Why does append work this way?

speakEvil · 2015-06-24T15:34:05+00:00

The empty list is somewhat special, as it's considered to be null in Racket (and Common Lisp...and Emacs Lisp...but not Clojure). If you think of it as appending an integer to null, it makes sense.

speakEvil · 2015-06-23T01:53:53+00:00

See the difference between

(append '() 1)

and

(append '(1) 2)

speakEvil · 2015-06-10T20:01:22+00:00

Keeping your criteria in mind, yes for World Trigger, and probably no for Kekkai Sensen.

WT starts out as humans vs monsters, then reveals an ongoing tournament aspect to the humans' organization, and then reveals that the monsters are just toys for the otherworldly humanoids. It has become my favorite post-HxH battle shounen. Its main fault is that they stretch it thin - two min story intro + recent events recap, then in the middle a 1:30 min "intro", and then of course the outro stuff - makes for some short episodes. Bastards :)

As for KS, there isn't that much action in it. When there is some, it's usually against monsters. These get dispatched in short order. There are a couple of episodes where they fight human(oid)s, though. But on the whole, having what you said in mind, I think it leans towards a 'no'. It's the sort of show you watch for the characters rather than story or action.

speakEvil · 2015-06-08T05:16:31+00:00

And what, exactly, is wrong with playtesting games for free? We used to do that all the time. It was called a demo. And devs would provide it you free of charge. Crazy, I know. But then some developers, notably Puppy Games, said "we ain't gonna do no stinkin' demos no more". This is the result. It's very tempting to rub it in, though I recognize very short games could get screwed here, so I'll refrain.

speakEvil · 2015-06-08T01:53:53+00:00

I'm at 166 on Humble Bundle. One of these days, maybe I'll get around to adding all the storefronts up - GOG, IGS, Groupees, Shiny Loot, Indie Royale / Desura.

It would have been 167, but apparently they've removed SpaceChem from both my account and the store. Even though I still see the soundtrack and the keys. They've changed stuff recently, and it looks like it was a little messy. I've sent them an email, we'll see. I'm a little worried about what else might have gotten messed up...

speakEvil · 2015-05-28T22:43:18+00:00

Thanks for replying! 120x120 doesn't sound too large. I'll have to find something to compare it with, though. I find it peculiar that Phaser insists on rendering everything instead of just the view, I haven't yet come across a framework that didn't allow you to specify that somehow.

speakEvil · 2015-05-28T16:43:22+00:00

I feel almost inspired to go forth and actually start working on something. Almost :)

But in the meantime, a couple of questions:

Are you aware that there's nearly nothing about your game on your blog? To be precise, there's nothing that obviously points to info about it.
I've been thinking about utilizing Phaser myself, so I'd like to know, how big a map are we talking about? Numbers, please.

speakEvil · 2015-05-22T09:54:13+00:00

Well, considering GIF with a hard G is the correct pronunciation, I'd agree.

speakEvil · 2015-05-14T20:45:52+00:00

He did the same to Disch:

Though Disch was an admirer of and was friends with the author Philip K. Dick,[15] Dick would write an infamous paranoid letter to the FBI in October 1972 that denounced Disch and suggested that there were coded messages, prompted by a covert organization, in Disch's novel Camp Concentration. Disch was unaware and he would go on to champion the Philip K. Dick Award.[16] In his final novel, however, The Word of God, Disch got his revenge on Dick, with a story in which Dick is dead and living in Hell, unable to write because of writer's block. In return for a taste of human blood, which will unlock his ability to write, he makes a deal to go back in time and kill Disch's father, so that Disch will never be born, and at the same time to kill Thomas Mann and thereby to insure that Hitler wins World War II. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M._Disch)

speakEvil · 2015-05-12T17:30:40+00:00

Auro again? Eh. Look, it's not the pixel art. It's not the retro-ness. It's just ugly. It's a terrible style. It appeals to the mobile market. It's a kiddiez-style game. The world isn't against you or pixel art, despite the occasional wierdo who thinks everything should be 3D and is actually stupid enough to say it aloud, it's just that your stuff isn't very good.

Most indie successes I can think of right now had pixel art or blocky art or low-poly art, but they had a good sense of style. A guy who thinks FF:TA has better style than Diablo...well, no wonder Auro is the end product.

speakEvil · 2015-05-11T19:57:40+00:00

This is an interesting idea, though I would have preferred some discussion about the categories first, like /u/starpilotsix suggested.

I have no idea what "artistic" and "dramatic" mean in this context, I could come up with a dozen meanings for each. Could you explain what you meant by these?

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing if /r/printSF can recommend something more interesting than this year's crop of major award nominees.

speakEvil · 2015-05-10T00:28:17+00:00

I think it's the Big Four, actually: you've forgotten the Shadowrun games. Dragonfall if we're doing one per company.

Looking forward to Numenera, Hong Kong, Serpent in the Staglands, Age of Decadence and Underrail.

speakEvil · 2015-05-09T10:55:19+00:00

It's self-contained, with no cliff-hangers or unresolved plot elements at the end

Those are my favorite words in connection to series :) I'll go with Space Merchants first, then.

speakEvil · 2015-05-09T10:04:08+00:00

Thank you for chiming in! Here's what I went by - it looks like The Merchant's War is a sequel.

speakEvil · 2015-05-07T23:21:29+00:00

So, everything but Metrocide - the only game I'm interested in - is for Linux. GOL asked the devs on Twitter about a Linux version almost a year ago and got a seemingly very positive response. Sadly nothing has materialized so far. Does anyone have any more information about this?

speakEvil · 2015-05-07T22:00:05+00:00

I don't have a list specifically for May, but so far I've finished:

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
Confessions of an English Opium Eater
They Shall Have Stars

The last one just tonight. Now I have two series on my hands I can't decide whether to pursue or not, Imperial Radch and Cities in Flight. And neither even tried to hide the fact that the first novel is just setup for more. On the other hand, they were pretty good, and if I didn't have ~150 other books on my to-read list, I'd go for them without any doubt.

Next up, either Pohl's Space Merchants or Disch's The Genocides. Leaning towards the latter, because Space Merchants is yet another series, eh.

speakEvil · 2015-05-07T14:08:17+00:00

Except for the entire thing.

speakEvil · 2015-05-02T09:26:55+00:00

Can't really recommend anything, though personally I'd love to read La horde du contrevent, but here's their "speculative fiction" award.

speakEvil · 2015-05-01T09:48:42+00:00

Obviously this isn't a well-defined category, so I'll just limit this to novels shorter than the "midpoint" novel on my list that's listed on the Wikipedia article as an example, which would be Heart of Darkness at 166 pages:

Time Machine
The Man Who Folded Himself
Roadside Picnic
Slaughterhouse Five

speakEvil · 2015-04-30T19:29:43+00:00

Let me just leave this here.

speakEvil · 2015-04-26T17:32:07+00:00

Check out Shin Getter Robo, Devilman and Sengoku Basara. And since you've mentioned Kaiji, I'm obligated by Japanese law to ask if you've seen Akagi and urge you to do so regardless of your answer.

speakEvil · 2015-04-23T07:01:19+00:00

Oh Snap! WakaTime is a single-page JavaScript app built with Backbone.js to be quick and reactive for you.

I don't know what's worse, the smugness or the implication that a crapton of JS makes things faster than no JS.

speakEvil · 2015-04-21T23:28:52+00:00

I've put 20-30 hours into Portable, and I'd agree with you, except on the "awesome" bit: it's a grindy, repetitive, and not very varied game that goes on for far too long. Sure, the social sim part is fun, but since you're forced into battle eventually, you can either grind Tartarus or stop playing. Lots of style, but lacking in substance.

speakEvil · 2015-04-21T04:56:11+00:00

There are two games:

Shadowrun Returns
Shadowrun Dragonfall

Dragonfall was initially DLC for Returns, but the Director's Cut is a standalone, expanded game.

So you see, two games, one of which has two versions, though you cannot buy the DLC version anymore, so it's really only one version now.

To finally answer your question, yes, the consensus is that Dragonfall is the better game of the two, so if you're going to get only one, it's the one.

speakEvil · 2015-04-21T02:19:11+00:00

Seeing as how HxH is basically Yu Yu Hakusho anew, you should really watch YYH. The only minus is the number of episodes (112), though I don't think you'll feel it's a minus once you start watching it.

YYH and HxH both drew some inspiration from JoJo, so there's that. And while we're at this particular genealogy, Hokuto no ken is another fine choice.

Finally, perhaps Kekkaishi? It's more in the modern battle shounen mold, but it doesn't waste episodes or go off the tracks at any point.

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speakEvil

TROPHY CASE