On numbers and games
Three cool things of note recently:
This last bit bears some further explanation. I actually only spent about eight hours of solid game-making time with it this compo around, since it was my last weekend in Pittsburgh and i'd been wanting for a while now to visit Lili Coffee*Shop in Polish Hill. Turns out you can get there via the busway plus some stairs---a fact of which i intend to take advantage in the coming days! Their coffee was pretty okay, and their food was excellent---a tomato-basil-mozzarella-pesto-roastedredpepper bagel melt for $2.50! Also, Copacetic Comics is upstairs. 8, Chris, and i had fun checking it out and being regaled by its owner about various histories of Pittsburgh.
But i digress. Like i said, i only spent about eight hours of game-making on this thing, so i was half tempted not to submit it at all lest people judge it too harshly. But what the hey, i drew a boat for it, so why not? As expected, the first couple comments were pretty unforgiving, though to be fair, they came in before i wrote the note, so they probably just thought i was a hopeless n00b. But then there was not one but were two things that made me immensely happy with my decision to publish.
First, who should ironically leap to my defense but increpare, writer of like a billion games? (I think he gets the crapart movement.) (He's particularly notable among a few of the CMU POP group'ers for his lucid exposition of linear logic.) So that pretty much made my day. Those guys got told. By increpare. Check it out.
Secondly, following the tradition of my previous Ludum Dare entry Bouncecrab 1.0, i received another award from Mac Softpedia! I almost feel ridiculous linking to it, but it's too good to pass up. Besides the sheer preposterousness of the award itself, several aspects of the listing made me giggle. For one, neither of the screenshots Softpedia provides is the one that i put up with my submission: no, they actually played the game and made their own! (NB: they kind of spoil the ending *cough*...) Also, if you click on the screenshots link, you'll see that they're labelled "Screenshot 1 of 1492" and "Screenshot 2 of 1492"---what happened to the other 1490, i wonder? Best of all though, the description they give is the description of the game i wanted to make---almost none of the content they describe is actually present! I find this incredibly hilarious in an absurdist sort of way.
So yeah, it's been a hell of a semester: got a Ph.D, helped invent a course, made an award-winning game... 'bout time for a break. *curls up with a box of Toffifay* *homnomnom*..
- I got to use my new title for the first time while purchasing plane tickets. I wonder if i'll get any special treatment for being a "Dr." Or if i'll be in trouble when some guy starts having a heart attack and they're like, "Is anybody here a doctor?" and the flight attendant's like, "Wait, i remember seeing one on the roster---there, in seat 18C!"
- I bought (what can only be described as) a case of Toffifay, a quite popular confection in Germany, i'm told---but there, they call it Toffifee, which i cheekily like to pronounce as "toffee-fee" even though i probably know better... So far everybody i've shared some with except for Frank has never heard of them before! (Chris bought two boxes last week; today i gave a box to the Tazzaderos and brought a box to CSD tea.)
- I participated in Ludum Dare 19 producing a crappy but moderately playable 1942 parody called 1492. (The theme was "discovery", but i was partly riffing on on another potential theme contender which was something like "make a game based on a year", or somesuch.)
This last bit bears some further explanation. I actually only spent about eight hours of solid game-making time with it this compo around, since it was my last weekend in Pittsburgh and i'd been wanting for a while now to visit Lili Coffee*Shop in Polish Hill. Turns out you can get there via the busway plus some stairs---a fact of which i intend to take advantage in the coming days! Their coffee was pretty okay, and their food was excellent---a tomato-basil-mozzarella-pesto-roastedredpepper bagel melt for $2.50! Also, Copacetic Comics is upstairs. 8, Chris, and i had fun checking it out and being regaled by its owner about various histories of Pittsburgh.
But i digress. Like i said, i only spent about eight hours of game-making on this thing, so i was half tempted not to submit it at all lest people judge it too harshly. But what the hey, i drew a boat for it, so why not? As expected, the first couple comments were pretty unforgiving, though to be fair, they came in before i wrote the note, so they probably just thought i was a hopeless n00b. But then there was not one but were two things that made me immensely happy with my decision to publish.
First, who should ironically leap to my defense but increpare, writer of like a billion games? (I think he gets the crapart movement.) (He's particularly notable among a few of the CMU POP group'ers for his lucid exposition of linear logic.) So that pretty much made my day. Those guys got told. By increpare. Check it out.
Secondly, following the tradition of my previous Ludum Dare entry Bouncecrab 1.0, i received another award from Mac Softpedia! I almost feel ridiculous linking to it, but it's too good to pass up. Besides the sheer preposterousness of the award itself, several aspects of the listing made me giggle. For one, neither of the screenshots Softpedia provides is the one that i put up with my submission: no, they actually played the game and made their own! (NB: they kind of spoil the ending *cough*...) Also, if you click on the screenshots link, you'll see that they're labelled "Screenshot 1 of 1492" and "Screenshot 2 of 1492"---what happened to the other 1490, i wonder? Best of all though, the description they give is the description of the game i wanted to make---almost none of the content they describe is actually present! I find this incredibly hilarious in an absurdist sort of way.
So yeah, it's been a hell of a semester: got a Ph.D, helped invent a course, made an award-winning game... 'bout time for a break. *curls up with a box of Toffifay* *homnomnom*..