Rambling Brand

Sworn Enemies

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 07:13:00 -0800

There's a common expedient in video game design, where the game will give the player a "sworn enemy", an ancient enemy that the player has to just assume is the bad guy from the start. The only problem with that is, game players today are just too sophisticated to accept a cartoonish version of motivation like that.

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Did you ever notice how many games just start off by handing you a sworn enemy? In GTA San Andreas, they start the game by dropping you in 'Ballas' territory, and the first time you run across one of those gang members, the game tells you that they are your 'sworn enemy.' What I don't get is, Why?

Why are these guys my sworn enemy? Because they killed some of my gang? Sure, but I've killed a whole slew of them, so it's kinda a wash, right? I mean, either we actually keep score, or we just assume that we have to kill everybody. Either way, we've got no real reason for all the hostility.

Some games will start out by giving you a reason for hating the bad guy, and that works out a lot better. You are a simple peasant going about your simple life of collecting mushrooms, when suddenly a boulder destroys your entire village, and as you look up, you see the evil troll grinning down at the smoking crater of your home. . . now that's motivation!

But lots of of the games start you off with a 'sworn enemy' just as an expedient. If you play Sudeki, you start off with them handing you an enemy. An ancient enemy, the Aklorians, who have been at war with your people for some time, and seem to attack you for no reason. At the beginning of any game, I've got nothing but love for all God's people. When you tell me I've got an ancient enemy, I tend to question it more than just jump in and say, "Yeah! Let's kill those bastards!"

I find myself more interested in their motivation than angry with them. I kill those that attack me, but I just can't buy into calling them enemies. Then, about half way through the game, I find out that they are not my "real" enemy. In fact, someone else is manipulating both sides to attack each other. Well, how . . . underwhelming. Sorry, it just doesn't feel like betrayal when you don't really love or hate either side.

What's worse is that most games will foreshadow this situation. Look, if you are told to attack somebody, and you aren't given a reason for it, and people actively avoid questions which might mitigate the hatred, chances are you're being manipulated. If you really want to make the players believe a story, you have to give them a believable motivation for both sides. We hate the bad guys because they want to take over our world. Okay, but if you don't tell me why they want our world, then it just doesn't quite gel. These days, it's hard to accept general greed as a motivation, unless you make your enemy so cartoony in his manner that people accept him as generally shallow and two-dimensional.

Now, this would be a great betrayal. The troll destroys your village, and you see him dancing on the mountaintop, gleefully enjoying the destruction. You hear him say, "Boy I really do hate all humans. I just love smashin' em." Okay, at this point, you accept that your story and motivation are going to be two-dimensional, and you just play the game normally, trying to stop, or kill, the troll. Along your jouneys, you pick up a pal who tells you that his village was destroyed by the troll, and he has been following the troll ever since. So, cool. Now you've got a party in the standard video game sense.

But then you notice, in the middle of one of the battles, that the latest village the troll destroyed was a troll village. You notice that your new friend always seems to know just where to go next to head off the troll. Through cutscenes, you notice all kinds of intricate little details (like the troll is always rubbing the silver band around his head, like it was giving him a headache).

If games can do that, start with a simple two-dimensional story, and slowly evolve it through small, incremental clues, it would keep the player's attention, and build them up for a much better betrayal. For instance, the game leaves clues that lead you to believe your new friend is controlling the troll, but does it in a way that seems like the game is trying to keep that secret from you. Then, just when you're expecting the betrayal scene, where you are ready to confront him, you get stabbed from behind by a huge, new enemy with his own army of controlled trolls. You wake up in a jail cell thinking, "What the hell just happened?" Now, that's a sweet setup.

Any story that leads you subtly into building your own idea of which side is good and which is evil, then completely obliterates those beliefs in climactic storyline changes, will be heralded and loved.

LDTV - The Wave of the future.

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 00:37:00 -0800

I was just looking through the glut of hardware that makes up my handheld media system. My IPod Video, PocketPC computer, Neuros 442 video player, Treo video phone, and Playstation Portable. It occured to me that they all play video, but none of them are HDTV.

I started wondering why we care so much about HDTV.

The US government has decreed that we will move all TV signals to HDTV by 2006. The media conglomerates have tried twice to ram legislation through congress that will make it impossible to record HDTV, and half of the people who have HDTV systems think they are watching it, without actually having the systems hooked up properly.

That means half the people who have HDTV only think they're watching HDTV, while they are, in fact, only watching normal TV.

In fact, Hollywood doesn't even want HDTV. Turns out, when you see a movie star in the Megapixels view, you can see their skin imperfections. They look more human, presumably. This, of course, scares the hell out of Hollywood.

So why are we in such a hurry to get HDTV? Every time I've seen it, I've said, "Okay. The picture is clearer than normal. Of course, it doesn't make the movie any better."

Every one of the media viewers I own has the capability to play video at 320x240. And believe me, at 30 frames per second, 320x240 is plenty for a handheld device.

What's more, the compression savings are a godsend. I can get the typical 1.5 hour movie into 450megs at 320x240. That means I can store just about 9 movies (or 13.5 hours) of video on one DVD. 13.5 hours is enough space to store all the Lord of the Rings movies and still have room for the Rankin-Bass versions! (whoa, really showed my geek stripes there)

So that's what I'm doing. I'm letting the whole HDTV movement pass me by. I'm not going to be one of the early adopters who buys a $3,000 TV just so I can get smaller pixels. Instead, I'm going to convert all my DVDs to low res, cut my DVD collection to 1/10th it's size, and carry my videos with me wherever I go.

I think I'd enjoy being the world's first Low-Def Television Missionary.

Sony's rootkit 'Hot Coffee'

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Mon, 5 Dec 2005 21:06:00 -0800

Tags:Sony rootkit GTA Grand Theft Auto Hot Coffee ITunes

Sony is probably one of the biggest backers for Take Two, and GTA in particular. Every GTA game that has come out so far, debuted on a Sony System. So it could be said that Sony has a pretty close relationship with those guys.

It could also be said that Rockstar made a big mistake when it left critically dangerous code (now called 'Hot Coffee') in its game. When they put the Hot Coffee minigame in there, they took out the reference to it, thus removing it in practice without removing it in fact.

Now, in an odd moment of serendipity, it looks like Sony has done the same thing with their DRM software.

It turns out that the (now infamous) Sony rootkit employs code which came from DVD Jon, and was used to circumvent Apple's DRM software. The code from DVD Jon was released under the GPL, which means that in this case, Sony would have to publish the fact that they used this code.

Now, I'm not going to go after them because they broke copyright with their rootkit. That ground has already been covered. What I find funny is the news today about what they're doing with it.

It turns out that Sony had code that would allow ITunes to play their music, but only on the one computer. Of course, that meant hacking the Apple DRM in order to do it.

So, the story of the day would have been "Sony breaks copyrights twice in order to protect their copyrights". But that isn't the story at all. Because Sony took that function out.

Possibly at the last minute, Sony removed the call to their "ITunes enabling" code, thus leaving the functionality out, but not actually removing that code.

So, much like the way Rockstar accidentally leaked a "Hot Coffee" game, now Sony is accidentally leaking a "Hack ITunes" game.

Honestly, what Sony is doing behind our backs really makes the whole "Hot Coffee" scandal seem timid, sad, and tame.

Now, surely Hillary Clinton and all the anti-videogame people will come screaming for blood from people who actually do harm to peoples computers, data, privacy, and content. I'm just waiting to hear them start investigations of Sony.

Any minute now. . .

Existential Save Games

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:35:00 -0800

In this podcast post, I talk about a singularly odd thing that happened in GTA, which brought into question the very nature of the universe.

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I was just playing GTA: San Andreas a second ago, and I noticed something wholly unseen in the history of man.

First of all, you have to understand something about the way they do savegames. When you step on the little floating floppy disk, the game will do five things: save your game progress (obviously), fully heal you, fully feed you, drop any wanted level you may have gained, and advance the clock by six hours.

In the past, I have always assumed that it worked like this: I walked into my safehouse, got something to eat, had a bit of a lie down to refresh myself, and then came out six hours later. However, I have a spinning savegame icon that's standing in between two pillars in front of a garage, so it's not really a safehouse.

Anyway, I was running out of health, because my wanted level was at about three stars (not impossible to survive, but impossible to ignore). Cops were pouring out of the landscape, shooting off all of my armor, then most of my health. I got to the savegame icon with only one percent health, and a cop pointing his gun in my face. As I was looking down the cobalt blue barrel, the screen flashed to a "Save Game?" prompt.

I said yes, and the game resumed. It was six hours later, I was still standing in the middle of the parking lot, and still looking death in the barrel, when the cop put his gun down and walked away.

It had such an existential feel to it, like the last scene in Time Bandits, where Sean Connery gets back into the firetruck and waves as they drive off.

I figure this is what happened: The cops were pursuing me when I suddenly blipped out of existence. They ran a five-hour exhaustive manhunt, during which I could not be found. One cop stayed in place, swearing to all the others, "I don't care what you say! He freakin' vanished, man!" Then, just as he was giving up hope, I blipped back into existence in front of him. The vision of me, appearing like magic in front of the cop was a highly religious experience, one that made him rethink his whole moral outlook. He put his gun down, swearing never to raise it to another man in anger, and went home to tell his wife that they were going to buy a farm and live off the land.

Of course, it could be one of those normal gameplay invariants, but I like my version better.

Video Game Ethics 4 - Sex

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 21:47:00 -0800

In this podcast, I talk about the ethics of sex as handled by games. With added 'Hot Coffee' goodness.

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If you'd like to download just this file, this is the link.
If you'd like to read the original text, here it is:

It's kind of tough to talk about video games, ethics, and sex, because I don't think humanity has completely defined what appropriate sexual ethics are.

I mean, sexual issues seem to wax and wane with each generation. For instance, in America, just thirty years ago, homosexuality was never referred to on TV or film.

In that thirty years, however, we have seen "Will & Grace", "The L Word", and even the Crying Game. So, morals swing a lot over time.

Rather than try to determine where games stand on the right or wrong of sex,let's look at where they stand on individual issues within the realm of "sex".

Before I get started, let me point out that I'm drawing a distinction here between sex in games, and sex games.

The first group is personified by games that you can buy on the shelves at any Best Buy or Electronic Boutique (Leisure Suit Larry, Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto).

The second group is usually bought over the internet or downloaded (Hentai games, strip blackjack games, stuff like that).

Without trying to offend anyone, I'm going to call the first group "Normal" games (games that revolve around gameplay), and the second group "Hentai" games (games that revolve around sex).

I should point out that there are very few games out there that have courtship or sex, and of those few, they all feature a male courting a woman.

But while you may see a game where the male has to buy expensive presents, flowers, and candy for the female, you won't ever see a strong female lead striving to convince a male to love her. In this, at least, art imitates life.

Monogamy:

Of the entire range of "Normal" games, there are almost no games that support monogamy.

Whenever courting is represented in a video game, it is almost always a man courting a woman; and in all of those situations, the man is allowed to court as many women as he wishes.

Every episode of Leisure Suit Larry was about the player trying to have sex with as many girls as he could.

In Fable, a man can marry a woman in a grand ceremony, then walk to the nearest town and marry again.

In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, there are six different women who are designated "girlfriends".

It is quite possible, and apparently pretty common, for people to co-mingle in "The Sims". They can even get married, although even that is limited to kissing and hugging. Also, the Sims condones poligamy by allowing the male to marry as many females as he wants.

Now, there are several games out there that have a woman as a goal ("Save the Princess" to receive a chaste kiss on the cheek), but in those games, there is never an alternative.

You can't get to the end of the game and say, "Actually, I think the evil witch is more my type."

And because there's no choice, it's not really monogamous (was Adam really monogamous with Eve, or was there just no other choice?).

In Hentai games, monogamy is not even a consideration. Most of the game is involved not with which woman you should sleep with, but rather details about how you sleep with them.

T&A:

Given how much it's been covered in the past, it's almost not worth mentioning that body styles in video games have grown unbelievable.

Every leading man has a 30-inch waist, washerboard abs, four foot wide shoulders, and rippling muscles.

Every leading lady fits a 36-24-36 DD format, and in some games, you can even set how much the breasts bounce when she moves.

This section is obviously tailored to the lowest common denominator, and it will not change. Why? You may ask? Because there's a lot more people in the lower common denominator than in any other group, and they spend money the same way anybody else does.

And, of course, it's even worse in the Hentai games.

The Act:

In Normal games, showing the act is very rare, and usually involves creative editing. GTA will show a car bounce up and down if you hire a prostitute.

Leisure Suit Larry will show some suggestive imagery, but put black "Censor bars" over the private parts of the couple. Probably my favorite example of this was in the first LSL, where the Censor bar was the exact same size as Larry, so it looked like the bar was bouncing on top of Larry's date.

A more common form is to fade to black, or show an exterior shot of the room, while you hear the moaning coming from inside.

Either way, games apparently don't think it's necessary to show much in this situation. Why, you may ask? Because it's got nothing to do with gameplay, and gameplay is king.

In Hentai games, you rarely see much of the act, because in most cases, it's just a series of images with lurid descriptions. However, in the games that show animated sex, they rarely shy away from showing any part of the act.

Now, no modern discussion about sex in video games would be complete without talking about the biggest news story in video games this past year, the Hot Coffee Mod.

It seems that, while developing the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the guys at Rockstar thought it would be fun to make a minigame based on sex itself. However, the company decided to cut the minigame, because of censorship concerns. For all we know, this happens a lot in video games, but we never find out, because they always remove that code before shipping the game.

And, in fact, we probably never would have heard about this one, except that when they took out the minigame, they didn't completely remove it. And so, after some enterprising hackers got into the game, they unlocked the sex minigame, and created a mod so that everyone could play it.

Now, to be fair, there wasn't a whole lot to see there. It was basically a couple of sexless Barbie dolls bumping into each other, in time with a beat. The game was already rated T for Teen, so it was pretty much in line with what had been seen before. A lot of people compared it to the sex scene from "Team America: World Police" where two marrionettes bounce into each other humourously. It was, frankly, pretty tame.

The gaming world went nuts. Parents groups were up in arms. Walmart, KMart, Target, they all said they would be removing the game from their shelves. The ESRB decided to re-rate the game as "Adults Only", a rating which had previously only been used for Hentai and other porn-based games.

So this is probably the clearest indication we can get as to what the culture thinks of sex. Whereas it was entirely valid to suggest that a player can have sex with multiple partners, it was entirely off-limits to actually show two androgynous people engaging in consensual sex. Once again we get the message that the image of sex is bad, but the concept of sex is good, or at least, not worth mentioning.

Re-cap:

So, games seem to be physically and emotionally immature, either incapable or unwilling to commit to one relationship. Also, they seem somewhat chauvinistic in their portrayal of men pursuing women. However, they seem to be pretty prudish when it comes to nudity in the games.

That seems kind of odd, that they are okay with multiple partners, but unwilling to show naked people. But when you think about it, it's not that odd. Our censorship is based on images, not on content.

Next up - Gluttony and Envy

In-Browser Podcast Player

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Sat, 26 Nov 2005 20:56:00 -0800

If you look at the top of this page, just under the title, you'll see a Flash player that will let you listen to the Rambling Brand Podcast in your browser!

If you're like me, you load up podcasts on your MP3 player for the commute to work. If, however, you want to 'try before you buy', this gives you a great opportunity. I hope you like it.

Lying

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 08:09:00 -0800

In today's post we look at the ethical situation in video games regarding Lying. Where are you allowed to lie in a video game? How do most games handle it (if at all).

f you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, this is the link.
If you'd like to download just this episode (about 3.2 meg), this is the link.
And if you'd like to read the original blog post about it, this is the link.

Theft

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 21:53:00 -0800

In today's post we look at the ethical situation in video games regarding theft. Namely, is there anything wrong with stealing the red key from a Troll?

f you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, this is the link.
If you'd like to download just this episode (about 9 meg), this is the link.
And if you'd like to read the original blog post about it, this is the link.

ITunes Listing

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 18:41:00 -0800

If you'd like to follow this podcast using ITunes, it is now listed.

Just open ITunes, click on the Music Store, then click podcasts, and type "Rambling Brand" in the search box next to the magnifying glass. When you hit enter, you'll see this Podcast listed at the top!

Video Game Ethics Chapter 1 - Murder

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 18:15:00 -0800

A long time ago (nearly a year ago), I wrote a short treatise on ethics in video games. Now I don't mean the effect that games have on society, children, or whatever. This is solely a look at what kind of ethics a game expects from it's players. Ethics are imposed on players inside the game, and it's worth looking at what set of ethics people are expected to have in-game.

Anyway, today I recorded, mixed, and posted a podcast version of the first chapter of these treatises, about murder.

If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, this is the link.
If you'd like to download just this episode (about 5 meg), this is the link.
And if you'd like to read the original blog post about it, this is the link.

Sandy rough draft.

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 08:51:00 -0800

It occurred to me that I should post the actual story for Sandys, along with the podcast. This is actually the rough draft that I used for the final story, but it does at least give you the gist of it. Hope you like it.

If you'd like to hear the podcast form of the story, it's here.
Or you can subscribe to the podcast by using this link.

---- Sandys
---- by Brand Gamblin

Susan scribbled down one last saccharine platitude, and threw the pen into her bag. Staring down at the paper, she was glad to be done with it. American History papers always had to be syrupy patriotic and uplifting for a good grade.

She shut the history book with an unintentional slam, and stretched.The library was quiet and vacant, as it always was after classes. The air had time to settle, and dust wafted lazily through it, illuminating the afternoon light coming through the windows. Just watching it made Susan want to sneeze.

She liked having study hall at the end of the day. It always gave her a head start on the others, and gave her a chance to wind down before the evening. In the quiet of this room, it seemed like time slowed down to the speed of dust in the light. She yawned and grabbed the book with both hands.

Susan walked back to the reference section, her low heels snapping loudly in the empty room. Finding the right shelf, she slid the heavy book back into its place, healing the gapped-tooth row of historical encyclopedias.

"You've got to stay away from work!" A voice shouted from behind her. She grabbed the bookshelf in shock and spun around. The woman standing behind her was older, probably mid-fifties, in a power suit and expensively-styled hair. The woman looked intelligent and alert, but
very obviously stressed. "Susan, do you understand me?"

Susan leaned back against the bookshelf and put one palm over her heart. "Jesus, you scared the crap out of me."

The woman looked unmoved, "I'm sorry for my arrival, but I don't have much time, and I have to tell you –"

Susan pushed past her as she headed back to her table, "Just shut up. I don't want to hear it."

The old woman followed her, expensive shoes snapping crisply on the floor, "You don't understand. I'm from the future! I've come back with an important message!"

Susan shoved her papers back in her bag, refusing to look at the woman, "Oh, I understand all right. You've got an important message that will change the course of history, or change my life forever." She pulled the bag over her shoulder, and ducked under the strap as she fitted the bag, bandolier style, across her chest, "Now will you please shut up and go away!"

The woman grabbed her shoulders, "Prepare yourself for a shock."

Susan looked disinterestedly into the woman's tired eyes, "You're me, right?"

This stopped the woman suddenly, and she let go of Susan, "Uh, yes."

Susan frowned at her and raised an eyebrow, "Then, I suppose there is a question you can answer for me."

The woman brightened, "Wonderful! That's what I'm here for!"

"You could tell me, at exactly what point . . . I became so stupid." She breezed past the old woman, and headed for the door.

Her older self stood there, and put her hands on her hips angrily, "Young lady, you stop right there and take this seriously!"

Susan called out over her shoulder, "Don't bother. You can't change history, everybody knows that. Just go home." Susan opened the door,and nearly walked into the woman standing in the doorway.

Susan covered her face in embarrassment, "Oh, wonderful."

The woman in the doorway was clearly in her seventies, wearing a long sundress with bangles and tassels hanging all over it. She had a floppy hat, and kind eyes. She had deep and long laugh lines, and her mouth looked like it was unaccustomed to frowning. "My dear, have you already talked to her?"

The power suit walked up behind Susan, "Who are you?"

The old woman in the sundress said, "I'm you, dear. I know it must seem confusing, but I can't let you stop her."

Susan actually found it within herself to be embarrassed, angry, and bemused, "So, if I get this right, we're maid, mother, and crone, right? How about you guys wait here for MacBeth, and I'll be right back."

The others looked at her, and the older one said, "Dear, this is a serious matter. You know I wouldn't have come back if it weren't the most important –"

The power suit interrupted her, "That's what I'm telling her. That's why we can't go to the embassy today!"

The old woman put one wrinkled hand on the power suit, "No, hon. I know what you're going through, but it's something you're just going to have to deal with. I know what happens after –"

Susan pushed past them, "Great. So you two get acquainted, and I'll see you in about thirty years." She started a brisk walk down the hallway, headed for the exit. Behind her, the two were still bickering.

"No! You can't go to work today. Lives are at stake!"

"Woman! You leave that girl alone. She's got to do what she's got to do, and you can't stop her."

At the entrance, Susan could see her friend Becky, gawping at the tableau. As she approached, Becky asked, "Who are they?"

"They're Sandys. Can we go please?"

Becky's lip curled in a disgusted sneer, "Omigod. Sue, I'm so sorry for you."

Susan didn't even break stride, "Let's just go, they'll have to leave soon anyway."

Becky put one hand lightly on her back in sympathy, "Don't worry, hon. We'll go home the back way, nobody will see them."

Susan shook her head, "Actually, I forgot, I've got to go to work today." Behind her, a plaintive cry called out, "No! You can't go today!"

Becky looked back at them as they quickened their pace, "Wow, they get really worked up, don't they?"

"Yeah. It's really pathetic."

Becky faced forward again, smiling, "Good news. They're gone."

Susan pantomimed wiping the sweat off her brow, "I was afraid they were going to follow me all the way to work."

Becky pointed up ahead, "We're almost at the corner." She angled off toward home, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Susan nodded and waved, "Yeah." In the back of her mind, she thought, 'Unless the Sandy's right.'

Susan walked on in silence. It was more than five blocks from her school to the Hungarian embassy, a perfect distance for leisurely walks through the city. This was a special time of day for her, when she could just breathe deep, watch the trees bow with the wind, and just enjoy the time alone.

But not today. She did her best to ignore the Sandys (after all, that's all you can do) but they had got under her skin. Of course it was embarrassing enough to know that she would one day go back in time to give lifestyle hints to herself, but that wasn't the worst of it.

She took a deep breath, and tried to clear her head. Nobody knew when the time machine was invented, and these days, nobody cared. At some point in time, someone will discover the secret. Soon after that, the secret will be exposed. Soon after that, it will be mass marketed. And after that, who cares about keeping up with the timeline?

There was one ironclad rule to time travel that everybody knew. You can't change anything. If you go back in time to tell yourself to buy a certain stock, your earlier self will buy the wrong one, or you'll get the breath knocked out of you just as you're about to give up the information. Causality works like that, just one big stupid sitcom of comedic interference.

Or worse, if you actually fight causality, go back and change something big, you end up splitting off an alternative timeline, with ramifications you won't even see, because you're still stuck in your timeline when you get home. Or else, you end up in a timeline you couldn't have predicted, or something. It got into egghead territory at that point, and Susan frankly didn't care.

Still, for some people, the pull is just too great. They can't help themselves. They just feel like they have to go back in time and fix some terrible wrong, no matter what the consequences. It never works, but desperate people will go to desperate measures.

Whenever you see one of those desperate people (they were called Sandys, after the Cassandra complex), all you can do is shake your head and let them say their piece. Everybody knows it won't make any difference, but it's embarrassing to let people know that, someday in the future, you'll be stupid enough to become a Sandy.

The only thing worse than the Sandys was the –

Susan looked up at block ahead of her. There was nothing noticeably wrong, but it seemed to her like there were a lot of people standing around outside the Hungarian embassy. They all seemed to be watching the building, as though expecting something. She gritted her teeth, and finished the thought. The only thing worse than the Sandys was the Tourists.

Tourists were people who went through time, not to change anything, but just to witness it. These were the guys who packed Ford's theater the night of Lincoln's shooting. They are the ones trying to push their way into the Zapbruder film. They were the ones who stood in the high rises on September 11th, watching the World Trade Center. Bunch of voyeuristic bastards.

You could always tell which ones were the Tourists, too. They would be a large group, spaced out around some event that no one else could see happening. They would all be quietly staring at the same thing, and they'd refuse to tell you what it was. If you asked what they were looking at, or what was going to happen, most Tourists would just smile that know-it-all smile, and say, "Oh, nothing. I'm just hanging around." Or else, they would just play coy and make little jokes like, "Well, you never know who'll be dropping in." while staring at the sky.

It wasn't the timeline that made the Tourists act like that. They knew about causality, and didn't really care. They didn't like to tell people what was going to happen, because they felt like it spoiled the moment. It was like talking during the movie, saying, "I've seen this movie, the wife's the killer." Tourists thought it was rude to give away the ending.

But they weren't spies, and they weren't good at hiding their presence. Susan had never seen a crowd of tourists before, but a mammalian, pattern-recognition part of her brain recognized the danger. After that, it was hard not to notice them.

Susan stopped by a deli just a block from the embassy and waited. There was no way to tell what was going to happen, but she suddenly knew she didn't want to be in there. She started looking around, thinking she could grab one of the Tourists, and shake the truth out of him, when the bomb went off.

The first thing she noticed was the shock of it. From a block away, the explosion managed to knock the wind out of her, just before the sound hit. It was so loud, she didn't hear it at first. It was too sudden for her to realize what she'd heard, and it was replaced by the rumbling sound of the collapsing building.

Susan hadn't been looking at the embassy, so she missed the bright light of the explosion, but she turned in time to see the building buckle forward, tearing it's foundation apart in the back. Smoke had just started to issue out, and it all came at once, white dust, small grey rocks, and black smoke.

Embassys are political targets, and they're made to be defensive. Because of the recent Baltic struggle, this embassy had built up their defenses in preparation for protests. In the end, all the preparations did was force the car bomber to ignite the front of the embassy, rather than the whole first floor.

The entire building leaned forward over the thin two-lane entranceway. It leaned into, and crushed, several of the top floors of the building across the street. Then, after a sickening, twisted metal groan of effort, it seemed to settle temporarily against the other building.

Susan stood there with her mouth open. She didn't feel anything. She was bone weary suddenly, and she just wanted to sit down. She couldn't move, though. She just stood there and looked at the smoke.

She saw an ambulance pull up to the building, and the sight of it woke her up. There were people in there. She blinked quickly, as her brain unfroze. She started walking quickly over to the building. The paramedics would know what to do. Maybe she could help them.

She watched as they climbed out of the ambulance, and opened up the back. They looked around at all the Tourists, and waited. They turned and looked at the building. As Susan ran up to them, she could see that they weren't going in. They were just standing outside, waiting.

She ran up to them and breathlessly asked the nearest paramedic, "What's wrong? Why aren't you going in?"

The paramedic looked stoically apologetic, "I'm sorry, but we just can't go in yet. We gotta wait for the bomb squad."

She looked back at the building. She could see people behind some of the windows, trying to find a way to break through the bulletproof glass. "But there's people in there!"

He shook his head, "Look, I know how you feel, but there's about a dozen reasons we can't go in there." He looked back at the building, still shaking his head, "It's technically not American soil. We could be starting an international incident. What's more, the bomb squad will have our jobs if we go in there first. There might still be another bomb in there." He leaned over to her and whispered, "The tourists haven't left, see? They're still standing around."

She looked around at them. Some looked sadly up at the building, others looked stoically at the entrance. Some even looked bemusedly at the paramedics.

The paramedic continued, "Whatever they came here to see, it's not over yet. Now, I don't know it for a fact, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were hanging around to see the second bomb go off."

Susan turned around, looking at them, all of them. Some from the future, some from the present, and all just watching.

She pulled off her bag, and dropped it to the ground, "Well, let's give them something to watch." The paramedic reached out after her, but Susan was already gone, running toward the back of the building.

Susan stumbled over some of the bricks, looking for a rear entrance. The back of the embassy had a powerful steel door which was solidly bolted to the wall in three areas, and could only be opened by a fingerprint scan, with positive retinal and fingerprint ID. However, when the building toppled forward, that door was popped off its frame like a piece of plywood, providing a nice wide opening for Susan to get through.

She climbed through the opening, and swayed for a moment with a sense of déjà vu. There was rubble everywhere, rocks and stone dust coating the ground. The whole room seemed to stretch forward, toward the front of the building, and it took her a moment to get her bearings. Tables, desks, and chairs were crushed haphazardly together, making a jungle of plastic and metal. The strangest thing about it was how normal parts of the room were. There was a candy dish sitting on someone's desk. Right beside it, was a metal cross beam used to support the ceiling, crushing into the desk.

Through the smoke, Susan could hear a moaning, gurgling shout. She started toward the sound, "I can hear you. Where are you?" She climbed over one of the desks, squinting into the darkness. She saw a young boy, lying down and sobbing. She reached for him and said, "Come on, I know the way out." Then she saw that his arm was pinned under a chair.

She crawled over to him, ducking under a table leg, and grabbed the chair, "Don't worry, hon. I'll have you out of here in no time." She strained against the chair, but it was pinned under a heavy mahogany table. She felt sick to her stomach as she asked, "Can you wiggle your fingers for me?"

The boy's crying didn't falter, but he nodded a bit, and she saw his hand shake. She pulled on the chair again, then said, "Okay. I'm gonna be right back. You're gonna be okay." The boy started screaming, "No! Don't leave me! Don't go!"

She crawled out of the space, and started looking around for something that she could use as a lever. She started sifting through all the rubble, but everything heavy and strong seemed to be buried under things that were too heavy and strong for her to lift.

As she was running into another room, she tripped over a man, lying face down in the dust. She screamed, and curled herself up into a ball on the floor. At the sudden noise, the man shook, and started moving. He slowly put his hands underneath himself, making her think of zombies. He looked at her, squinted, and frowned all around him. As he started to get up, his legs slipped on the dusty floor, and he rolled over onto his back.

Recovering, Susan stood back up and grabbed his shoulder shouting over the noise of the distant fire, "You need to help me. There's a boy in the other room. He's trapped. You've got to help him out."

The man slowly nodded, "Uh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay." He started to get up again, slowly. She helped him up, and they crawled back into the main reception room. The man took one look at the boy pinned under the chair, and hacked out a cough. He nodded, and pointed at the boy, "You grab him. I'll try to move the chair." He hacked out another cough, "You just be ready to pull him out when I move it."

Susan took the sobbing boy by his shoulders, and held him. The man grabbed the chair and pulled upward, hard. He groaned with the effort, and sweat beaded on his brow, as Susan pulled on the boy's arm. The boy kept wiggling his arm until the elbow popped free, and Susan pulled him away from the chair, just as the man dropped the chair.

She picked up the child and headed for the door, "Come on, it's this way." They crossed the room quickly, and headed out into the bright mid-day sun.

Squinting at the ambulance, Susan could see that the paramedics had grabbed a bullhorn, and were trying to shout to her. "Come on back. We can't help you if you get caught in there. Come out here, and wait for the cops."

She ran with the man over to the paramedics and handed them the boy. After a moment, she caught her breath and said, "It's not hopeless. There's a lot of other people in there, and we can probably get them out if we hurry."

The paramedics were busy working on the man and child. One of them said, "We can't go in. It's too risky. The cops and the fire department are on their way. Just wait here for them."

Susan shouted, "No!" and grabbed the bullhorn. She ran out into the rubble, and shouted back at the Tourists and rubberneckers, "There's people in there! They need our help! Come give me some help to get them out!"

Some people broke free from the shocked silence, and started running over to help her. As she watched them, she continued, "And the rest of you, all of you. The ones who can't help, or won't help. Just go home!" She glared at them with undisguised contempt, "Go back to your soft little beds, and tonight, turn on the news to see what human beings do when their friends are in need!" She threw the bullhorn at them, and ran over to the growing group of supporters.

There were about eight people, and when Susan got there, she said, "Okay, we need to split up into pairs. You two." She pointed at a couple who looked like they were together, "You go to that building across the street. Make sure they're evacuating, and check all the floors. Just shout loud, and try to help whoever answers."

She turned to the rest, "For the rest of us, we'll need to just buddy up and check everywhere we can. There's a stairway in the back of the building, along the eastern wall. If it's still there, we can use it to get to the other floors. Try to climb as high as you can, and just start pulling people out. Anybody you see who looks like they can walk on their own, just show them where the stairs are."

They all broke up into their pairs, and started back into the building. They paid no attention to the bomb squad that was just pulling up.

And through it all, no one noticed that the Tourists had disappeared.

******************************************************************************

My Great American Moment
By Ronnie Porter

For my American History assignment, I chose the Hungarian embassy bombing of 2010.

I'm a big fan of Susan Cavanaugh, and in her autobio, she listed that bombing as the most important moment in her political career. A lot of people remember that as the first time she was in the public eye, but Ms. Cavanaugh said it was important because it made her so mad at the system, she felt like she had to do something about it.

So me and my brother went back to see it, and we watched her give the famous speech on the steps of the embassy.

And then, when the first female president asked for volunteers to go back into the building, my brother and I ran to join the group that helped her.
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Sandys

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 01:07:00 -0800

Sorry, but this post has been deleted by the author.

My Personal Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Mon, 7 Nov 2005 18:24:00 -0800

I just set up my own podcast. It's basically me reading blog posts. So far, I've just got the one story up there (R4TB0T), but I'll have more soon.

These are the news stories mentioned in the R4TB0T post rat brain. Implantable memory.

I've got music by the Brothers Burn, and the whole production comes off as very professional. If you'd like to subscribe, the link is here.

If you'd just like to download the files, this is the link for R4TB0T, and this is the link for my Introduction.

Of course, this doesn't come without a cost. I still have to pay for servers and stuff. So if you like the show, please make a donation.

I've been discovered!

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Fri, 20 May 2005 22:10:00 -0700

Okay, that might be a bit much, but I have been invited to act as a featured Games blogger for MindSay.com. I'll be writing much the same stuff as I do here (in fact, I intend to republish a lot of this stuff on the new blog), just for a wider, more targeted audience. Apparently, the new blog is going to be promoted in search engines, grassroots word-of-mouth campaigns, and general blogging circles.

For those who read this blog, you'll probably want to update your links to point to http://gamecoder.mindsay.com/

Hope to see you there. I'll probably keep this blog alive for a while, but with less frequent updates. Maybe I'll just put the non-games stuff here. I don't know. To be honest, this is happening really fast, so I don't know what I'm going to do.

My brief brush with greatness

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Thu, 19 May 2005 07:50:00 -0700

My friends know this story, but I don't think I've told it here, so here goes:

A few years back (wow, it must have been about 4 years or so) I was sent to E3 as an emissary for the Microprose game "Gunship!" The setup was pretty simple: there were two of us in the booth. One would play the game, while the other talked about how great the game was to whoever seemed to be interested in it. Occasionally, one of us would take a break and walk around the floor, while the other one manned the station.

Now, at the time, you could tell just what Atari thought of Microprose, by how much floor space they gave us. Atari had one large cylinder of space, separated into pie wedges, and you could tell how popular you were by how big your companies wedge was. The corporate dealmakers section took up 50% of the pie, Hasbro Interactive (for kids) took up another 25%, Atari took up 15%, which left Microprose . . . cramped.

To add to that, we had a 12-foot tall statue of a MechWarrior in the center of our little pie wedge, and half a dozen games to display.

I guess what I'm getting at is, that it felt really crowded. It was especially crowded at one point where my demo partner decided to take a break. He was off walking the floor, while I played the game and answered questions about it. It was getting pretty close in there, and I scooted my seat forward to let traffic by, when over my shoulder, I saw a gaggle coming toward us.

It was a clump of people so big, that I could only judge the size of it by where the boom mikes and light stands were set up at it's perimeter. The gaggle moved slowly, inexorably, toward our station, and I thought to myself "Okay, this is our big break. Some TV show's going to be recording this section, so I gotta keep my mind on the game and show off how cool it is."

People pressed into our section, pushing me so close to the computer that I tilted the keyboard up to rest on my chest. I still didn't turn around to look, I just kept blowing things up, and demoing the targetting system, and generally making the game look as graphically intensive as possible. Suddenly, there was a furry head in my peripheral vision, so close to me that I thought it was resting on my shoulder. The man with the glasses and scruffy beard said, "Wow, this looks really good. You guys have done some good work."

I had to stop myself from recoiling. I mean, it was totally unexpected, and I was so intent on making the game look good, I hadn't even noticed this hanger-on watching the game. So, I did my best to seem cordial, saying, "Um. Thanks. Well, we're doing our best."

The furry man patted my shoulder, and moved on. About a minute later, the rest of the gaggle moved on. I turned to one of the booth babes in the Kids area (yes, Hasbro really did hire a sexy blonde to sell kids stuff in a short skirt and shorter apron) and asked her what that crowd was all about. She said to me, wide-eyed, "You don't know? That was Steven Spielberg!"

I was beating myself up about that for the rest of the day. Did I shake his hand, no. Did I introduce myself, no. In fact, when he said we were doing great work, did I say, "Oh, yeah. Well, you did a good job on Indiana Jones." No. At the time, the best I could do was to keep from recoiling.

Later, I found out that Spielberg is a huge fan of European Air War, another project I had worked on. So, I had something I could have chatted with him about, if I had just thought of it. Ach. I can't believe I'm still beating myself up about that four years later.

According to one news article, Spielberg said that he was introduced to European Air War by Robin Williams, who he referred to as his "digital pimp". Somehow, the idea of Steven Spielberg and Robin Williams sitting down to play a game that I made . . . I don't know. . . it just seems so freakin' cool. Sort of like the way Upton Sinclair must have felt when he found out that Theodore Roosevelt was reading "The Jungle". Okay, that's an obscure reference, but surprisingly apt.

Flash Sucks

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Tue, 17 May 2005 17:44:00 -0700

I'm sorry. I really want to like Flash. When I decided to put The Limit online, I chose Flash as my platform because I wanted system independence. I assumed it would be really easy, because they handle rendering movies seamlessly. Turns out, there's a big difference between building a movie, and programming a game in Flash.

Ever notice how all Flash games are pretty simple? I mean, I've seen the Trogdor Burnination game, and websites devoted to dozens of small Flash games , but I haven't seen any advanced games in Flash. I think I know why. I think Flash was made solely for movies, and any programmatic capabilities are happy mistakes.

First off, it has no typed variables. Okay, I'm used to that with many of the latest generation languages. I mean, it's not as safe for programmers, but so be it. But add to that the fact that you don't have to define a variable to use it. I mean, if you misspell a variable name, you've just created a new variable (even if you're inside a test condition).

But not to worry, right? I mean, if you create an error like that, the program will just crash out gracefully and tell you where the error is, right? Wrong. A Flash program will do the worst possible thing when faced with an error. It will ignore that line. A Flash program will just skip over a line it doesn't understand.

But surely, these errors can be caught when you compile the instructions, right? I mean, that's just basic checking, been around for ages. Nope. The closest Flash will get to error checking is making sure that you have the right number of braces, and that the basic syntax of a line is correct.

Also, if you start using a variable without explicitly defining it in a function, it will become part of the "root" object, and will exist beyond the function, gaining global scope. I mean, Holy Crap!! This system was made for errors!!

Okay, sorry about that. I know a lot of you readers are not actually code monkeys like me, so you probably don't know or care what I'm talking about. Long story short, I've created a Flash version of "The Limit" which is available here.

It's not finished, but entirely playable, and I'm still working on it. Currently, it doesn't show a score, or end appropriately when the game is over. So, it's got a ways to go, but if you want to play the game for free online, without any downloads, this is the place to do it.

And, um, Flash still sucks. Next time, I'm gonna use Java. =)

Shirley Temples

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Tue, 17 May 2005 03:29:00 -0700

My favorite drink is Cherry Pepsi, but there's almost nobody that stocks the stuff. Sure, just about everyone has Coke, Pepsi, Diet Coke, and that kind of thing. Each shop has one or two the specialty drinks, but it's difficult to find a shop that has your own personal favorite (for example, my wife's favorite drink is Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, see how often that shows up).

Anyway, I was thinking, all these different flavors (Cherry Coke, Lime Coke, Vanilla Coke, etc.) are Actually just your basic Coke with some other syrup thrown in. So, what if the different stores could stock up on Coke and Pepsi, then sell little packets with Cherry, Vanilla, Lime, and other syrups. That way, the user could buy a regular drink, then add their own favorite flavors to it.

In fact, that way, you could customize your drink even further. Want a double Cherry Pepsi? Just buy two packets of Cherry Syrup. Want a Vanilla-Lime Coke? Easily done. It's easier for the shopkeeper to stock the little packets rather than dozens of specially-flavored drinks, and it's more convenient for the soft-drink connoisseur.

In fact, since children are the most obvious audiences for soft drinks, this would be a great way to teach them about how different people have different tastes, and how things that look similar can be very different on the inside.

It would even introduce children to the concept of dosages, and how to make mixed drinks . . .

Um. Wait. I'm not sure that last bit is such a good thing.

Sterilize the poor

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Mon, 16 May 2005 04:08:00 -0700

Sound excessive? Sound like a raving madman, with insultingly stupid, illegally invasive solutions that no one would follow? Sound like the kind of thing that Klansmen would only whisper to each other at parties? Well, that kind of thing can happen here. And it did happen here. For 45 years, in America, land of the free.

In 1929, 33 states began a program of secretly sterilizing "undesireables", defined as people who were believed to be promiscuous and/or poor. I know, it sounds like conspiracy theory stuff, and if it were unfounded, I wouldn't believe it either, but the states employed in the practice are now dealing with reparation lawsuits, and presenting public apologies. Here, this ABC News story tells about a woman in North Carolina who was sterilized after being raped (because they thought she was dim-witted, and promiscuous).

I'd like to believe that this is just another mainstream media screwup, like Rathergate, or Newsweek fudging the Koran-flushing. But when one of your sources is a current state representative, it's hard to think that they are wrong about it.

Now, yes, I'm shocked to find out that we were going overseas to fight (among other things) eugenics, while we practiced the same thing at home. And, yes, I'm shocked to find out that this was still going on until 1974. But the thing that really shocks me. . . this story came to light on April 23 of this year, and I only just now heard about it.

I mean, Jesus Christ! This is the kind of news that should be shouted from the mountaintops. There should be widespread criminal investigations to determine where this governmental push came from. It was multiple states, so that screams federal government coordination. I want perp walks with these doctors holding newspapers up to their faces as they're marched into the courtrooms.

I want criminal investigations for the politicians who found funds to pay for this procedure. I mean, is it just me, or does this just scream Strom Thurmond? I want to see them sweating under the hot lights, taking frequent sips of water, and whispering to their lawyers.

I think I need to walk away from this one for a bit.

Evangelical Spam

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Sun, 8 May 2005 00:52:00 -0700

Yesterday, as I was cleaning out my spam folder in GMail, I was surprised to see an offer to "FIND CHRIS*TIAN SING*LES IN YOUR AREA!!!!" It wasn't so much the idea of the message, as it is well known that there are thousands of swinging Christian ladies just looking for a good time. No, the part that surprised me was that they had to put an asterisk in the middle of the word "Christian".

It's an old practice to put special characters in the middle of words so that spam filters don't recognize them as spam titles. Common words are hor'ny, sing*le, unde-rage, Ere:ctile, Mort`gage, and Ro:ckha:rd. They're generally annoying, almost unreadable, and ultimately ineffective, because any normal spam filter can catch these anyway.

Still, it surprises me because, when the name of your religion is a signal for spambait, you might want to reconsider your methods of evangelism.

P.S. My favorite example of this was:

From: Mort`gage Direct
Subject: Jesus!

Sure, I'm not gonna click on it, but this Christian obviously feels very strongly about my potential home value!!

An impotent media

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Tue, 3 May 2005 22:04:00 -0700

So, I was reading today about the RIAA's latest volley in the war between people and property. They have introduced a Boy Scout badge for "Intellectual Property". A scout can earn this badge by sitting through one of their indoctrination videos.

I tried to imagine what the badge must look like. I figure it should be a phonograph. Linked directly to recorded music, and at the same time, linked to an antiquated, barely used, out of date format. Yes, that should do nicely.

Quick on the heels of that, though I realized just how impotent media has become recently. The issue of internet music sharing is a perfect opportunity with which to test the media. You know how people argue about the enormous swaying power of the media, how it can mold people's minds; Wag the Dog stuff. They say that the media can make or break a political candidate by affecting the unwashed masses.

Now here is a situation where the media truly feels (mistakenly) that they are under attack. They seem to fight this battle with every tool and weapon in their arsenal. They have used psychological warfare to get us to refer to file swappers as "Pirates". They have expose's, press releases, and short commercials dedicated to convincing us that file swapping just isn't "hip" (don't copy that floppy!). They have studies that show how file swapping is costing them billions of dollars (while all independant studies show that the studios are making more money than ever). They have created their own paramilitary enforcement wing, to raid duplication labs, and storm citizens houses. They have sued thousands of citizens, and settled almost all out of court (not one successful lawsuit yet). And today, they announced a badge that coerces Scouts to agree with their position.

But let's look at the results. After all, we're trying to test what the incredible might of the media can do to a single issue. The companies representing the RIAA/MPAA are no less important names than BMG, Apple, Virgin, Columbia, Time/Warner Brothers, Buena Vista, Sony, MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and United Artists. These are the guys who control 90% of all TV and Radio in America. They make and break candidates based on their endorsements. So, surely one small issue like "We want this to be illegal, and we want to arrest everyone who does it" should be a relatively easy thing. A "slam dunk" to use the Bush administration terms.

But here's the thing: there has been more music, movie, TV, and video game piracy every year since they started this campaign. The lawsuits slowed down file swapping temporarily, but when people did the math, and found out that they were more likely to win the lottery than get sued by the RIAA, those people started coming back to "the scene". As the lawsuits made online music swappers more afraid of the RIAA, they learned more about privacy, and they found alternate paths. When one BitTorrent site was taken down, the others saw a sudden explosion in patronage. People move their allegience from one file-swapping format to another (Kazaa today, BitTorrent tomorrow, IRC the next day), which seriously messes with all attempts to track them. Because the population shifts, the RIAA points to a format with decreasing patronage and says, "There, see! The people are running scared now!"

But remember: these are the people who make or break public policy. Remember the incredible power? Remember the earth-shattering potency of their work? It's been almost a decade now, and they haven't managed to even cut down on this "piracy".

From the very beginning of this war, people have been asked why they do this. The answers have been universally the same:
1) Media costs too much.
2) Media isn't portable enough.
3) Artists don't get the money anyway.

The RIAA/MPAA chose to counter those complaints with lawsuits, slander, name-calling, and privacy attacks. They tried to raise prices (to pay for all the piracy, don't you know). They made the media less portable (just try to make a backup of an Apple ITunes song on a new computer), and they forced the artists to speak out against file-swapping, even over the artist's objections.

Now people hate them, artists hate them, they are losing the battle worse every day, and each thrust they make in this battle ends up as a punchline on Slashdot.

These were the titans! They had all the power! How is it possible that they did not utterly humble the file-swappers?

Simple. People online, in general, know what they're doing. When a person is introduced to the internet, the first thing that hits them is how incredibly free everything is. News, Weather, Sports, Opinion, there are sites out there for every possible interest, catering to every possible fetish, without worry about governmental strictures.

Once they are acclimatized to that environment, they suddenly see stories about how a company is tracking people online, how they are raiding houses, ransacking privacy, and attacking their own customers. When faced with the ultimate freedom of the internet, these attacks seem like an affront on their own personal privacy. Every single person feels insulted, violated, and angry.

One of the most common arguments for the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that the Japanese would never surrender. Conservatives shake their heads and say, "If we hadn't dropped the bombs, every single citizen would have fought to the death to bring down America. We did it for peace, to save both sides."

This is the same situation. Every single person who logs on to the internet will feel like they are being spied on and attacked by these huge, American conglomerates. And they will fight, to a man, against these attacks.

Following that logic, the only sensible thing that the RIAA/MPAA can do is to Nuke the Internet. Take it out, switch it off, for our own good. You know, like China does with it's Internet.

When the smoke clears, they will be able to count on the goodwill of the returning customers, much like the goodwill that America enjoys from the descendants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Duke Nukem Whenever

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Mon, 2 May 2005 22:03:00 -0700

I was cleaning out the library today, getting ready to turn it into a sound studio, and I came across a whole bunch of old games. Diablo, Populous, Syndicate, Requiem, Colonization, just a lot of great games that I hadn't thought of in years.

Then I came across Duke Nukem, and I paused. You know, for the time it came out, Duke Nukem was one of the coolest games around. At the time, people were saying that first person shooters were the closest games to reality. All there was at the time was Doom, and some Doom rip-offs, all of them dealing with shooting demons, usually in space, surrounded by occult imagery. Now along comes this game where the player had a character, the indomitable cross between Clint Eastwood, Schwartzenneger, and Ash (from housewares). Suddenly, the player had lines to say, witty quotes to throw at the bad guys. It pulled the player in enormously.

For the first time, we were playing a fps in an urban setting, with real props that mirrored the real world. There were inside jokes, references to popular movies (remember Tom Skeritt's "Kill Me" from Alien? It's in there), and lots of attitude. Sure, you were still shooting aliens, but this time, you were shooting them in a titty bar, or in a darkened alley, or porno store!! It was the coolest thing!

They made some sequels, just add-ons really. You might still be able to find "Duke it out in DC" in the bargain bin. But the big promise would come later, in '98, when 3D Realms announced that they were making a real sequel, Duke Nukem Forever. They were going to use the Quake II engine, and the demo looked astounding. Then, they decided they were going to use the Unreal Engine instead. And, if you've ever worked with the two engines, you'll know that kind of conversion requires almost a complete rewrite just to keep your framerate up.

Okay, so the rewrite slowed them down, but even after a decent interval, we still didn't hear anything about it. People started mumbling that there were problems with the game, that it was in danger of being shelved, or just relegated to vaporware. Then at E3, in 2001, they came up with some more clips, which showed how well the game was moving along. The clips had some amazing screenshots of a plane crashing into a building, and one of a woman falling to her death (presumably jumped from the building). In light of the September 11th attacks, 3D Realms had to go back to the drawing board a bit for that.

So, one would figure by conservative estimates, that means they would ship in late 2002. Or early 2003? Maybe make the Christmas rush of 2004? No.

Even though we occasionally hear about them incorporating new features (there are rumors that they are moving to the new Unreal engine, which would mean another rewrite, or that they have some new fangled engine of their own), this game has been on the vaporware hitlist for too long. In fact, it has been MIA for so long, magazines don't even list it in the vaporware awards, because it wouldn't be fair to the other competitors.

So I started thinking. At this point, if I was 3D Realms, I would ignore the issue completely. After all, anybody who's played it probably played it from 1996 - 98, which was nearly a decade ago. Chances are, they've forgot about it. We don't have to even think of it as a sequel anymore. If we think of it as a totally new game, then we don't have to watch the clock at all. Anyone who played the game is probably an adult now, and most of them have given up on games.

So, thinking of it as a totally new game, rather than a sequel, we can rehash the same old jokes, make the same old characters, and even use the same maps. The only thing we can't do is let it be technologically lacking. It has to be up to par with Half-Life 2, Unreal 3, and Doom 3 (funny that ID managed two iterations of Doom and an entire Quake enterprise in the same amount of time that 3D Realms has taken to NOT release one sequel).

So, the needed direction is obvious. Get some good voice acting, rehash the story, use the old levels as a basis for the new ones, and license one of the new heavy hitters. But, whatever you do, don't rush. Because, after all, there's no hurry. It's not like anybody's expecting you to FINISH the game, after all.

Recent happenings

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Sun, 1 May 2005 22:05:00 -0700

Hey, I just realized, if that was the night that they hung an innocent man, then why did all the lights go out in Georgia? I always thought that was because they electrocuted the guy. But if they hung him. . . nevermind.

Okay, as some of you have pointed out, I haven't been updating this much. I could point to all the stuff that I'm working on, but the fact is, I've been totally immersed in World of Warcraft. I've been playing it to the exclusion of all other things. However, yesterday, divine intervention stepped in. My laptop blew up.

Not literally, but there were bad sectors in the FAT table, which made it unable to boot, format, or even partition itself. Long story short, it's dead, and I have no system butch enough to play WoW on.

There are two positive aspects to this. One, I'm getting more work done. I've just finished my first outline of the sci-fi story that I'm converting to a radio script, and tomorrow I'm going to start retrofitting my library into a sound studio (hanging up egg-crate foam, closing off vents, blocking out the window, general soundproofing). I've also got a basic outline for a second radio show based on a monsterous hungry sleeper sofa.

The other positive aspect is that I'm playing other games again. When I took my laptop to be repaired (hard drive replacement, rather) I also bought a PSP. So now, I'm playing games again, and I'm back to ranting about all the design mistakes. I'll leave that stuff for another post.

In other news, the PocketPC version of "The Limit" is now at about 95%, although development has been stalled somewhat by the loss of my laptop. I'm going to start looking at Flash development soon, to see if I can get a Flash version of the Limit available online.

I've also got an idea for a new game based on cutting in line. It's a little hard to describe, I'll try to put together a mock-up so that I can explain it better.

You know what's really weird. I've been gripped by a need to get something done all week, and yet, I've been immobilized, unable to do anything. I know the feeling well enough to recognize it as a depressive swing in my manic/depressive cycle, but I don't remember it lasting this long before. Maybe I need more exercise. All I know is, I feel like I need sleep, all the time.

It sucks.

Teenage Japanese Schoolgirl

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 22:18:00 -0700

My wife had to undergo surgery recently, so she's home and healing now. We often compare her strength to a kitten (usually by saying "as weak as a"). One of my major jobs now is to act as her hands, doing all the heavy lifting, and medium lifting, and light lifting when appropriate.

My wife is a beligerant and proud woman, so she has not taken to her depreciated strength well. That's why I have to constantly remind her that I am acting as her hands. Recently, I said, "I want you to think of me as an exoskeleton. A big, dumb shell that is constantly around you, and does all the heavy lifting so effortlessly, that you don't even realize it's there. Like the shell of a crab. Or better still, like the mech outfit that a teenage Japanese schoolgirl might use to fight crime."

"Basically, I want you to be my Teenage Japanese schoolgirl."

"What? Why're you looking at me like that?"

What a dreamer can do in a day

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 15:38:00 -0700

At 7:00 A.M. I contacted a favorite author of mine, and asked him if he would give us his blessing to do a radio adaptation of one of his books. He's tentatively interested, but I won't name him until he's decided he wants to be associated with this venture. =)

At 8:00 A.M. I downloaded Nullsoft's shoutcast server. By 9:00, I had it running on my system, and playing Old-Time-Radio Public Domain Sci-fi stuff.

At 8:42 A.M. I contacted some friends about re-working some of these old 30's scripts with me, updating them, and punching them up.

By 10:00 A.M. I had built a stable of actors who are willing and interested in lending their voices to a new set of radio shows.

At 11:00 A.M. I contacted a friend who knows a guy, who has his own recording studio. We have reason to believe that he will lend us his studio for long enough to do the recording.

By 12:00 P.M. I had started discussions with an ex-Acclaim sound guy, who's doing freelance work in Austin, and has already said he'd love to help with FX or music on new projects.

Then, I woke up my wife. She was sleeping late, because she had been up all night working on the taxes. When I told her about my day, she said, "It's amazing what a dreamer can do with just one day."

And the day is only half over.

Seams

noreply@blogger.com (BrandG) — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 00:00:00 -0700

So, I was doing the laundry last night, and I started thinking about seams. You know, the part of clothes where you fold two pieces of cloth together and sew them together.

Seems to me, all clothes are made the same way. You fold the two pieces together, then sew them so that the interior has a rough, unfinished edge, and the exterior has a smooth, sleek line.

However, I've noticed that if I sit cross-legged in jeans (as I often do when I'm coding on my laptop), the seams can get uncomfortable, and leave red lines on the skin of my legs. So, I was thinking, why do we make clothes like that? Psychologically, why do we put the uncomfortable side so close to our actual skin?

The only good reason that jumps to mind is that it looks ugly to have the seams on the exterior. Our basic need for symmetry makes an irregular seam abhorrant. However, this reason only seems to enhance the idea that we are willing to sacrifice comfort for looks. I hate that impression. I actively avoid it.

What's really weird is how innured we are in that method for all of our clothes. It's not a class thing, because we do this to Tuxedos, suit jackets, dress shirts, t-shirts, even sweaters. And I don't understand sweaters being in that list at all. If you're knitting the entire thing as one piece, why would it have seams at all?

We even do this to underwear, which can't really claim that it's done for looks. I mean, why have the seams on the inside, when nobody's going to be looking at the outside?

Maybe I'm just off on a rant at this point, but I don't really see a purpose behind having seams at all. All through history, clothiers have been hindered by the basic premise that they had to work with flat pieces of cloth, stitching them together to make other shapes. However, we have made huge strides in clothing over the last thousand years or so.

We keep seeing stories about "mood clothes" that will change color to match the user's heat signature; or the "stain proof" clothes that use nanotechnology to move foreign matter off of the surface. So how hard would it be, to stitch denim material together in the shape of a pair of pants? How hard would it be to make cotton cloth in the shape of a T-shirt? I mean, if it's that difficult for us, why don't we get those nano-mites working on it?

It seems odd that in one way, we have completely transcended past science, but in another way, we are irrevocably mired in an ancient form of thinking, so ingrained that we don't even recognize it as a form of thinking at all.

Ah, well. Such a lot of thought about such a small, thin line. Never mind.

In other news, I've now completely changed the FlipBall game over to it's new name "Limit", and I've submitted it to PopCap. Hopefully, sometime today or tomorrow, I'll set up a banner ad, and try to start getting some online sales.

That's right. V1.0 is out the door, and available here Limit