PSA

So, I finally got around to actually buying a domain name and hosting plan. Here’s the deal: this blog is moving. Where to? http://blog.kidkonia.com/ (not up as of writing). Still will be running WordPress, and I’ll import all of the posts so nothing will be lost. But there’ll be one major change: ads. Yes, I will be running Google AdSense on kidkonia.com. Why? Well, I’d like to take some of the burden of payment off of my shoulders. That’s it. I don’t really expect to make money from it or anything, but they’ll be there.

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.

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.

Google Video’s Downloads, and How to Hack It

You’ll notice, browsing Google Video’s selection, that some videos have a “download” button, others don’t. For example, a user put together all of RvB Seasons 1-5, but 3-5 aren’t download-able… or are they? Firebug reveals that the download button does this (taken from the “Red vs Blue Season 2″ video):
onDownloadClick("4833169745208123782","","",ele("platform").value)
Interesting… the long number is the exact number in the url:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4833169745208123782
And ele("platform").value? Well, that’s just a JS function for some DOM work to get the value of the “platform” dropbox, who’s only option sets the value to “ipod”. A little JS code hacking, and here’s a work-all function:
onDownloadClick("[insert docid here]","","","ipod")
Using Firebug, select the “thumbsetc” div, and insert this bit of HTML:
<a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick='onDownloadClick("[insert docid here]","","","ipod")'>Download</a>
<!-- Or, if you want the button... -->
<img onclick="onDownloadClick("[docid]","","","ipod")" src="/static/btn_download.gif"/>
(No, I don’t know why the spaces are there… take them out, since I can’t) Substituting the docid for the text. Now just click Edit again, and a Download link should appear somewhere in the right-hand pane. Click it to download an MP4 of whatever video you may be watching!

If anybody can patch together a Greasemonkey script for this, let me know!

Update: Amazingly as this worked the first time, it now finds all sorts of errors. It’s a lot easier just to find a video that can be downloaded, fire up Firebug and edit the download button’s source to change the pointed-to docid…