I have begun construction on a 3-d settlers of catan board.
Some other people who have done it are here and here.
Jul 112005
I just ran webalizer and checked my logs to see how my site is doing
and I noticed that the #1 query bringing people to my website is
“dragonchess”. I did a quick google search and found, to my great
surprise, that my dragonchess page is #4 on google’s list!
More interesting, though (at least initially) is that the #1 site is a
sourceforge project. Looks like there’s a group of people
creating their own computer version of the game. Unfortunately,
it doesn’t yet support AI or 3-d graphics. Well, I made my won
2-d AI-less version of DragonChess about 7 or 8 years ago using
VB5. I checked out their site and it looks like there is still
activity going on with the project (36% last week), but the last
release date for files was December 2002 … Almost two years
ago. I guess they ran into the same problems I did – it’s just
waaaayyyy to complex to do any decent AI on DragonChess.
But I’ll keep checking their site from time to time and maybe one day
they’ll get it finished. In the meantime, if you’d like to
download my VB version of the game, it is located here.
Update: I just remembered that there is one version of DragonChess that does have built-in AI. It’s not very good AI, but it’s better than playing by yourself. Click Here.
A riddle
Literature
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Jul 262004
Once in a while you run across a riddle that just makes perfect sense
once you figure it out. You don’t have to ask if you got the
answer right. You just know it’s right. This is one such
riddle. I don’t know the source, and I won’t give you the
answer. Some people have gotten it in 5 minutes; others have
taken days. Good luck! (you can always email me if you really want to know…)
On your screen,
Round at sea,
Stained by faith,
Shopped for free.
Round at sea,
Stained by faith,
Shopped for free.
What am I?
A first peek at Dragon Age
General Information
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May 212004
BioWare cofounder Greg Zeschuk calls the game “a spiritual successor to all of our recent games,” and goes on to add that Dragon Age “melds the fun of party interaction from Baldur’s Gate, the community and multiplayer aspect of Neverwinter Nights and the tactical combat of Knights of the Old Republic.”
we’re still talking about a medieval fantasy setting, but with an oriental twist. The usual fantasy races like the orcs, dwarves and elves will not be present in their original form, though certain variations of those will be included in the game. The good news is that Dragon Age will be powered by a completely new proprietary 3D technology that will allow full 3D camera movement. This doesn’t just translate into better looking scenes though, as it actually has a lot of influence on the gameplay. The full 3D representation of the game world now allows for vertical movement and actual depth. One is that there’ll be plenty of customary BioWare humor evident in the dialogue and in the direction of the cut-scenes, and the other is a minor touch that will surely only deepen the illusion of playing in a living and breathing virtual world – your characters will now react to the stuff that’s going in their environment,
In combat, they’ll be able to pause at any time while managing the fight tactically, or they can zoom in for a KOTOR-style third-person perspective, directing any of the party members, while allowing the optionally artificially intelligent party members to hold their own.
ragon Age will feature full speech, which is great. Unlike KOTOR, though, Dragon Age’s characters will do a lot more emoting. The level of detail in the characters’ faces allows them to serve as “virtual actors,” spent a long time fleshing out the gameworld, which has a 5,000-year history and many different political, feuding factions. We were told that the game’s story will be serious in tone and will involve a lot of political intrigue, conspiracy, and so on.
The style of the art was very much Medieval Fantasy.
To help in the creation of the universe, they even hired a Ph.D. linguist to create all new languages Dragon Age will not be using D20 or any known rule system. It has been written from scratch specifically for this game. Dragon Age will allow you to have a full party. They haven’t decided on whether it’ll be 4 to 6 characters, but these will be fully controllable characters much like players enjoyed in Baldur’s Gate and not simply henchmen. The next thing I saw in the demo made my jaw drop. The camera flows over a desert like area where a huge battle is taking place with literally hundreds of characters fighting. Fire effects, arrows flying, and all that you would imagine in a full scale war were taking place. When asked whether we’d have a first person view, they didn’t have a final decision on that but were considering it. there will be a toolset and full support of the module building community. moving between areas will not involve clicking blue rectangles and will offer different methods depending on where you are going next. Sometimes you will simply click in the area ahead to move forward and in certain situations you will be warned before the transition takes place. They have also confirmed that there will be a world map in the game.
All the animation and lighting is dynamic, while all of the acting is done with motion capture. Each character is rendered in millions of polygons, allowing the player to zoom in as close as they want.
“Everyone loves a tremendous story, and we are using this new setting to help tell it. We’ve even hired more and better writers. This is going to be a living world that players will want to explore to get familiar with the people and the characters.”
It definately don’t look like a D&D inspired game with its European art scheme. We think it has much more of a Middle Eastern look with characters and creatures that look a little out of a Sinbad flick.
In addition to the 40-50 hour single player campaign, the game will also contain a separate multiplayer campaign that parallels the single player storyline.
in the beginning you’ll create a party of characters and tailor them to your desire. You’ll also be able to hire henchmen during the game, and BioWare promises you’ll run into some characters with a lot of personality
The game also features full motion-captured animation, giving the characters some very realistic looking moves during combat.
The search for the Same Game
General Information
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Dec 182003
A co-worker recently introduced me to a game called “Same Game”. It exists primarily on linux systems, but I began playing it on his Windows-CE device the other day while I was waiting in line for LOTR:ROTK. It was so fun, that I just had to have a copy.
I happen to have a Linux install on my laptop that comes with Same Game, but I hate to go to all the effort to boot up Linux just to play a game, so I began looking for Windows versions of the game. Here’s what I came up with: Clickomania! Tile Fall Same Game clone GD-BMD Jewels of Anubis The Rooster’s Balls I will download and install and play them all and let you know what I think. Stay tuned. Update: here’s my reviews. Clickomani! has different rules. I didn’t like it. Tile Fall followed the same rules as Same Game. The GUI was different, using squared and rectangular areas rather than balls, but overall it was decent. Same Game Clone – I couldn’t get this to run. The installer didn’t recognize some required Active-X controls and I didn’t want to bother tracking it down (the installer should install whatever I need, right?). Thumbs down. GD-BMD – This followed the Same Game rules exactly; the only drawback was the GUI. It’s text-based and looks ugly, thus detracting from the overall experience. Jewels Of Anubis – Don’t even bother with this one! It runs inside a window that blasts you with adds the entire time you’re playing (plus the rules are different from Same Game). The Roosters Balls – This was … OK. The rules are mostly like Same Game but it includes a “white ball” and a “black ball” that drastically change how the game is played. I didn’t like the variation. Plus the graphics were rather primitive.