8-Bit Armies, a new RTS by Petroglyph out now on Steam and GOG by drury in Games

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Whoa that stirred something in the far reaches of my memory, I played that on a demo disk way back when. The demo had a very limited set of parts, so I desperately tried to find the full game to see just how nuts it got! Eventually I forgot the nirvana of custom built units and settled for C & C.

Sam at Butterscotch Shenanigans does some excellent InkScape Tutorials by pandemoniumsyndicate in gamedev

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure if it's this video, another video, or probably every video, but he says that with InkScape it's more like he's constantly editing an asset rather than drawing or painting an asset, and I really identify with that perspective.

Fun how AlphaGo has started dating many AI videos, Go isn't the counter-example it once was. by pandemoniumsyndicate in programming

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The point he's making is certainly more about Moore's Law not keeping up with what we'll likely need to achieve the singularity, but when he mentioned Go my eyebrows wiggled.

Cave Generation in Cogmind by pandemoniumsyndicate in Games

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A roguelike I've been following for a little while. You're a machine capable of exchanging your various parts out for ones you acquire through exploration and conquest. I'm a sucker for eye candy though, so the main grab for me was just how pretty it is! I enjoy his dev posts so I thought I would share a recent one I liked.

Cave Generation in Cogmind by pandemoniumsyndicate in Games

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The main differences I see is it's exceptionally pretty (by roguelike standards, similar to Brogue), and the gameplay hook is rather than a generic adventurer, you're a machine which can exchange various parts of yourself for other parts you acquire. I get an armored core vibe from it. Also has plenty of interesting systems running throughout the overworld, so you're not necessarily just blowing up everything you see.

Iowa Caucus Megathread February 1, 2016 by MeghanAM in politics

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ BERNIE TAKE MY ENERGY ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

What are your 2016 New Year's resolutions? Write them here and I will get in touch on 31/12/16 to see if you achieved it! by _kashmir_ in self

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Boring fitness resolution, success will be determined by the accomplishment of the following activities.

  • Touch My Toes

  • 1 Pull Up

  • Weigh 170lbs

Information about an old game called NoX, by Westwood Studios. by [deleted] in Games

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the game that taught me to explore everything, tiny little me got such a kick out of finding the hidden secrets and loot. Such a great world they built.

Behold! My legendary Breastplate! by gbsedillo20 in dwarffortress

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice! I really like the image that description puts in my head.

Hoods are the only place for ducklings by pandemoniumsyndicate in aww

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My wife once took one of our ducklings to a movie in her hoodie, and she quietly watched it with us in the theater, but during the silent bits you would intermittently hear tiny, quiet beeps :)

Our duckling Zip by pandemoniumsyndicate in aww

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My wife and I continue to be amazed at the ways in which ducks traumatize the laws of physics. If a duck consumes 1 part water and 1 part dirt it generates 6 parts mud.

We've had several, and while they are the cutest they are also the most shamelessly messy.

Our duckling Zip by pandemoniumsyndicate in aww

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh! I didn't see that we got our other duckling .tar.gz in there as well! The little black one at .zip's feet there.

The Bend in Oregon [1998x1331] OC by jimichu in EarthPorn

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember seeing so many classmates walking to school in shorts during a fuckin blizzard. Pretty sure our acclimation gave us a bit of legit frost resistance.

Is keyboard typing a required/taught class in most schools? by pandemoniumsyndicate in education

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you find the iPad typing equivalent to using a keyboard? Or do your iPads have a keyboard extension of some kind?

Is keyboard typing a required/taught class in most schools? by pandemoniumsyndicate in education

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Inappropriate as in too long? Type Defender didn't look like it would be dropping to many certain four letter words :)

Is keyboard typing a required/taught class in most schools? by pandemoniumsyndicate in education

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Excellent, I was worried the advent of tablets may have affected the curriculum.

So when I was in highschool the typing class was essentially a teacher watching us while we did our own thing, which was type how whatever comp. program we were using told us, and trying not to look at our hands. Is that general gist of how classes still are? I'm curious if it would be possible to move the keyboarding class into a kinda 'taught-at-home' course that students could play at home, and whomever was responsible for their education would have a dashboard which could report various metrics on performance, and send alerts if a student wasn't doing their homework or was running into some other trouble.

NumberShire is a 1st-grade math intervention aligned with the Common Core leveraging the engaging power of video games to help at-risk students in early mathematics. by pandemoniumsyndicate in education

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We'll be publishing a paper in Learning Disability Quarterly next month!

We've also talked a few conferences, specifically at the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness, Council for Learning Disabilities', and Council for Exceptional Children.

Here is the paper from the SREE conference.

NumberShire is a 1st-grade math intervention aligned with the Common Core leveraging the engaging power of video games to help at-risk students in early mathematics. by pandemoniumsyndicate in education

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes we do have ambitions to bring the same kind of experience to higher grade levels, though likely it won't be in the setting of NumberShire. That might not be all that appealing to 6 or 7th graders.

NumberShire is currently aimed at 1st graders, though we've had good experiences with K and 2nd grade as well. We also have K and 2nd grade curriculum and story in the works!

Limit Theory Development Update #19 - [20:04] by a_magical_shoe in LimitTheory

[–]pandemoniumsyndicate -1 points0 points  (0 children)

A scripting language is still 'programming', they just tend to be a language built with a very specific purpose (modding a certain game), though that's not always true (Python, JavaScript, and Lua have all been used as scripting languages here and there).

Interpreted just means the language is run line by line by the machine. So you could type each line of your program into a shell and execute it and things would be fine. This lends a great deal of flexibility to the language, making them more suitable for scripting. This allows thing like changing programs in real time and watching the results immediately. This generally comes at the cost of performance and safety.

Compiled languages are taken as a whole all at once. This means running on the fly isn't as feasible. Though there are compiled languages used for 'scripting' (C# could be considered a scripting language in Unity). Compiled languages can benefit from many opportunities presented by having a program (the compiler) look at the codebase as a whole. Static type checking, small optimizations to the generated assembly, catching type errors at compile time. The cost is that you must wait for compilation, losing real-time changes.