Data's Neural Net

BYOND for educational use

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:15:18 GMT

School again today. This afternoon I had "Web T", which translates to writing basic (X)HTML pages for 20 minutes (tops) and spinning your chair around for the remainder of the three and a half hours.

To cut a very long day short: at the end of the classes the discussion about BYOND was brought up with the teacher.

I thought it'd be best to note his initial feelings of BYOND here so Tom may be able to answer some questions regarding BYOND and it's potential.

Primarily he doesn't see the DM language to be useful because it isn't a mainstream language and isn't connected to an existing framework. Therefore outside of BYOND the DM language would have no use.

Since it isn't a mainstream language, teaching it in class would involve more work which would only end up in teaching students a language they may very well never use anymore.

BYOND is good at making games, and he did mention creating educational programs, such as for example a simple 'physics engine' which allows students to see what happens if a variable is altered.

He also seemed disappointed when I mentioned BYOND couldn't do 3D.

I suggested it could be useful for things like MUDs in the workplace. This did seem to catch his attention.

So now I have the assignment to create a rather simple world with a couple of rooms in a graphical environment. Rooms should have doors which have markings on them for the different classes, and once a student walks his avatar into the door it will allow them to select assignments that have yet to be done.

Anyway, my reason for posting this was to announce this and to relay the questions to Tom, who may be able to answer them better than I could.

Neat idea

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 11:36:01 GMT

Just bored and brainstorming up ideas for potential games, when this one struck me. It's probably best for a FPS game with lots of action and violence.

It's nearly 8 AM and the game starts by showing how your character is walking in his bedroom, after a long day he wants to take a nap. He lays down on his bed and rests his head on his trusty pillow, looking forward whilst slowly dozing off.

All of the sudden, the alarm clock next to the bed -- displaying a time of 19:54 -- begins showing visible sparks! The main character raises an eyebrow and his head rises from the pillow. He starts to move toward the alarm clock to have a closer look, when all of the sudden...

FLASH!

A bright flash blinds our protagonist! He sways around dizzily and wipes his eyes. The alarm clock reads "19:55" again. Our dashing hero shrugs it off and decides he must've been daydreaming again, so he gets back into the bed. He slowly starts to doze off again, but then he gets back up and notices something odd: is time really moving that slowly?

So he gets up and looks at his alarm clock again. It seems to be functional: the LED shows 19:55 and all that, but it seems that time is not increasing.

Hoping that time is indeed standing still (then he can finally peek in on girls' showers, steal stuff without people noticing and all sorts of other mischief! -- and eh, he's bored), he walks over to his window and opens the curtains. He looks outside to see... nothing. Where'd the roads go? There's only a small dirt road and not a single soul in sight.

Hold on a minute. There in the distance is some guy walking on the road, whistling to himself. As the guy comes closer he starts to notice the bedroom standing in the middle of the road, and so he runs over to it and looks at our hero through the window. The two stare at eachother for a bit, when all of the sudden the alarm clock starts to beep. Our hero runs over to it, wondering what is going on with it now, failing to notice the stranger outside, who is running away, looking back at the house, which is glowing white and slowly disappearing.

Then another bright flash...

The basic idea of this game is that the player is stuck in a crude time machine which only goes forward. The player is instantly jumped to the past, and from that point on has about ten minutes to explore this time era before the alarm clock will start beeping again and the bedroom moves over to the next.

The bedroom moves through time and also seems to change it's elevation at will: it can change the floor it's on depending on whether or not there's an obstacle, and can even (temporarily) replace existing material.

For instance, if the player jumps to 1997 and the house the player lives in was built in this year, then the bedroom will appear on the second floor where it used to be, but the bedroom of that house will disappear until the player vanishes again.

The goal for the player is to figure out what is going on and to get back to his original time, so he can finally take his nap.
There are a few problems with this, of course.

First, you have no idea what is going on at all. Some years contain very advanced technology, sometimes hidden, sometimes blatantly visible. You may need to make use of those objects and perhaps take them with you.

Second, you have no idea when the next time jump will be. Before the time jump starts, the alarm clock beeps for a bit. But that's all the warning you get -- if you're out of range, you may not even hear the alarm clock and get stranded in this year (which results in game over).

Third, there are enemies in the game. You've got the KGB, terrorists and Majestic 12 (secret branch of the US government). Eventually they're going to notice that a room starts appearing every year at the same location, and sometimes they may try to storm in the room and attempt to steal the technology within.

Fourth, and the player is not aware of this at first, but the time jumps utilize power from a hidden power source in the room. This has sufficient power for dozens of jumps, but once it runs out, so does the player and it'll be game over!

Some of the technologies you can find in the game:

Forcefield technology: it is a small round device which can fit a regular battery. When attached to a door, it erects a forcefield, preventing anyone from using the door or getting in (if the door is open). It will still allow fast-moving projectiles (like bullets) to pass through.
Watch: this watch will beep whenever it detects an imminent time jump. It is thus sort-of synced with the time clock and will alert the player to an imminent time jump even if the player is out of range of the room.
Recall Device: This object is found fully intact in one year and for all successive years will be somewhere else (buried, taken by one of the enemy groups and hidden someplace, ...). In the time eras that this device is available to the player, it is possible to recall the room to the current timeline if it has dissappeared on it's own. This however only works once and the player has to wait some more for another jump to occur.
Timestamp Reading Module: this is a small chip + monitor that is implemented into the alarm clock in one of the years. The monitor shows the results of a calculation of the amount of milliseconds that the clocks' timestamp is away from local time. In essence, it means it will allow the player to calculate how much time it will take for another time jump to occur.
Targetting Module: This is a chip + monitor + keyboard that is attached to the alarm clock. It permits the player to save & load coordinates which can be re-used to travel back to that time.

The idea behind the bedroom is to have the player use ordinary day-to-day items (at least at first) to battle an ever-evolving horde of enemies, as well as provide a small enough space as not to hinder time travel too much.

This could be either a game or a movie, but I think it'd be rather cool if it were a game. It would be very difficult though, although you may get away with making the same level (but with minor changes) for multiple years.

Membership time remaining: 2 years, 7 days

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:48:48 GMT

Finally have the means to extend it by myself. :)

SGO Review

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:35:32 GMT

Click here for all comments that were posted yesterday on the original article.

The author of this post is subject to bias. We of BYOND RPG ensure you, however, that the author's potential bias has affected the contents of this post as little as possible.

So, Stargate Online then. It may seem unfair reviewing a game I created, but then again ownership was transferred roughly five years ago to a man who calls himself Yurgeta on BYOND.

For this review I am going to base it partially on this post from Dream Makers, which I find ironic if you compare it to Stargate Online.

1.0 Features and Gameplay

1.1 Features - 7.8

When I logged into the game I saw very little changed from what I already knew. Feature-wise the game is lacking, and without some proper design, I don't think much will happen.

Languages, for instance, are implemented, but so far the only language you can speak is appearantly "Basic". Using verbs for commands rather than putting it on a HUD, which already exists, is also a turn-off for me.

Some features however, such as the introduction of Daemons and other non-canon races with weird technologies aren't very good additions. Their weapons are sometimes overpowered because nobody bothered to consider what the impact of this added race would be on the entire game as a whole.

The rest of the features in the game, even those who aren't completely canon, I find to be good additions.

1.2 Gameplay - 5

This is where I find the game lacking. There is very little to do except for a bit of role-playing and killing eachother with whatever weapons you can find. There don't seem to be that many quests, and the ones that are done -- like I would presume the tutorial 'quest' -- have things like spelling mistakes which don't get fixed even on the production server.

2.0 Resources

2.1 Graphics - 9.5

The graphics are just awesome. They look nice, apart from a few glitches here and there (I personally don't agree with the look of Stargate Command, the homeworld of the humans, for one: the blast doors look out of place when closed).

2.2 Sounds and Music - 7.3

While the game does not have music, it does have a wide variety of sounds which aren't painful to listen to or anything. These sounds bring you closer into this universe, which is a pleasant thing.

3.0 Administration - 1

I am unsure if I can give a proper objective reading on this, but from what I can tell (and others agree with me), the owner of the game, Yurgeta, is an abuser of the highest level.

I find Yurgeta to be too incompetent to be running SGO, because he mixes personal feelings with his responsibilities as a game owner. One wrong word against him and you're banned, possibly permanently.

Under his reign Yurgeta frightens the players to the point where they won't speak up anymore, not pointing out errors like spelling mistakes out of fear that Yurgeta will believe they're insulting his dyslexia and as such will be promptly banned.

It has gone to the point where he has actually begun "blacklisting" other games. That's right: if you join a game Yurgeta doesn't like you'll get banned from SGO. Right now, this list includes all games made by the key "Gatdude" and the game "Star Trek Adventures".

Final Score- 6.12

If you can stand being surpressed by the game staff and not join those blacklisted games, and if you're not going to speak up about things you see you don't like, SGO is the game for you. Otherwise, you should look for another game.

-- Data

The Moonlight Sonata

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:06:56 GMT

Sorry, Gughunter, but the MIDI version of the Moonlight Sonata sucks! Not good for the age we're living in! Begone old person! -;)

So here you go: two versions of The Moonlight Sonata, but in a modern fashion. They're in MP3 format, but I'm sure no-one will have any problems converting them to OGG format.
Download classical piano version (MP3)
Download highly addictive electronic version (MP3)
Download random song (MP3)

-- Data