It’s been a while since I last posted. School has been going good. I’m currently home sick, and Thanksgiving is coming up tomorrow. I’m really excited that my cousin Brent is coming over. I’m making him a surprise. In the meantime, I am editing Wikipedia for a bit in a long time. While I was looking through the Sandbox I decided to write some poetry, but it would have probably gotten stolen if I posted it in the Sandbox, so I’m posting it here.

A million pears sat down to lunch
And they were very angry
They didn’t have a single mouth
But yet they caught the gangrene

I wished on a beautiful star one night,
I wished for the comfiest bed.
The star was really a meteorite
And it struck me right in the head.
So now I walk with a stagger demand
And a space rock lodged into my brain
My bed is the comfiest bed in the land,
But I wish that my wish was in vain.

The gears are spinning again – we got a bunch of stuff done – and I have a screenshot to prove it!

If you go check the Checklist, you’ll notice a couple of things have turned a beautiful green.

I managed to show them all off with a single screenshot (yay!)

Notice:

The HUD is gone, excpet for the stats of the unit you selected and the end turn button. The other button you see is a notifier that tells you if you’ll have enough AP to take an action after you move to the cursor.

There’s a horse (yay!) and a guy riding it. Calvary. With working collisions. Oh yes. Notice: I actually took my time spriting the horse – trying to get a style down for the rest of the graphical revamp later. Check it out: 

It’s in widescreen – this isn’t default! It’s a custom resolution! Now anyone can have the game fit their monitor, yay! (Shown at my 1440×900 resolution)

Screenshot: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/71/horseshudwidescreen.png

(Linked because it’s too big to post here)

Pretty nice, huh? Next up will be speed bonuses, and after that the collision revamp and ai revamp. Good things are in the future.

Also notice: The website’s been cleaned up. Now you can access the latest build AND the latest checklist through the navagation bar at the top of the screen! Classy!

Until next update,

SunnyKatt

A punto de lanzar blog en WP y Myspace tras meses de desidia. Como  no existe un sandbox para probar mi configuración, esperen encontrar una que otra incoherencia durante los próximos días blah bluh chih bubah boo doo bah! <<< por ejemplo…

-JC Chon.

Edit: Myspace blogs ya no es una opción para mí; no tiene compatibilidad con editores externos y el nativo no es muy flexible que digamos. Me quedo en WordPress.

A punto de lanzar blog en WP y Myspace (sí, meses de desidia). Como no existe un sandbox para probar mi configuración lo más probable es que se encuentren una que otra incoherencia de aquí a principios de diciembre, en lo que configuro la marinola esta.

Finally went to see a show last night. I know—”finally” seems like an odd choice, since I see dozens of shows a year, but somehow the fates got together and decided that one thing or another would keep from sitting in a dark room with a bunch of strangers for several weeks. So – Finally! A little art. A little theatre. Perhaps a cocktail or two before at a nice meal.

Well, that latter part didn’t happen.

What did happen is that I caught a new, original, company created work at Sandbox Theatre called .faust. Over the past few years Sandbox has created a name for itself for its highly stylized, visually stunning original pieces. Their work is not created in the usual sense, in that they don’t employ the standard, modern working relationship between actors and director and playwright. It’s collaborative across the board, and the script and staging are all developed through an intense rehearsal process.

While working this way is not necessarily unique, as there have been many companies who have worked this way, particularly here in the Twin Cities, it creates a unique piece different from so many other shows. There was beautiful imagery with the sets, costumes, staging. There were puppets and cothurni (of sorts) and crashing walls and cliffs that people fell off. The sense of ensemble was incredibly strong—you’d think that some of these actors had been working together for years and perhaps had a shared training experience. There was so much about the piece that felt organic, so many actors in perfect rhythm with the others. Of course, there were a few times when it wasn’t that, which only made these slightly not-quite-what-they-were-going-for moments that much more noticeable. Truthfully, though, I’m being picky to even identify that.

One thing about the show last night that we discussed afterward was having .faust as a title. As you can guess the play was a retelling of the story of Faust, the man who makes a deal with the devil. I wasn’t sure why the dot. Before the show is cast there’s a concept of some kind and a title. But my understanding is that the majority of the script is company created in rehearsals. A title with dot in it made me think that it was going to be some modern-day retelling, something involving the interwebs or something (there wasn’t any of that,) and that in the process of developing the play it wandered away from that. Or, perhaps, the dot was intended as a delineation because three people played Faust?

I’m not sure why the dot.

The thing I came away with though, the important thing, is that this kind of theatre is needed. Original, company created works are needed to keep the theatre world healthy and vibrant, interesting and intriguing, and moving forward. I applaud them for their tenacity and gumption. On a side note – the fact that they were using Red Eye’s space is oh, so appropriate. I love walking in to that space, knowing the experimental theatre history created by those people, in that building, and seeing a new company years later picking up the task in that same playground. (or Sandbox, I guess.)

This work, though, comes with its own pitfalls, many of which Sandbox has seemed to avoid thus far. The biggest one would be creating a beautiful and poignant and touching and magical world in their own world. It’s very easy for group think to take over and blind people to the outside eye. It’s the outside eye, that director’s eye, that can play an important part. (Or so Thespus thought.) And if that gets lost in the process then the beauty and artistry will only be such to those who made it and not to anyone else.

Like Faust, they could be seeking something that they can never have.

I don’t really think this happened with this production, except, perhaps, in one small element. It took me some time to recognize it, but I realized I wasn’t emotionally drawn in to this show and I think it’s because the show was so intellectual. It was all very heady. I didn’t feel as if I connected with anyone. Maybe that was intentional. I don’t know. And it’s possible that the people involved all saw and felt it all so clearly that they assumed that would come across to the audience members. And, at least for me, it didn’t.

This is their biggest pitfall ahead of them. I’m fairly certain though, given the ingenuity, drive and energy of the people running this thing that they’ll find a way to keep going and not fall in that trap. If they’re smart and talented enough to create some of the stuff I’ve seen already, then they will. I certainly hope they do.

Hoy os voy a hablar de un juego del que ya pudisteis leer unas primeras impresiones por aquí: Brütal Legend. A continuación tenéis mi análisis de la versión completa del juego:

Debo aclarar que se trata de un videojuego enfocado a un público adulto, por lo que puede ser que alguna situación o imagen mostrada o descrita a continuación pueda resultar molesta u ofensiva para alguna persona. Siento las molestias que ésto pueda ocasionar. Si sigues leyendo lo haces bajo tu responsabilidad.

FICHA TÉCNICA

Sandbox nedir? Matt Cutts ile bir söyleşi, Google hakkında bazı bilgiler

Sandbox konusu, SEO ile ilgilenen arkadaşlarımızı bir hayli düşündüren bir konudur. Bu konuda birbirine benzer bir çok yazıyı bulabilirsiniz. Bu konuda farklı bir görüş ararken 15 Mayıs 2006 tarihinde Google mühendislerinden Matt Cutts ile yapılan bir söyleşiye rastladım ve anlaşılır bir dil ile çevirmeye çalıştım. Sorular ve cevaplar yorumsuz olarak çevrilmiştir.

Soru: PageRank böylesine önemli midir? Bir sayfada bulunan bağlantıya (backlink) PageRank değeri sebebi ile değer biçebilir misiniz?

Cevap: Sıralamayı etkileyen 100′ün üzerinde faktör vardır ve PageRank bunlardan biridir. Önemli bir faktördür ama ne her şeyin başı ne de herşeyin sonududur.

Bu bana kısa vadeli öngörünün ve konunun sadece bir yönünün sabit fikir haline geldiği tehlikesini gösteriyor. Bundan dolayı içeriğinize dikkat etmek, iyi bir çekirdek oluşturmak size yardımcı olacak şeylerdir, “PageRank değerimi yükseltebilirmiyim?” sorusu değildir.

En iyi link editoriyal olarak incelenmiş linklerdir. Link verilen site hak ettiyse link alır…

Bolca dağıtılan karşılıklı linkler de faydalı olmaz – üçgen bağlantıları, satın alınan linkleri ve benzeri şeyleri deneyelim. Bu tür bağlantılar siteniz için en iyi şeyler değildir. Link satın almak çok risklidir. No-follow etiketi kullanmadığınızda bu durum Google yönergelerine aykırıdır.

……

Soru: Sandbox nedir?

Cevap: Bazıları bunun daha yeni sitelere mi uygulandığını sordular. Google 2003 yıllarında indexleme metodunda yeni bir yöntem kullanmaya başladı. Bundan önce aylık Google Dance vardı. Sonuç olarak yeni veriler index’e dahil ediliyordu… Aslında her bir veri merkezi (data center) farklı algoritmalara sahiptir, farklı veriler sürekli test edilmektedir.

Sanırım sandbox olarak algılanan şey, indexlerimiz içinde bazı verilerin hesaplanmasının diğerlerinden daha uzun sürdüğü bir işlem hatasıdır (*).

Soru: Gerçekten güzel ve alakalı bir verinin Google’da görüntülenmesi için 9 ay beklemek istermisiniz? Ya da hazır olur olmaz yeni birşeyler mi üretirsiniz?

Cevap: Hazır olur olmaz burada olmasını isteriz. Aslında haber ve blog girdileri oluşturulur oluşturulmaz bulabiliriz.  Burada her zaman bazı sayfalara ne kadar güvenebileceğiniz ve bazı sayfaları ne kadar tasnif edeceğiniz konusunda denge kurulmaya çalışılır. Size verebileceğim en iyi öneri, sandbox olduğu veya olmadığı konusunda çok fazla endişe duymamanız, bu konuda çok fazla düşünmemeniz ve üzerine strateji kurmamanızdır.

…..

(*) Burada kullanılan orjinal kelime “artefact” kelimesidir. Aynı zamanda “insan eli ile yapılan”, ” el yapımı”, “yapay”, “işlem hatası” anlamlarına gelmektedir. İşlem hatası çevirisinin daha doğru olduğunu düşündüğüm için bu kelimeyi kullandım.

NOT: Yazıyı alıntı olarak kullanacakların kaynak belirtmelerini ve link vermelerini rica ederim.

Do you want to use your skills to help NGOs in the developing world innovate and solve global programs?  Check out the annual call for applications from the Deshpande Foundation – the Sandbox Fellows program application is up now and the Innovators program is coming soon.

And for you legal scholars out there, the Drexel Law Review has put out a call for papers for an upcoming symposium edition on Law and South Asia.

(Hat tip to Asian American Giving and Anil.)

Disclaimer: This game is rated Mature for blood, gore, intense violence and language.

The first game I have picked to review is a game called Prototype. This game is published by Activision and developed by Radical Entertainment. It is available for the PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 gaming platforms. This game is a sandbox style action game, which means that in addition to the main storyline the other content is nonlinear and you have free roam of the city Manhattan. The game is set in New York City which is currently being infected by a virus with the military attempting to put and end to the chaos.

In this game you play as the main character Alex Mercer who has become infected by this virus and has acquired some special abilities from it. Some of these abilities include absorbing his enemies, shapeshifting into people he has absorbed, taking the memories of these people, and also altering his own body into various weapons used against his foes. These abilities are gained in the game via an upgrade system using a sort of point based earning system, so you pick what abilities you want to unlock in what order.

Throughout the course of the game you main goal is to find out what happened to both you and the city and try and get revenge for who ever did this to you. You unlock more information about what has happened and who is behind it all via the memories of the people you have absorbed, these memories are stored in something called the “Web of Intrigue”.  During the course of the game you end up fighting a city full of infected citizens as well as an all out war against the military.

With the way the ability system is set up and the different difficulty settings available you have multiple ways to get through the game. It’s highly likely you that you wont play it the same way twice. Maybe one time through you might try to save as many people as you can and another just destroy everything in your path, the choice is up to you! The game is also visually beautiful, the company did a great job making the city look just like the real thing. Movement throughout the city is fluid and traveling around has a pretty interesting method, via gliding through the air, running up the side of buildings, or sprinting full speed down city streets bashing cars out of your way. Overall this game was quite fun to play time and time again and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this type of game.

Si eres fanático de Grand Theft Auto IV y crees que luego de Sunset Riders (SNES) no hay ningún juego de vaqueros que valga la pena, entones deberías seguir muy de cerca Red Dead Redemption, que en esta ocasión se muestra en nuevas imágenes.

Está siendo desarrollado por Rockstar Games (GTA) y será un shooter en tercera persona, tal y como las aventuras en Liberty City.

Aquí están las imágenes. Como les dije, tengan bien presente este juego, que promete mucho.

This blog is a place where I can play, learn, and poke WordPress.

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it

Romantic sponges, they say, do it
Oysters down in oyster bay do it

Cold Cape Cod clams, ‘gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish, do it

The chimpanzees in the zoos do it
Some courageous kangaroos do it

I’m sure giraffes on the sly do it
Even eagles as they fly do it

The royal set sans regret did it
And they considered it fun
Marie Antoinette did it -
with or without Napoleon

Yo me declaro un profundo admirador de Bully (Canis Canem Edit en Europa), por lo que esta noticia me ha alegrado el día, y es que, según ha declarado Shawn Lee (compositor de la Banda Sonora del original), el juego puede estar ya en desarrollo y la BSO podría volver a hacerla él, ya que recientemente ha declarado:

Yes. It looks like I will be doing the soundtrack for Bully 2 in the not so distant future…

TRADUCCIÓN: Si, parece que haré la BSO de Bully 2 en un futuro no muy lejano

Desde Rockstar no lo han confirmado, pero tampoco lo han desmentido, así que yo ya estoy deseando leer una confirmación del proyecto…

Fuente: Ecetia y Kotaku

Ayer se publicó el sexto (y último) diario de desarrollo de Assassin’s Creed II, en el que se nos explica un poco el funcionamiento del Animus 2.0 y de la villa de Ezio en esta esperada secuela (recordad que llegará a las tiendas españolas el próximo día 19 de Noviembre).

Además, si queréis probar el juego antes de su salida tan sólo debéis desplazaros hasta la FNAC El Triangle para probarlo en una Ubi-Sphere (equipada con un televisor Full HD 1080p y sonido Dolby Surround 5.1) los días 12, 13 y 14 de Noviembre entre las 12:00 y las 14:00 y/o entre las 16:00 y las 21:00 (hace unos días se hizo lo mismo en otra FNAC de Madrid, pero por diferentes motivos no lo pude publicar por aquí).

An interview discussing Alexandra Evans’ planned game, ‘Abandon’, and games in general.

AE = Alexandra Evans
I = Interviewer

I: So, I hear you’ve been designing a game?

AE: Yeah, it’s an idea I’ve had for a long while now. I was inspired a long time ago because it was brought to my attention how much I hate it when in games that are supposed to be ‘realistic’, you can get shot in the stomach five times and still live, y’know? It just gets on my nerves.

I: Well, there are games that go against that. In a lot of games nowadays you get one-hit kills from headshots, an-

AE: Yeah, yeah, I know, but in my opinion the realism is still, kind of, forced? You get what I mean? I mean, dying because you get shot in the head, that’s a bit obvious. But like, dying from bleeding to death from a stomach wound? Or a leg wound? You don’t see that often in games.

I: With those kind of rules inforced, though, it’s going to make the game very difficult, isn’t it?

AE: I think it depends on the situation completely. In a FPS or any other game where there’s going being bullets flying everywhere or intense fighting, then of course, realistic deaths would be irritating and make it too much of a challenge, but in something like a survival horror, it adds to the fear. In the words of Yahtzee, “If I’m not dreading every single moster encounter, then it’s not horror, is it?”

I: You’re a big fan of Zero Punctuation, I take it?

AE: Oh, yeah. I love it.

I: That’s from his review of Silent Hill Homecoming, isn’t it? Which he didn’t like.

AE: That’s right.

I: Your game, Abandon, like Silent Hill, is also going to be of the survival horror genre. People have said that your game seems to be influenced by it. Are you a fan of the Silent Hill series?

AE: I’ve actually never played any of the Silent Hill games except for Origins which I borrrow from my friend once, but couldn’t play because it scared me. The thing is, I have terrible.. and I mean terrible nerves. The jump-out scares in games and films and stuff mess with my head. I was never desenstized to horror when I was young, so I don’t watch horror films or play games like Silent Hill now.

I: You’re missing out.

AE: I know I am. But I just can’t cope. It creeps me out.

I: That’s kind of weird considering that you want to make a horror game.

AE: Well, yeah. But tension and fear doesn’t affect me as badly, it’s just, like I said, ‘jump-up scares’, that get me. The problem I have is that most modern horror games do use that. It’s a cop-out, it’s just an easy way to scare people so you can call what you’re doing a horror, along with excess gore. But that’s just what happens here. I love Japanese horror, because it uses the isolation and oppression to create the fear, it’s not relying on shocking you. From what I understand of the Silent Hill series, one of the main reasons it’s going downhill is because it’s stopped using that. America ruined it.

I: Harsh.

AE: Well, it’s true. And that’s why I want to make a game that uses that oppressive fear. I’m okay with it, because however it pans out, it won’t have any shock-scares in it.

I: What do you mean, “however it pans out”?

AE: Assuming that I’m still around during the production of the game if I do manage to get funding, then I’m not going to let it be a cop-out horror. Because that’s defeating the object completely.

I: I see. So, tell us more about the game itself. What is the plot?

AE: Without giving away too much, your character finds themselves in an abandoned hospital.

I: Hence the name?

AE: Yeah, well, it’s just a working title, I don’t know if I’ll stick with it yet. But, yeah, they wake up in this hospital. And no, they don’t have amnesia, I just want to make that clear now. That’s another cop-out that I hate in games.

I: Right.

AE: Mm.. and the point of the game is to get out of the hospital. That’s the plot from the outsiders point of view. But the rest of the story you find out through exploring and looking around.

I: You’ve mentioned before that there are ‘enemies’ as such, in the hospital. What are they?

AE: Well, you find out what they are while you’re looking around, like I said, I don’t want to give away too much, because the exploration and finding out what has happened is the secondary objective. You don’t actually have to search for clues about why the hospital is abandoned, or what the creatures are that you see, but if you don’t, you don’t get the full experience of the game. That’s the idea. You’re rewarded for your curiousity.

I: So, it’s a sandbox game, in that sense? A sandbox horror.

AE: Yeah, I suppose that is the genre it fits.

I: You have said previously that you get completely free roam of the area. Your aim is to achieve perfect realism.

AE: Exactly. I want to have a game that is completely realistic, without letting it boring because the situation is completely unrealistic.

I: Like living out a fantasy? If your fantasy was being scared out of your senses.

AE: *laugh* That’s right.

I: I’ve seen some of your preliminary drawings of the ‘creatures’ in the game. You did one particularly detailed one of th-.. Am I allowed to talk about this? Does it give away too much?

AE: Yeah, go for it. I need something to make it sound interesting.

I: Okay, well, the.. boss enemy? I don’t know, is that what it is?

AE: Essentially. Alongside the normal creatures, there is Zeta, who is one of the only characters that I’ve planned the appearance of completely, I know exactly what it’ll look like, although the drawing I showed you didn’t represent that very well. *laughs*

I: It was okay. Now, let’s start wrapping this up, before people get bored.

AE: That’s cool.

I: Last question; In the past, you’ve mentioned character customisation, use of the PS3 controller’s motion sensing, and super-intelligent AI, all of which you want to use and focus on in Abandon. Are these still desired goals for you in the final game?

AE: Oh, yes. Of course. I want character customisation so you can make the character yourself, or Batman, or whatever. If it’ll help you identify with the character visually, then that’s achieving my goal. I wanted to have the game use the motion sensing to help with movement and in combat, to add to the realism, but I’ll talk more about that later.. What was the other thing?

I: Intelligent AI.

AE: Oh, yeah. Well, that’s kind of an obvious thing, really. But I just wanted the creatures to have personalities, because in a lot of games, the ‘enemies’, as such, are just there to attack, and that’s all they do. But in Abandon, I wanted the creatures to act differently. Not just different types of creatures, but within types, so some will attack, some will ignore you, some will run away, etc, etc. And that would also tie in with the difficulty levels which you choose at the start of the game. So, if you choose a lower difficulty level, a lower percentage of creatures will be willing to attack you, and at higher difficulties, more will. But the actually amount of creatures in the hospital won’t change.

I: It’s an interesting idea. Well, that’s all we have time for. So, thank you for your time, Alex. And thank you for the.. insight into your ideas for the game.

AE: *laughs* No problem. Any time.

“Twitter is over,” my partner at work, David, constantly chides me.  Even though I point out that Twitter isn’t just about telling people what you had for breakfast.  He goes on, “Look what happened to Second Life, you thought that was going to change the world too. Now it’s dead.”  That’s not exactly what I said.  But I did say that Second Life had tremendous potential to facilitate collaboration, work processes and relationships within the enterprise.  And that we hadn’t seen the last of Second Life.

With the launch of Second Life Enterprise, I don’t yet get to say, “I told you so,” but the reliability of my powers of prediction is looking better.

Second Life Enterprise

Second Life Enterprise now enables companies to use the same interface and features of Second Life on their own servers, so the content and information they place there is secure.  This is a big step, because security issues were an important barrier for many companies to use the Second Life platform as a virtual workplace.

Conference Center Island

The package, with a starting price of $50,000, includes VOIP, sandbox regions for virtual building and modeling, media and document file sharing, two conference centers and auditorium — virtual of course — and provides enough computing power to support eight regions and as many as 800 avatars all to work happily at the same time.

Who’s using Second Life Enterprise?  According to Linden Labs, 14 organizations have already signed up for the beta version, including the U.S. Navy, IBM and Northrup Grumman.  It will be in beta through the fourth quarter of this year and should be broadly available by mid-2010.

So maybe Second Life hasn’t changed the world yet.  However, it is being used by companies and organizations for a variety of tasks from teaching and training  to product development, prototyping and testing.  And it  allows teams of individuals from different geographies to come together at a fraction of what it would cost in “the real world.”  That’s good in the best of times, and great in times like these. IBM estimated it saved $320,000 by holding a recent conference in Second Life.

Northrup Grumman has used Second Life to simulate a control panel on a bomb disposal device, allowing workers to learn how to use it safely.  The company now does development work for clients where “one hundred percent of the product and the client relationship is virtual.” And Second Life has enabled Northrup Grumman employees at opposite ends of the globe to work together efficiently.

Ted Vera, Information Systems Department Manager at Northrup Grumman confirms something that I’ve always suspected, that the game-like elements of a virtual world could actually be beneficial to real work:  “We’re conducting real business, but there’s an element of fun that enhances the collaboration.”

Conference Center A 4

Beyond the firewall issue, now resolved for a mere $55,000, the biggest obstacle to broad scale usage of virtual words like Second Life is ease of use.  I’ve enjoyed Second Life, but it was darned hard learning to use, at least the public version.  Presuming the “learning curve” gets a lot shorter, or already has in Second Life Enterprise, I think the prognosis for a long, healthy life looks good.

There’s a saying in German that has always intrigued me — “Tot gesagte leben länger.”  Roughly translated it means, “Those presumed dead live the longest.”