Category: hobby

Designer Diary: De-making King’s Quest: Where to Start?

Not De-made

I’ve wanted to make a video game for, well, I don’t know how long it has been. Pretty long I’m sure. I can remember (just like everyone else can) drawing out dozens and dozens of level designs for my game. What type of game was it? It was a racing/platformer hybrid where racers in these pods would race through tubes that had a number of hazards. It was either going to be really stupid or stupidly hard. I never got anywhere on working on that game. I’ve never got very far on any of the games I’ve ever worked on. The problem always being have to learn a programming or scripting language. I’m not very good at it…

I still want to make a game though. So, what am I to do? Use Inform 7! Inform 7 is a  programming language for making Interactive Fiction (IF) that uses natural language. What does that mean? It means that if I type in as a line of code:

The Castle is a room. “You stand before a majestic castle it’s walls are imposing.” To the east is the Moat. To the west is an Empty Field.

The compiler takes these sentences and from it knows that the Castle is a room and when you are there will display the quoted text. The compiler also knows that to the east is another room,  Moat and to the west is a room called Empty Field. While you can do much more than create rooms with Inform 7 all of the coding is done in complete understandable English sentences like the ones above.

I figured the best way to learn Inform 7 was to start creating a game right away. But, I didn’t have any ideas for a IF game and I didn’t want to hate own of my own good ideas after implementing it so poorly on my first attempt at using the language. This is where Roberta William’s King’s Quest I comes in. King’s Quest wasn’t the first adventure game to have graphics (that was Roberta’s Mystery House) but the graphics were line drawings and static. KQ1 was the first to have a moveable avatar and detailed (for the time) visuals of your character’s surroundings. The player still has to type in commands at a prompt in order to interact with the game and there is still a lot of text to go through. Why not take that text and that premise for my own first attempt at game making? So, that is what I decided to do. I’ll just jettison the graphics and re-make the game in Inform 7. It shouldn’t be that hard should it?

Next time: Drawing Maps, designing a world

 

Spring Garden 2012: The Beginning

D prepares the planter

When every wild tree, bush, and plant in sight is blooming you know it’s time to get started on the garden. We bought numerous seed packets at the end of the season last year and are going to try and grow our own beans and tomatoes from seed instead of buying seedlings at the local Ace.

All sorts of seeds...

We’ll be growing everything from seed this year (hopefully) except zucchini which we’ll pick up once these seeds germinate and sprout. What are we growing this year?

Cherry Tomatoes
Bush Beans
Edamame Soy Beans
Japanese and Lemon Cucumbers
Roma Tomatoes
Cantaloupe

We put everything into the planter, watered the planter, then covered the seeds with additional soil, and covered the planter with a clear plastic top. We’re hoping to have some seedling in a week or so! We also hope Jake won’t take as much interest in the garden this season as he did last…

Seeds in planter before watering, covering, and setting out
The cover is there to keep everything warm and moist and to keep pests out.

 

Garden Gone Wild! End to Fall Garden 2011

 

Arugula, Spinach, and the Lone Choy

As you know, late last year our dear dog Jake got bored one day and ate/destroyed the garden. He left behind only a lone bok choy and the arugula and spinach. After his rampage we let the garden go to seed. We thought it too late in the season to start over and decided to move on to other projects until the spring when we’d plant the new garden.

Turns out that despite our neglect the survivors have done okay for themselves. The choy is long past harvesting time but we’ve been taking in and using the arugula and spinach for salads, or fresh vegetable sides. I’m really kind of impressed how well they’ve done considering we haven’t watered them since December and this winter has been really mild with minimal rain. I almost feel bad about tearing them out in a week to put in the new garden. Oh well, circle of life and all that.

The Lone Choy Man. I wanted to try and see what it tasted like after so long. But, the missus' vetoed that idea.
I did not know arugula could get this big. It still tastes fine, too.
Obligatory Artsy Fartsy Shot of Bok Choy flowers

Update on the 2011 Winter Garden

Doesn't the cauliflower look lovely?

I haven’t talked much about the fall/winter garden much this year and that is because it hasn’t been doing very well, for several reasons. One, there hasn’t been much rain or cloud cover so it’s been dry and very, very cold; the plants don’t like that. Two, having cleared out the problem slugs the garden has been hit by some sort of caterpillar, or so the wife tells me. One that I can’t seem to find no matter when I go out there to check on things. Three, Jake got into it. The picture up top is what is left of all our just beginning to grow cauliflowers… Needless to say Jake has been in the doghouse.

That giant bare spot is where kale and chard was supposed to grow but none of the seedlings made it...

The kale and chard that we transplanted in when they were about an inch tall never made it. I don’t know if it was the cold or the pests that did them in… All I know is that they’re gone now. The broccoli just seems to be waiting around for something to happen. It has been attacked by the caterpillars too but seem to be doing okay despite that but I don’t see any hint at flowering going on. At least the bok choy and arugula are still there and seem to be doing fine. We’ve harvested and eaten two heads of bok choy which leaves us with four more and the arugula is getting to the point where we can start picking it for garnishes and small dishes. I’m hopeful that we’ll soon have enough of the green for some salads. But, with the ones this growing has gone so far I’m not holding out hope… This has been the most disappointing planting since we started over a year ago.

UPDATE: Since writing this post on Sunday (12/11/11) Jake has also eaten the cabbages at the far end of the garden and begun working on the Bok Choy. I don’t know why he is eating the Bok Choy seeing as whenever we’ve tried hand feeding it to him he spits it out… Needless to say he is even further into the Dog house now.

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