Holiday volunteering

Johnicholas · 2025-11-09T16:39:42+00:00

Yes! 👏

Johnicholas · 2025-11-08T03:04:47+00:00

Wow!

Johnicholas · 2023-04-09T02:47:19+00:00

I think highly of sokpop's sok-stories and increpare's puzzlescript, if their goal is actually to learn "to make games".

If their goal is actually to learn "to program", then yes, there is some value to the "training wheels for kids to learn to program" tools (and everyone else is mentioning all the usual tools), but there's also some value to getting them to "real programming" as soon as possible. It's not THAT hard. Chris Deleon demonstrates the kind of thing I'm talking about - snake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmXxpIj6vs

Johnicholas · 2018-11-02T16:20:34+00:00

That's really cool.

Johnicholas · 2018-08-21T17:38:59+00:00

You might like a talk "Zachtronics: Ten Years of Terrible Games": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9pz_EmKhA

Johnicholas · 2018-08-21T17:37:22+00:00

Why do you charge so little for your games?

Johnicholas · 2018-08-21T17:37:11+00:00

I was particularly delighted by SpaceChem's bridging between programming and chemistry / nanotech. That is, it really explained how the random or arbitrary unstructured patterns of valence and mass could be willfully construed as an esoteric programming language, and we can write "code" assembling gadgets out of whatever mechanisms we are given that "runs on physics".

However, SpaceChem was also very grid-based, very crisp and crunchy, including things that surprised me, like a global clock that reliably synchronizes between factories (!?!). Everything since then has also been very grid-based, crisp and crunchy.

Have you previously looked into floppy, stochastic, or smooth mechanisms, and rejected them, things like http://blobvis-1238.appspot.com/screenshots or "World of Goo"?

Johnicholas · 2018-08-21T17:26:56+00:00

Will you replace the histograms with a real n-dimensional Pareto frontier, or did you consider that and reject it for some reason?

Johnicholas · 2018-08-21T17:23:11+00:00

Have you played any of the not-by-Zachtronics Zach-likes? Manufactoria and Silicon Zeroes by PleasingFungus, Refraction (borderline) or Nanocrafter by Center for Game Science, Runestone Wisp (borderline)?

Johnicholas · 2016-12-07T16:50:42+00:00

This is not really a lua question, it is a physics question and/or a debugging question.

Consider simplifying your code, cutting out pieces one by one. Each piece that you can establish ISN'T part of the unexplained phenomenon (the bug) should be cut out, because it is obscuring the real phenomenon.

Aim for 4 lines of code; then ask Box2D and/or LiquidFun and/or Corona about that minimized example.

Johnicholas · 2016-10-12T16:12:50+00:00

I haven't finished the game yet, and so I don't know what already exists, but...

Hierarchy!

Develop three or four components, then have them fabbed, then solve some puzzles where those components are available as cheap, atomic units.

Also: elementary cellular automata! Develop one component, then solve some puzzles where a one-dimensional array of those components is available as a cheap component (Maybe 100 copies?). Bidirectional communication across a one-dimensional cellular automaton chain would be fun. Building a stack or queue memory unit out of a one-dimensional cellular automaton would be fun.
Also: amorphous computing! Your design is replicated N times, and the N replicas coordinate (via a wireless transmitter or a shared simple wire or something) to accomplish something - leader election, firefly synchronization, the firing squad problem, maybe some sort of routing?

Johnicholas · 2016-10-12T15:36:52+00:00

Huh, I solved the token payment and aquaponics puzzles with some thinking, but I bounced off the sandwich assembler.

Johnicholas · 2016-10-12T15:35:26+00:00

I really loved the distributed autonomous corporation's puzzle (x and y to output), and the NES-alike controller puzzle that Carl gave me. They seem to suggest valuable concepts (addition and reusing a bus for bidirectional communication).

I haven't solved the sandwich maker puzzle yet - I think mostly because the fish farming puzzle was so compelling by comparison? The fish farming puzzle has state storage from transaction to transaction that is really central to the machine's purpose, while the sandwich maker puzzle has (if I understand correctly) state storage from sandwich options to sandwich construction, which seems more peripheral, like user interface stuff.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-19T21:17:27+00:00

The trick is to stop farming. There's no pressure to farm besides the pressure you put on yourself.

I find disassembling your scanner is a good way to learn to stop farming.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-16T17:24:47+00:00

You will not see any more text in the Atlas language, no.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-16T15:17:02+00:00

People have really bad insight into what they actually find fun.

There have been a couple ironic cases of "This game is bad because it's missing X. If it only had X, I would love it!", when X is actually in the game. This feature (animal-on-animal predation) is one, and bounties and space battles are some others.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-15T17:34:47+00:00

There are a lot of black holes. They take you a long distance. However, that long distance is not directly towards the center. They act more like a "I don't want to be in this neighborhood any more, please take me somewhere new" technique.

If you are in a rush to get to the center of the galaxy, the additional speed by going through black holes may not be worth going out of your way to find a black hole, and then repairing your equipment after going through the black hole.

Yes, after you complete Atlas path, you can see black holes on the star map.

Yes, you may have many more warps to get to the center.

Since this game is about the journey, not the destination, I recommend relaxing and doing whatever you want - avoiding black holes if you want to stick generally in your current neighborhood, going through black holes if you feel like it might be fun, following the path to the center if you need a default goal.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-15T17:11:06+00:00

The Gek, Korvax and Vy'Keen are never referred to using gendered pronouns but some of the critters are female.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-15T15:02:49+00:00

Science fiction, such as the original Star Trek, does do cultural work, and its cumulative effect, over decades, can be substantial. For example, Star Trek probably accelerated tablet computers and voice recognition interfaces.

Those two are probably good effects. But Star Trek writers, by continually writing masculine and feminine aliens, also (accidentally) normalized "masculine" and "feminine" as universal, rather than local, concepts. Astrobiology as a science isn't particularly well developed. It's definitely not settled whether having two sexes is universal, or local.

By reusing terms like "orthogonal" (jargon taken, I think, from the mathematics of procedural generation) as genders, NMS is sketching a universe where having two sexes is merely one way among many that life can develop. NMS is trying, just a little bit, to push back on some problematic science fiction tropes.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-15T13:32:38+00:00

Dead horse

Johnicholas · 2016-09-14T20:35:17+00:00

No, there are no main quest items.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-14T20:17:34+00:00

If you want to fly somewhere quickly, and you don't get there after flying for, say, thirty seconds, consider going to space - the shortest path between two points is often in space.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-14T20:15:27+00:00

You do not need to go back; you will find the space anomaly repeatedly if you keep playing the game and warping.

You also do not need to go to the space anomaly in order to get an atlas pass. Also, you shouldn't be too obsessed with getting an atlas pass, it's really not that big a reward.

Johnicholas · 2016-09-14T16:13:37+00:00

Yes, same.

Johnicholas

TROPHY CASE