AesTerra

This day brought to you by the letter “G”

Goldkin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 23:36:58 +0000

Wheeeee!*

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* If you have no idea what I’m on about, go here.

Art!

Goldkin — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:21:30 +0000

So after a few weeks of recovery from NaNoWriMo, I’m back to working on art. While this is all linked happily through my main blog, it’s probably not clear to the folks reading this on LJ that I have a deviantART site.

Pieces I’ve been working on this week (Click for larger image):

There’s also a rumor of 3D things in the near future. Stay tuned!

Limes at the End of the Universe

Goldkin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:20:58 +0000

It’s infrequent that I write long posts. After all, I’ve been captured by that Twitter thing.

However, due to a certain event occurring every November, I find myself waxing long past eloquence. Damn you, Chris Baty!

Indeed, this post has less to do with objects of the citrus persuasion (though there are certainly a few in it!), and more about my NaNoWriMo buffer. Latifolia optional.

So, what have I been writing about?

A few short stories regarding magic and computer science, especially where the two cross. While this may only appeal to the nerds among us, imagine a world where the Internet as we know it never came about by conventional means. Instead, it was discovered that particles could be manipulated at a basic level with enough directed thought and applied phlebotinum. Soon, it was discovered that these actions could be automated and magically constructed, completely rewriting the fundamental laws of computation.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Stories of virtual reality, building upon my extensive experience with Second Life (I refuse to indicate that with a trademark). Virtual reality has the ability to show us our best and worst traits as we cast ourselves through the looking glass. Indeed, this has already borne itself out in shared simulations like SL, which form the bulk of my reference material.

Because there must always be dragons, I’ve started a fantasy epic that relates loosely to Baxil’s own TTU mythos. This quickly gave way to a spec for mixing virtual reality with avatars that aren’t necessarily human, and ways to implement magic in such a way that others can freely build upon it without delving into the technical details.

Werewolves hurling fireballs as Clinton cracks down on therian policy, all in a neat little ~~MMO~~ shared reality? You’d better believe it.

Interactive fiction. It is my sworn duty as a game developer to write IF. It’s also lots of fun.

And of course, lots and lots (and lots) of notes on how I intend to employ myself again.* It’s cheating, but I feel it’s warranted as I try to make quota. Everybody’s doing it!

As with every NaNo sprint I attempt, my writing is less about completing a novel in a month and more about writing speculative fiction.

Does any of this seem interesting to you?

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* At the time of this writing, I’m between interviews at Microsoft and Google. I’m also in the midst of a temporary move to the Pacific Northwest that I intend to make permanent. All this, and I’m writing 50,000 words in a month.

I never said I was sane. You’re just jealous the voices speak to me and not you.

Personal Work Study

Goldkin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:50:21 +0000

While my job situation continues¹, I find myself in an interesting spot.

Specifically, I am between professional careers, attempting to move from what was essentially a startup, to a higher paid, professional organization. Of these, I hope to get into Microsoft or Google, but I’ll settle for anything that lets me get my hands dirty with programming for a livable paycheck.

With programming in mind, I’ve discovered that skills atrophy if you don’t use them. Having finished a Master’s degree in Business (because it was free²), I’ve discovered that not only have my implementation skills declined since 2006, but that I require a crash course in Computer Science.

I’ve decided to give myself precisely that. I’m already a reasonably good implementer and designer, having shipped professional products and an award-winning game.³ However, I acknowledge that I lack a good background in theory, particularly related to the analysis of algorithms, complexity theory, and software design methodologies.

In the interests of being entirely open about this process, and so others might benefit, here’s the "curriculum" I planned for myself. Where appropriate, I’ve noted any supplemental materials or abuses of notation:

Analysis of Algorithms
- Basic Conceptual Analysis and Mathematical Theory
- Asymptotic Analysis⁴
  - (Big) Θ Notation: ; is a set tightly binding
  - (Big) Ω Notation: ; ;
  - (Big) O Notation: ; ;
  - Dominating sets (ω and o), topically
- Complexity Analysis
  - Study of time and space complexity from AB2007,⁵ especially Turing machines, , , and conjecture related to
- Every interesting algorithm shared by CLRS 2001 and HPS 2008⁵
- Study of the problem archive from TopCoder.com (requires login).
- SPOJ and UVa Online Judge have also been suggested to me. Thanks, Kistaro!
Architecture and Implementation
- A complete read of
- Study of The Elements of C++ Style (MBG 2004), for notational and software clarity
- A refresher of x86 Assembly, regarding compilers and low-level implementation
- A refresher of C implementation, regarding memory management and language structure
- A refresher of C++ implementation, particularly class structure and problems of inheritance
- Implementations of the more useful algorithms in C++⁶
- A refresher project, consistent with my interests in 3D design
  - Simple scene graph utility, culminating in what I hope will be a networked game
Design Theory, Methodologies, and Practicalities:
- In no deliberate order, Brooks 1995, HT 1999, SH 2006, and related books
- A read of Programming Interviews Exposed (MS 2000), so I can actually make it in the door

The prerequisites I bring to the table:

Three professional years with C/C++ and Python
A familiarity with Windows and Linux from the kernel level forward
Practical experience in industry, from my former position
A significant mathematical and 3D background, from Engineering and Second Life development

Is there anything I’ve missed that might be interesting here? If so, let me know, so I may add it to the list.

Thanks for reading.

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Notes:

¹ See http://goldkin.livejournal.com/3204.html.

² By family faculty benefit. I was given an ultimatum to finish my studies prior to the end of the year, so I chose to use my existing credits for a one year degree. Since the college closed their MIS program, that left me with a generic MBA.

³ The details are not listed here, in order to keep a search barrier between work and my personal life.

⁴ Notational abuse of equality consistent with CLRS 2001. Wikipedia states this in terms of set notation (), but I find the method used in CLRS to be more elegant in formal notation.

⁵ Restating the material contained in these books would be tedious in what is already a long post. I may, however, post interesting implementations from my own code tree in future posts.

⁶ This necessitates discussion on my workflow for a future post. For now, I use a mixture of Emacs, GCC, Subversion, and the GNU build system.

This post excludes reference books, such as Design Patterns, manuals, and programming documentation.

Spoiler-Free Review: Augmented Fourth

Goldkin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:39:43 +0000

It’s been some time since my last blog posting. And with good reason: I’ve been traveling these past several months.

And what fortune should I have, than to be away when Brian Uri! released the second version of his classic game, Augmented Fourth. It seems fitting, then, that I finally review it.

Augmented Fourth is something of a simple game, easily playable in a day or two with minimal spoilers. Starting quite literally in midair, the game takes on something of a Terry Pratchett-like sense of humor and literary style, and doesn’t let go until long after the end. For his first and only complete work of interactive fiction, Uri! doesn’t disappoint.

It’s quite clear that Mr. Uri! did his homework, as puns, feelies, and inside jokes abound. Most of the adventure mainstays are implemented here, from a very humorous use of “xyzzy” to more than a few jokes at Zork’s expense. In fact, the game feels and plays so much like Zork, it’s arguably one of its most defining characteristics.

To that end, there’s a rather good balance between the game’s quirky world and item-driven puzzles. Descriptions work well; the text goes out of its way to amuse and delight. The game’s puzzles are relatively simple and forgiving, but are still tricky enough to elicit genuine satisfaction when solved. I especially like the way the trumpet is used as a wildcard for major puzzles, without feeling stiff or repetitive.

However, there are a few rough edges to the game. I would have preferred multi-turn undo, and a few more hints for some of the puzzles.

Still, these are minor quarrels. To the author’s credit, a very nasty red herring puzzle was scrapped in this release — one I spent an hour trying to figure out, previously. There’s also a literal red herring, but that’s a different puzzle.

All in all, Augmented Fourth is one of my favorite works of interactive fiction. Seeing as it reintroduced me to the genre, and is still entertaining nine years after its original publication, I’d say Uri! did something right.

If you haven’t had the chance, play through as soon as you can, either by download or online. It’s time well-spent.

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Links:

IFDB: Augmented Fourth
IFWiki: Augmented Fourth (Static Link)
The URI! Zone: Author’s Homepage
The URI! Zone: Online Version of Augmented Fourth

Spoiler-Free Review: Inside Woman

Goldkin — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:31:02 +0000

For the past month and a half, I’ve been working through Andy Phillips’ latest thriller, Inside Woman. Having recently finished it, I find myself loving and hating it for its potential, and thinking it would have done better as a novel and a game than interactive fiction. Read on for my thoughts.

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Set in a dystopian future of megacorps and high technology, the primary agenda is infiltration of the Utopian Arcology, the now-dominant power in the world. Much of the game is spent within this world-within-a-world, and within elaborate hacking sequences in the game’s interpretation of cyberspace.

The Good

Andy spins a terrific yarn. This is a game that is clearly designed to suck players in and not let go, and the excellent writing delivers. The number of plots, subplots, and entwined backstories remind me of Chris Carter (of X-Files fame). In other words, harmless NPCs early in the game gradually develop stories integral to the late plot.

As Inky wrote over on his blog, Andy again makes use of the “Group of Related Sub-bosses” in a series of battle sequences. Some of these are reminiscent of evil quick time events, but given the forgiving nature of the interpreter, these aren’t a problem. On the contrary: the good ones feel clever and even visceral.

I also found myself fond of Nanci, the game’s obligatory ex machina and early hint system. While the command is removed later in the game, Nanci’s quips always break the mood without being over the top.

The Bad

The game needs more testing and polish before I could recommend it to anyone outside the IF community. Minor grammatical errors aside, the game suffers from several crippling bugs and is practically unwinnable without a guide or diving into the disassembly.

It’s also very strange that the game does not make use of more implied behavior. Several mechanical actions are left entirely to the player, and in many cases require specific verbs to work correctly. While nothing new to the IF or Adventure genres, it’s jarring to have to manually perform upwards of ten steps when a single line or “go to X” would suffice. This holds especially true for the game’s mechanic of taking items from one area to another.

Several of the game’s puzzles are also wildly unfair. Em Short puts it well in her own mini-review, where she states the player/protagonist is just plain difficult to reconcile. (Eagle-eyed readers may notice this review is styled similar to hers. – Ed)

In my own playthrough, I also managed to cripple myself so hard, I had use hexedit to extricate myself (on a bug related to a high score board). These sorts of design flaws simply shouldn’t express in a game of this calibre.

It’s the Little Things

Between the excellent narrative, innovative puzzles, and terse gameplay, I’m left conflicted. On the one hand, there is an excellent story here, and some truly fantastic puzzles to play with. On the other, anyone looking to just play is going to be turned off by the steep difficulty, unfair puzzles, and broken nature of gameplay.

Overall, the feeling I get is thus: the narrative would make a very good book, the puzzles an excellent game, and that the two are simply at odds with one another here. Andy has shown terrific form at writing and an aptitude for puzzle design, but this latest title has too many rough edges to currently recommend.

All the same, I’m looking forward to Andy’s future works. Between this and his latest book, Jade Dragon, there’s a lot of potential — potential that’ll be realized with time and testing.

Edit: Since this review went live, Andy posted a new release fixing the aforementioned crippling bug, and some other items. Announcement here. Updated game file can be found at the IFDB link, below.

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Links:

IFDB Link: Inside Woman

Inky’s Review: Inside Woman (Andy Phillips) Z-Machine

Emily Short’s Post: Playing Inside Woman

Andy’s Novel: Jade Dragon

New entry, new look

Goldkin — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:27:27 +0000

After the last few posts, I’d become dissatisfied with the direction this blog was going. So, we now have a new look!*

The last months have been brutal. I’ll spare the details, as drama posts aren’t exactly a novelty on the internet. The good news is I’ve decided to support this blog again as my writing outlet, and funnel my other thoughts through Twitter and my DA.

I’m currently working on the art side of things over at goldkin.deviantart.com. My writing has somewhat lapsed due to the 140 character limit, so I’ll be working on some larger posts again as the muse serves.

I’m also working on a few novel ideas that I’d like to share here:

AesTerra: The Musings of Another World

An alternate reality based around practical flight, without devolving heavily into Ye Olde Steampunk. The few ideas I have scribbled down rely heavily on bending the rules with regards to magic and technology ever so slightly.

Elterra: Adventures from the Electron Stream

Life has formed on the internet. Starting slow in the primordial ooze of drama and lolcats, our bots and systems have gained sentience. This is their story of existence in the sea of electrons, and of what happens next.

New Game+

What if everything in life worked exactly like a game of D&D? A hilarious devolution into “everything as numbers,” everything practical in life is now governed by levels, stats, and The Rulebook. This book will give you 2500XP toward your next level in scholarship and comic fantasy!

If any of these strike your fancy, I’d love to hear about it! I could definitely use the inspiration and critique.

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* For my LJ readers, click the link at the top of this entry

So, how’s the weather where you live?

Goldkin — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:47:45 +0000

Ours is just great. Thanks for asking.

On Virtual Worlds and Defining “Reality”

Goldkin — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:37:57 +0000

Lately, I’ve been putting a great deal of research into game design and virtual worlds. As you might expect, this would be why I’ve been more than a little silent after starting what is my fourth (!) attempt at a personal blog.

This has been a difficult journey for me, in part because I’m switching careers over it. But then, it’s also been a rewarding experience that I simply would not have, working as a tech.*

You see: the more I play with virtual reality, the more I become convinced that it’s not really “virtual” at all, in the sense of our perceptions and definitions of who we are.

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A recent study states that when we read works of fiction, we mentally simulate the experience. This presumption has been held for years among fiction writers and creators of interactive fiction, such that it has its own word: mimesis.

In brief, when we take part in a work of fiction, there is a point where certain elements are “real” to us, such that we play them out in our mind using the exact same areas of the brain that we use in the “real” world.

Similar studies have been made into what can be loosely coined “avatar theory.” Two studies have, for instance, established that people project concepts of personal space onto their avatars. Additionally, concepts of “beauty” have also made the leap to digital, which may go well to explaining the blonde-to-brunette ratio in any given MMOG.

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The question then, is at what point does this become “real”?

That is to say, as we project more and more of ourselves onto the virtual stage, at what point does it cease to be a digital representation of ourselves and well and truly become, us?

It is already assumed (given the readership of this blog ) that the internet is a wonderful medium for expressing ourselves in ways previously unheard of. Now I’m asking: is that digital representation becoming who we are? Is it already who we are?

Or is it just another mask, another filter, and another medium for expression — and that’s it?

Because: if it turns out all of this is “real”, that says fun things about my career of choice. And what the lawyers will be saying in ten years’ time.

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*From cushy software engineering job to startup game developer.

About two years ago, I had a change of heart. I realized that world building, in the sense of fiction and virtual worlds (think: Second Life, World of Warcraft, etc.) was far more compelling to me than watching spam clog the tubes. So here I am.

I can has LiveJournal?

Goldkin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 08:54:00 +0000

This post serves two purposes:

1) To test whether entries posted to WordPress are slurped directly into LiveJournal.
2) To re(-re-re-re)start this blog as my own. Seeing as baxil was kind enough to supply me with it so many years ago.*

Entries will still be going through my main blog (see above), but I figure it can’t hurt to use this space. Unless someone Googles it with malicious intent, at least!

So, watch this space! Again! For like, the hundredth time!**

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* WordPress doesn’t seem to like LiveJournal user tags.

At all.

So I’m going to cheat and use proper anchoring instead.

** WordPress visitors: http://goldkin.livejournal.com

Busy, busy, busy…

Goldkin — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:46:58 +0000

In my other life, I’m still a sysadmin. As such, I’ve been just narrowly treading water as I wrangle my servers and data this week.

On a plus note, I’m typing this from my Nokia Tablet (N810) while browsing a rather nice collection of images from my “Inspiration” feed. Expect more info on that in the coming days.

And hey, Bax! If you’re still reading this, I hope the con went well!

With that note, I think some bed is in order.

Posting via Weblogger.el

Goldkin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:50:31 +0000

This is a test post for blogging from my desktop publishing suite for Emacs.

More entries should hopefully flow from this that are a little more substantial than test posts.

Restart

Goldkin — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:21:23 +0000

Test entry. For now, bask in the glory of a shiny new blog layout!

Obligatory Lipsum shall follow.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed est enim, euismod ac, accumsan sed, laoreet a, pede. Ut id mi. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Praesent vel arcu. Sed dapibus tellus quis quam. Phasellus in neque. Praesent rhoncus lobortis odio. Nunc id tortor at nisi fringilla vestibulum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec nec enim ut felis vestibulum aliquet. Maecenas interdum erat ut nibh. Vivamus et metus. Donec auctor. Donec laoreet accumsan elit. Maecenas id erat a augue aliquet vulputate.

Integer pellentesque orci ut tortor. Vestibulum nisi. Phasellus metus. Curabitur vulputate volutpat dui. Maecenas pulvinar, sapien ac vehicula interdum, mauris ligula ultrices urna, eu ultricies ligula eros in neque. Morbi adipiscing volutpat dui. Suspendisse faucibus lectus vitae risus. Morbi lorem. Maecenas a augue. Curabitur sapien purus, vestibulum quis, vehicula sit amet, pharetra sed, ante. Integer vestibulum, neque eget condimentum congue, est velit facilisis lorem, eget faucibus pede leo vel neque. Vivamus mauris. Integer dui neque, vulputate nec, dapibus sed, tristique eget, est. Fusce mi est, tincidunt vitae, interdum quis, elementum vel, dui. Sed condimentum bibendum felis. Ut ac nulla vel risus posuere accumsan. Etiam iaculis mauris sit amet est.

Donec quis erat eu elit tempus vestibulum. Nunc dictum gravida nisl. In elit massa, semper ultrices, posuere id, dignissim at, neque. Donec eros lectus, consectetur a, viverra mattis, hendrerit eu, lectus. Praesent eu neque non risus consequat facilisis. Nullam ullamcorper, risus nec blandit ultrices, est nulla vulputate neque, et eleifend metus velit at diam. Praesent consequat velit. Maecenas gravida. Pellentesque lorem. Ut orci ligula, ornare et, tempor vel, lacinia a, felis. Duis consectetur venenatis dui. Nulla quam. Mauris tincidunt interdum dolor.

Sed est ante, vestibulum nec, malesuada a, fringilla eu, dolor. Quisque nec ante eu ipsum dictum ultrices. In ut justo sit amet leo imperdiet gravida. Maecenas condimentum. Proin velit. Cras bibendum. Maecenas pharetra sem id risus. Sed vestibulum ante vitae lectus. Nulla facilisi. Fusce consectetur urna id nulla. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam venenatis purus quis ligula. Vivamus pharetra. Etiam dictum purus sed orci.

Cras a lectus eget leo dictum congue. Suspendisse id massa. Etiam sit amet eros ac eros pulvinar egestas. Etiam pharetra rutrum est. Pellentesque accumsan, lectus et commodo dignissim, ipsum nulla accumsan elit, at laoreet urna quam sed purus. Duis rhoncus pulvinar ante. Maecenas sed pede. Aenean auctor turpis in quam. Praesent consequat. Duis eget leo fermentum lectus semper blandit. Nam ut diam. Maecenas dolor elit, viverra a, venenatis nec, tempor eu, nulla. Vestibulum ultricies pulvinar urna. Etiam a nulla a arcu molestie molestie. In massa sem, pellentesque at, convallis et, tempus vel, massa. Maecenas sagittis. Suspendisse imperdiet placerat lacus.

Curabitur magna purus, egestas et, rutrum vel, auctor nec, dui.
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consectetur, ipsum a scelerisque fringilla, lorem augue bibendum leo, eu tincidunt lorem nulla ut orci. Nullam eu turpis ac risus venenatis adipiscing. Proin nisl. Sed dolor. Integer a elit.

Fusce malesuada fringilla orci. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Curabitur molestie. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Nam fringilla, magna ac sollicitudin tincidunt, elit arcu venenatis ligula, a facilisis velit velit at nisi. Suspendisse ultrices, odio in dictum porttitor, odio ipsum commodo nunc, id commodo ante diam eget dui. Vestibulum sagittis, mauris sed euismod semper, urna elit sollicitudin nisi, ut molestie est mauris vel sem. Sed pellentesque tellus. Nam ut nibh. Fusce sagittis suscipit dui. Ut aliquam leo a nulla. Nulla tincidunt facilisis nibh. Proin ante.