Blehhhh stomach bug
Crazy Times by Jars of Clay
Hi all. Did you have a good Resurrection Day? Mine was the usual, a get-together with most of my family and lots of time spent with the nieces. They're both talking now, though the younger one only just.
Unfortunately, that get-together apparently served as the spreading ground for a nasty stomach bug. XP On Monday night I had some very unpleasant experiences, and I found out in the morning that most of my family was similarly afflicted. I wound up taking Tuesday and Wednesday off, and working from home Thursday and Friday (fortunately I have the privilege of working from home regularly on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I already had my work computer at home). Wasn't much fun, but if something like that had to happen, it was at least pretty good timing for it.
This month in development of the Awesome-Sauce Conflict Resolution System, I worked out some bugs in communicating a pending attack between players. I keep forgetting that the SendToAllClients function should only be used by the host instance of the game; all others should use SendToServer and let it handle dispersing the message from there. e.ea I also implemented a behavior for ScrollViews to automatically stick to the bottom of their contents if they're already there when something new is added -- in other words, working like a typical chat window. You'd think that would be a common enough desire that it would be a built-in feature or at least that there would be readily-available scripts out there for it, but I couldn't find any. It was a little tricky to implement as it turned out, but in the end I was able to get a satisfactory behavior from it.
Remember that musical Mario event I took part in? The guy who organized it never got around to releasing the stages we created as a collected episode. A little over a month ago he mentioned in the event comments that life had been slamming him, plus he was a bit bummed by the fact that the event itself only generated five stages. Well, a few weeks ago I asked if somebody was still going to get around to releasing the episode, and a couple weeks of silence after that I announced I was taking it upon myself to get 'er done. It wasn't a huge project, mainly just creating a "hub world" from which to access the stages, although I had some technical difficulties with it due to Super Mario Bros. X's little oddities (tip: if you make a hub world, don't try to implement sub-hubs as separate stages, unless you can live with the player being transported back to the main hub's starting point after every death or stage finish). It's very nearly complete now, I just need to finish writing the README file and upload the episode package once the game page is approved.
On Zelda RPG, I started a scene as Tommy wherein he found an appreciative audience amongst the Gerudo for his tales of thievery. n.n Fallon stopped by the kitchen table where Tommy was regaling them, and the topic of the knife he'd earned from her came up. When Tommy tried to pull it out to show, he realized somebody had stolen it. -_-; Figures for a fortress of thieves, but it hadn't occurred to Tommy that being amongst his own "kind" for once might have that downside.
The cats + fox managed to finish off the Fears they were dealing with, Kito using a blast of ice magic on his. Then just as Sheikah was about to declare their work for the night done, an extremely powerful Fear manifested from a kid curled up in the corner of the room. This one took the form of...an ordinary Hylian woman. WITH A CHUNK GOUGED OUT OF HER HEAD. *.* Sheikah called for an immediate retreat, declaring that this one couldn't be taken head-on.
Machinarium:
This was a nice little gem amongst the Humble Bundle offerings. Machinarium is a fairly traditional graphic-adventure game, of the get-item-use-on-other-thing variety with a few straight-up brainteasers thrown in (some of which are pretty high on the difficulty curve). Its primary appeal is its artwork, which depicts a rusty world of robots living in pieced-together cacaphony. There's no written or spoken dialog, just occasional pictorial speech bubbles portraying concepts.
The story follows a small 'bot who got tossed out in the dump outside of the city of Machinarium. As you eventually learn, there's a trio of villainous robots planning a terrorist bombing...and they've also kidnapped your friend and forced her (it?) to work as a cook for them. c.c Yeah, it's all pretty bizarre. You'll interact with various denizens of the robotic society as you explore, often helping them in return for a reward or favor, sometimes actually being more of nuisance.
It's hard to describe much more than that without going into nitty-gritty detail. I recommend Machinarium if you like graphic adventure games with fantastic art style and can face up against some challenging puzzles (or, y'know, don't mind Googling the solutions when you're stumped, although I'm pleased to say I got through this one on my own).
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Ep. 1:
Whaddaya know, there was a Sonic the Hedgehog Humble Bundle. c.c I was a little dubious about getting it, since I'm not a huge Sonic fan and a bunch of the titles in this bundle were critically panned (and the ones I knew were decent I already had), but I was swayed by simple curiousity about the create-a-character mode in Sonic Forces. And no, I haven't gotten to playing that one yet. Still, should be interesting to see how many options they give Sonic fans to recreate their ORIGINALCHARACTERDONOTSTEALs. X)
But anyway, about the game currently in question, you've probably heard Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was quite a flop, and, yup, that pretty much sums it up. It's basically an attempt to cash in on nostalgia about Sonic the Hedgehog 2, except homing attacks are a thing (fortunately regular jumps do kill enemies too unlike in Sonic Colors) and Tails and the rest of the extra cast aren't around. The boss fights are even remixes of the ones seen in Sonic 2, starting out pretty much exactly the same and then progressing to a variation after a few hits. And of course there's a casino-themed zone, although that's become almost a universal Sonic thing, not just an imitating-Sonic 2 thing.
The graphics are 3D models with rather wooden animation, particularly noticable with Sonic himself. Not sure why that happened, they've already made 2D Sonic games with 3D graphics that looked a lot smoother. The control is pretty wooden too, even by Sonic standards. Midair momentum runs out rather suddenly if you don't keep pushing forward, which means that if the game launches you through the air, you can't just trust it to get you to where it wants you to go, you have to guess whether you should be pressing in a particular direction -- otherwise you're liable to lose horizontal velocity as if you just hit an invisible wall of peanut butter and then plummet into a bottomless pit. On top of that, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 remains true to the general design philosophy of the Sonic series, which means it has all the foibles thereof -- low ability to move until you've gotten up momentum, hazards that you don't have time to react to unless you already know they're coming, etc. Finally, I encountered a bug about 3/4s of the way through the game that made it impossible to progress -- there was a place where it looked like Sonic is supposed to be yanked into a hole in the wall by a water current, but he got stuck on the level geometry and couldn't move until he drowned. Every time. =.= I could've skipped that and went on to the last zone since they allow you to do them in any order, but I decided I wasn't enjoying the game enough to spend any more time on it, and I probably won't bother with Episode 2 either.
Bottom line? Unless you're a REEEEEEALLY die-hard Sonic fan, stay far away from this one.
Click to viewHi all. Did you have a good Resurrection Day? Mine was the usual, a get-together with most of my family and lots of time spent with the nieces. They're both talking now, though the younger one only just.
Unfortunately, that get-together apparently served as the spreading ground for a nasty stomach bug. XP On Monday night I had some very unpleasant experiences, and I found out in the morning that most of my family was similarly afflicted. I wound up taking Tuesday and Wednesday off, and working from home Thursday and Friday (fortunately I have the privilege of working from home regularly on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I already had my work computer at home). Wasn't much fun, but if something like that had to happen, it was at least pretty good timing for it.
This month in development of the Awesome-Sauce Conflict Resolution System, I worked out some bugs in communicating a pending attack between players. I keep forgetting that the SendToAllClients function should only be used by the host instance of the game; all others should use SendToServer and let it handle dispersing the message from there. e.ea I also implemented a behavior for ScrollViews to automatically stick to the bottom of their contents if they're already there when something new is added -- in other words, working like a typical chat window. You'd think that would be a common enough desire that it would be a built-in feature or at least that there would be readily-available scripts out there for it, but I couldn't find any. It was a little tricky to implement as it turned out, but in the end I was able to get a satisfactory behavior from it.
Remember that musical Mario event I took part in? The guy who organized it never got around to releasing the stages we created as a collected episode. A little over a month ago he mentioned in the event comments that life had been slamming him, plus he was a bit bummed by the fact that the event itself only generated five stages. Well, a few weeks ago I asked if somebody was still going to get around to releasing the episode, and a couple weeks of silence after that I announced I was taking it upon myself to get 'er done. It wasn't a huge project, mainly just creating a "hub world" from which to access the stages, although I had some technical difficulties with it due to Super Mario Bros. X's little oddities (tip: if you make a hub world, don't try to implement sub-hubs as separate stages, unless you can live with the player being transported back to the main hub's starting point after every death or stage finish). It's very nearly complete now, I just need to finish writing the README file and upload the episode package once the game page is approved.
On Zelda RPG, I started a scene as Tommy wherein he found an appreciative audience amongst the Gerudo for his tales of thievery. n.n Fallon stopped by the kitchen table where Tommy was regaling them, and the topic of the knife he'd earned from her came up. When Tommy tried to pull it out to show, he realized somebody had stolen it. -_-; Figures for a fortress of thieves, but it hadn't occurred to Tommy that being amongst his own "kind" for once might have that downside.
The cats + fox managed to finish off the Fears they were dealing with, Kito using a blast of ice magic on his. Then just as Sheikah was about to declare their work for the night done, an extremely powerful Fear manifested from a kid curled up in the corner of the room. This one took the form of...an ordinary Hylian woman. WITH A CHUNK GOUGED OUT OF HER HEAD. *.* Sheikah called for an immediate retreat, declaring that this one couldn't be taken head-on.
Machinarium:
This was a nice little gem amongst the Humble Bundle offerings. Machinarium is a fairly traditional graphic-adventure game, of the get-item-use-on-other-thing variety with a few straight-up brainteasers thrown in (some of which are pretty high on the difficulty curve). Its primary appeal is its artwork, which depicts a rusty world of robots living in pieced-together cacaphony. There's no written or spoken dialog, just occasional pictorial speech bubbles portraying concepts.
The story follows a small 'bot who got tossed out in the dump outside of the city of Machinarium. As you eventually learn, there's a trio of villainous robots planning a terrorist bombing...and they've also kidnapped your friend and forced her (it?) to work as a cook for them. c.c Yeah, it's all pretty bizarre. You'll interact with various denizens of the robotic society as you explore, often helping them in return for a reward or favor, sometimes actually being more of nuisance.
It's hard to describe much more than that without going into nitty-gritty detail. I recommend Machinarium if you like graphic adventure games with fantastic art style and can face up against some challenging puzzles (or, y'know, don't mind Googling the solutions when you're stumped, although I'm pleased to say I got through this one on my own).
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Ep. 1:
Whaddaya know, there was a Sonic the Hedgehog Humble Bundle. c.c I was a little dubious about getting it, since I'm not a huge Sonic fan and a bunch of the titles in this bundle were critically panned (and the ones I knew were decent I already had), but I was swayed by simple curiousity about the create-a-character mode in Sonic Forces. And no, I haven't gotten to playing that one yet. Still, should be interesting to see how many options they give Sonic fans to recreate their ORIGINALCHARACTERDONOTSTEALs. X)
But anyway, about the game currently in question, you've probably heard Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was quite a flop, and, yup, that pretty much sums it up. It's basically an attempt to cash in on nostalgia about Sonic the Hedgehog 2, except homing attacks are a thing (fortunately regular jumps do kill enemies too unlike in Sonic Colors) and Tails and the rest of the extra cast aren't around. The boss fights are even remixes of the ones seen in Sonic 2, starting out pretty much exactly the same and then progressing to a variation after a few hits. And of course there's a casino-themed zone, although that's become almost a universal Sonic thing, not just an imitating-Sonic 2 thing.
The graphics are 3D models with rather wooden animation, particularly noticable with Sonic himself. Not sure why that happened, they've already made 2D Sonic games with 3D graphics that looked a lot smoother. The control is pretty wooden too, even by Sonic standards. Midair momentum runs out rather suddenly if you don't keep pushing forward, which means that if the game launches you through the air, you can't just trust it to get you to where it wants you to go, you have to guess whether you should be pressing in a particular direction -- otherwise you're liable to lose horizontal velocity as if you just hit an invisible wall of peanut butter and then plummet into a bottomless pit. On top of that, Sonic the Hedgehog 4 remains true to the general design philosophy of the Sonic series, which means it has all the foibles thereof -- low ability to move until you've gotten up momentum, hazards that you don't have time to react to unless you already know they're coming, etc. Finally, I encountered a bug about 3/4s of the way through the game that made it impossible to progress -- there was a place where it looked like Sonic is supposed to be yanked into a hole in the wall by a water current, but he got stuck on the level geometry and couldn't move until he drowned. Every time. =.= I could've skipped that and went on to the last zone since they allow you to do them in any order, but I decided I wasn't enjoying the game enough to spend any more time on it, and I probably won't bother with Episode 2 either.
Bottom line? Unless you're a REEEEEEALLY die-hard Sonic fan, stay far away from this one.