP to keep them coming back to the table so we can get to the thick of the plot.
The second complaint is a much easier one to resolve. This being that the house-rule works for everyone, not just the PCs. Usually a good "Because I'm the DM." is appropriate and reasonable enough.
The first complaint that I usually get about this house-rule is that it makes 3.5 seem like a tactics game. This, by the way, is coming from people who prefer 4th ed. and shouldn't throw stones at other peoples' glass houses. Anyways, I'm not exactly talking about implementing a full on tactics game into 3.5, but I really do like to have a tiny bit more internal realism in my games than most of the players want or expect. (Yes, I did, in fact, test to be almost completely an Explorer on the Bartle Test.) I think that if someone stabs you in the back, it should count as a backstab. I'm personally rather uncomfortable with the mental image the 'rules as written' gives of a creature constantly spinning around in place. Now, it would surprise you to know at this point that I run many combats without the use of miniatures or a grid when I use this house rule. "How do the players manage to remember where they were?", you ask. It just comes down to the people at the table paying attention to the game. I just want the player to know and to tell me where they are in relation to everything else.
I used to always take the time to describe the environment in great detail to the players so that they weren't in a featureless 10x10 room. Then my players stopped being new to the game, and didn't care what was in the room anymore because they seemed to have forgotten that the environment affects them, even when it is not a trap or hazard. If I don't setup a room, it's probably for a reason such as the characters aren't supposed to know yet or I'm not feeling up to it. That means you can ask away for something to be in there, it will probably 'have always been there'. I appreciate the help, and have only occasionally gotten requests that I denied. For example, if I do setup a room complete with lavish description and the characters and creatures involved can see everything, I see no reason for a player to suddenly ask if there is an oak tree in the middle of the castle dungeon because they forgot to grab an acorn or something five minutes ago.
I like my players to say, "Hey, Erik, are there boxes or something tall enough to take cover behind?" or, "I think that this room could use/would likely have _". That's just good logic on part of the players and it makes me feel that they care enough about my game that they pay attention to which side of the room that dresser was on without having to have a picture of a dresser in a room with diagrams of every little thing in it, because if they forget it was there in the first place, they can't pick up the gems that the Count put in his underwear drawer for safekeeping. Not that I always stash valuables in every hiding place, but I do want to reward my players for actually role-playing by exploring and interacting within the world I set up. This is something I do because I want the reward to be the story itself, but sometimes it takes a bit of role-playing XP to keep them coming back to the table so we can get to the thick of the plot.
The second complaint is a much easier one to resolve. This being that the house-rule works for everyone, not just the PCs. Usually a good "Because I'm the DM." is appropriate and reasonable enough.
New, Improved Name
Just letting my readers know that I have decided to change from Twin Faced Gamer Style to something a bit more explanatory and that doesn't depend on someone getting a reference to the Lunars from Exalted. I feel that this is a much better definition of my blog, and you can all thank Stonefist for the advice. (The URL will remain unchanged, so I recommend that if the change bothers or confuses you, just bookmark the page.)
Friday, May 7, 2010
Another Day, Another Septim
Lately it has seemed like I'm turning more towards video games and a bit away from tabletop games. For example, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great game. So good that I am sometimes tempted to skip a D&D session to keep playing. While I am tired to the point of ad nauseum of being told to stop because I have violated the law and hearing the NPCs talk about mudcrabs; this game is a fairly good substitute for D&D. There is an incredibly immersive story (Though, by this I mean the sheer number of side quests and places to explore.) that has a high replay value. The alchemy system tends to not make sense some of the time. It is worth note that this is pretty much a single-player MMO, with all the drawbacks and benefits of such a mixture.
The Guided Tour
Well readers, I'm here with my new blog. This will, of course, be the usual vent for ranting and frustration that every blogger has. However, this is the blog is about trying to keep on grinding through life, WoW, and D&D (among some other great games like Exalted and other White Wolf Games). So I imagine this will get interesting.
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