Project Cheddar

I don’t quite remember how, but I ended up checking out procedural generation, the process where a computer makes content instead of artists/others. And I started thinking… why not let it make the entire game? So I expanded on that in the hour or so I had before finals this morning, and I ended up with Project Cheddar (yes, as in the cheese). There are only a few constants:

• It’s a third-person shooter
• It has at least 2 weapons
• It has at least 2 enemies who shoot back

Other than that, the weapons themselves are all computer-generated (including their names… who wouldn’t want to fire the Yocuhuo?), as will be them map (when I get that far) and the computer AI. It will be pretty sick.

In order to facilitate rapid prototyping and deployment, I’ve decided to write it in JavaScript. No, you didn’t misread… JavaScript. Graphics are made in GIMP and published as PNG files, which are moved around using position:absolute and DOM.

Link will be up to a download… eventually.

Beware! nVidia GeForce4 MX 440

Finally went out and got Portal today (individual, not Orange Box version). Took about half an hour to install Steam and Portal together. And then what happens? It crashes. But it’s not one of those “error: xyz malfunctioned \n traceback: …” errors… it was the one telling me my computer sucks.

I have a DELL Dimension 4800, which we bought in late 2004. It’s stock to this day; nobody’s upgraded it to any degree. And it shipped with the best graphics card I’d ever had (the first belonging to a Win98 machine…): an nVidia GeForce4. It would run anything I threw at it. But today, it finally threw in the towel. It’s not broken or anything… but age has caught up with it.

KDice and Dice Wars

KDice has now replaced most of my normal computing functions: programming, Skyping, web surfing… they’ve been kicked out. Based on an equally fun and addicting game Dice Wars, it’s been melded with Risk and made MMO.

Now, both games are pretty simple. There’s a Risk-like map, divided into territories and based on hexagons (DW’s are randomly generated). The goal of the game is world “kdomination” (as KDice’s site puts it), which is done rather simply. You’ll notice that instead of Risk’s “Armies” on each territory, there’re dice. These function like armies, but better: you’re not limited to 3 attack dice, only to the number of dice on your territory (minus one). It automatically rolls the maximum amount, and if your total is higher, they’re moved to your newly-conquered territory. Lose the roll, and your dice pile gets whittled down.

Now, it sounds simple enough. But all these dice beg the question: where do they come from? Well, every connect territory gets you one die to distribute. So if you have 6 adjacent lands, you’ll get 6 dice. 5 connected and one off on the other side of the map? 5 dice. Too bad you don’t get to distribute them; the computer does it randomly. To quote the How To part of the KDice site:

You cannot choose where your new dice will go. Dice are randomly distributed across your territories. Sometimes you’ll get just one or two dice sprinkled on every land, yet other times you’ll sprout a huge stack out of nowhere!! It has to do with luck.

Rock Band: What GH3 Should Have Been

My brother finally scraped together enough cash to buy the $160 PS2 version of Rock Band. It’s not overpriced by a long shot, since the only package available comes with the drum set, a microphone, one Stratocaster guitar, a USB expander, and the game. It’s worth it if you can afford it.

First off, the game overall. Everything is USB-powered, although you can use Guitar Hero guitars with it on PS2 (and every other one except for the PS2 GH3 guitar). Before I go further, let me explain the Guitar Hero story.

Once upon a time, there was Harmonix. It made games. It quietly released Guitar Hero for the PS2, and within a few months, found it was suddenly a known company. Guitar Hero 2 following, with new songs and characters, and was generally a hit. Then the franchise was sold to Activision, the company that was known for only the Tony Hawk games (yes, all 10 of them). It went downhill: while the next Guitar Hero game was still fun, it was noticably harder and lacked the “charm” of the first two games. Some (including me) say it just sucked.