Door #4: Mario in Gravity-Land
I'm currently working on developing two different, new games...while also attending uni. Yeah...that's clearly smart of me. I don't like giving away ideas that I'm actively working on, but at this pace, you know me by now: I don't finish anything. So here's one of my ideas!
This is a Mario clone/sequel, with a twist. Bowser is tired of Mario always stomping on the heads of him and his minions, so he creates a gravity-warping device in an attempt to keep Mario grounded at all times. But of course, something goes wrong, and the device explodes, leaving bits of it scattered throughout the 8 worlds. In the process, gravity becomes totally screwy everywhere, and Bowser runs off to hiding.
Now it's up to Mario to collect the machine's pieces, reassemble it, and fix gravity everywhere. Of course, Bowser has the final piece :) . Meanwhile, every level has either low, normal, or high gravity, which affects your jump height, among other things. And of course, there are new items and power-ups to fit the environment!
P-P-P-POWER UP...s!
Bunny Ears
These let you jump higher. The height is dependent upon the current gravity, but it's enough to let you jump normally under high gravity. The downside is that after jumping as Bunny Mario, it's very hard to control your movement in the air, so the Bunny Ears are not always the best power-up to have.
Diving Suit
In low-gravity levels, Mario will walk on top of the water, like mini-Mario does in some existing games. To counter this, you will need the Diving Suit. Not only can Dive Mario get underwater in any gravity, but he is always at neutral buoyancy in the water, giving you full swimming control. On land, this does nothing but supply an extra hit point.
Electric Flower
Electric Mario can fire short-range lightning bolts to hurt or kill enemies. These are shorter range than fireballs, but they can also turn on machines, like conveyor belts and magnets, to get you into bonus areas or make the levels easier.
Balloons
Balloons act as bouncy platforms. In low gravity, however, they float as high as possible, potentially breaking a path and making things more difficult. Some may contain items.
Spike Hat
In this version of Mario, there is not Big and Small Mario, so don't expect any red mushrooms! Instead, Mario can get a Spike Hat. As Spike Mario, he can break bricks and kill enemies by hitting them from below. He can also pop balloons from below, getting items if it had any inside.
Metal Mushroom
Metal Mario is heavy, and thus can walk on the bottom of water in any gravity and jumps lower in any gravity. He cannot be hurt by things like spikes. However, he is immediately killed (no HP) by electricity, and sometimes, he can't jump high enough to reach an area.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Door #3 - Uh...Magic, Anyone?
It's been a while since my last post (at least, relative to the once-a-week I planned). How quickly my plans fade...
So here's the deal: I've been very busy with school, and it's basically crushed my creative juices. Writing an 8-page paper, 5 journal entries (analyzing rhetoric and arguments in pop culture sources), and doing 3 embedded electronics labs....yeah, my brain doesn't have much left. Yes, these are excuses, but here's the thing: my only creative outlet in about a month has been Magic: the Gathering. So that's what this post will be about.
Magic cards are interesting. The game is complex, surely, but also very fun once you've learned how it works. The coolest part, to me, is that it's like a language: there are specific terms that mean different things, specific parts of each card, and specific cards and ways to combine them. Like letters, words, and grammar. Finding new combos is wonderful, and certainly creative. But I take it one step further.
Designing Cards
I often will default to designing my own Magic cards, using a program called Magic Set Editor (MSE). Often they're one-off cards that I have a spark of inspiration to design, but sometimes they're ideas for entire sets. Problem is, sets consist of (generally) around 200 cards, and you know me with long projects--I never finish them. So I have plenty of started Magic set designs lying around unfinished--incomplete hobbies is the basis of this blog, isn't it?
One of my older incomplete sets was called Cetibus (the Latin word for "crowds", here meaning "groups"). A quick and relevant primer for people unfamiliar with Magic: there are 5 colors, each represented by a different personality. White is the "follows orders, protects the group over the individual, soldier" type who like soldiers, angels, and humans; black is the "do anything to get ahead, even if I have to kill for it, selfish" type who like zombies, demons, and "horrors"; red is the "do what I want, you can't contain me, chaos" type who like giants, dragons, and goblins; blue is the "do anything to advance knowledge, science is power, mind over matter" type who like wizards, merfolk, etc.; and green is the "nature comes before everything else, unnatural things are bad, destroy technology" type who like elves and animals of all kinds. In my set, Cetibus is a plane (the Magic term for "universe") where each color is represented by a different faction.
You have the Zersetz, which are black ("Zersetzen" is German for "decompose"). They live on a continent which spans half their plane, but is shrouded in darkness most of the year. Most things on this continent are dead or dying. The only things that live are zombies, demons, living skeletons--basically, anything that was never really "alive" in the first place. They absorb nutrients from decaying things, and so in their cards, this is represented by the "decay" ability: when you play them, they start with -1/-1 counters on them ("-1/-1 counters" are things that make whatever they're on 1 smaller in both attack and defense, called power and toughness), but then each turn you get to move one of the counters off them and onto something else--like an opponent's creatures.
In blue, we have the Unistus ("Unistus" is Estonian for "dream"). They are a group who have evolved in a land very rich in mana (magical energy). They've become so dependent upon this abundance of mana that they literally cannot survive unless they're constantly using magic. In order to keep using mana while still living a life, the Unistus generally live in a simulated world within each others' minds--their dreams, if you will. This world is maintained by magic, and so every moment of life for the Unistus is created by magical means. This is represented in the cards by the "hypnotic" ability, which taps any creatures it hits and stops them from untapping for a turn (note: "tapping" means turning a card sideways, which represents something being used and stops it from being used again until it's untapped, usually at the start of your next turn). Tapping in Magic is often used to represent sleeping or inaction, so I thought it was fitting for the Dream Masters.
For red, we have the Ephestus (coming from the Greek "Hephaestus", the God of Fire, as well as the basis for the word "ifaisteio", meaning "volcano"). They evolved around volcanos--lava rivers, magma chambers, etc. are normal environments for them. They basically embody the chaos of red by not caring about what's going on while trying to kill you if you annoy them. This "trying to kill you" (as well as their firey origins, which is a common theme for red Magic cards) is represented by the Spray ability, which spreads the pain of a successful player hit by then hurting all that player's creatures, too.
In green, we have the Drivol collective (or the Drivolians; "Drvol" is Croatian for "tree"). They're jungle dwellers, very tribal in nature. This group inclination is represented by the ability "Kinforce", which gives them +1/+1 counters when you play them the more green things you already have (remember, +1/+1 counters add 1 to the power and toughness of the creature).
And last but not least, the most important group: the white Atama ("Atma" is Hindi for "soul"). The Atama are spirit beings from the Ethereal Realm. They used to be warriors and kings until they evolved enough to ascend to a "higher plane of existence" (yeah, it's a trope, so sue me). But one king has found a way to return to the physical world, and he wants to use that to take over and rule again. And that's the main conflict for this set's backstory: the Atama trying to rule over Cetibus once more, with the other groups trying to stop them. Because the Atama are spirit beings, they have an ability called Shifting, where they come into play with a number of +1/+1 counters on them, and whenever they're hit, they just remove those counters one-by-one instead of actually getting hurt, until they have no counters to remove. This represents them returning to Spirit form to protect themselves, but in doing so, they weaken their physical forms little by little.
So basically, that's the description. I got to 100 cards before I abandoned it--which, even though it's only half a set or less, is a lot for me! You can find the entire set as far as I got on my DeviantArt page, here. I had planned a 3 set block of this story arc...but I guess half of one set is all that will see the light of day. Unless someone else wants to complete it, in which case, please contact me on DeviantArt and I will be glad to send you the Magic Set Editor file :)
It's been a while since my last post (at least, relative to the once-a-week I planned). How quickly my plans fade...
So here's the deal: I've been very busy with school, and it's basically crushed my creative juices. Writing an 8-page paper, 5 journal entries (analyzing rhetoric and arguments in pop culture sources), and doing 3 embedded electronics labs....yeah, my brain doesn't have much left. Yes, these are excuses, but here's the thing: my only creative outlet in about a month has been Magic: the Gathering. So that's what this post will be about.
Magic cards are interesting. The game is complex, surely, but also very fun once you've learned how it works. The coolest part, to me, is that it's like a language: there are specific terms that mean different things, specific parts of each card, and specific cards and ways to combine them. Like letters, words, and grammar. Finding new combos is wonderful, and certainly creative. But I take it one step further.
Designing Cards
I often will default to designing my own Magic cards, using a program called Magic Set Editor (MSE). Often they're one-off cards that I have a spark of inspiration to design, but sometimes they're ideas for entire sets. Problem is, sets consist of (generally) around 200 cards, and you know me with long projects--I never finish them. So I have plenty of started Magic set designs lying around unfinished--incomplete hobbies is the basis of this blog, isn't it?
One of my older incomplete sets was called Cetibus (the Latin word for "crowds", here meaning "groups"). A quick and relevant primer for people unfamiliar with Magic: there are 5 colors, each represented by a different personality. White is the "follows orders, protects the group over the individual, soldier" type who like soldiers, angels, and humans; black is the "do anything to get ahead, even if I have to kill for it, selfish" type who like zombies, demons, and "horrors"; red is the "do what I want, you can't contain me, chaos" type who like giants, dragons, and goblins; blue is the "do anything to advance knowledge, science is power, mind over matter" type who like wizards, merfolk, etc.; and green is the "nature comes before everything else, unnatural things are bad, destroy technology" type who like elves and animals of all kinds. In my set, Cetibus is a plane (the Magic term for "universe") where each color is represented by a different faction.
You have the Zersetz, which are black ("Zersetzen" is German for "decompose"). They live on a continent which spans half their plane, but is shrouded in darkness most of the year. Most things on this continent are dead or dying. The only things that live are zombies, demons, living skeletons--basically, anything that was never really "alive" in the first place. They absorb nutrients from decaying things, and so in their cards, this is represented by the "decay" ability: when you play them, they start with -1/-1 counters on them ("-1/-1 counters" are things that make whatever they're on 1 smaller in both attack and defense, called power and toughness), but then each turn you get to move one of the counters off them and onto something else--like an opponent's creatures.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Door #2: Misunderstood Satellites
Behind today's door, we find a literary opportunity which I began years ago, but got no further than page 2. So I offer it to you all, as I do, to take and use as you see fit.
I've read of the KEO satellite time capsule concept, which I adore. For more information, you can check out its Wikipedia page and read up. The idea is that a satellite containing many things, including a message from up to everyone on Earth, would be launched into an orbit such that it would fall back to Earth in 50,000 years and give its contents to whoever's alive then. Its launch date has consistently been moved up, making me skeptical about whether it'll ever happen, but I love the idea. Of particular interest was the diamond containing a drop of human blood, ostensibly for future analysis and potential treatment of diseases that may exist in 50 millennia.
So the idea of the story is, 50,000 years from now the world has devolved into two factions: the Unity and the Mercans (yeah, I wasn't very subtle with my names). They've been constantly at war for centuries, with the Unity being the high-tech civilization we'd expect from the time period, and the Mercans being a more primitive, aggressive culture. Aggressive to the point of owning wildcats as pets and teaching their young children how to use weapons.
The Mercan and Unity militaries learn that something has fallen from the sky, and they both know it must be a satellite. The Mercans believe it's a Unity satellite, and they want to get to it before the Unity troops can. The Unity realize it's a satellite launched many years ago, and they want to find out what it contains. The race is on to locate the precise crash site of the satellite.
Ultimately, the Mercans get there first. Upon seeing the blood in the diamond, they take this as a symbol of skilled warfare. In their culture, the blood of the enemy is a souvenir of a battle victory, and they project this culture onto the diamond. They can't figure out how to read any of the digital information, though, having lost most of their non-weaponized technology to the Unity long ago. So they embark on a stealth mission to infiltrate and then rob a Unity museum for the technology they need to read the satellite's contents.
Stuff happens--complications, etc....I never thought this part through--and eventually the Mercans do get their tech. They read the data on the satellite's disk, but it's in an ancient language they can't understand. While their archaeologists try and decipher the messages, the Unity is after them, using the theft and break-in as a catalyst to increase their aggression in the everlasting war. The Mercans finally decode the ancient text, at the last possible minute before the Unity destroys their largest bases, and are disappointed to find it's just a reference database and some meaningless messages from ancient peoples. They destroy the satellite, along with all its contents, to prevent the Unity from gaining it, knowing that the Unity's scientific knowledge could do terrible things to the Mercans with this information.
In the end, the Unity win the war and assimilate the Mercans to create a very hesitant One World Union. The satellite is no more, except for the diamond-protected samples of blood, which decades from now sit in a One World Union museum, never to be tampered with again.
Behind today's door, we find a literary opportunity which I began years ago, but got no further than page 2. So I offer it to you all, as I do, to take and use as you see fit.
I've read of the KEO satellite time capsule concept, which I adore. For more information, you can check out its Wikipedia page and read up. The idea is that a satellite containing many things, including a message from up to everyone on Earth, would be launched into an orbit such that it would fall back to Earth in 50,000 years and give its contents to whoever's alive then. Its launch date has consistently been moved up, making me skeptical about whether it'll ever happen, but I love the idea. Of particular interest was the diamond containing a drop of human blood, ostensibly for future analysis and potential treatment of diseases that may exist in 50 millennia.
So the idea of the story is, 50,000 years from now the world has devolved into two factions: the Unity and the Mercans (yeah, I wasn't very subtle with my names). They've been constantly at war for centuries, with the Unity being the high-tech civilization we'd expect from the time period, and the Mercans being a more primitive, aggressive culture. Aggressive to the point of owning wildcats as pets and teaching their young children how to use weapons.
The Mercan and Unity militaries learn that something has fallen from the sky, and they both know it must be a satellite. The Mercans believe it's a Unity satellite, and they want to get to it before the Unity troops can. The Unity realize it's a satellite launched many years ago, and they want to find out what it contains. The race is on to locate the precise crash site of the satellite.
Ultimately, the Mercans get there first. Upon seeing the blood in the diamond, they take this as a symbol of skilled warfare. In their culture, the blood of the enemy is a souvenir of a battle victory, and they project this culture onto the diamond. They can't figure out how to read any of the digital information, though, having lost most of their non-weaponized technology to the Unity long ago. So they embark on a stealth mission to infiltrate and then rob a Unity museum for the technology they need to read the satellite's contents.
Stuff happens--complications, etc....I never thought this part through--and eventually the Mercans do get their tech. They read the data on the satellite's disk, but it's in an ancient language they can't understand. While their archaeologists try and decipher the messages, the Unity is after them, using the theft and break-in as a catalyst to increase their aggression in the everlasting war. The Mercans finally decode the ancient text, at the last possible minute before the Unity destroys their largest bases, and are disappointed to find it's just a reference database and some meaningless messages from ancient peoples. They destroy the satellite, along with all its contents, to prevent the Unity from gaining it, knowing that the Unity's scientific knowledge could do terrible things to the Mercans with this information.
In the end, the Unity win the war and assimilate the Mercans to create a very hesitant One World Union. The satellite is no more, except for the diamond-protected samples of blood, which decades from now sit in a One World Union museum, never to be tampered with again.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Door #1: MusePad
What's Behind Door #1?
I think I'll start off with an idea for a website that I once thought would be amazing, but quickly gave up on: MusePad. The idea was to create a website that was like DeviantArt, but with a focus on literary art rather than visual. Here are some of the features I had planned for it:
I think I'll start off with an idea for a website that I once thought would be amazing, but quickly gave up on: MusePad. The idea was to create a website that was like DeviantArt, but with a focus on literary art rather than visual. Here are some of the features I had planned for it:
- Categories like DeviantArt, only with a linguistic focus.
- Poetry
- Novels
- Short Stories
- Choose-Your-Owns
- Screenplays
- Stage Plays
- Etc.
- The editor would include multiple organizational tools specific to the type of literature you're producing.
- All would include bookmarks and notes.
- Novels, novellas, etc. would include chapter tabs by default, which you can name and use to switch between chapters quickly. You can also allow readers to use them as bookmarks or not.
- A character page would be included in all editors, but it would only be visible by default in script-related genres. This would let you define your characters, their bios, their descriptions, etc.
- You can link new works to old ones chronologically--for example, you can define a work as a sequel or a prequel to another work. This would show navigation links to readers when they reach the beginning or end of your work, so they can follow the universe as you expand it.
- Works can be open to adaptations/fanfiction or not, depending on the author's preference. If they're open to adaptations, another user can specify their work as an adaptation of yours, either in their work's settings or by clicking the "New Adaptation" button on your work's page.
- Adaptations would include an automatic byline indicating the work they were adapted from
- It also cross-links adaptations to their originals and suggest adaptations next to/under the original works.
- In addition to reading work directly on the site, users can download works in multiple formats, including PDF, Word, HTML, and EPUB. These would all be generated/converted by the server with no user input, except perhaps letting the author choose which formats to make available.
- Authors may also upload works in any of these formats and have them auto-converted (and displayable).
- Works can get feedback by views, ratings, and comments
- Views, however, don't count equally. If a person views a work for two pages, then leaves and never returns, they clearly didn't enjoy the work. Should their view count as much as someone who read the entire 500-page novel? Not at all.
- Also, if someone skips to page 500 and reads the end, then leaves, should his view count as much? Nope.
- So views should be weighted by a few things:
- The percentage of pages viewed. So someone who viewed 10 out of 500 pages gets a lower weight than someone who viewed all 500.
- The time spent per page. Let's face it: people will try and scam every system. If they know that views are weighted by pages read, they'll just quickly skim through all the pages to boost ratings. But a page with 200 words can't be read in 2 seconds by any human. So only after a page is viewed for a certain amount of time (threshold TBD by experimentation) does that page count toward the view weight.
- Ad revenue. Just classic AdSense-type ads around the site that generate the cash flow.
- Commercial works. Reputable users can choose to sell their works rather than distribute them freely. The site can then take a percentage of these profits. This is win-win for the authors and the site, because it encourages more users to write and sell, which in turn makes you all more money. It of course has the potential drawback of turning away readers, which is why only people who have built up a reputation--VIPs, MVAs, whatever--can sell. Then people who enjo those authors' stories will have more incentive to buy, and they'll have more time to get hooked on all the free stories around the site.
- As a potential extension of this idea, a partnership with a digital or physical publisher could add more incentive for budding authors, and more revenue for the site.
- Subscriptions. Rather than pay by commission, people can pay to subscribe to authors they like, and those authors and the site take a cut of the profits.
- Or, users could even subscribe to Groups (like on Facebook, only for groups of similar authors), and the profits could be distributed among the group's members, weighted by views and ratings.
- Donations. You can ask and/or beg for donations. Hey, it works for some people.
Forty-Two Million Introductions
In The Beginning...
Well, hello, everyone! And by "everyone", I mean the zero to five people who are reading this, I'm sure. I've never been much of a blogger--I started one in 2008, wrote three or four posts, and never touched it again. I just usually consider myself boring, and think no one wants to read what I write...
Okay, this is a terrible way to begin a blog. Let's start again. You can call me Daniel, or IceMetalPunk, or IMP--whichever you like. I've often noticed I have a habit of starting hobby projects, then never finishing them. I used to think that was a flaw, but now I wonder...maybe I'm just very good at having ideas! So even if I don't finish anything, if I put the ideas out there, someone is bound to like one of them enough to try it for themselves, right?
What's Up With This Blog?
I'm a computer science major at uni now (soon to graduate and then become a starving web developer looking for an employer...hire me...please hire me...). I've developed quite a few websites, apps, and games on multiple systems. I also write fiction in my spare time, mostly science fiction, but also some drama work (and one comedy screenplay...sort of). That's in addition to the poetry I write. I also play Magic: the Gathering, and design custom cards for it. AND I digitally compose music as well.
The problem is, of the hundreds of things I've worked on in all of the above categories...maybe 10 have come to completion. I have a nasty habit of shifting my focus partway through a project and then never returning later, leaving me with far more ticks in the "Never Finishing" column than the "I'm Proud To Present" column. Consider me a Jack of Many Trades, Finisher of None. And so this blog is my attempt to at least write down my ideas as they come, so that people who might find this one day can say, "Oh, wow, that's a great idea! I'm going to make this a reality!" Or perhaps I might do that one day, revisiting all my old blog posts and finally mustering up the motivation to complete one.
Also, don't worry: I'll be playing around with the themes and finding something fancier than plain white "paper".
And That Was...How Many Ideas, Again?
Forty-Two Million. That's 42,000,000 (or 42.000.000 for my European friends). Do I plan on ever reaching that number? Hell, no. Even if I had a new idea every day, that would still be... *to the Google Calculator!* 115 millennia! But I do hope to post at least one new idea each week, on average. I'm sure I'll have slow weeks, and busy weeks, and completely insane and hectic weeks, but on average, once a week this blog will see a new idea. I'm not restricting my ideas to one category, either--any ideas in any subject are fair game.
A quick note on formatting: for now, I think I'll be calling all my ideas "Doors", after the saying "when one door closes, another opens". These ideas have all mostly closed their doors on my life, but they can very easily be pried open to let you in, dear reader :) .
Who Can Realize These Dreams Of Mine (Poetry in Headings)?
Anyone who wants to make or anything I post in this blog a reality is free to do so. Just please have the decency to credit me and/or contact me to let me know it's happening :) . Thanks!
Well, hello, everyone! And by "everyone", I mean the zero to five people who are reading this, I'm sure. I've never been much of a blogger--I started one in 2008, wrote three or four posts, and never touched it again. I just usually consider myself boring, and think no one wants to read what I write...
Okay, this is a terrible way to begin a blog. Let's start again. You can call me Daniel, or IceMetalPunk, or IMP--whichever you like. I've often noticed I have a habit of starting hobby projects, then never finishing them. I used to think that was a flaw, but now I wonder...maybe I'm just very good at having ideas! So even if I don't finish anything, if I put the ideas out there, someone is bound to like one of them enough to try it for themselves, right?
What's Up With This Blog?
I'm a computer science major at uni now (soon to graduate and then become a starving web developer looking for an employer...hire me...please hire me...). I've developed quite a few websites, apps, and games on multiple systems. I also write fiction in my spare time, mostly science fiction, but also some drama work (and one comedy screenplay...sort of). That's in addition to the poetry I write. I also play Magic: the Gathering, and design custom cards for it. AND I digitally compose music as well.
The problem is, of the hundreds of things I've worked on in all of the above categories...maybe 10 have come to completion. I have a nasty habit of shifting my focus partway through a project and then never returning later, leaving me with far more ticks in the "Never Finishing" column than the "I'm Proud To Present" column. Consider me a Jack of Many Trades, Finisher of None. And so this blog is my attempt to at least write down my ideas as they come, so that people who might find this one day can say, "Oh, wow, that's a great idea! I'm going to make this a reality!" Or perhaps I might do that one day, revisiting all my old blog posts and finally mustering up the motivation to complete one.
Also, don't worry: I'll be playing around with the themes and finding something fancier than plain white "paper".
And That Was...How Many Ideas, Again?
Forty-Two Million. That's 42,000,000 (or 42.000.000 for my European friends). Do I plan on ever reaching that number? Hell, no. Even if I had a new idea every day, that would still be... *to the Google Calculator!* 115 millennia! But I do hope to post at least one new idea each week, on average. I'm sure I'll have slow weeks, and busy weeks, and completely insane and hectic weeks, but on average, once a week this blog will see a new idea. I'm not restricting my ideas to one category, either--any ideas in any subject are fair game.
A quick note on formatting: for now, I think I'll be calling all my ideas "Doors", after the saying "when one door closes, another opens". These ideas have all mostly closed their doors on my life, but they can very easily be pried open to let you in, dear reader :) .
Who Can Realize These Dreams Of Mine (Poetry in Headings)?
Anyone who wants to make or anything I post in this blog a reality is free to do so. Just please have the decency to credit me and/or contact me to let me know it's happening :) . Thanks!
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