Peregrination

The 2010 GiaD will be held on the dates of Saturday, September 25th, and Sunday, September 26th. Rules will be announced in advance. Be sure to get the time off.

Also, you can continue to make theme suggestions in the comments to the post. I've already decided on one theme, but I could use another one or two.

As you've probably noticed, contest season is in full swing with at least two major contests ongoing: BYOND Casual's Casual Competition, ending on Sept.19th (Talk Like a Pirate Day), and LummoxJR's Cartridge Classic II, Ending Dec.1st.

For those of you who follow this blog, you know that the much anticipated fifth annual Game in a Day (GiaD) event is due some time this month. That's what I want your input on. When would you prefer we have the GiaD? Before you answer, remember that the whole event is actually 48 hours long. I'm thinking the weekend of the 25th and 26th, as this is the weekend after BYOND Casual's competition ends. I've been known to completely overlook common dates, such as the start of school, so tell me which dates work best for you. If you vote in the pole above, be sure to also comment - a comment explaining why you want a date will weigh in my consideration much more than just a vote.

I'm also going to need to choose a theme, so help me out by suggesting themes which you think would make good games, and not be too restrictive.

I'll be back to make an announcement about the dates of the competition one week from today, at the latest, so make your suggestions as soon as possible.

I'm making some changes around here. On of those changes was removing the guild. This post is to inform those who are wondering about their membership disappearing.

I hate blog posts about religion. I hate hearing people proclaim from the digital rooftops how they've found Jesus, backing up their faith with arguments based entirely on emotion. I hate hearing people foam at the mouth over how terribly evil all religion is, using equally fallacious arguments to disprove spirituality. I don't much care what you believe, just so long as it doesn't place arbitrary restrictions on other people, you're open minded, and are honest in your beliefs. You see,

I'm an Atheist.

You'd never know this if you talked to me, because I talk to people where they are. If you come to me asking for personal advice, I'll give it to you in a way that works with your belief system. I don't need to convince you that your god doesn't exist in order to lend you my opinion on how to treat a family member in such and such a situation. In fact, I don't feel any need to convince anyone of anything - I don't care if people disagree with me.

I remember how two years ago at Christmas time I was invited to be one of three speakers to give a reflection at a Baptist service, in lieu of the sermon. [Why did they ask me? They often hire me to play music for their special occasions]. I chose as my reflection how we remember Christmas for its "Gloria in Excelsis Deo", but the way God chose to have us remember Christmas was a poor family in the cold, and a human being born into absolute poverty. I said that, to God, what mattered wasn't the incarnation, that God became man; what mattered was that a man was suffering. I then asked them to remember Christmas by giving to the poor, or something. You expect me to remember every detail? The point is, everyone there thought I was a baptist, and I didn't really care. They were helping the poor. Sounds good to me. This Baptist church, in particular, is very mindful of the poor, and I'd rather have some ignorant religious folk helping the poor than hoards of equally ignorant atheists yelling about spaghetti monsters and unicorns.

About a year ago I was on a date with a wonderful woman. It was a first date, and though this nerd should never be caught without a shirt on (I'm so pale I don't even have a tan line) we were going kayaking. The conversation was going well. She asked me, at one point, what religion I was. I stated that I was an Atheist. She didn't mind, but was surprised: she thought I was christian. I guess at some point she must have heard my music, much of which is hymns (I do make most of my music money playing for churches). I said that her confusion didn't surprise me, as I don't really care what religion people think I am, so I let them think what they want. She then asked if my family knew. I told her no; I didn't want to influence my family either way. You see, I'm "the smart one" and I believe my opinion carries a lot of weight in my family when it comes to this subject. The conversation was markedly less interesting after that; I don't think she had her heart in it anymore.

That was our last communication, and for a long time I didn't understand why she didn't see things the same way I did. I feel that I'm honest in all things, and I'll go out of my way to be completely honest in any way that is important. But this religion thing just isn't important to me, what does it matter what people think I am? Besides, I had been honest with her, hadn't I? What I came to learn over time was that I presented as someone who was willing to go to great lengths to hide a secret from the people around me, a secret that they thought was important. This is the same sort of thinking that can lead a man to hide an ongoing affair and rationalize away any moral obligations.

I hate posts like this. I hate being whiny about my personal life, and I hate discussing personal matters online, especially when it has to do with romance. I hate posts about religion/atheism (and I will delete any comment that is proselytizing). That being said, I do see a need to correct my earlier mistake in allowing people to believe things about me which are incorrect. As the subject comes up, I've been informing people of my position. As I have been involved in these discussions here on BYOND (mostly attacking people on either side when dishonest tactics are used), I feel I should inform you as well.

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In the same spirit of disclosure, I should tell you that I'm no longer into alcohol. Though I never tried to get drunk (I've only been drunk twice), I used to drink a beer or wine or something almost every night. I enjoyed alcohol, especially a home brewed beer. I don't see any benefit to drinking alcohol, and I do see a lot of reasons not to. So these days I advocate doing away with the alcohol completely.

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Hm, what else? My family won't eat at Taco Bell. Two of us have been hospitalized for food poisoning after eating there. I don't eat there either. ...but every six months or so I get a craving for some tacos, and I likes me some tacos, and I'm on the road an hour away from home. Be gentle, it's my weak human nature.

I don't have much to report in terms of results. Despite initial interest only four projects were submitted for consideration:

• Dream Catcher, by Jp
• Mech Game Framework, by Geldonyetich
• Haz Wars, by F0lak
• Artemis (a library), by IainPeregrine, DivineTraveller, and Tekken

Now the rundown on each of them:

Jp's Dream Catcher program might be the closest to the goal of the event, in that it is a solid piece of code which furthers the completion of an actual product, the alternative DM IDE which has been in the works for a while now. Though this actual code may not appear in the final product, it can be thought of as scaffolding, supporting the product until the final code can be completed. At least, that's how I understand it. Fortunately I don't have to fret over whether or not to award Jp any money; we discussed at the beginning of the event how his project stretched too many of the parameters of the event to be eligible for monetary awards. That's a good thing for me, because the guy who was going to award that money was never heard from again.

Geldonyetich produced a working hub with playable download for his Mech Game Framework. Sadly, the entry falls short of his original specification, and is not presented as a finished product, which is one of the main components of this event. On the plus side, I did finally get to play a game made by Geldonyetich, which is good because I was still harboring suspicions that he might be some sort of highly sophisticated AIM bot designed as part of some long term practical joke, using our collective blogs as fuel for its own procedurally generated dev log. *cough*. Anyway, the parts of the game present actually play pretty well, and you can tell that Geldonyetich has formed a good grasp of the DM language.

I hope F0lak continues work on Haz Wars. It is a simple strategy game where each side purchases and deploys units from their faction to mindlessly walk across the small screen to the opposing side's base, and attack it. The skill in this game is in timing your waves (should you send a big wave of Cavalry followed by archers and light infantry, or several small waves?) and in choosing units which will do well against the units your enemy has chosen / will choose. Sadly, not all of it works (for instance, the final version had trouble with attacks from anything but archers). Also, there is no hub or public download for the game. Being part of the Hazordhu franchise, perhaps the best part of the game is seeing F0lak's fine graphics and animation in action.

The Artemis library, in a very simple form, was finished. It has a hub, and it can be used for cross server communication in networks. For instance, the current version of HazordhuII actually uses the library for its OOC (out of character) chat channel. The library also has several features I am proud of: servers will ping out over time, information about servers on the network will propagate over time, and the library is a good way to work AI users ("bots") into a program. Though I consider the code itself a success, the library is not. There is currently very little in terms of documentation, and no library can be considered a public product without good documentation. Also, I finished my portion of the project so late that DivineTraveller and Tekken were unable to work on their portions, which included the server moderation portion of the library. (This is not to say that DT and Tekken did nothing. The design of the library took into account input from all three of us).

So what does all this mean? No medals this year. I can't look at any of the four submitted projects and say that the conditions of the event were met, though it is fair to say that Jp did Get Something Done. Though the Game in a Day event is alive and well, I cannot say the same about the GSD, and I will probably be replacing it with a different event next year.

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Thanks for the continued interested, even as I was taking my good time wondering how to present these results. Now forget about this failed event, and go enjoy some of BYOND's long running successes. I suggest:

• Hazordhu II, by F0lak. Hazordhu has been around BYOND for almost as long as I have, and is in many ways the spiritual successor of Peregrine City. It is an excellently constructed game, though it does have it's bugs and other problems. The great part is that it has come a long way, and is always being updated. Version 5.4, a major update, is going to be rolled out any day now (I was told to expect it today, though that hasn't happened). Jump in, role play, roll your eyes over the occasional drama, build a castle, and enjoy this large, original, lush world.
• Freeze Tag Hide Away, by Gaming Asylum Productions. This is a simple game with a simple premise, and executed well. You can jump in, have a ton of fun, and jump out after 20min or less. The atmosphere is friendly and familiar, and you can play as your favorite plumber, Pokemon, or even Kirby. Go team Squirtle!
• Final Fantasy Online, by Gakumerasara. This is another long running game that is constantly being updated. I haven't played it in ages, but I have sunk countless hours into it. Even if you don't like it at first, it's worth taking the time to complete the tutorial and get a real feel for the game. This is the closest BYOND has ever come to that MMORPG holy grail we developers and players are always striving for.