SuperSaiyanGokuX's site

The State of Everything

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:43:54 +0000

It seems that I make this sort of "I'm still alive" post every other time I'm on here, but here's another!

A few months back, I posted that I had made some progress with some new Murder Mansion content, but shortly after that was when the Minecraft bug bit me, and that game swallowed up huge chunks of my computer time. :)

That is, up until a couple of months ago, when my hard drive imploded.

I managed to salvage our files off of it (had to hook it up in another computer as a slave, and run a file recovery/restore program, then burn everything into backup DVDs). However, the process removed all file names and directory structures. So, now I'm stuck with a stack of discs full of files (that are only organized by filetype) that I'll have to sift through to put everything back into its proper place. I have not done so, since we still do not have a working computer to put it all into (the entire thing needs to be replaced, but the spare cash and time have not been available lately)

This means that BYOND work is at an obvious halt. I'm confident that I have everything I need to put my projects back together, but there's actually a chance that I do not. I do have some fairly old backups, but all of my recent Murder Mansion progress might be long gone (but, since that's all I've worked on in literally years, my backups should be current for everything else). If that is the case, I'll probably be so frustrated that I'll be forced to put MM back on the shelf and work on something else whenever I get back into BYOND development.

I see that FUNimation has finally brought the Cease and Desist down on DBZ games on BYOND. I actually still plan to work on DBTC, but I guess no one but me will ever see it...lol It's not worth turning it into something non-DBZ, so that's out of the question.

I actually do have a list of other projects and ideas to work on, so perhaps this is all just some cosmic way of boosting those projects and ideas to the front of the line...lol

Anyways, don't expect to hear much more from me anytime soon, as I still do not have a working computer at home (this is a borrowed one) and no immediate plans/ability to rectify that situation. (plus, not having constant access to the internet at home has made me so much more productive around the house...lol) But do not fear that I've died or moved on from BYOND.

I doubt I'll ever be able to leave it for good.

Ok, so now there goes the neighborhood...

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:38:40 +0000

There I was, innocently toiling away at my Murder Mansion "Neighborhood" map to put in the finishing touches, when suddenly, this happened:

I'd turn this in as an official bug report, but I have no idea how or why it happened, nor any way to repeat it... All I was doing was placing some turfs to make a car in the garage behind the violet house and with a slight flicker of the editor (or maybe the entire screen) that jumbled mess exploded all over the map... I don't even remember exactly what function I had just performed when it happened (was I simply using Fill or Add to place a turf? had I right-clicked a tile? etc.)

A handful of instances have been replaced by other instances wherever they occur on the map (for example, the yellow dashed road lines are now blue mailboxes, and the horizontal picket fences were replaced by wall lights, which are actually objects with a pixel offset) The swapped elements have different icon files (so it's not just an icon_state change) and in some cases, different atom types...

I suspect that it has something to do with my particular mapping method; atoms (especially turfs) are only defined in code by general types (like "turf/Room_Decor/Kitchen","turf/Floors". etc.) instead of by specifics... Each one has its own icon file ('decor_kitchen.dmi', 'arch_floors.dmi', etc.) that contains states for all instances needed for that type, and then these instances are "Generated from icon_states" in the map editor for placement... (so, rather than hard-defining each of the specific turfs needed, like "red carpet" or "microwave", I can just use the one general definition, generate instances, and place whatever icon_state I need)

So my best guess is that something went wrong with the system underlying the "Generate instances" function that caused the instances I had generated for the map thus far to become all mixed up...

I opened the map file in a text editor, but it looks like fixing this that way would be way too much work (the list of unique tile definitions goes all the way up to "vg", which is over 1000 different entries), so, I'm left with a manual clean up... Fortunately, the map has a copy in the /backup folder, but unfortunately, that backup is a bit old, and lacks additions like the trees and such... Perhaps I can frankenstein the two and salvage the majority of the work with minimal tile-by-tile correcting...

Oh well, I guess I'd better get to work...

Train of thought

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:51:13 +0000

The sound of the cars clack-clacking down the rails sang in our ears as myself and the other passengers aboard this cross-country overnight express fanned out from our meeting place in the dining car to solve the mysterious crime that had been committed here...

Some of us headed towards the rear of the train, while I headed to the engine with the question of who's driving this thing, anyway? I soon discovered the horrible answer to that: no one

I made my way back to my sleeper car to collect something from my compartment, making suggestions as to the details of the crime along the way... My fellow passengers would help me eliminate the possibilities, narrowing down the search...

It's a pretty cramped space, and the seating is uncomfortable and hard to sleep on, but at least the view of the monotonous terrain we're passing through is nice... Though, I'd sure hate to fall off of this thing (or get pushed) at the speed we're racing along... Hopefully, the steam will run out soon...

I kept heading towards the rear of the train, passing through the luggage car... No one seems to have left any incriminating evidence in their bags, but I make a suggestion, anyway, to try to cross another element off of my list...

Further back, I make my way through a freight car... According to the labels, this train is carrying some pieces being shipped to a museum... I admire some ancient swords, and decide to pick one up for my defense, should the need arise... Though I'm not sure there's enough room to swing one of these babies in the cramped passages of those sleeper cars...

I make it to the end of the train, to find that an open-air flatbed is carring an old biplane (likely also for the museum) The funny thing is, the caboose that I swear was on the end of this train when we departed is no longer coupled back here... Is that what happened to the crew and/or our suspect?

By this point, I've gathered enough clues to deduce the details of the heinous act that was committed here... Armed with this knowledge, I know that I must make my way back to the engine (I saw a radio there) To avoid the cramped (and dangerous) car interiors, I climb up the nearest access ladder, and walk the length of the train on the roof... It's a bit windy and bumpy, but it somehow feels safer than the alternative...

Has SSGX channeled his inner Sherlock Holmes to correctly solve this case? Will he be able to contact help with the radio? Will he accidentally plunge to his death off the side of the cars? Can the runaway train be stopped? The world may never know...

There goes the neighborhood.

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:35:18 +0000

I found myself looking out through the black curtains of my bedroom window at the rotting fiends that waited outside... Thankfully, they hadn't mastered the art of climbing (or breaking through) picket fences...

Taking my chances outside, I ran across the street to the red house of my neighbor... I made it past the shuffling dead, but they followed me one by one to the door... I could see them stumbling on the wet concrete, though, which gave me some small comfort...

The door was locked, so I had no choice but to turn and try to run for it back through the rapidly closing in horde... I made it to the driveway (my escape back down the front walk was hopelessly cut off) and out of their clawing hands, but not without being bitten by the closest one...

Feeling faint, I ran down the street, checking houses along the way... At the yellow house (you can tell from the street-side mailbox), I had to hide inside the fence as a horrific scene unfolded in the street before me... The lady from the gray house (next door to my own) was overtaken and savagely eaten... Oh well, at least she's distracting them...

I made it to the brown house, and managed to get inside, but only after climbing over this grisly scene... I wonder if that poor guy from the orange house took the zombie down with him, or if it just fell and hit its head on the walkway light?

After checking the houses (or, technically, the yards behind them) down this side of the street for the parts I need to make my escape from this Nightmare (on Maple Street?), I made my way back across, and headed back down the other side, passing through the main intersection in the middle of the neighborhood... It was a warzone...

Finally, I had found the remaining key to my escape (the, umm, keys) in the backyard of the violet house, and I made my way back through the house to deliverance, only to find that I had been followed in by one of the undead... Luckily, some tools had been left on the counter in their kitchen, allowing me to grab a hammer and "nail" the creature before it could sink its teeth into me... Right behind him, though, came the lady from the orange house... Escape is a one-person deal, so it might have to be me or her...

Does SSGX make it out alive? Can he convince the lady in orange that he hasn't found the escape parts, or will he have to kill her, too? Will SSGX change the weather/atmosphere on this map from the cliche stormy night to a fall evening complete with leaves on the ground and blowing through the air? Will any Murder Mansion fans get to see this new map in person, or will SSGX put off the update for a few years? Tune in next time, when none of these questions will be answered, and more will likely be raised! (well, the part about the weather change is pretty likely)

Him again?

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:32:33 +0000

So, how's everything been around these parts?

I think the last time I posted anything on BYOND (and that was just a post on Tiberath's forum) I mentioned that due to child number 2 being on the way, I wouldn't have much time for BYOND...

Well, child #2 (son #2) arrived safe and sound on August 3rd (I can't believe I didn't even stop by here to mention that) and has been every bit the handful that daddy expected (between him and his older brother, which turns 3 (!) this Sunday)

During this absence, I actually have visited the site a handful of times (even voted for my SkyWurm in the action game character tournament), but I've been refraining from posting anything... (I've also gotten a few e-mails from fans of my games, that I've read and not replied to, for fear of getting sucked back in before I was willing)

This post is mostly just a "yes, I'm still alive, and all is well" kind of deal for anyone who may care about that sort of thing...

It's also to mention that in the past few days, I actually fired up Dream Maker, and worked some more on Murder Mansion! If anyone remembers, my plans for the future of the game mostly consist of making more maps... Before my absence, I had been working on one in particular, but it was becoming a very intensive project (lots of icons, lots of details) and I think it was burning me out... So, I shelved that one, and moved on to some of the others on the List...

Anyways, I'm not going to be foolish enough to suggest a forthcoming update (who knows, it may be another year before I get anything really done...lol), but at least I'm working on it!

(Eventually, my other games will receive some attention, but that's much, much further down the road)

Lego Voltron part 3

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:56:44 +0000

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...

Jumping on the 2MB bandwagon

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:13:06 +0000

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...

How sad...

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:31:26 +0000

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...

My little genius

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:18:54 +0000

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...

Someday, I'll become a ripper...

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:40:13 +0000

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)