It has been a very busy and stressful week, so updates have been slow as of late. I'll make up for it soon. However, I have finished my first draft of my proposal paper, which can be found here (35k, .doc file). As always, critique is welcome.
EDIT: Whoops, in my sleep-deprived state of mind, I forgot to add that the proposal is for "Anarchy MUD". So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Spore
Jon Ippolito sent me another link, but this time it's to a "dated" article (March 2005) that previews a game code-named Spore (The game, developed by the people who created the Sim games, were originally planning on calling the game Sim Everything, but the code-name Spore stuck).
Spore is an evolution simulator, where you begin the game as a small microbe and eventually evolve into a creature. As the game progresses, your fully-customized creature becomes sentient and starts a tribe, and eventually a civilization. Ultimately, you acquire the technology to travel to other parts of the world, and even one of millions of planets, many populated by other beings. These other beings would be creatures created by other players, which have been automatically uploaded to their server and distributed around to other players, thus creating a unique "massive single-player online game".
The article talks about Will Wright's thought behind designing the game, and how he pushed away from having enormous teams of artists and animators creating everything needed for the game, and instead focuses on code-based procedural creation of not only the creatures, but the buildings and worlds they inhabit. The procedural generation doesn't rely on pre-designed images, but instead uses complex mathematical formulas to create everything; this effectively reduces the file sizes of other players' creatures down to under 1 kilobyte, making distribution of characters incredibly easy. The procedural generation doesn't stop at just the looks, however, it also can be used to smartly predict how the character would be animated (two legs vs. four legs vs. ten legs, how fast it moves, what limb it uses to hold objects primarily, etc.). And suddenly, a game that would normally require a gargantuan army of artists and animators and would take up a huge amount of disk space is instead able to be created by a significantly smaller team of coders and will take up much less hard drive space. On top of that, the creative possibilities open up, and are literally endless.
This is relevant to my Anarchy MUD idea because it's basically a game where the players create the world (or in this case, the universe) around them. This also has a playability advantage over my idea, in that the players aren't able to break the game and ruin it for everyone else. I haven't decided yet if I will keep the easy destruction of everything ability in later approaches of my idea, or if I can somehow incorporate a way to limit it, and if so, how would I go about limiting it. Just more things to think about.
Spore is an evolution simulator, where you begin the game as a small microbe and eventually evolve into a creature. As the game progresses, your fully-customized creature becomes sentient and starts a tribe, and eventually a civilization. Ultimately, you acquire the technology to travel to other parts of the world, and even one of millions of planets, many populated by other beings. These other beings would be creatures created by other players, which have been automatically uploaded to their server and distributed around to other players, thus creating a unique "massive single-player online game".
The article talks about Will Wright's thought behind designing the game, and how he pushed away from having enormous teams of artists and animators creating everything needed for the game, and instead focuses on code-based procedural creation of not only the creatures, but the buildings and worlds they inhabit. The procedural generation doesn't rely on pre-designed images, but instead uses complex mathematical formulas to create everything; this effectively reduces the file sizes of other players' creatures down to under 1 kilobyte, making distribution of characters incredibly easy. The procedural generation doesn't stop at just the looks, however, it also can be used to smartly predict how the character would be animated (two legs vs. four legs vs. ten legs, how fast it moves, what limb it uses to hold objects primarily, etc.). And suddenly, a game that would normally require a gargantuan army of artists and animators and would take up a huge amount of disk space is instead able to be created by a significantly smaller team of coders and will take up much less hard drive space. On top of that, the creative possibilities open up, and are literally endless.
This is relevant to my Anarchy MUD idea because it's basically a game where the players create the world (or in this case, the universe) around them. This also has a playability advantage over my idea, in that the players aren't able to break the game and ruin it for everyone else. I haven't decided yet if I will keep the easy destruction of everything ability in later approaches of my idea, or if I can somehow incorporate a way to limit it, and if so, how would I go about limiting it. Just more things to think about.
Lunchtimers
In response to my "Sand Box" idea I mentioned earlier, one of my classmates sent me a link to Lunchtimers, which is an interactive refrigerator magnet simulator. Players can move around colorful letters to spell words or sentences, and everyone has equal control over where the letters are placed (so someone in the middle of writing something can get his letters removed by someone else also writing something). Play isn't limited to just words, though--another player and I spent the last ten minutes organizing all the letters by color, and then sorted out each magnet by letter. Already, our work is being decimated by other players, and no one can expect their words to survive for too long. Sadly, the game seems to be most popular with thirteen-year-olds, and so the language reflects that, but the idea behind the game is clever nonetheless.
When I was brainstorming "Sand Box", I actually was partially inspired by this game, but I could not remember what it was called. It's a good thing some people in the class have a better memory than I do. The largest difference between Lunchtimers and Sand Box would be that Sand Box would allow for more control over the visual aspects: you are not limited to refrigerator magnets, and are able to hand draw not only your letters, but whatever you like. This, of course, would be much more difficult to program, and would definitely use more resources than Lunchtimers, but the trade-off might be worth it.
When I was brainstorming "Sand Box", I actually was partially inspired by this game, but I could not remember what it was called. It's a good thing some people in the class have a better memory than I do. The largest difference between Lunchtimers and Sand Box would be that Sand Box would allow for more control over the visual aspects: you are not limited to refrigerator magnets, and are able to hand draw not only your letters, but whatever you like. This, of course, would be much more difficult to program, and would definitely use more resources than Lunchtimers, but the trade-off might be worth it.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Man With A Movie Camera
Another link Jon Ippolito sent me for research purposes is for an experimental film initiated by Perry Bard called Man With a Movie Camera. It is essentially a "participatory video", in which people from anywhere around the world select a shot or a scene from the original script of Dziga Vertov's 1929 film Man With A Movie Camera, film it, and submit it to the website so that everyone's shots can be compiled into one film.
This gets me thinking about how I could do something similar with my idea for an animation. Unfortunately, it would be nigh impossible for me to ask many people to animate a shot or scene, as there are far fewer people who have the capability to animate (especially in 3D, but if I were to do this, I wouldn't limit the media to strictly 3D computer animation) than there are people who can film. Almost anyone can pick up a camera and use it, and get their scene done within a day or two. An animation is much more involved, and creating a scene of the same length might take weeks, or even months. But it's a good idea to start with, nonetheless, and it might help inspire me for my capstone piece.
This gets me thinking about how I could do something similar with my idea for an animation. Unfortunately, it would be nigh impossible for me to ask many people to animate a shot or scene, as there are far fewer people who have the capability to animate (especially in 3D, but if I were to do this, I wouldn't limit the media to strictly 3D computer animation) than there are people who can film. Almost anyone can pick up a camera and use it, and get their scene done within a day or two. An animation is much more involved, and creating a scene of the same length might take weeks, or even months. But it's a good idea to start with, nonetheless, and it might help inspire me for my capstone piece.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Nomic
While researching for ideas and inspiration regarding capstone, Jon Ippolito sent me a link that talked about the game Nomic. Nomic is a game invented in 1982 by Peter Suber, and is essentially a game where proposing and voting on rule changes is the game itself. It begins with a simple, yet flexible set of rules (which are all able to be modified and/or removed if the players elect to do such a thing), and the simple goal of reaching 100 points. Everything, including the goal, is able to be changed, but the players must propose the change and vote on it. And actually, even the whole voting part is not immune to being changed--if the players elect a new way for rules to be added or modified (such as a dictatorship, instead of a democracy, for example), then that new way takes effect. There's even a rule that demands that the rules be followed, and if players vote away that rule, then they must suffer the consequences that result from their action.
I'm interested in testing out Nomic with a few people sometime, so I can see how people behave in such a setting. In some ways, Nomic is similar to my "Anarchy MUD" idea, such as the notion that the players have total control over the game's mechanics. However, my current idea is more like a Nomic that starts with almost no rules (but at the same time, there is also no goal to be achieved, and no way to "win"). Also, everyone has equal power, and there's nothing preventing a 4-month old veteran character from being deleted by some random bloke who just happens to try out the game for the first time. As a result, things can get very messy. I am currently thinking of ways to implement "levels" of admin rights, so that people that somehow "earn" higher levels of admin are able to do more, or at least have more power over what they do (for example, perhaps a new character can't outright "ban" someone, but can grant "admin points" to other people, and those people can do the same back. Positive points allows admins to go up in levels, and negative points force them down levels. The higher level you are, the more points you can grant/remove. If you're at a sufficiently negative number, you are deleted. So in this way, a high-level admin can auto-ban a new character, whereas a new character can't immediately ban a higher character, unless he got help from others who want to get rid of him. Higher level characters would also have more control over the game world itself, such as perhaps being able to create/destroy more rooms/items/monsters per day than other admins. Etc., etc., blah, blah, you get the picture). Maybe I can work out some way to do it after studying how the game Nomic is played. And maybe I might even think up a "goal" for Anarchy MUD, of some sort (although simply trying to achieve a high level of admin might be goal enough).
If anyone is interested in testing out Nomic with me sometime, we can try to work out something.
I'm interested in testing out Nomic with a few people sometime, so I can see how people behave in such a setting. In some ways, Nomic is similar to my "Anarchy MUD" idea, such as the notion that the players have total control over the game's mechanics. However, my current idea is more like a Nomic that starts with almost no rules (but at the same time, there is also no goal to be achieved, and no way to "win"). Also, everyone has equal power, and there's nothing preventing a 4-month old veteran character from being deleted by some random bloke who just happens to try out the game for the first time. As a result, things can get very messy. I am currently thinking of ways to implement "levels" of admin rights, so that people that somehow "earn" higher levels of admin are able to do more, or at least have more power over what they do (for example, perhaps a new character can't outright "ban" someone, but can grant "admin points" to other people, and those people can do the same back. Positive points allows admins to go up in levels, and negative points force them down levels. The higher level you are, the more points you can grant/remove. If you're at a sufficiently negative number, you are deleted. So in this way, a high-level admin can auto-ban a new character, whereas a new character can't immediately ban a higher character, unless he got help from others who want to get rid of him. Higher level characters would also have more control over the game world itself, such as perhaps being able to create/destroy more rooms/items/monsters per day than other admins. Etc., etc., blah, blah, you get the picture). Maybe I can work out some way to do it after studying how the game Nomic is played. And maybe I might even think up a "goal" for Anarchy MUD, of some sort (although simply trying to achieve a high level of admin might be goal enough).
If anyone is interested in testing out Nomic with me sometime, we can try to work out something.
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