essay
Game Theory
Tuesday, October 02, 03:26 AM By
Bryan
My biggest enemy is time for these daily Things. I have about 7 or 8 big ideas, but no time to really finish them to my satisfaction. Most of these projects actually have some work completed, but with the draining, but necessary work still ahead.
For instance, today I wrote an abstract card game based on a mutual player use of cards. It's got thirty cards in the game. I know what I'm putting on the cards and the rules aren't too complex. The problem is graphics. That's the time suck, making each card graphic for the PDF and the one or two graphic for the rules to show the table layout for the game. Here's a mock-up of one of the 30 different cards in the game. It took me fifteen minutes and it's not my final idea. Ugh.
So, today's Thing is a quick run down of some of my larger projects, mostly games.
1. The game you see above. It's a smallish card game.
2. The big game. It's a word/tile game with modular, scalable rules. This game, if it works, is the one I want to get published. There's 144 cards in the first expansion and 200 small tokens, 50 of four different colors. There's still a lot of math to do, plus writing the rules and the 20 or so variations we've already dreamed up, making each individual card in four colors.
3. My two-player RPG, still in the very early stages.
4. An evil office game that's mostly written. It uses a deck of cards and could get you fired. It's a social game to help spice up the question, "So, how'd work go today?" You can play by yourself even. It's less a game, than an organized prank.
5. A different fame/RPG based on the Dreamblade miniatures, adding a storytelling aspect to the game.
6. An RPG using CCG cards like Magic or The Spoils as a sort of GM for the game and character creation.
7. A Hybrid game using OctaNe and The Roach.
8. A fake TV Guide to the new season, I have the graphics finished and some of the comedy written. I hope that's done by Monday because comedy grows stale quickly.
9. An OctaNe adventure.
I know this is mostly gibberish, but it's a reminder of what I have yet to do. Most days it's easy enough to slap out a comic or create some goofy TTOTD web page or generate bad abstract art. I try to be finished in an hour or so, but the large projects still nag at me. Even the new podcasts take about 4-5 hours.
One last note, The Cashington Roach setting I made for The Roach of Al-Hib Shari was noticed and linked by the game creator, Jason Morningstar. It's HERE, cool. He posted it weeks ago and I finally noticed it, duh. I also posted The Walking Dead scenario to Board Game Geek.
|
Good Night, Kilgore Trout
Thursday, April 12, 02:06 AM By
Bryan
I imagine one
the author's protagonists might write his obituary like this:
"Upper New York state native Kurt Vonnegut Jr. lived a very long time. And then, as expected, he died. So it goes."
Kurt Vonnegut died.
I haven't read the details just yet, but I'm guessing he went out quietly, not with a wimper, but with a slight wisp. Hopefully, after a nice day, a nice meal, a contented smile. This would seem apt. No he-man heroics for Vonnegut. No shotgun in the mouth like Hemmingway or Hunter S.
Drama may be for other people. Life is funny that way. Just the act of living, then dying, was enough for Mr. Vonnegut. I hope his family was there and there was resolution. Resolution is important. Resolution is for the old and infirm. Distraction has always been a goal of the young. Static and distraction.
There's so much mystery and wonder and hope and glory just in the act of living, then dying. That's something I've learned from Vonnegut's books. Maybe he never even said those exact words or even intended that sentiment, but that's what I've learned. Go figure. The concept of God just fucks up the mystery and the wonder and the hope and the glory. Static and distraction for the brain. But more about that in a minute.
Back up, do the straight obituary. Vonnegut was an ironist, satirist, humorist, humanist, and all the other 'ists that get people so angry at words. That's how life is. Like all good American writers, he started out as a journalist. He taught me the most important lesson about writing---Get to the point, stupid. Also, every word must advance the story. He taught me these lessons. I don't think I learned those lessons, though.
Vonnegut also epitomized a certian breed of post-war writer, the observer. America's such a big pot trying to figure itself out, all one can do is watch, be an observer, and avoid judgement because freedom has so many hooks, even in the righteous and cock-sure. Not a lot of melting. Every man's life is absurd and small and epic and misguided and just is.
Mark Twain watched. And then made funny comments. Vonnegut did so too. Unlike some other important American authors, from what I could tell, Vonnegut didn't speak directly to race and class and justice. This is because, you see, everyone lives and everyone dies. All races and all classes. There's your justice. Thanks for nuthin'.
Morality is like trying to tell a one-eyed man what binocluars are about. And everyone has only one eye. And never even seen a pair of binoculars. So it goes.
Easily, I could be wrong. With so many connections and lessons, my mind is the pot I'm observing. My melting pot. With binoculars. And one eye.
Like that commencement speech everyone thought Vonnegut wrote a few years ago. Just because it's funny and seems to have and an ironic, practical, and at first glance, trite tone does not make it Vonnegut. Don't forget your sunscreen. Bring a towel. Still Life with Woodpecker. I am Jack's liver. I am the all-singing crap....
And on and on.
I've read most of Vonnegut's books, like everyone, a long time ago. In college. This was when The Satire and what seemed like The Detachment in his books were cool. I read a later novel just two years ago and realized the satire was serious and the detachment attached. What struck me were the criss-cross of connections that create the haze of our life. There is so much of our lives that has been determined by mysterious history, unexpected relations, world events, handleless motivations, the unintended left turn. Ayn Rand be damned. But in the end, this is okay, because it is what it is. No Zen poem, but simple fact. This may sound Rumsfeldian, but the unknown is our mysteries and wonders hopes and glories. We just are too dumb to know it.
I don't need to name a book that most influenced me because, it's all in there amongst the all the stories.
History is mystery to the individual, so life must press on. The good and the bad have practical reasons, but like a single ant in a massive ant farm, we can't see the whole magilla. Am I repeating myself or are these slight variations? Hard to say.
But, Mystery is good. Love starts with the mystery. To make sense, to comprehend, life is a constant act of reduction. My favorite phrase from a Vonnegut book about love, paraphrased, as always, is---"This bed is all there is. This bed is our country and we are a nation of two." A nation of two seems like a nice country to be a citizen in.
And even within the reductionist confines of a nation of two, mystery abounds. Wonder and hope and glory abounds. That's why God is uneccessary. God just provides answers tries to give context. God is reductionist on mystery and wonder and blah, blah, blah. God mysticisizes the mundane and crushes the truly wonderous. Static and distraction. Distraction and static. Plus, where's he been lately, anyway?
American novels often concern themselves with static and distraction as the constant and always current American state. Run, Rabbit, Run...Run, Forrest, Run. The intellectuals find solutions in meaning and understanding. The spiritualist finds meaning in meaning and God. Meaning reduces. Meaning shrinks. Meaning often offers scarce comfort, but great absurdity.
Even with meaning, tragedies sill happen and life still goes on, that's what Vonnegut seems to say to me. Life doesn't go on couragiously or with profound insight. Life just goes on, but that is just how life is. That's how life rolls. There's still mystery and hope and wonder and glory. And, hopefully, there's also some comfort and absurdity.
People are as they are. Abusrdity is as it is. Vonnegut certianly pointed out absurdity; getting out of bed is an absurd act. Killing milions of children is an absurd act, too.
I don't believe Vonnegut ever would have been on Oprah's book club---wouldn't that be absurd---as hope and spirits sailing and that inner meaning that makes you the Goddess of your own Universe isn't really the point. It's the static and the distraction.
And tragedies still happen. They happen to the hopeful, the spiritual, those with solutions and understanding in ways they can't understand. And the hopeful, the spiritual, those with spirit and understanding also cause tragedy, often in ways they can't understand.
Nobody gets out alive, I'd imagine a Vonnegut protagonist would say.
And as I'm sure most obituaries about disgraced, failed hack Sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout will end...So it goes.
And so it goes.
Read More...
"Upper New York state native Kurt Vonnegut Jr. lived a very long time. And then, as expected, he died. So it goes."
Kurt Vonnegut died.
I haven't read the details just yet, but I'm guessing he went out quietly, not with a wimper, but with a slight wisp. Hopefully, after a nice day, a nice meal, a contented smile. This would seem apt. No he-man heroics for Vonnegut. No shotgun in the mouth like Hemmingway or Hunter S.
Drama may be for other people. Life is funny that way. Just the act of living, then dying, was enough for Mr. Vonnegut. I hope his family was there and there was resolution. Resolution is important. Resolution is for the old and infirm. Distraction has always been a goal of the young. Static and distraction.
There's so much mystery and wonder and hope and glory just in the act of living, then dying. That's something I've learned from Vonnegut's books. Maybe he never even said those exact words or even intended that sentiment, but that's what I've learned. Go figure. The concept of God just fucks up the mystery and the wonder and the hope and the glory. Static and distraction for the brain. But more about that in a minute.
Back up, do the straight obituary. Vonnegut was an ironist, satirist, humorist, humanist, and all the other 'ists that get people so angry at words. That's how life is. Like all good American writers, he started out as a journalist. He taught me the most important lesson about writing---Get to the point, stupid. Also, every word must advance the story. He taught me these lessons. I don't think I learned those lessons, though.
Vonnegut also epitomized a certian breed of post-war writer, the observer. America's such a big pot trying to figure itself out, all one can do is watch, be an observer, and avoid judgement because freedom has so many hooks, even in the righteous and cock-sure. Not a lot of melting. Every man's life is absurd and small and epic and misguided and just is.
Mark Twain watched. And then made funny comments. Vonnegut did so too. Unlike some other important American authors, from what I could tell, Vonnegut didn't speak directly to race and class and justice. This is because, you see, everyone lives and everyone dies. All races and all classes. There's your justice. Thanks for nuthin'.
Morality is like trying to tell a one-eyed man what binocluars are about. And everyone has only one eye. And never even seen a pair of binoculars. So it goes.
Easily, I could be wrong. With so many connections and lessons, my mind is the pot I'm observing. My melting pot. With binoculars. And one eye.
Like that commencement speech everyone thought Vonnegut wrote a few years ago. Just because it's funny and seems to have and an ironic, practical, and at first glance, trite tone does not make it Vonnegut. Don't forget your sunscreen. Bring a towel. Still Life with Woodpecker. I am Jack's liver. I am the all-singing crap....
And on and on.
I've read most of Vonnegut's books, like everyone, a long time ago. In college. This was when The Satire and what seemed like The Detachment in his books were cool. I read a later novel just two years ago and realized the satire was serious and the detachment attached. What struck me were the criss-cross of connections that create the haze of our life. There is so much of our lives that has been determined by mysterious history, unexpected relations, world events, handleless motivations, the unintended left turn. Ayn Rand be damned. But in the end, this is okay, because it is what it is. No Zen poem, but simple fact. This may sound Rumsfeldian, but the unknown is our mysteries and wonders hopes and glories. We just are too dumb to know it.
I don't need to name a book that most influenced me because, it's all in there amongst the all the stories.
History is mystery to the individual, so life must press on. The good and the bad have practical reasons, but like a single ant in a massive ant farm, we can't see the whole magilla. Am I repeating myself or are these slight variations? Hard to say.
But, Mystery is good. Love starts with the mystery. To make sense, to comprehend, life is a constant act of reduction. My favorite phrase from a Vonnegut book about love, paraphrased, as always, is---"This bed is all there is. This bed is our country and we are a nation of two." A nation of two seems like a nice country to be a citizen in.
And even within the reductionist confines of a nation of two, mystery abounds. Wonder and hope and glory abounds. That's why God is uneccessary. God just provides answers tries to give context. God is reductionist on mystery and wonder and blah, blah, blah. God mysticisizes the mundane and crushes the truly wonderous. Static and distraction. Distraction and static. Plus, where's he been lately, anyway?
American novels often concern themselves with static and distraction as the constant and always current American state. Run, Rabbit, Run...Run, Forrest, Run. The intellectuals find solutions in meaning and understanding. The spiritualist finds meaning in meaning and God. Meaning reduces. Meaning shrinks. Meaning often offers scarce comfort, but great absurdity.
Even with meaning, tragedies sill happen and life still goes on, that's what Vonnegut seems to say to me. Life doesn't go on couragiously or with profound insight. Life just goes on, but that is just how life is. That's how life rolls. There's still mystery and hope and wonder and glory. And, hopefully, there's also some comfort and absurdity.
People are as they are. Abusrdity is as it is. Vonnegut certianly pointed out absurdity; getting out of bed is an absurd act. Killing milions of children is an absurd act, too.
I don't believe Vonnegut ever would have been on Oprah's book club---wouldn't that be absurd---as hope and spirits sailing and that inner meaning that makes you the Goddess of your own Universe isn't really the point. It's the static and the distraction.
And tragedies still happen. They happen to the hopeful, the spiritual, those with solutions and understanding in ways they can't understand. And the hopeful, the spiritual, those with spirit and understanding also cause tragedy, often in ways they can't understand.
Nobody gets out alive, I'd imagine a Vonnegut protagonist would say.
And as I'm sure most obituaries about disgraced, failed hack Sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout will end...So it goes.
And so it goes.
Read More...
