Less Play, More Build

John Winkelman

So I was playing Diablo II last night for the eighty-twelfth time and I decided it was past time to stop playing games eighty-twelve times and start building them instead. To that end, I am slowly gathering together notes from the past couple of years when I have really *meant* to start building games, along with various books on the subject, notes and code from the Adventure Game section of this site, and printouts of the source code from completed games, written in BASIC, and played to death on my old Commodore-64, twenty (egads!)years ago.

But my ideas have evolved over the past couple of years, and I have been playing around with artificial evolution and exploring the possibilities therein.

And I have discovered something.

I have spent over half my life playing adventure/role playing games of various kinds. The object of these games is to make your character more powerful, usually by earning points of various kinds and using them to enhance one or more out of a broad group of possible characteristics.

In artificial evolution experiments, particularly in things like biomorphs , the chromosome starts out simple, then gradually increases in complexity as more and more generations are born.

The characteristics of an RPG character can be considered genes. The genes used to describe a biomorph can be considered characteristics. The points used to advance a character are analogous to the increasing complexity in an evolving organism. The only real difference is, the biomorph is Darwinian evolution, and the RPG character is Lamarckian.

In other words, level advancement == increasing complexity.

Knowing this, why not simply create a gene pool from which can be created a near-infinite number of creatures? Evolve the genotype, rather than building the phenotype! Keep things from getting out of hand by defining what proportions of one group of genes to another makes a critter an animal, a plant, or a whatever is needed to fit the storyline of the game. Need more variety? Make the chromosome larger! Need the game to be science fiction rather than fantasy? Change the code which interprets the chromosome, create some new graphics, and now you have a near-infinite variety of robots.

Once the genotype and phenotype engines are completed, the user can play God or Nature and go in and modify a specific instance of the chromosome to create a specific creature. Mutations of this creature can then be created to suit specific needs.

There. Now that my big idea is made public, I need to start building something.

Patterns of Holding

John Winkelman

Thursday of a short week and the annual Project From Hell is practically done. Every day for the past week the PFH has been done at 8:30am, undone by 10:00am, and re-done by 6:00pm. Every day for the past week. Every NeoCon since the day I started working here. I get the work done, but I am so fried that I don’t feel safe driving home, and I certainly can’t face the Infernal Machine once I get there.

Heh. NeoCon.

Going to be interesting seeing the Google fights between the annual interior designers’ convention and the right-wing chickenhawk lickspittles who have sprung up in the past couple of years.

All I really want to do is stay home and read.

Stiiiiilll Rising!

John Winkelman

Today the river rose up past the edge of its east bank in front of the WaterWorks Pub on North Monroe Street. According to weather reports, if we have no more significant rainfall, the river will rise another two feet before cresting on Thursday afternoon. That means all of Monroe Street could be under water. I work on Monroe Street. I may have to borrow my neighbor’s kayak.

…Nor Any Drop to Drink

John Winkelman

Sorry for the lack of updates; I am out of the habit of ‘blogging. When I leave work the last thing I want to do is spend more time looking at a computer; especially now, when the weather has finally turned and the monsoons are coming home to roost.

Last week Grand Rapids had a genuine mud-slide ; the first I have heard of in my fifteen years living here.

Yesterday I took a two-hour walk around Riverside Park, which was mostly under water. I have a couple of pictures up in the River Project section of es.o. They scarcely do it justice.

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The water in places reached from the river to Monroe Street, a distance of over a hundred yards. Where people usually play disc-golf, a blue heron caught fish.

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As I was leaving, a group of river pirates on jet boats invaded the park and snatched several children from the playground equipment.

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Today the river at the 6th Street Bridge dam is so high that surface tension is almost re-asserting itself; a state which would turn the dam into “just another big rock in the river”. At the fish ladder, the water on the sidewalk is knee-deep. Even when the ice let go in March the water wasn’t so high.

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Local experts say that the river could rise as much as three more feet over the next two days, which would put the water well up onto Monroe Street, and do a good job of reminding us that we live in a flood plain.

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You Know What’s Funny?

John Winkelman

Americans fighting over what it means to be patriotic.
Millionaires talking about sacrifice.
Fat people blaming food.
Alcoholics blaming beer.
Dumb people blaming television.
People who vote blaming people who don’t vote.
People who don’t vote blaming people who vote.
People who mistake the Administration for the country.
People who back their beliefs with violence.
People who are willing to kill but not to die.
Christians who blame God.
Buddhists who blame God.
Atheists who blame religion.
Politicians who take credit for anything.
Politicians who consider themselves to be leaders.
Politicians who call other politicians dishonest.
People who believe that The Right exists.
People who believe that The Left exists.
People who put themselves in categories.
People who believe in precedents.
People who believe in presidents.
People who believe presidents.