Poems and Prose #23: Torpor

The languid leaves lie still,
the evening wind now gone,
lit from beneath by some warm glow
that leaks from soil aged and worn.

Their veins stiff and dry,
the browning tree lefts sleep,
fecund in their will to rot
and make the dirt more deep.

Poems and Prose #22: Slope

Hoarsely, he whispers,
another day disposed,
thinking that these words
mean so much more than those.
He musters a sigh
and toys with his pipe,
fondly recalling
exhaled smoke and spent life.

The room's curtains billow
and light dots his face,
speckling his wrinkles
like a poorly washed glass plate.
Still, in these moments,
he finds some respite,
for he sees dusk approaching
and he's grown fond of night.

Poems and Prose #21: Origin

There but for
the grace of God we go,
and there but for
our God-designed minds
goes the creator's
malleable presence.

Melancholy Merriment

It's that time of year again: the time when Jack Frost begins nibbling at noses, families gather around trees ornamented with multicolored bits and bobs, and time-worn holiday tunes play from any device capable of emitting sound waves.

And, of course, according to prevailing wisdom, it's the time of the year when a large number of people decide to snuff out their own lives (though, apparently, according to the CDC, this is a myth).

"The Santa hat, it does nothing..."

As I've grown older, I've noticed myself becoming more somber around this time of year, although I do prefer the chillier months on the calendar. Recently, I've been pondering the reasons why that is, and I've managed to boil my December malaise down to a couple of points.

First, like a lot of people, I don't have fond memories of my childhood. That's not to say that there aren't a few good experiences to be dug up from that period. I cherish the times that I and my brothers spent growing up, playing video games together, learning how to program computers, and enjoying the late '80s and early '90s pop culture, among other things.

Overall, though, it was an unpleasant life I lived, both at home and at school. My mother's mental problems would cause her to scream at people that weren't there for hours on end, day and night. Then, when I got to school, I had extreme anxiety, coupled with severe paranoia, that made it extremely difficult for me to socialize or form any kind of friendships whatsoever. I often had trouble even speaking at all to my fellow classmates and teachers, which led me to be labeled as the mythical "quiet one," a label that's stuck with me well into adulthood.

Considering that I had basically detached my mind from reality (as a defense mechanism, perhaps), this behavior isn't really surprising, but it did lead me into some bad habits that I've still yet to rid myself of completely. I continue to work on these problems, but it's becoming more and more apparent as the years wear on that I will probably never be able to fully integrate myself into the social fabric, for better or worse. I've accepted this, but it's a hard pill to swallow sometimes.

Now, all this isn't to say that I blame my parents for any of these difficulties. I'm aware that my parents are human beings and have faults just like any other human. The whole scenario was shitty, and I'm not really sure if there was a better way for it to have been handled. These background details are meant merely to underpin my reasoning for the purposes of this article.

Seeing as how a huge part of the holiday season is meeting with your family and spending time together, waxing nostalgic, it's no wonder that I'd feel at least somewhat sour around this time. Thinking about these past family events seems only to bring up unpleasant memories that I'd rather cover in dirt and bury in the backyard of my mind. These aren't things I want to laud and get misty-eyed over as I raise a glass to toast.

Secondly, in America, Christmas is all about purchasing things. Of course, lots of people will say that's not true, that the holidays are all about love and kindness and giving (and insert feel-good concept here). But that's really just a cover (a wrapping paper, perhaps), as far as I can see. Christmas as it stands now is about buying gifts, period. Watch television and you'll see commercial after commercial reminding you that you only have X number of days remaining to purchase things for your loved ones - the more expensive these gifts are, the better. Don't have money and can't afford to buy gifts? Well, then, you're just a Scrooge and/or you lack the stern moral fiber to be considered part of society.

This second point is something that's resonated with me more recently, as I've found myself in financial pain time and time again. It's obvious that our society's foundation is capital and the movement thereof. Thus, if you don't have a lot of it and you don't spend a lot of it, you basically don't exist. You have no voice, you have no political power, and society as a whole, frankly, would be better off without you clinging to its gleaming frame. To put it bluntly: being poor sucks, but being poor during Christmastime really sucks.

This long-winded diatribe wasn't meant to show that I've got some keen insight into something no one else has seen, but merely to describe some feelings I've found welling up within my mind in the recent past.

Here's to a merrier January.

Poems and Prose #20: Currency

Dollars crinkled,
  crumpled, wet,
I pick the lint off
  and pay my debt.

And now, my pockets
  loose and free,
I leap from the ledge,
  to flutter, to flee.

Poems and Prose #19: Algorithm

Robotic murmurs,
reverberating,
incoherent,
dissonant.

They portend the future
while sullying the past,
but organic ears
hear just
the exaltations.

Who will program
the next phrases?
Will it be me,
or my neighbor,
or some self-assembled
string of code
that draws on
a library of
hundreds of years
of data
to make an
instantaneous decision?

The room's now silent
but for the
computer's droning hum,
and my reflection
in the window
looks distant and gaunt.

Poems and Prose #18: Pinpoint

The tunnel's end
looms large,
mysteriously forboding
in concurrence
with its majesty.
I stumble,
smashing my chin
on the cobblestone,
laughing through
a trembling grin.

Poems and Prose #17: Nebulous

Blissed-out,
memories diffuse,
like dandelion feathers,
following gently
the contours
of the hazy air.

Smirks relax to grins
as gravity decreases,
the hardened truths
we've run away from
transforming into
shapeless shadows,
cloaked by halos
thrown by stars
that might have
died long ago.

Resolve recedes,
and we float across
the shallow stream,
looking not ahead
but at our
moonlit reflections,
feeling just okay.

Poems and Prose #16: Cog

Tick-tick-tick.

Thick spit
sheathes my lips,
while my gritted teeth
stymie all attempts at wit.

The gears cl-click,
turning slowly
'cause they're bent.
And no matter, no,
how hard they're hit,
I just can't seem
to smooth the dents.

Tick-tick-tick...

Poems and Prose #15: Rung

Concentric musings fill the spiral,
Each outline further apart from the last.
My eyeball proves itself a finite lens,
And I only see fragments at a time.

What fills that space, that empty void,
Lying beyond that last circle's boundary,
Yet infiltrated by the spiral's ever-spanning arm?
One can't see that off which no light reflects.

Food Boy Meets Kid Bean

My brother Terry has been writing some ebooks recently that chronicle the misadventures of a character named Kid Bean. He is, as the name implies, a bean, who has superpowers. I awoke this morning with a vision. This hazy, sleep-addled vision involved the T³ Interactive character Food Boy marauding through Kid Bean's town of Cornucopia and wreaking havoc. Below is the image that this brief half-hour or so of delirium inspired.

"This is my kinda town..."

Poems and Prose #14: Usury

Sign this document,
and all your worries
will vanish like
late-morning dew,
fuel for the evening fog
that's yet to descend.

The (Possibly) Great Comet of 2013

I read this article recently regarding a newly discovered comet that should be passing within spitting distance of Earth in November of 2013. Its magnitude is predicted to possibly reach a value of around -16, which means it would be approximately five times as bright as the full moon.

I don't really have much to add here, other than to say that I've always enjoyed looking up at the stars and mulling on the vastness of the universe, humankind's ultimate irrelevance, etc., etc. Plus, comets just look really, really cool.

Comet Lulin, showing off a sleek green coma in 2009

Poems and Prose #13: Fortune

It seems fortuitous
that we should
be here now,
standing abreast
on the lip of this abyss.

A cold gust
jostles our garments
as we peer across,
seeking an opposing edge
that never resolves.

Our shoulders slowly
fall and rise,
realization nestling itself
inside the silence.

Hallucinations bubble
in the pitch-black crevasse,
familiar faces
merely apparitions
without mass or density,
mouthing the lyrics
to a thousand simultaneous,
long-forgotten songs.

Our eyelids clench
and they vanish,
then reemerge,
their negative images
easily seeping through.

Poems and Prose #12: Orthogonal

Randomly meandering,
standing here,
blathering,
like mumbled Mandarin
in a blender,
stammering,
hardly mattering,
this serenade of
candid dreams
perpendicular
to unsought things.

Poems and Prose #11: Null

To be,
or not to be?
To question,
to be free?
To know of love
and glee,
and hate
and enmity?
Or to see
simplicity only,
mind relieved
of any thing?

Poems and Prose #10: Vapor

Dementia looms,
intimate acquaintances
now eerie strangers.
The fog encroaches,
dissolving the terrain,
and turning distant landmarks
into vague, shadowy blobs.

The air is chilled,
and my exhalations mingle
with the enclosing mist.
"I remember now!"
I whisper hoarsely,
then moments later
forgetting my recollection.

I rub my bare forearms
and pace along
an ever-shrinking circle.
My teeth chatter,
and here I kneel,
then crumple,
hugging the ground
as it vanishes.

Poems and Prose #9: The Ruse

What am I to do,
in lieu of feeling blue,
and much too studious
to eschew the news
and rue the things
that I consume?

"What am I to do?"
I muse,
refusing to disabuse
a fuse-less loon
of mental ruses,
claiming certain doom.

Poems and Prose #8: Lucidity

Contiguous curls billow,
like far-off wisps
of divine hair strands,
filling the sky,
shifting its hue
from light blue
to cerulean
to dark blue
and darker-still blue.

I pat my head to find the pillow,
for this must surely
be a dreamscape,
and surely some
brisk escape...

Poems and Prose #7: Bloodshot

The muted trumpets
back an undiluted song,
suited for a balmy night,
rooted in a sorry sight.

The sun's asleep,
but it'll be back.
I sigh, acknowleding
the cyclical summertime malaise.

Alone in the dark,
daylight's tendrils tantalize.
But experience has taught me
not to trust dull, tired eyes.

Rest is welcome,
but dreams now are
more repetition than respite.
Maybe tomorrow will be brighter.

Poems and Prose #6: Dutiful

Duty, you say?
To whom?
To what?
And on which day?

I'd scoff,
but my grimace
is too stiff
to be changed,

And I won't
let my
walking-in-place
be delayed.

2012 Presidential Bumper Stickers

I put together a couple of logos for each of the major party 2012 presidential tickets. They're not in the standard 4:1 ratio for bumper stickers, but I guess they could be used in such a manner. Disclaimer: this is neither an endorsement nor a rebuke of either party or their candidates.

Forward, to that low hum in the distance...

Remain perfectly still...

Poems and Prose #5: Spun

Amphetamized,
  I surmise,
a wrinkled face
  is a fine disguise.
While randomized,
  my snideness shines,
lobotomized,
  but hey, it rhymes.

Standardized,
  my eyes un-line,
a hint that time
  might need more time.
Aggrandized,
  these words climb,
depravity
  now seeming fine.

Poems and Prose #4: Off

The starter's pistol
  shot,
I roll myself
  off the cot,
Quickly melting dreams
  reminding me
of the time
  I haven't got.

I spy a lonely,
  unkempt spot
on the rug,
  and there I trot.
A concluding string
  of actions
given to me,
  that I'd not bought.

Poems and Prose #3: The Guillotine

The guillotine creaks,
Its sides splintered, damp, and knotted.
No business this morning,
The basket beneath is clean and kempt.
The street is bare.
No angry shouts or darkened revelry.

A hollow monolith,
The structure sways, barely, as breezes pass.
Dark red speckles
Form a grim ellipse, there, on the pavement.
Tomorrow will be better:
More work to do,
Sentences to punctuate.

For today, just rest.
There will always be more days to see.

Poems and Prose #2: Heads Talking

With sanctimony,
  those with flapping lips
  tersely hiss,
Abbreviating their
  commentaries with crumpled,
  deadened wit.
Though disdain
  is my reaction to these
  malefactors' tics,
I'd be lying if
  I said we differed, altogether,
  more than bits,
And I'd laugh,
  same as them,
  if they fell to bruising licks.

Poems and Prose #1: End Times

Rapture prophecies
fill the street corners,
leather-faced men crowing,
smoke-chiseled voices
full of false age
and dubious wisdom.

If they disappear,
we'll all be fools.
But when they don't,
we'll be idiots.
I'd say it's a lose-lose,
but that's a given.

Pass the popcorn.

Hijacking America

Yeah, I suppose the title is a little incendiary. Oh well. It has a nice ring to it, anyway.

I'm not normally one to get engaged with politics. Being an extremely detached person, I never really paid it much mind for most of my life. Yeah, I vaguely remember President Ronald Reagan, and seeing something about the Berlin Wall coming down on the nightly news, then later having my social-studies teacher tell us about the fall of the Soviet Union. I have hazy recollections about a shrill Texan named Ross Perot and the three-way presidential campaign. In high school, I laughed with everyone else about Bill Clinton's wandering hands. I lived my childhood about three levels deep inside of my own head, and all these reality-based stories didn't particularly pique my interest too much.

As far as my own opinions about political matters as an adult, I've basically always just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Fuck it. Whatever, man," possibly while under the influence of some illicit substance or other.

President Bush's tenure obviously had a significant impact on me, of course. I'm not someone who believes Bush is an Evil Man or that he's a blithering imbecile. My main criticism of President Bush would be of how utterly fucking horribly he fumbled the ball when it came to his response to the September 11th attacks in 2001. I distinctly recall the attacks occurring while I was a sophomore in college. (I also remember my roommate from Belize telling me repeatedly that there were people in Palestine cheering in the streets, trying to goad an angry reaction out of me, I presume. He seemed to have trouble believing my reaction of basically shrugging and laughing it off.)

Remember that three to four-month period right after the attacks when people all across the country were purchasing miniature American flags and proudly attaching them to their cars? The hum of national unity was in the air, and this occurred less than a year after the polarizing 2000 election fiasco.

We're all in this together, for better or worse

President Bush had an opportunity to provide a positive vision for this country's future and help drive the nation toward it. His approval rating was around 85%. 85 fucking percent! Americans were ready to hear some big ideas. We needed leadership. Unfortunately for us, George W. Bush was our leader when we most needed capable leadership.

To put it metaphorically, imagine a scene where the entire population of America is standing in a huge, grassy field, and in the distance you can see the billowing clouds of smoke from some tragic catastrophe. It's just before dawn, and the scent of dewy grass fills the air. In the center of this huge throng is George W. Bush, holding a megaphone. Everyone is looking at this man. People are craning their necks over the rows of people in front of them to catch a glimpse of him and hear what he has to say about what we should do.

Bush clicks the megaphone on and says, in a gruff, serious voice, "My fellow Americans, follow me," and begins walking.

Everyone can see the sun beginning to peek over the hill in the distance, yet this man is walking toward the sunken entrance to a cave. As we approach the cave, screams and cries can be heard. Explosions and gunfire and the sound of blades tearing flesh echo through the cave as we get closer. There is a standing pool of blood that's slowly oozing beyond the cave's opening.

"Let's go," Bush declares, his eyes never losing their stern stare.

He steps to the side and begins leading people inside the cave. There are some murmurs at the back of the crowd, some looking over at the sunrise over the hill and shaking their heads, as the mass of people gets siphoned into the dark cavern.

One thing I won't do here is make Bush into some buck-toothed, gun-waving caricature who simultaneously can't tie his own shoes and is masterminding some 12-dimensional conspiracy involving oil companies and war-machine manufacturers and Middle East investors. He was a man -- a man who made extremely shortsighted mistakes that could possibly have been the straw that broke the camel's back as far as America's superpower status goes. He was put in a historic spot where he could have shaped the future of America in profound and positive ways. Instead, he chose the "You're either with me or against me" and "Yeah, two simultaneous land wars is in the United States' interest" route.

What a wasted opportunity.

In the United States, the executive branch doesn't have a tremendous amount of power, other than the bully pulpit. Bush had a bully pulpit the size of an aircraft carrier, and he chose to use it unwisely, possibly even disastrously.

As a born not-leader (and a coward and so on), I appreciate and respect good leadership, even if I don't always follow it. If only that leadership had been available during that critical time, perhaps my country's future wouldn't be looking more and more like a perilous place.

T³ Chronicles #1: WordLeap Pseudo-Postmortem

Part 1 - Introduction

This is a postmortem analysis of T³ Interactive's word-building game, WordLeap. I've seen various postmortems done for other games around the Internet, and so I was provoked to try to do a similar behind-the-scenes look at the development of our latest game. As of right now, this is focused primarily on the inspirations and graphical design decisions made for the game, since that's the part I've been involved in. Later on, I might see if I can get Todd to add some commentary about the coding side of things, to make for a more comprehensive look at the game's evolution.

Part 2 - Pre-WordLeap

There have been a lot of different video games based around forming words with lettered tiles, from the various iterations of Scrabble, to PopCap's Bookworm, to our own Alphabet Soup.

Bookworm, a well-done word game

I played Bookworm quite a bit in the 2006 time period. It's a fun word game where your primary objective is to form words by chaining together adjacent letter tiles. The longer your word and the more obscure it is, the better your score. It's pretty straightforward and doesn't really ask that much of you, except that you look at the board of tiles and try to form the best words you can.

There are some power-ups that pop up occasionally, but they're only bonus tiles that increase the point value of your current word. Eventually, red "fire" tiles will begin to appear at the top of the board to give you a kick in the pants and compel you to keep making words. These red tiles will eat away the tile beneath them as they slowly make their way to the bottom of the screen. If you don't clear them off and they hit the bottom, then it's game over.

Part 3 - Proto-WordLeap

A little while later, I believe around 2007, I was considering working on a new project. At the time, I was doing some Java games here and there, but none that I ever completely finished (with the exception of Dot to Dot). I wanted to do something that would be somewhat casual while also mildly intellectually stimulating. This made me start to think of perhaps doing a puzzle or word game, or maybe even something based on a board game.

A Battleship clone...

Round and Round, a puzzler

Finally, one day, while ingesting a highly caffeinated beverage and experiencing extreme existential angst, I remembered how much fun I had playing Bookworm (in fact, I later purchased the Nintendo DS version after playing the PC game for quite a while), and it compelled me to start thinking of creating a word game in a similar vein but with more of an action-game aesthetic. Thus, Vocabuleaper was born.

Part 3a - Vocabuleaper

Title screen for Vocabuleaper

Vocabuleaper would be akin to Bookworm, but it would have some key differences. First of all, the board would be larger. I decided on a 10x10 board, as compared to Bookworm's 7/8/7/8/7/8/7 board. This would give more tiles to play with (100 in Vocabuleaper versus Bookworm's 52), which would, I believed, result in the chance to create more and longer words.

Also, Vocabuleaper would be different in that you couldn't just start a word anywhere you wanted. You would be forced to create words based on where the on-screen character is currently standing. There would be a highlighted radius of a set number of tiles that indicates which letters can be leaped to. I ended up making this leapable radius 2, resulting in a 5x5 square of letters available to the player at any given time.

The player has a 5x5 area of tiles from which to form words

There were power-up tiles that would emerge occasionally, such as one that temporarily gives the player full access to every tile on the board and 2x and 3x tiles that multiply the point value of the current word. These power-up tiles would only emerge if the player accomplished certain word goals: five 5-letter words in a row gives a 2x tile, and three 7-letter words in a row gives a 3x tile, while the leap-anywhere tile appears only when the player's total word count exceeds a certain number.

Green indicates a 5-letter word, red a 7-letter word

Being kind of a word nerd, I wanted to make the game very word-heavy. I wanted to have a running tally of the player's accrued words visible on the HUD, as well as some lists of "best words" and "longest words" to give the player a sense of accomplishment as they play and something to shoot for. This word-heaviness is probably apparent in the above screenshots.

One of the things I liked about this original HUD design was the green and red highlights that indicated which words were 5 letters long and which were 7 letters. This also allowed me to indicate power-up tiles without actually having to make it say "2x" and "3x" on the board, but by having these tiles be the color related to that word length. I did this because I didn't want to obscure any of the letters; the only empty tiles would be the ones that the player has recently grabbed.

Additionally, in Vocabuleaper, you are standing on an empty tile, and when you leap to another word tile, the spot you leaped from remains empty for a certain amount of time (maybe 5 seconds or so). Leaping on a letter tile appends that letter to the end of the current word, and by leaping to an empty tile, you drop your current letter back onto the board. I was never totally sure if having the empty tiles be repopulated with random letters was the best way to do it, since it could cause consternation from the randomness, and also because it makes it nearly impossible to dump unwanted letters off into empty tiles. In WordLeap, the tiles remain empty indefinitely.

Trapped by random letters. My kingdom for a blank tile and a U!

Part 3b - Vocabuleaper Continues

The goal of the game would be to fill the power bar below the board by completing words, which would bring you to the next level. There is a timer bar to the left of the board that constantly counts down, putting some pressure on the player to hurry up and come up with a word.

Under pressure...

Additionally, I wanted the aesthetics of the game to be fairly basic and uniform. Everything in the game would be based on tiles. This would allow me to use Java graphics primitives to handle all the graphical aspects of the game, with the exception of the player's avatar.

Even the menus are based on the letter tiles

One cool thing that I came up with for the game (well, I thought it was cool anyway) was the idea of having a "glimmer" effect that would go across the tiles of the board and the menus when certain things occurred. For instance, after completing a word successfully, a glimmering square will be expelled outward from the player's tile across the board, an eye-pleasing effect. When highlighting a menu item, a glimmer goes across the word tiles to accentuate that the menu item has just been hovered over.

Flashy

The game development went pretty swiftly at first. Then, as I added more features in (such as player profiles, menus, etc.), I got to where I would either have to hunker down and get serious or just put the game aside for some possible future date. Also, since the code was written in Java, this would seem to stifle portability concerns, but there is always the issue of whether the person who downloads the JAR file or runs the applet in their browser has the latest Java runtime and/or plug-in, which is never a sure thing. Bearing in mind these concerns, coupled with me being the lazy programmer that I am, I decided to shelve the idea and let it sit on the back burner, which now held a pile whose contents were growing taller and taller.

Part 4 - WordLeap Emerges

Sometime in 2011, Todd emailed me to ask if I'd like to collaborate with him on an updated version of Vocabuleaper. Seeing as the original game was a game I found to be fun and interesting, I said I'd help him in any way I can. He would be handling the coding aspect (using his slick T3F framework), and I would be focusing on the graphical and design ends.

The title screen, similar to the original but enhanced

The game mechanics aren't changed substantially from Vocabuleaper. It's still the same player avatar, and the boards are still 10x10, and the leapable area remains a 5x5 square.

10x10 board and 5x5 leapable area

I'm going to eschew talking about the gameplay and other nitty-gritty stuff about WordLeap and instead discuss the graphical and story elements to which I contributed.

Yes, WordLeap actually has a storyline. Now, it's not a complicated storyline, but it's enough of a story to compel the player to keep playing. When Todd asked me to think of a story for WordLeap, various considerations sprung to mind. First, it had to be something that would tie the game together under a cohesive idea. Secondly, it would have to drive the player to complete the game. And third, it would allow for abstract backgrounds similar in visual concept to puzzlers like Lumines or (to some extent) Meteos and Galaxy Wars. This last point would allow for simple yet appealing backgrounds that would scroll by in the distance while appearing somewhat randomized.

With this in mind, I thought the theme of WordLeap should be "seeking enlightenment." The game itself would be set within the mind of the WordLeap character. (Todd and I refer to him as "WordLeap guy" and so I will from here on.) Each word he completes puts him closer to reaching the next stage on the path to enlightenment. By achieving enlightenment, WordLeap guy will be in tune with the entire universe of words and will have total mastery over the domain of vocabulary. Each stage would represent a different step on this journey, from the first stage, "Sojourn," set before a set of rolling green hills; to other stages, like "Conflagration," which represents the destruction of the physical and philosophical with a grim backdrop of ruins that scroll past a fiery sky; to the final stage, "Enlightenment."

Stage 1: "Sojourn" (apologies for the tearing)

After watching some videos on YouTube showcasing various zooms into the Mandelbrot set (check this one out for a taste of the mind-bending-ness), I thought it would be cool to use some sort of fractal generation to create random backgrounds for the game. So, on the first stage, the hills in the background would smooth curves that were randomly generated, and the trees in a later stage would be fractal trees, etc.

Instead of going with this harebrained and possibly CPU-intensive idea, Todd came up with a clever way to make these random scrolling backgrounds with whatever shapes we wanted to throw in there. This allowed me to make some slick-looking backgrounds that fit in nicely with the themes of each stage, all while seamlessly scrolling. All I had to do was fire up my graphics editor of choice (Inkscape) and make some images and an accompanying text file that described the dimensions of each background slice.

The background segments for level 1

Editing levels.ini

As seen in the preceding images, the background shapes aren't colorized. The color tints for each stage are specified in a plain text file (levels.ini), along with rotation speed and the center point of rotation if needed.

As you can also see, each background slice meets up at the same Y-value on either end. This ensures that the backgrounds will all flow continuously, even between stages. When a level is completed, there is no transition screen of any kind. The backdrop continues to scroll along, with only the background tint changing. I really like this method of handling it, as it kind of goes along with the "continuous journey" aspect of the story and how WordLeap guy will stop at nothing to achieve enlightenment.

Part 4a - WordLeap Cinematics

Another awesome thing Todd developed while working on this game was the cinema system. By using some .PNGs and writing some simple scripts, one can craft some really smooth-looking cinema sequences using this. I did the storyboard graphics for the cinemas, and Todd wrote the scripts to handle all the motion, dialog balloons, timing, etc. I think it really gives the game a nice, cartoon-y vibe that melds with the distinctive appearance of the in-game stuff.

The opening sequence, approaching the Guru's house

I won't go too much more into the cinemas here, since it really does look a lot nicer when you see it during the game.


Part 5 - WordLeap Finalized

Since the game isn't finished finished, I'll leave this sparse for now. I plan on covering the different game modes, power-ups, etc., in this part, as well as some of the stuff involved in finalizing the game. Hopefully Todd can contribute some more stuff here.

Part 5a - WordLeap Game Modes

WordLeap has three game modes from which to choose: Story Mode, Casual Mode, and Puzzle Mode. In this section, I'll give a brief overview and some thoughts on each one.

WordLeap's three game modes

Story Mode

This is the story-driven mode as outlined in the preceding sections. You are WordLeap guy, and your mission is to form as many words as you can so that you can complete the stages, your ultimate goal being to achieve enlightenment. The introductory cinema lays all this out (though not as concisely), where WordLeap guy has a meeting with The Guru, a wizened old wordsmith who spends his days meditating, and asks him for advice on how to stifle the constant din that clouds his mind.

The Guru, his meditation interrupted

The cinema closes with WordLeap guy in his own domicile, where he closes his eyes and attempts to meditate, as the Guru instructed. He seeks to achieve enlightenment, no matter the cost.

And down the rabbit hole we go...

The transition from the opening cinema to the game is a cool effect that Todd added. The in-game canvas is shown on WordLeap guy's forehead, and the camera zooms in, filling the screen with the game board. Again, a seemingly simple thing, but I think it adds some nice polish to the overall presentation.

Casual Mode

Casual Mode is more or less identical to Story Mode, but it's limited to a single stage, so there is no level progression. Also, there are no power-ups or obstacles that appear, so you focus purely on collecting words in this mode. There is no timer counting down either, so you have as much time as you need. Once you've filled the bottom power bar, the game is complete and your score is entered into the record (and possibly posted to the online leaderboard if it's high enough).

Puzzle Mode

Like Casual Mode, this mode has no obstacles or power-ups. However, the game rules are changed slightly in that you can leap to any of the board's letter tiles at any time, allowing you to create longer words. Also, the empty tiles do not reappear once you've used the letters they contain. The goal in Puzzle Mode is to clear the board of as many letters as possible.

Longer words are easier to compile in Puzzle Mode

Looking at the screenshot above, you'll notice the "@" tile in the center of the board. Once you've whittled the board's letter selection down as far as you can, and you don't see any more words to create, you leap on the "@" tile to complete your game. Then your score is tallied and possibly posted to the leaderboard for others to admire.


Part 5b - WordLeap Power-Ups and Obstacles

As mentioned before, the original Vocabuleaper game had a sparse selection of power-ups to enhance the gameplay. With WordLeap, Todd decided to add a few more to introduce some wrinkles into the proceedings. There are now obstacles as well, which serve to impede your progress as you lurch toward enlightenment. These obstacles increase with frequency in the later levels so that you don't get overwhelmed when you first start out.

Health Box

The health box returns the player to 100% health. This power-up is extremely useful when the countdown gets close to zero. It makes sense to leave this one on the board until you're close to running out of time.

I'm mixing metaphors here, as far as time and health. Todd and I never really decided what the vertical bar should represent. I'd say it could be both. Since the whole game takes place in WordLeap guy's mind, the amount of time he has remaining before losing his concentration and returning to reality could be considered "health" in some sense. Obviously, it's not an ironclad explanation, but it works for me.

Hourglass

The hourglass pauses the countdown timer until the current word is completed. This gives you a little bit of extra time to build a higher-scoring word. 

The Guru

You rang?

By grabbing the light bulb, WordLeap guy temporarily gains the enlightenment of his mentor, The Guru, allowing him to leap to any letter on the board and form nice, lengthy words. This comes in handy when time is running low.

Lasers

What would a video game be without a laser popping up at some point? The lasers fly across a single row or column and will take away a small amount of health if they hit the protagonist. The "!" icon appears, along with the tiles of the affected row/column turning red, to warn the player that a laser is coming

Bombs

When a bomb lands on the board, you'll have to move to a tile beyond its blast radius to keep from getting hit. The blast radius is helpfully highlighted by red tiles. When the bomb blows up, the letters that get hit by the blast are randomized, throwing another wrench into things.

Spikes

I think these are a nice addition to the game. These only appear in the later stages of the game. Once a spike lands on a tile, if you try to leap on that tile, you'll get poked and lose some health. The spikes remain on the board indefinitely once they've landed (unless you hit one, in which case it turns into an empty tile). This means there are that many fewer letters to work with for WordLeap guy, ramping up the difficulty as he closes in on his ultimate goal.

Part 6 - Closing Thoughts

This has been an extremely detailed look at what went into the development of WordLeap, but it's by no means a complete look. I didn't discuss the profile system or the leaderboards, for instance. I also didn't delve into the coding aspects behind some of the decisions made in the game, since Todd is the one handling that aspect of things. At some point in the future, he might add some thoughts on that.

I think it's a solid, fun game that should please anyone who enjoys words. I really hope whoever plays it gets a kick out of it. That will make all the time we've put into the project well worth it.

The Sacrifice

I'm not a Christian. As a young child, after my father married my stepmother, she was an ambassador for the faith and convinced me that I needed saving from the sinful ways of Earth, and so I accepted Jesus into my heart as my savior. Now, whether a 7-year-old kid really has the high-level brain functions required to fully comprehend the faith is another story, but I was happy to go along with it, because it made my dad happy and made my stepmother happy, and (probably most importantly for me) my brothers had gotten saved, so I was eager to join them. I won't go into the details of my childhood and the varied crooks and nannies, etc., that eventually led me to disavow my belief as a teenager, but disavow I did, and so now I'm what one would call an agnostic.

With this preamble out of the way, I wanted to talk about the core concept behind Christianity: that of the great sacrifice that Jesus made for humanity. It's something I've been kicking around in my mind a lot in the past few years, and after a conversation with my brother a couple of months ago that centered on religion, I began to contemplate upon it more.

According to the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God. Also, he was God. He was a human who wasn't human. And he was sent to Earth to spread the word about God and his infinite love for mankind and so on and so forth. (I won't go into the details of Christian doctrine here. This is the Internet, and there are lots of places to go for that.) He was sent here to die as an act of atonement for the sins of mankind. All that was asked of humans was that we believed that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, born around 3-5 BCE, was the son of God and that he sacrificed his life on a cross for our sins.

Cartoon depiction of Golgotha, where Jesus died

The word sacrifice sticks out for me quite a bit in this story. Assuming that Jesus was an actual historical figure, and that he did die on that Roman cross 2,000 years ago for being a general pain in the ass to the Men of Influence in the region, at first glance it would appear that he did make the ultimate sacrifice for what he believed: he gave his life. Hard to get much bigger than that as far as sacrifices go. My problem with this is that he had personally told pretty much everyone who would listen that he was the son of God, and he claimed to have knowledge of the afterlife and what was awaiting those who followed him, that believers would stand by God's side in the Kingdom of Heaven and enjoy bliss beyond their wildest dreams. And why should they believe him? Because he'd been there and he knew exactly what to expect after death.

This isn't to diminish the pain and agony that the New Testament describes Jesus suffering as he was crucified. Obviously, that's a horrific way to die for anyone (including the two thieves who hung on similar crosses next to him.) But the thing about death that strikes the most fear into humans is the uncertainty. You fear death because you don't know what's in store. No one does, and in my opinion (unless some new evidence comes to light), no living human can.

But Jesus had no such uncertainty. He knew exactly what awaited him, if his words are to be believed. He knew that once the oxygen stopped circulating through his brain and his life ended, he would never again have worries or pain or sorrow or fear, and he knew the exact nature of what was in store for him. Other humans don't have that luxury. As mortals, we don't know what awaits us post-death. Some people believe that certain things await them, but they don't, and they cannot, know with certainty what their afterlife will be like.

In this sense, Jesus is almost like a tourist. He comes down to Earth, takes in the local cuisine, sees some sights, talks to some folks, does some parlor tricks, and so on. He feels immense pain (psychically and physically) while here, but, again, he knows it's only fleeting. Then he dies and gets to return to Heaven, where he can sip on a glass of wine and be immersed in bliss for eternity, while the Earthbound humans continue to suffer and starve and do all the things that stupid human beings do. And yet his death is considered "the ultimate sacrifice" and the primary reason to believe what he said and what his acolytes said after he was dead. It seems somewhat akin to a wealthy Western man walking into an impoverished South Asian slum, taking a big wad of money out and waving it around wildly, getting bitten by a mosquito, wincing slightly, and then getting into his private jet that brings him back to a palatial mansion in Europe. (OK, that might be overdoing it a little bit, but you get the idea.)

My feelings on religion aren't acrimonious. I believe that anything that gives someone a reason to get out of bed in the morning and keep trying is a good thing, so long as you're not actively trying to make the world a shittier place in the process.

I ended up writing a lot more on this than I intended, but it still doesn't fully encapsulate my thoughts on the matter. Hopefully I can be a little more concise in my future ramblings.

First Post

I decided to start posting some random thoughts to this secluded weblog that I'm sure fewer than two people will ever read. Will it be inane? Of course. Trivial? Without question. Let's see where it goes...