SSGX's BYOND website

So some of you might remember a few posts I've made about the Voltron I built out of Lego:

http://www.byond.com/members/ SuperSaiyanGokuX?command=view_post&post=32711

Well, I've run across another Lego Voltron that completely blows mine out of the water:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/grandadmiral/sets/ 72157621831608361/

And I really mean completely... I mean, I'm still proud of mine, especially considering the part limitations it was built under (namely just what I had available in my modest collection, plus just a few extra ordered special), but this guy's rendition is lightyears above it...

If you like Voltron and/or Lego, you need to check it out...

Once again, I find myself grudgingly agreeing with parts of Silk's point, yet cringing at the way he has conveyed it...lol

I don't agree that BYOND games have no reason to ever grow larger than 2MB, but I do agree that if the size mainly comes from high-res title screens and other wasteful graphic resources (which generally only come packaged with games that don't even come close to living up to the look of those wrappings once you get inside the actual game) and lots of poorly chosen, uncompressed sound files, then yes, there's a problem...

But if a game genuinely uses some extra file space to accomplish something worthwhile (lots of compressed, yet good quality sounds, high-res graphics all-around, etc.), then I have no issue with it...

My largest game package is Murder Mansion, weighing in at 2.6 MB... This is obviously due to sounds... Virtually none of the sounds in Murder Mansion have been edited from the originals I found on the 'net (mostly through findsounds.com), and quite a few of them are far larger than they need to/should be, so if I ever got around to doing some optimization, I could probably shave that total down quite a bit...

DBTC tips the scales at 1.5 MB, making it perhaps one of the only fan games that slides in under Silk's arbitrary limit...

So I just witnessed something very sad...

The Orange Glo commercial came on (you know, the one that goes "This sander simulates years of wear and tear on your hardwood floors... blah blah") and it was almost the same commercial I've seen hundreds of times... It shows someone running a sander over a wood floor, scraping it all up, then squirting Orange Glo on it, mopping it around, and the floor looked good as new, while the announcer goes on to talk about how Orange Glo "cleans, shines, and even protects from damage!" Etc.

Well, up until today, that announcer has been Billy Mays... Today, though? It's the same commercial, but all traces of Mr. Mays have been removed...

There's now a female voiceover, saying the exact same lines as Billy's version, and all shots that used to show him have been edited out...

The guy dies, and the Orange Glo people decided to erase him from memory? Completely trash his legacy?

Jerks...

It's probably some sort of way to get out of paying royalties to his estate or something...

So, most of you know that I'm a father now (as of the past year and a half), but what you're all unaware of is that my son is incredibly smart (at least we all think so, and I swear none of us are biased in any way ;) ) And though vocabulary is only a small part of the intelligence puzzle, my kid knows a huge number of words for his age (as far as I'm aware) Here they all are, as well as I can recall them all (remember, he's only 1&1/2, and much of this list he's known for months; though as expected per child development around his age, he has very recently hit an explosion in learning new words) Most of the following are actual, honest-to-goodness, plainly spoken words, and some are approximations or baby-talk mispronunciations (which I'll make notes on as needed):

Family members:

Mommy
Daddy
Paw-paw (paternal grandpa; this is slowly turning into "grandpa")
Me-me (paternal grandma; she's referred to as "Grammy")
Papa (maternal grandpa; this one should stick, as that's what we refer to him as)
Mama (maternal grandma)
Me (himself, in pictures or the mirror)
Nick (his closest-in-age cousin)
[Uncle] Bryan (my brother)

Animals:

Dog (which says "Arf")
Cat (which says "Mao")
Bird
Moo (Applies to cows... he doesn't say "cow" yet, though)
[Gi]raffe
Lion (which says "Roar")
Frog
Pig
Fish ("feese")
Bee (not just a random sound; actually applied to the insect, both in pictures and real life)
Duck
Monkey (this one is currently just "mee", but he applies it to primates)
Bear
Mouse (still just "mao", but again, applied correctly)
Owl
Sheep (which says "Baa")
[Ze]bra
[S]nake
Elephant ("Ahh-phan")
[Butter]fly

Foods (and related):

Eat
More
Bite
Cup
Milk
Chee[se]
Apple
[Ba]nana
Ice Cream ("i-keem")
Water
Ju[ice]
Fry (for french fries)
Pop (even though he never gets any)
Cookie
Egg ("eyeg")
Butter

TV characters (we watch a lot of Nickelodeon):

Dora
Boots
Go-go (Diego)
Bob (Spongebob; he also recognizes the other characters, and can approximate their names, like "Pappur" for Patrick and "Kwurd" for Squidward)
Ming-ming (the duck on "The Wonder Pets")
Ernie
Elmo
Carly (the girl on "iCarly"... he seems to have a crush)

Body parts (including locating/pointing to them):

Eye
No[se]
Mou[th]
Ear
Hand
Arm
Feet
Pee-pee (this was discovered a few months ago, and diaper changes and baths haven't been the same since)

General nouns:

Phone
Night-night
[Out]side
Slide
Swing
Bubble
Car (which goes "Beep-beep")
Truck
Van
Bike
Plane ("Pane")
Train ("Tane" which goes "Whoo-Whoo")
(The last few relating to vehicles, he uses to correctly identify each type of vehicle he plays with or sees on the road, and the sounds they make)
Baby
Ball
Shoe
Shirt
House
Light
Bath
Stairs
Seat
Clock
Drum
Flower
Balloon ("Ba-oon")
Book
Star
[Re]mote

General verbs:

Stop
Go
Stand
Clap
Roll
Climb
Jump
Peek
Fart (he's a boy, what can I say?)

General adjectives:

Hot
Cold
Off
On
Up
Down
Stuck

Interjections:

Hello
Hi
Bye
No (much to our dismay)
Aww (for hugs)
There!
Whoa!
Wow!
Oh no!
Aw, maaaaan!
Aw, c'mon!
Duh!
Uh oh!
Hurray!
Yay!
Boom!
All done/gone!
Mmmmm (occasionally after taking a bite of food)
Ahhhh (occasionally after drinking)

He's also polite:

Please (well, more like "pwee", but he actually uses it when asking for things)
Thank you ("ankyu")
Excuse me (more like "cue me", but he knows when to use it, and even urges us to say it when we make bodily noises)

Higher concepts:

He's recently been learning colors and numbers... He'll say two, three, four, or five if prompted with the number(s) before (though I'm not sure if he gets the concept, or just has the sequence memorized) For colors, he seems to have blue down pretty good, and can make almost discernable words for red, white, black, brown, and green (he sometimes needs a reminder), but blue and red seem to be the only ones he can correctly apply when asked what color an object is...

I know that learning things is his thing (as with all children), but I'm continually amazed and impressed by the little dude...

So today I got the urge to make another DBZ game... DBTC is a style of game that doesn't appeal to the masses (turn-based, singleplayer-focused, not flashy, etc.), and I decided I'd like to make a second DBZ game that follows the more popular mold...

It won't happen for quite some time (if ever), because I've got a nice list of projects and jobs ahead of it (including actually upgrading DBTC itself at some point; I wouldn't abandon my baby for this project), but I'm putting it at the end of my List...

The trouble is, I don't want to invest a lot of time into another huge project (which this would quickly become), I don't want to re-use DBTC resources (or even mimic their style, which I'm not sure I can get away from), and I don't want to even try to compete with some of the truly original and amazing DBZ games out there (both released and in development)

So...

I want to become a ripper...lol

I want to grab up some popular source (or maybe as many of them as I can find) and hammer them into a decent game... Sort of show the rippers how to really do it...lol

How would I go about this? Well, a lot of my focus tends towards the artistic/aesthetic side, so a major part of the work would be graphical... Every icon (ripped or otherwise) would have to be edited into a coherent style (I'd dump the most glaring offenders... no icons would remain that were taken from commercial games, and I'd try to weed out any that aren't now more or less in BYOND's "public domain") Too many DBZ games around here are a jumbled, mismatched, hodge-podge of icons from wildly varying sources and styles (and they look like garbage because of it) I'd pick one style that I like the best (and/or can emulate the best) out of the lot and dump or edit everything else to match it...

Along with visuals would come mapping... I see too many games (not just DBZ games, mind you) with terrible mapping jobs... Just plopping turfs down to make stuff that looks like buildings, or having huge expanses of nothing but empty water or grass for the sake of making the map look big, or having layouts that don't make sense, or maps that don't even resemble the places they're supposed to represent are all huge sins in my eyes... I'd have to rectify these common issues in my rip...

And of course, the programming... This one will be tough, but I think I'm up to the challenge... Aside from cleaning it up to my current standards of simplification, universalization, organization, etc., I'd have to gut most of it and rebuild from the scrap...lol But I'd try to retain all of the various commonplace elements that DBZ players on BYOND come to expect...

Of course, for much of the ubiquitous (and ultimately pointless) systems (like "Meditate" or P-bags) I'd try to find some way to make them actually worthwhile and entertaining... Perhaps a great undertaking in itself, but to stay true to the spirit of the project and its roots, I wouldn't want to just tear them all out...

So yeah, someday, I'll become a ripper (unless the "Warning of the Day" hits me because of this post)

Will everyone still love me? lol

Of course, I wouldn't try to pass the game off as original (kind of hard, since it'll likely still scream "rip", plus, y'know, there's now this blog post), and it and/or its hub entry would be very clear about its origins (maybe even with a little sermon about the evils of ripping, unless that might seem too hypocritical)