May, I update this month

I just logged into steam for the first time since March 27th.  That's a full month with no Steam.  Wow!  I think that's the first time I've had a run like that in years.  So that's new.

The lack of Steam Account time is based on two things:  One is that I got a new job!  Pretty happy about that.  But it has forced me to shift my time around, and I've pretty much cut video games out entirely, except for Two:  Zelda Classic.  Specifically, Zquest, the editor for Zelda Classic.  I'm still happily placing tiles and designing maps, albeit at a slower pace.  I'm also reading more, which makes me happy.  Currently reading: 'The Mote in God's Eye,' a science fiction novel about first contact with an alien species.

I'm gardening more, because I like it and also because my new job is at a Garden Nursery.  It's a great job, but it doesn't pay well;  I'm barely scraping by.  So in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about finding a better-paying job.  In the meantime, I'll hold tight where I am, and be thankful I have a job I like going to.  

Finally, just two days ago, I got my cat back!  My Mom had been keeping him for the last six months since I lost my job.  It's really great to have him back, he's soft and cuddly as he ever was.  He has to contend with two other cats and the Great Dane/Pit Bull puppy that we have living at our house, so for now he stays in my room.  I'm hoping he will develop a repor with these animals before too long.

Alright, so that's my update,  Sayonara!

-D

Game idea: Gardening Simulator

Alright, I've heard of 'Farmville,'  so please don't remind me about it.  My official stance on Farmville is:  I don't care.  I don't care about Farmville.  I tried to play it for about a day and I stopped caring pretty quickly.  Which, of course is the death of any good farm and or garden.  You have to care.

I do, however, have a garden in my back yard.  I've got tomatoes, basil, marigolds, kale, chard, lemon cucumbers and yellow squash.  Or at least, I have the plants for them-- they haven't yielded much in the way of fruits.  Anyhow, I enjoy gardening.  It really isn't much different from certain types of gaming.   I think of tower defense, RTS, and Sim City.  You plant your units, you maintain your units against the ravages of enemies, bent on beating them to the ground.  Each unit has a different property, and many times they will require certain appropriate conditions to upgrade them and turn out different results.  

Gardening is very much like that.  The sun, while an important ally, is also an enemy.  It will dry out the plants and burn them.  You have to keep them steadily supplied with water in order to compensate for the heat of the sun.  However, it is important not to over manage the garden.  If you water too much, you will rot out the roots, and kill your plants that way.  The balance is delicate.  I can't say I've seen this feature in an RTS or other sort of game;  a way to overwater, or otherwise worry a unit to death.

Oh, here's a two dollar idea for you:  an app or a widget or whatever, for your phone or desktop, that is just a houseplant that you have to water.  Just a stupid, simple game to keep a person mildly entertained once a day, twice a day, however.  The benefit of a computer plant is that you can track your watering schedule.  In fact, the system could double as a tracking system for your own watering -- you just have to be consistent about feeding the virtual plant whenever you feed your actual plant.  It might work.  I certainly know I'm on my computer and phone way more than I spend time with my plants.

Another element of the garden is pests.  These buggers are... so buggery!  And it's really tough to combat them.  Marigolds have the property of being attractive to pests, and hardy.  So they can divert some of the bugs to eat them.  In addition, plants like Chard can usually take a beating from the slugs and the aphids.  They're hard to kill, and usually produce a lot.  But still, after all that, the fucking bugs can screw things up for my other plants, the once I want to eventually eat!  It's a really tough balance, too, because if you want to eat something, it's really probably not a great idea to cover it in poison.  But poison seems like the most effective method of driving the point across to those damned hungry bugs.  There's also ladybugs, and apple slices and eggshells and other products.  Nothing is perfect though.

And the bane of my existence, there are cats.  Fucking stray cats.  I love cats, don't get me wrong.  I even love strays.  But god dammit, I hate cat shit.  I hate it in my garden.  It smells bad, it's disgusting to think that a cat (probably my cat) is shitting around the tomatoes *I plan to EAT*  and to make matters worse, there's toxoplasmagondii.  Great.  It has a name; why I shouldn't eat plants sitting in cat shit-soaked soil.  Apart from 'ewwwww!'

Finally, there's the attention.  It is very easy to slip out of consistency with gardening.  Simply become distracted for a few days.  It's not hard-- I do it all the time.  Actually, a gardening tracker app would be useful to me when this happens, because I could pull up my phone and see my thirsty plant, and know it's been three days since I watered.  It's not an exact science, but it's pretty darn ballpark.

So that's it for this idea.  In summary, I would like a game that combines RTS and Sim City.  Choose a plot, clear it, fertilize, plant.  Water, fight bugs.  Harvest.  Find out what you did wrong.  Seems pretty simple to me, and I think it's a series of mechanics that can be refined to a deep level.  This is why I like the thought of making games:  I can combine learning about a thing, with trying to express it using programming systems and graphics.  Now I just need to work on that programming... And that graphics.

-D

One Thing Leading To Another

I had an interesting experience the last two of the three nights and no, it doesn't end like that, whatever that is.  On Friday night, because I sooo extroverted, I started playing Dead Space, a game that I've wanted to play for quite some time, only recently purchased and having finished Penumbra: Overture, I wanted another horroresque game to start up, which is what I did.  I've only played the first 35 minutes, which means that shit just went downhill and Isaac is separated from his superiors.  So only 35 minutes into the game (really only 30 minutes as I spent about five tweaking the the video and control settings: always have to invert the y-axis!!) I began thinking about Doom 3, Alien and Event Horizon.  

This thought wandering had nothing to do with the quality of the game and I wasn't losing interest, I was having a lot of fun, at least as much fun as one can have defending oneself with a space-nailgun against horrific looking creatures then stomping their limbs off.  I was thinking about other space horrors where I had experienced "fun" because I was having fun stomping the limbs off of (hopefully) dead creatures.  I also quickly thought that if I was ever offered a job on a interstellar mining vessel, I would turn that job down in a heartbeat!  Okay, I probably wouldn't.  It's space after all.  But yes, Event Horizon won out in the thinking process, so I turned off Dead Space and watched what I still feel is one of the best science fiction, space, horror movies around.  Yes, I know that Paul Anderson directed it, but I don't care.  It's an awesome movie that still gives me chills.  And it has Sam Fucking Neil in it.

The next night I decided to watch Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome because I'd never seen it (!?!?! I know right, considering my penchant for post-apocalyptic anything) and I wanted to get the disc back to Netflix, which I obviously have yet to do.  So within the first 20 minutes of Thunderdome, I began to feel that I wanted to play Fallout.  One of the characters even says "What's a little fallout, huh?"  The rest of the movie I was comparing what was going on in Thunderdome to the design and feel of the first Fallout game, which is the only one in that series that I've so far played.  I did not however start playing Fallout again after finishing the movie as it was around 3:30am.  

Instead I ended up putting on Skyrim as a conversation I'd had with Conklederp earlier provoked me to create a new character.  The character is a Khajiit, the feline (furry inspired??) race.  And yes, I created this Khajiit to be somewhat, visually based off of our cat, whose name in life as in game, is Joey Mjölnir Explosion.  So now, on this, the eve of Chirstmas, I present to you, the Internet, Joey Mjölnir Explosion in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Not Really a Crazy Cat Man

P.S.  Merry Christmas!