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Topics - Mooch

1
The NX was revealed yesterday as the Switch, and basically all the rumors were true; it's a console/handheld hybrid with snap-away controllers where the sides of the controller either snap onto a sort of controller dock, or onto the sides of a portable screen you can take wherever.

Each half of the controller looks kind of like a short, flat Wiimote with a robust-looking analog stick (not sharing an x-position, 360-style), four buttons (XABY on one half, arrow buttons like the N64 on the other) and two other buttons; a Home and literally-shaped "plus" button on one half, and a "C" button and literally-shaped "minus" button on the other. Each half also has a shoulder button, possibly two.

Each controller half is layed out in such a way that you could use them like a pair of Wiimotes, so two people could play on one screen on-the-go. And indeed, you can play without hooking the controller halves up to anything, just holding them like a wireless Wiimote and Nunchuck.

The console apparently comes with a default controller dock for couch play that is basically just a rectangle that the halves snap on to. It looks like it has separate battery LED indicators for each side. The dock itself may or may not be touch sensitive. It's not known whether the screen is touch sensitive, though. It wasn't used that way in the reveal trailer. (My guess is it DOES have touch functionality, but they avoided showing it off in the reveal trailer to distance themselves from the Wii U.)

There's also an optional Switch Pro Controller you can play with instead.

It does not appear that you can use the portable screen and the television simultaneously ala Wii U. To play on TV at all, you have to rest the screen into its dock, which shuts the screen off and indeed blocks it from view entirely.

The people playing the Switch were shown playing Breath of the Wild, Splatoon (possibly a sequel), a brand-new, "real" 3D Mario platformer and Skyrim.

Also, the console uses game cards which plug into the screen portion of the system, not CDs. Which, just let me say here, I'm quite happy about. Optical media is dead. It's been dead for a decade, it's about time major companies start abandoning it.

No real details were given, this was obviously a very preliminary teaser trailer slash hype generator, and nitty gritty details will come later. I'm actually quite curious as to whether the version of Skyrim shown was a Switch-made version, or whether the Switch can just run Steam (which I've suspected of the NX for a long while now, and would certainly be a selling point).

* * *

Okay, opinion time. As a lifelong Nintendo fan, I have to say. I'm kind of disappointed. I mean, the Switch is gonna be fun, it looks neat, it'll have Nintendo's killer first-party games which are always worth their systems on their own. If it plays mobile or Steam games, all the better.

But for the first time in a long time, this doesn't feel like, "ooh, something new." It feels like "portable Wii U." Which isn't exciting. And I love the Wii U.

More to the point, the Switch doesn't feel like Nintendo leading, forging ahead and being unique like they always are. It feels like an attempt to curry Xbox and Sony fans, plain and simple. Sony and Microsoft consoles have always been essentially interchangable, with Nintendo being this wacky, quirky, cartoony, unique third party. The Switch feels like just a generic modern console, regardless of being portable.

Maybe I'm not being fair. We barely know anything about it. And either way, I'm getting it on launch, like I did the Wii U and Wii. It's just...especially showing off Skyrim (a nearly five year old game at this point), it just feels like Nintendo is trying to be like any other generic modern console, rather than their bizzare usual selves. And that's kind of sad.

Also, you can sort of view this as Nintendo giving up on the console market. The Switch is essentially a handheld, just with a default way to play on a television. Which is also kind of sad.

...

Well, at least I have a new, real Mario to look forward to.
2
Off-Topic Discussions / Mooch and Radnen are writers.
What the topic title says. I know I can talk peoples ears off for hours about my writing, so I figured I'd make a separate topic for just that.

Quote from: "Radnen"
I too am an unpublished writer! :) I am currently writing several novels... But I'm mainly sticking to a main one right now. It's a King Arthur novel (They seem like a dime a dozen, I know) but I'm incorporating some interesting elements, including characters from the Welsh Mabinogion, which fits well with Arthurian legend in some narrative vein. I have even begun creating a new language that borrows from both normal English pronunciation and Welsh/Gaelic words (native Welsh words are unkind to our humble English attempts at pronunciation).


Have you read Gene Wolfe's "The Wizard Knight?" It's an absolutely fantastic Arthurian-inspired, though original, fantasy. It's two books, confusingly The Knight as the first and The Wizard as the second. It's incredibly straightforward for a Gene Wolfe novel, which is refreshing from his normal Byzantine, labrynthine Gordonian knots of novels.

I'm a conlanger, too! I just love linguistics and the creator in me can't help making my own. I'm more of a conworlder, I'm pretty lazy as a conlanger, but I really don't have any intention of making a singular, perfect, fully-formed conlang. I'm perfectly happy doing just enough to make something visible and showable, and even just playing around with grammatical concepts.

I conworld and conlang for the sake of it, as well as sometimes for my various stories. Well, I guess technically any time I write a story that's not set on Earth I'm technically worldbuilding, but most of the time that process is naturalistic. I only really call it conworlding if I sit down and actually come up with what the world is like unto itself.

Quote from: "Radnen"
Another novel of mine takes place between the golden age of piracy and the Revolutionary War in an era known as the era of privateering. Most notable for the Seven Years War. The story follows one Adam Wright, a son of a carpenter who goes on a glorious adventure, but with privateers, slave traders, and the American Revolution. It revolves around a special (fictional) document that predates the Declaration of Independence and sets into motion the events of people in three continents (England, France and the American Colonies). Characters like Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and Henrietta Howard make appearances and the fictional characters of Adam Wright molds these characters in small to large parts by merely being in a part of their history. This is put on hold now since I want it to be great, but I need to do a lot more research to make it the way I envision it. Unlike code, people are unwilling to read v2.4 of the story when I update it.


I'm not into historical fiction but that sounds pretty neat. And I also have stories I'm putting off because I'm not good enough yet. I'm actually currently working on a Young Adult novel (well, multiple, plus a children's fantasy series) which is both more marketable and less demanding of whatever talent I may possess.

Which isn't to say I think of them as lesser! All my stories are equally important to me (well, that's a lie, but it's close). It's just, all things being equal, writing something along the lines of Sabriel is less daunting than writing something along the lines of Lord of the Rings.

Not that I work principally in fantasy, but that is what my first few planned releases are. I actually just finished the extended outline for my one YAF novel the other day. Now for the comparably-arduous task of actually sitting down and writing it, lol.

Here's a question for you. What's your...relationship with your stories like? I very often hear published, professional writers speak of their books either like their precious babies or their temperamental lovers, and neither is remotely true for me.
3
I'm a writer. It's in my blood. If you cut me, words come out. I'm working on some books, but as you may have guessed, it takes kind of a really long time to write a book. Too long for my satisfaction. As such, I write a lot of little...articles, I guess. On anything and everything.

I've never published them anywhere because, well, I've simply never taken the time to start a blog or whatever. Besides, who reads blogs, other than of already-famous people? It'd be a total waste. I do wanna share some of this stuff, though.

I've been told I have a nice voice, and I already have all these things written, so I've been thinking lately, why not start up a Youtube channel? Daily 2~3 minute videos about all the stuff I write about might actually get some attention where a blog would not. And it'd be fun!

But video editing is a skill I lack, and it's kind of hard and time-consuming. All the big Youtube channels that post daily videos have professional editors, separate from the writers and/or on-screen personalities, who do nothing but put in eight hour workdays editing, and from what I hear tell, they just barely manage to keep pace. And individuals who do everything themselves (Artifexian and Xidnaf are two language/conworlding channels I love) take weeks if not months to make videos.

As I said, I just wanna do this for fun, and I already spend a lot of time writing. I'm definitely not looking to spend hours and hours a day doing videos the traditional way. So I've been thinking about it, and I had an idea, and I want you to tell me if it's crazy or not, doable or not, advisable or not, etc.

Basically, I thought about making a program in Sphere (just because I'm familiar enough with it and it'd be too much of a schlep to program anything from the ground up) to sort of live-create videos.

How it'd work is, it'd display a main screen with my own little avatar (I'm not filming myself, this would be all digital) sort of facing the screen and giving a face to my voice, and I'd have the Sphere "game" programmed to, whenever I press a given keyboard key, display an image in some animated way (spin on screen, pop up from the bottom, whatever) or play a video clip or a sound effect or what have you.

To actually make videos, I'd run some sort of screencapturing program, record myself with a microphone reading my articles, and press keys to show images or whatever as they came up. As opposed to doing all that editing in a video editing program. Just do it all in one pass.

I'd obviously still have to do some small amount of video editing, just to produce an MP4 to Youtube's specifications, and to cut out any bloopers and maybe synch/normalize the audio, but the point is, I wouldn't be tweening or doing visual effects or anything in the editor. There'd essentially be no "post-production" whatsoever, just a very minor amount of formatting.

The turnover rate for these videos could be very brisk for one random guy doing it all by himself. Without having to learn video editing or spend hours doing such, without having to stitch together video and audio, without having to add crawls or tween or interpolate or what have you. I could just program any new effects or transitions or whatever I want once, then call them up at the push of a key.

And it'd give my videos a very distinct look and feel, especially with the visual aesthetic I have in mind.

Is this feasible? Is this a really stupid idea? Reading all this, do you have the urge to talk me out of this? Because as you may have guessed, I'm a guy who has big ideas, but is terrible at determining their reasonability, or following through on them.

Lemme know what you think.
4
I'm trying to get serious about game development lately. Been actually learning Javascript, Blender, gaming math, electronics and engineering, been practicing drawing, I've always fooled around with tunes and I'm gonna try to properly compose some of 'em, etc.

Since I'm mainly going for a low-bit, low-res look (err, Blender's mainly for fun and education), one thing I'm looking into is color palettes. Limited color palettes, that is, and color theory in general. It's a bogglingly-complex subject (look at the analysis this mere 32-color palette!!) with no real good beginner jumping-in point and a lot of "tutorials" saying "you just have to play around and get a feel for it."

Anytoots, since most of you have actually created proper games, at least Sphere stuff, I'm wondering if anyone's given color theory any serious thought.

I'm currently trying to create some very basic palettes of my own, to use as I learn pixel art, though I'll probably do most of my practice art using the NES palette, since I probably won't design a useable palette until I get decent at pixel art. Maybe I'll post stuff as I progress.

(BTW, one thing I find fun is coming up with color names, THEN choosing colors to fit them, with a theme or genre in mind, like space shooter or fantasy RPG.)
5
I'm learning pixel art and wanted to churn out different palettes real quick. I'm using nested for loops to draw a bunch of rectangles, and don't understand why it's not working as expected. Here's the code... (Excuse the whitespace.)

Code: (javascript) [Select]
function drawtest(){
var rows = 8;
var columns = 8;
var size = 16;
var steps = [0,80,160,240];

for (i = 0; i < rows; i++){
for (j = 0; j < columns; j++){
for (r = 0; r < steps.length; r++){
for (g = 0; g < steps.length; g++){
for (b = 0; b < steps.length; b++){
Rectangle(size+j*size,size+i*size,size,size,CreateColor(steps[r],steps[g],steps[b]));
}
}
}
}
}
}

function game(){
SetRenderScript("drawtest();");
MapEngine("m_colortest.rmp", 60);
FlipScreen();
GetKey();
}


It just draws a bunch of white rectangles, which just looks like a giant white square since there's no space inbetween them.

I don't understand why, while iterating between the for loops, it's not drawing each square a different color, given that it's correctly drawing 64 individual squares and placing them correctly (thus the i and j loops are definitely working as I expect).

Furthermore, if I manually change the Rectangle function's RBG parameters to something like (...steps[3],steps[1],steps[2]) it changes the color of the whole field of rectangles accordingly. So the steps array is capable of being accessed properly. The for loop just...isn't.

So why isn't this drawing each rectangle a different color?

(BTW, I've started reading a book on Javascript, to finally properly learn it. That's what got me interested in coding again. So I'll be learning proper theory in the coming weeks and months, so bear with me.)

(Also, I've spent over an hour toying around with the function in a dozen different ways to get the proper result to no avail; I won't tax you by showing everything I've tried.)
6
I'm slapping together a town planner/designer tool for Harvest Moon: Magical Melody. It's basically the entire map of the game, and you'll be able to place rocks and trees and grass and stuff, to plan out how you want to design your town.

Since it's a simple thing, I'm not doing anything fancy -- I'm just using AttachInput to let the user scroll around the map. The default walking speed is stone-slow, however. Is there a way to change it, or do I have to use a custom movement script? I Searched the API, Wiki and forum and couldn't find anything.
7
Lally-ho, everyone! You know the schpeil by now -- symptoms abating, getting back into Sphere, need some help, etc.

I'm trying to create an ultra-simple, bare-bones space shooter, just to get back into the swing of things, and I've hit a snag. I'm starting off just trying to make stars slowly, randomly scroll in the background, from the top of the screen to the bottom.

I think I've got the basic idea (although you'll be a better judge of that than I) but I can't figure out how to work Sphere's image blitting because what I'm doing is, using a for-loop to populate an array of star data objects and assign them random X and Y values, which presumably works fine. However, I can't use those X and Y values in image.blit, and when I try to put them into a variable, I get an error.

Here's my code. I took a look at FBN's puffpuff game's intro screen's starfield code to get the basic idea of what to do with my own, so I'm using some of his nomenclature.

Code: (Javascript) [Select]
///////////
// SETUP //
///////////
function GameData(){
this.screenWidth = GetScreenWidth();
this.screenHeight = GetScreenHeight();}

var MyGame = new GameData();

///////////////////////
// STARFIELD ROUTINE //
///////////////////////
var StarImg = LoadImage("star.PNG");
// it errors if I do "star.png" for some reason,
// didn't know file extensions were case sensitive O_o

function _Star(x,y){
this.x = x;
this.y = y;}
// the above is straight from FBN's game,
// I presume the leading underscore indicates iterated thingies

function Starfield(){}

Starfield.prototype.init = function(setNum,setSpd1,setSpd2,setSpd3){
this.number = setNum;
this.speed1 = setSpd1;
this.speed2 = setSpd2;
this.speed3 = setSpd3;

if(!setNum){this.number = 108;}
if(!setSpd1){this.speed1 = 2;}
if(!setSpd2){this.speed2 = 4;}
if(!setSpd3){this.speed3 = 8;} // default values for safety's sake

var myStars = new Array(this.number);

// creates this.number stars at random x/y positions
for(var i=0; i<this.number; i++){
myStars[i] = new _Star(Math.floor(Math.random()*MyGame.screenWidth),
Math.floor(Math.random()*MyGame.screenHeight))
var StarsX = myStars[i].x;
var StarsY = myStars[i].y; // this is the problem code, see below
}
}

Starfield.prototype.exe = function(){
StarImg.blit(StarsX,StarsY); // well technically THIS is the problem code
}

var MyStarfield = new Starfield();

function game(){
MyStarfield.init(108,2,4,8);
while (true){
MyStarfield.exe();}
}


As you can see, this is unfinished code -- the stars aren't moving they're just being drawn to the screen. (Theoretically.) I'm of the mind to get the code to draw static stars before I start animating.

Anyhoo, when I try to run the above, it says StarsX is not defined. I originally had 'var StarsX = myStarsi.x' inside the Starfield.prototype.exe and it told me...

"ssImageBlit - argument 0, invalid integer ... "undefined""

...and I figured since no for-iteration was being done in Starfield.exe, I must just need to move the variable declaration inside of the .init. Obviously, no such luck.

And the only reason I'm bothering with variable declaration of this kind in the first place is because originally, I tried to just do...

Code: (Javascript) [Select]
Starfield.prototype.exe = function(){
StarImg.blit(myStars[i].x,myStars[i].y);
}


And that threw the same "undefined" error in my face.

Any help? I think everything except the blitting works. I think I did the for iteration properly, and the code creates an array of stars with random x and y values. I think it's just that I can't figure out how to work with Sphere's image blitting. But feel free to disabuse me of that notion if my setup is crunked from line 1.

Danke very schoen for any help you can give :]

(edit: fixed code tag highlighting +neo)
8
Programming / Mobile Apps?
So my physical maladies are waning at the moment and I found an old Android Tablet (Asus Eee Pad) of my nephew's that he doesn't use anymore, and have been playing some free Apps and got interested in development, especially since Android is basically a physical Java environment and I'm comfortable with the Javascript that Sphere uses.

Operating under the assumption that Android development is all basically free, that I can simply download an SDK, write some code, root my device and run it on it, I'm...downloading the SDK and following the official "Build your first App" class on the Android site.

Since there's no other topic about mobile devices or such, I figured I'd start one and share my journey (and almost certain failure). But we can use this as a general app-discussion topic. iOS is fine, too, I just won't be doing anything with it since I'm almost certain it costs $$$ to even download the SDK and run your own programs on your own device (if you're even allowed to do that at all).
9
I'm making a platformer, and as the title indicates, I have some questions about my own code which, paradoxically, I think someone else can answer better than me.

Okay, so I'm messing around and I don't understand why my gravity script doesn't work the way I think it should.

Code: (Javascript) [Select]
function gravity() {
  var blobX = GetPersonX("blob");
  var blobY = GetPersonY("blob");
  var blobDown = blobY + 16;
  var blobObstructed = IsPersonObstructed("blob",blobX,blobDown);
  if (blobObstructed = 1) {
  QueuePersonCommand("blob",COMMAND_MOVE_SOUTH,true);
  }
    else {
    QueuePersonCommand("blob",COMMAND_MOVE_WEST,true);
    }
}

function game() {
CreatePerson("blob", "blob.rss", false);
AttachInput("blob");
AttachCamera("blob");
SetRenderScript("gravity();");
MapEngine("room1.rmp", 60);
}


(The Command_Move_West is just there to test.)

Okay, so for some reason, this script just makes the character move downward no matter what! It's as if blobObstructed returns 1 no matter what, which it shouldn't. I tested by putting the character in the middle of nowhere, with nothing underneath. Still moves downward. Why is this?

Also, the way this script works (I know it's crap, by the way, just messing around for now), you can still move the character back and forth, both as its falling and after it hits the ground. However, if I change the SetRenderScript to a SetUpdateScript, the player's ability to control the character is completely frozen, you can't move the character at all, it just goes down 'til it hits an obstruction then stays there. I don't understand why that should be. Then again, I kinda forget how Render vs UpdateScript works, so...

Any help would be mucho appreciado ^_^

(P.S. Secret Bonus Question: If I change the QueuePersonCommand's "true" parameter to "false," you can move left and right while falling, but once you hit the ground, the character becomes unmovable. I can't figure out why that parameter would have that effect.)
10
Just found this site while looking for open-license graphics, and had to share it.

http://androidarts.com/bomber/bomberqueen.htm

You'll have to manually URL yourself to the main site (androidarts.com) to see the other pages, but basically that's exactly what I'm aiming for with my "post my design stuff online" idea. The one hitch, of course, being that I have no artistic talents, so it'd be pure text and/or crappy drawlings.

Still. Something to aim for. Also, we should totes lure that dude to Sphere >:)
11
Started reading Homestuck four or five days ago. I'm a little ways into Act III, Rose has just found the Skaianet hub server thingy in the laboratory under her dead cat's mausoleum. Decided to post some thoughts I've had along the way, and that I'm having now. Why here and not the MSPA forum? I won't be able to avoid spoilers there.

• Fell in love with Rose in Act I before we knew who she was. I type using proper spelling, grammar and punctuation in chat, too!

• In Act II, when we first got to know her and her family sitch and she was talking about how her mother does all sorts of stuff out of spite (like buying her stuff and hanging up her note) I thought "she's probably wrong, her mom probably does it out of honest affection, and Rose just sees this as bothersome." Nope, her mom's really that nasty, lol.

• Speaking of which, I can't remember why or which page caused me to think this, but I had the idea that Rose's mom might actually be herself from the future. The end of Act II, when Rosemom opens the secret hatch, falls in line with that, because she doesn't seem the type to save someone else, but if Rose is her in the past, obviously she'd save her(self).

• I'm reeeeally curious as to what John's dad went to do when he ran out of the house for a few minutes early in Act I. John dismissed it as "probably going to buy more baking supplies," but I doubt it. I think Johndad is probably some kind of secret agent working against the Imps or Skaianet or SBURB or whatever.

• Speaking of which, I wonder who created SBURB. Until the end of Act II, I suspected it might be GG, which would be how she knows so much about it.

• Why in the world does John loathe baked goods and sweets so much? Kids usually love cookies and stuff. Weird.

• John's Pesterchum handle doesn't make any sense, and the other three kids' do. tentacleTherapist: Rose is into Cthulhu and psychoanalysis. turntechGodhead: Dave is into music and is egotistical. gardenGnostic: Jade is into gardening and the gnostic thing is obviously a mystical reference to her powers. But John's handle is ectoBiologist? Ecto would seem to suggest ghosts, and while he's dealing with Nannasprite, it's not like John himself is particularly interested in ghosts. Or biology. His handle makes no sense at all. I suspect there's a good reason for this. If I were him, I'd've chosen something like filmieTrickster (love of movies and pranks) or something.

• I didn't like Rose or Dave's names at first, but they've grown on me. But I really dislike Jade's name. "Jade" just doesn't suit her the tiniest bit whatsoever. "Jade" is the name of a sultry assassin or amazon woman or something; it doesn't fit her at all. Her last name is actually a perfect first name, though: Harley. She looks much more like a Harley than a Jade.

• Regardless, I think Jade is Nanna. That she grows up, travels back in time and ends up as Nanna. They're the only characters with those buckteeth...
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002327
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002668
...and Jade even has a picture of what we can presume is a relative in her chest...
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002703
...with those same teeth. Plus, Jade and Nanna both have prognostificatory powers. Oh, and when John first found his dad's copy of Colonel Sassacre's text in the safe? He remarked that it looked super-ancient. And Nanna left a note in the beginning that said the book had a long journey. So what if, the newer copy of the text that John has is the same book! He holds onto it, eventually Jade comes to possess it, keeps it with her through her whole life until she travels back in time and becomes the person we know as Nanna, and writes that note in the front and gives it to Johndad.

I admit the logic's a bit stretched, especially the bucktooth thing. Saying that Jade becomes Nanna 'cause they're the only two characters with buckteeth is like saying Dave becomes his Bro because they're the only two characters with shades. Still, I have a hunch.

• Speaking of Dave, I think he'll maybe get ice powers in the future. Every time Jade talks about him to someone else she says "he's soooo coooool!" Given her predilection for prognostication, that might be more than a compliment. Especially since it's not true, lol.

• Fell in love with Jade from her first Pesterlog appearance, too. "not much sup with you!! bro! hehehe" *dies*

• "You got us Matthew! Your smooth talking exposed our latent racism! Damn you are good!" XD

• I've actually developed a fondness for and interest in Harry Anderson from reading Homestuck.

• Before we were properly introduced to Fetch Modi, Dave mocked John for using the Stack Modus, suggesting he "bone up on his data structures." But as we see, you just "use" a Modus card to use it, you don't actually have to have a theoretical knowledge of computer science, so WTF was he talking about? I'll chalk this up to the author not yet having decided how Fetch Modi worked at that point.

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002107
XD so hard.

• I didn't realize until just yesterday (after making it more than two Acts into Homestuck) that most of the crazy words in Homestuck are real words, not just made up nonsense -- atheneum, soused, uh...can't think of others, but I know there're a bunch.

• Jade's Magic Eightball is obviously not incorrect, it's just oblique...
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002704
I feel quite certain that "not exactly" is a perfectly accurate response to the question "is it my friend John's birthday today." Time travel weirdness tends to make statements superpositions of truth values, rather than simply true or false.

I wonder precisely how the Eight Ball is correct, though. It's "not exactly" John's birthday today could mean a number of things. Maybe Jade isn't in the same spacetime as John; maybe her weird island is in some kind of spacetime bubble or whatevs. Maybe it's not truly John's birthday 'cause he doesn't technically have one, again, due to time travel funkiness. So many possibilities.

• Oh, I looked up the coordinates for the Wandering Vagabond's station thingy he was in and the other available coordinates near the end of Act II, and figured out that Rose's house is in Rainbow Falls in Parishville in NY, that WV's in the same location in the future (413 years in the future, notably), that John's house is in Maple Valley, Washington and that Jade lives on an island in the south pacific near Baker Island and Howland Island. Interesting places, actually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howland_Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Island

• John's location actually gives a precise street address. Wonder how many Homestuck fans have visited and/or called. I hope that's the authors house. Rose's location doesn't give an address, but shows a house when you zoom in all the way on Google Maps. Again, hope nobody's getting harassed by zealous fans.

• I think maybe the world of Homestuck that we've seen so far is actually a computer simulation, or in a computer world or something. Which would explain the immaterial gaming abstractions present in everyday life, like the Captchalogue, and the SBURB game's ability to manipulate physical reality. Maybe "Ascending" through the Seven Gates allows entities from the game world to enter the real world.

• The following items have dropped off the platform in the Middle where John's house currently is, and I feel confident they'll become important in the future -- John's dad's car containing the SBURB Server CD and Jade's birthday present for John; that crumpled hat; the "Apple" cruxite dowel. Probably something else I can't remember.

• I wonder if Jade's actually responsible for organizing the whole scenario of Homestuck, just to give John and everyone a fun, exciting experience.

• God I love the Pesterlogs. The author has a really amazing knack for characterization; each character's personality comes through so perfectly and so uniquely. I have my browser set to automatically set colors, so I'm not even seeing the color differences and I feel that way. Actually, lemme take a screencap.

• "obama made it so that no one gives a shit about black presidents in movies anymore" XD I never realized that, but it's so true!

• The author's great at convoluted prose.
"You wonder if this rain will ever let up. It's driven since the month began, perhaps long enough to forget its purpose. It no longer even knows to assuage fire. Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton.

How you hate this season."

"What marvelous creatures they are. What a daring dream, to combine the finest qualities of humanity with the elegance and nobility of the animal kingdom. How you wish you could know their world. To hear one night those muted pawpads traipse up your stairs. A low but friendly growl unsettles your slumber, and as the sopor seeps from your eyes they detect a sharp pair of ears cutting moonlight. A mysterious wolven tongue invites. Wouldn't these ears suit you? Would not this proud long snout assist you in the hunt?

No need to answer. Words slough from the busy mind like a useless dead membrane as a more visceral sapience takes over. Something simpler is in charge now, a force untouched by the concerns and burdens of the upright, that farcical yoke the bipedal tow. It now drives you through the midnight brush, your paws whisking through creepers, unearthing with each bold stomp bright odors demanding investigation. But not for long, as you and your new friend must claim the night with piercing howls moonward.

You eat a weird bug and don't even care."

• I'll admit that I'm abjured by the fact that Jade is a furry.

• As is tradition for consumers of weird fiction, while accepting the crazier aspects of Homestuck, I feel compelled to nitpick a relatively minor transgression upon logic.

"NANNASPRITE: It is where we are now! A realm that is a ring of pure void, dividing light and darkness. It turns in the thick of The Incipisphere, a place untouched by the flow of time in your universe."

A realm cannot be untouched by time, cannot be timeless. If it were timeless, everything would be static, nothing would ever change, you wouldn't be able to move or even think -- you'd be in perfect, absolute stasis.

• GG: oh but rose i dont think he meant anything like that by it!!
GG: you see not everybody always means the opposite of what they say the way you and dave always do
TT: Maybe.
(God I love Rose.)

• Dave's Bro's obsession with phallic, rumpusey puppets is beyond disturbing. I honestly feel like Dave, I'm just gonna wig out if I have to see too many more of those things.

• "kill monsters, get grist" < How is that not a meme?

• Oh, I noticed all the people Jade has blocked in her Pesterchum, and have figured out that they're the Trolls, whom I know of because I've used the internet within the past four years. I didn't expect them to be part of the "real world" in Homestuck. Then again, since WV was communicating with John from the year 2422, I suppose it's possible carcinoGeneticist was communicating with Jade from another dimension or something.

• I get the feeling Jade's grandfather might be Colonel Sassacre.

• Examine can of custard.
The can clearly reads "MUSTARD", a fact of which you were perfectly well aware.
Laughed so hard. I understand many of the "commands" in Homestuck are reader-suggested. Presumably when the comic was active, you'd post in the message board to suggest courses of action from the current strip.

• I'm not thrilled about Jade's marksmanship any more than her furrydom. In fact, she almost seems like a totally different character in person than in the chatlogs. There's numerous scenes in which she gets easily pissed the way the other kids do, and the narrative describes her being annoyed and "hating" things as often as the other kids.

• Thus far, no two human characters have exchanged words in person, only via chat programs and such. Wonder if that'll continue through the series.

• I really do wonder if Jade's house is in the same "time" as John and the others. The "WV: Ascend" ending of Act II was a bit confusing. SBURB hurls a meteor at that location, like, near when the earth forms, and the island grows out of it and that frog temple, and Jade ends up living there, but there's ANOTHER meteor about to hit the same location? It's just narratively confusing to have two important meteors impact the same location. Unless it's the same meteor and there's some real funky time wonkiness going on.

• Presumably Dave lives in Austin, Texas and is at the epicenter of that second-largest comet about to impact that Rose saw on the SC monitor.

• Oh! Remember, Rose said in her GameFAQs FAQ that the pre-punched card seems to vary from player-to-player? John's was an apple, and as the end of Act II showed us, a tree grew from the place where his meteor impacted his house, and dropped that apple-like station thing the Peregrine Mendicant is currently in. I wonder if the SBURB meteors are all seeds like that, that produce the same thing on your pre-punched card.



Presumably, nobody's gonna read all that, but it was still fun to write. I'll post more thoughts in this topic as they occur to me. I'll use this as my Homestuck Readalong thingy!
12
Sphere General / Sphere and Unity?
Just a random thought. Would it be possible to implement the Sphere API in Unity? Like, make a Sphere Engine and/or Editor that runs in Unity? 'cause Unity's pretty popular and runs readily on all current-gen consoles. It'd be simple to get Sphere games running on Xbox, PS4 and Wii U.
13
Sorry for conflating Michael Jackson's "Bad" with AC/DC's "Back in Black" in the title there.

Anyhoots, yeah. Back.

FYI, I was taking time off from computer use whatsoever, so I've made no progress on my first Sphere project or anything else since I left. Picking up where I left off.

2 Dew List...
%) Make a list of games I wanna make, you know, start getting my design stuff online.
6H) Continue work on and finish my first Sphere project. Without any (or at least too much) help.
?) Profit.
14
Hellos and Byes / I shall return one month hence.
For Reasons™, I'm not going to be using a computer for a few weeks. I'll be back in late January. As the kids say, "lates, ya'll!"
15
Sphere General / Can Sphere games connect to servers?
I don't know how "sockets" work, but I know enough to figure out that, using the sockets and networking capabilities of Sphere, you could directly connect two users together to have them play online together. Like the Netplay feature in ZSNES (which was my first-ever exposure to online gaming).

Could you use Sphere's networking capabilities to connect to a server, though? Like, theoretically, could you make a MUD or simplistic MMO (like say Realm of the Mad God) in Sphere?