My game is progressing rather well, despite strong discipline on the way I’ve been working. The game is a rather simple (and classic) shoot’em up were every idea is stolen. Enemies come from the top of the screen in waves. The movement of the players ship is based on an old coin’op game I remember playing once and only remember it through its Finnish name Sukkula. The ship moves like it has a mass and inertia. If anyone recognizes this game, inform me about it’s proper name and be rewarded.

The amount of enemies will grow untill the end of time / until you run out of memory. This idea comes from an old Amiga game Datastorm (1989), in which the number of enemies gradually increased from level to level, until your machine was unable show them on screen, which still didn’t deter the game from pushing more enemies to the game.

The players ship produces certain amount of energy which can be distributed to shields, weapons or thrusters in various ratios. This idea is of course from the original X-Wing (1993) from LucasArts. This is what I call a Light Tactical Element (LTE). I’d like to have more LTE’s in the game, but at this stage I’m more interested in getting something finished. With Computer Games, you can always improve and re-work your stuff.

That’s the gist of it. I’m close to releasing the first playable version of it.

Other than excersing body and mind I will come up with at least one game and publish it. I really don’t expect anything other from this but the satisfaction of creating something real and maybe a work example/experience.

I’m also planning on documenting the whole process here on my blog, tagged properly.

But then again, this blog has traditions, everybody remembers the big triple-8 entry that is still being discussed in Slashdot. That last thing is possible untrue, but you might as well believe it. Ramble ramble.

I just got back from my working out, first 1.5 hours were light, but the second 1.5 was not. Add o.5 hour of cycling and you have a rather tender piece of a person right here. I sincerely recommend exhaustive physical activities for everyone, the innumerably light sense of being afterwards is the purest form of existing I’ve felt.

That sounds so grand I feel the need to return this blog back to ground (and beyond!) and I’d like to say something like “I just farted”, but it wouldn’t be true and if this blog is about something it’s truth. And when I say it’s about truth I mean that it’s not to an extent that I’m not comfortable in admitting. Hows that for a ramble?

The best way to stay relevant in Gooogle searches is to keep on producing content. As it’s just me and the bots, it really doesn’t matter what the content is, so, as usual, this is me leaving the here and now on a tangent.

I read yesterday that Chris Robertson had died. He won an oscar in 1968 as a mentally challenged man in the film Charly. The film was based (faithfully as I recall) on Daniel Keyes’ novel Flowers for Algernon. I remember being rather impressed with the novel as well as the film. In the story, Charly receives an experimental procedure that makes his intelligence rise first to a normal level and then high above normal. He goes through life, from where it had stopped for him, in an accelerated pace (e.g. finally understands that the men in the bar weren’t friendly but making fun of him, falling in love).

Of course, in a Hollywood film like this, this can’t be the case for good. The experiments effects subside and Charly recedes to his previous level of intelligence. Despite its premise (a procedure that improves intelligence, albeit briefly) for this lowly way to solve a “what-if” scenario I would be hesitant to call the story Sci-fi. For a counter-example how to solve the premise (and be Sci-fi), see Isaac Asimov’s Lest We Remember.

We are also diverse as fuck. There are people from all kinds of backgrounds, there are engineers and business majors, for example. And as you can see from these people profiles, even one attractive female dares to work here, although she just designs GUI’s and thinks of herself as a gamer since she plays Angry Birds on her phone. She’s also married and a lesbian.

We also offer competitive salary plus benefits which means we pay you what everybody else is paying and little less. We have a lovely working environment with minimum bureaucracy which is to say that there’s some of it and in any case more than we are prepared to admit.

Just check out these pictures of our founder and CEO in their luxury cars as a testament to how fun it is to work here and how successful you must become! Come on, lets draw these boxes on the white board and hand me those post-it notes!

On these points, we find it compelling for you to try and get our attention. You won’t probably get it, but who knows? Maybe if everybody else wanted to hire you as well. Yes, probably in that case. Otherwise… well there’s always someone who wins the lottery.

Coffee Jerks: My friend took a series of 1950s/60s-era coffee commercials and edited them down to just the moments when the guys were the biggest jerks to their wives about coffee

Reddit discussion on the link

Now, there are two ways you can approach this kind of familiarity. Either you dis it with extreme prejudice or you go along with it, do the human thing.  I chose the latter and sat next to him. He started to simply pour out his life with history and opinions. People like him are pretty candid about their condition, he drinks a lot, doesn’t expect to be alive too long, had a few songs, told me I was a good listener.

When our brief meeting came to a natural end, he asked me my name, and then gave me the most heart wrenching blessings I’ve heard. After receiving it, I felt compelled to shake his hand and thank him. I left with a lump in my throat.

Don’t leave your blog unattended! *points*

“When presented with (whatever means possible) Carl Barks’ whole production of Donald Duck comics, the AI can produce an (practically) infinite number of comics which, in no discernible way, differ in style or quality from any selected one of those by Carl Barks.”

The prize money goes to the first party to successfully present and demonstrate a KSAI. All conditions to attain the prize money are subject to change on a whim. I would also like to emphasize the “artificial” part of it. No shenanigans allowed. You know the drill.  Apply in the comments.

Mr. B, are you still alive down there in the country known for its lovely and naturally occurring ninjas?