How I Roll

I do not get many hits, but I wanted to try to help.

If you love little girls and believe that the world is a better place because of them, then help Lilly.

Lilly Bay

It has been quite a while since I posted anything. I wish I could say that I was being productive in that time, but mostly I think I was just being sick and goofing off. "Goofing off" has included limited playtime with Bayonetta, New Super Mario Bros, Mario Kart Wii, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Collapse, and Swords & Poker. It has also included limited research on community theatre history in our region and into backend game server technology. Against my better judgement, I picked up Doom II RPG, so I am sure that my iPhone's battery will fail fast, most likely while I'm blasting baddies in turn-based goodness.

Gaslight

I am enjoying my tiny role in Gaslight at Westside. It is refreshing to get to help out with a show, wear a costume, and not have to learn any lines. It is also a lot of fun to see just how much people are loving Marni in the role. She does a spectacular job of being driven to the brink of insanity by her devious husband. I wish that I was able to see the end, however, since I am told that she shines, but that is while I am waiting to come on stage for my few seconds in the limelight.

She was also recently cast in Westside's next show, Move Over Mrs. Markham.

Things We Have Seen Lately

Marni and I go to a lot of theatre. Since my last entry (Dec 14th), we have gone to A Dicken's Christmas at the Gateway Foundation, White Christmas at Mystique, November at ARTI, Gaslight at Westside (cheating since we're both in it), Avenue Q in Salt Lake, Crimes of the Heart at OTAS, and Old, New, and Broadway Too at Mystique. We also happened to see a couple of movies Sherlock Holmes, Avatar, and When in Rome and quite enjoyed them. We headed to Valentines Day last weekend for...you guessed it, Valentines day.

Where there are ferrets, there is trouble.

For a long while now, we have been under the impression that Zoe is not nearly the climber and jumper that Broots is. It made sense since he can jump up on the tub in a single leap and it often takes her a couple of leaps. He climbs anything he can get his claws into while she half-heartedly climbs only when there's not an easier way to get to where she wants to go. So, when we got back from Salt Lake and The Wedding Singer Saturday and noticed that one of them had gotten out, we assumed it was Broots. After all, he had done it before, but this time there was a difference: he had climbed back in the cage! This morning, our perception of our little girl changed somewhat.

It is fun to personify your pets; to add a little human thinking to them. Since she's never expressed much interest (or talent) in climbing, we didn't think that she would be the one who got out and made a mess in the book/piano room. We imagined her watching Broots from the cage, wishing she could go on a grand adventure. And just before we came in the door, he climbed back into the cage so that we would be none-the-wiser--except for the mess in the room, of course!

This morning, I slunk out of bed in my usual early-morning Gawd-I-HATE-mornings stupor. I heard something sliding around in the other room so I went to investigate, expecting them to be moving their food dishes around the cage. I also thought Broots may just have gotten out again, even though Marni secured the blanket on our makeshift door (the real door still in shipping limbo from Marshall's). Broots was in the cage, excitedly running back and forth. I saw something fall down from the side of the cage and thought that she must be down on the bottom. She was, but she was trying to crawl back up the outside of the cage to get back in. I like to think it was to put on the ruse that she never really escaped.

So now I know that if she really wants to, she can not only jump and climb like crazy, but she can get out of the cage and back in without us knowing. I hope Marshall's gets the new cage door here quickly! I think I'll have to move it back down to the bottom so that they don't have as far to climb. It just makes it a pain to clean. The current arrival date for the cage door is Thursday, but now that they know they can get out, they just keep doing it!

The Wedding Singer: The Musical Comedy (Pvg)

Marshall Ferret Penthouse 41L x 25.5W x 57H

The Pursuit of Excellence: Ferrets

Well, today Broots escaped from his cage and was running amuck in the piano room--well, only amuck if you count his murderous frenzy on some papers and low-lying books that he knocked off the shelves and made a mess with. I wish I had taken pictures, but we were more concerned with cleaning up and trying to ensure that he could not get out of the cage again. See, we had lost a cage door and have a call in to Marshall to expedite a replacement. So we jury-rigged a new "door" on from one of our oven racks. The bars were barely wider apart than the cage. Barely in this case translates to "just far enough to slip through" in ferret. So for now we have threaded a blanket in-between the bars to avoid him slipping through.

I hope Marshall's call us back soon for the replacement door! Our books cannot withstand another Broots attack! Strangely enough, our much skinnier little girl, Zoe, did not escape. In fact, she was looking out of the top of the cage sadly as Broots had all the fun.

Doom Classic is out on the iPhone.

There are a number of reasons that I get excited when id releases something; one of the reasons lately is that I get to sift through their iPhone code. As with the Wolf 3D source release, id has graciously released the source code to their iPhone port of Doom. Here are Carmack's release notes on the development process and release.

I have mirrored the initial version's (and build instructions) download at Godsend Productions. I also mirrored the iPhone Wolf source (1.0, 1.1).

Torque 3D is at 1.0.1 and we are full-steam ahead on 1.1. Unity Technology has revamped the "indie" version of Unity and released it for free to the masses; their iPhone and Pro engines are rushing through the marketplace as well. The Game Creators has released their ad-supported version of DarkBasic Pro for free. And the big shocker is that Epic has released the Unreal Development Kit for free. The PushButton Engine is still free and one kick ass little Flash/Flex-based engine. With Adobe's note that CS5 will include deployment to the iPhone, this little engine is a very big deal!

It is a very good time for game developers everywhere!

Now if I can kick this stomach flu that's been kicking me...

Jeff got it up on YouTube. Whoo-hoo! Now everyone can witness my dedication to the Art. I actually had my hair cut with, yes...steps. Parts 1-6 (because of YouTube's 10-minute limit). See my steps, see me drool!

I've been enjoying a couple of the Facebook games out there lately, but there are some that have me in a quandry. Such as the Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures. According to the game, it is designed so that you can adventure on the go and do any number of other tasks...and it will take care of the work for you. What this means is that you click "Find Adventure" once and come back in a couple of hours to click it again. You can read the outcome of the various moments if you like by clicking "Update Adventure". Of course, if you want to try to play it, it blocks you with a time limit. The adventuring is timed so that you do not advance too quickly, even if you actually want to play the game.

Instead of doing something (creating a farm, matching three, clicking a flower to donate to your favorite eco-organization) you basically let the game play itself with a minimum of interaction. That minimum comes down to clicking "Find Adventure" and perhaps having it use a healing potion if during the course of the turn-based system playing out (with or without your interaction) you happen to fall below a pre-determined point.

To me this seems counter-intuitive in terms of role-playing. My goofy thief is level 11 and I have not done anything to attain it. I have not even read most of the adventure logs since they seemed to repeat. I have not actively (or passively, really) made any decisions about what to do in the adventure. In fact, it isn't even half as interactive as a Choose Your Own Adventure book unless you count picking up the book at the library and letting it play itself as interaction.

Which begs the obvious question: why do you click "Find Adventure" at all? I don't know. Perhaps I wanted it to do something; I was hoping something new would happen. I used to read the adventure logs, but haven't since level 10 since they were largely repeats with a random "rare" occurrence. Having clicked the button, closed the tab, gone back hours later to click again, I don't have a very definitive answer. Rather, I have more questions since it is not addictive. I don't read the adventure logs anymore. And it really has no bearing whatsoever on my FB interactions. My level 11 thief will stay at level 11 unless they delete her or have some sort of reset for people who aren't playing anymore.

Being a Dungeons and Dragons branded game, I really wanted to like it; which I think is why I have clicked "Find Adventure" and let it play without me for as long as I have--about a week or so.

See, it hits the "too casual" low for me. Not only do I not do anything, but there is no reason that I would ever have my FB friends play it. At least FarmTown and Farkle and Bejeweled have a point. I can play Scrabble with others and enjoy it because I'm playing it; I'm doing something. Even if there is not a random non-engaging storyline (that is for the most-part well-written).

So, I have to say goodbye to Tiny Adventures. Its core design was flawed from my experience with it. While I understand wanting to provide a limited, but engaging experience (Legends of Zork is doing a better job of this since I actively have to do something while exploring, even if it is extremely limited in what I'm doing and how I'm grinding); I feel that it has failed completely on the engaging part of the experience, pushing the branding beyond any sense of gameplay or adventuring engagement. There are not "players" so much as readers who don't even have to read during the grind.

Reading FML's or random Tweets or clicking "I'm Feeling Lucky" on Google with random words from the dictionary is more adventurous and fulfilling.