MLP - Webcomics
On hot days like this, I usually resort to passive entertainment. However, today, I have more creative plans. One problem is that I have too many.
I'm transcribing some of the work I wrote in notebooks and stuff ("offline"), and there is a lot of it. So I distracted myself (in an obvious ploy to make a bad situation worse, but I'm too overheated to notice) by thinking up things I would do with my time if I was going to surf the net, but - here's the kicker - I didn't actually surf the net.
No, instead, I played with Inform 7 a bit. Which is a tool to write Interactive Fiction. Which sorts fails it for me because there's not enough context, and too much reading, for the most part. The virtual world which is created ends up feeling like just a short story with a lot of frustration thrown in. I was thinking at first that maybe it's just that I am impatient (I am, really) and like at least basic graphics... but it is more than that.
A MUD is text-based too, but you tend to have useful things in MUDs. One important thing is the "exits" command, which tells you which ways you can go to get to an adjacent area. Another thing is the gps-like tracking that makes sure you don't get lost, i.e. you can consult a map, which is usually a graphic on a webpage somewhere... even most modern JRPGs don't have that; their HUD-maps are usually pathetic and almost uselss.
Least you think I hate everything and love MUDs, no, I hate MUDs too, for the most part. If they have a good system, then they're no players... and no, I'm not gonna play WoW, because it is too expensive... and I don't want to play anything, anyhow. I want to create something. EQ might have been more fun but wtvr.
So, what do I love?
Well, for starters, they're too nice webcomics that I follow (and by "nice", I don't really mean "they stroke your emotions and ego"):
XKCD, with line-drawings who are nonetheless quite expressive: http://xkcd.com/
Something Positive: http://www.somethingpositive.net/index.html
They are tons more, but those are the two shose feeds I found on LJ and I haven't even kept up with them recently. Since I'm busy trying to get myself out of this rut that I'm in.
Well, the positive thing about Inform 7 is that you can use it to "sketch out" an adventure game or something... it is quick to write and re-write stuff, but for a person who wants audiovisual interaction and geophysical location based maps, it would never work out... but that's not I7's fault, it's just a feature of the textual IF genre overall.
I'm not sure how to build a better tool; that's the problem. Evertime I start to work on something, I say "nah, that's silly" and give up before I start... so I need to shift myself into try-refine-re:try rather than never-try-passify mode.
I'm transcribing some of the work I wrote in notebooks and stuff ("offline"), and there is a lot of it. So I distracted myself (in an obvious ploy to make a bad situation worse, but I'm too overheated to notice) by thinking up things I would do with my time if I was going to surf the net, but - here's the kicker - I didn't actually surf the net.
No, instead, I played with Inform 7 a bit. Which is a tool to write Interactive Fiction. Which sorts fails it for me because there's not enough context, and too much reading, for the most part. The virtual world which is created ends up feeling like just a short story with a lot of frustration thrown in. I was thinking at first that maybe it's just that I am impatient (I am, really) and like at least basic graphics... but it is more than that.
A MUD is text-based too, but you tend to have useful things in MUDs. One important thing is the "exits" command, which tells you which ways you can go to get to an adjacent area. Another thing is the gps-like tracking that makes sure you don't get lost, i.e. you can consult a map, which is usually a graphic on a webpage somewhere... even most modern JRPGs don't have that; their HUD-maps are usually pathetic and almost uselss.
Least you think I hate everything and love MUDs, no, I hate MUDs too, for the most part. If they have a good system, then they're no players... and no, I'm not gonna play WoW, because it is too expensive... and I don't want to play anything, anyhow. I want to create something. EQ might have been more fun but wtvr.
So, what do I love?
Well, for starters, they're too nice webcomics that I follow (and by "nice", I don't really mean "they stroke your emotions and ego"):
XKCD, with line-drawings who are nonetheless quite expressive: http://xkcd.com/
Something Positive: http://www.somethingpositive.net/index.html
They are tons more, but those are the two shose feeds I found on LJ and I haven't even kept up with them recently. Since I'm busy trying to get myself out of this rut that I'm in.
Well, the positive thing about Inform 7 is that you can use it to "sketch out" an adventure game or something... it is quick to write and re-write stuff, but for a person who wants audiovisual interaction and geophysical location based maps, it would never work out... but that's not I7's fault, it's just a feature of the textual IF genre overall.
I'm not sure how to build a better tool; that's the problem. Evertime I start to work on something, I say "nah, that's silly" and give up before I start... so I need to shift myself into try-refine-re:try rather than never-try-passify mode.