Mypaint Review

Mypaint is an open source, cross platform, graphics editing and composing tool. It seems to follow in the same vein as ArtRage, trying to imitate the physical canvas.

Overall, the interface was extremely simple, not as pretty as ArtRage, but it worked well. The physical simulation/emulation is pretty basic, though it does work well with that unlimited canvas size which made it feel more seemless. The interface for Windows feels as though it might fly apart, as do many interfaces for Linux applications on Windows; not that it gets in the way of functionality.

It worked well for me, though I'm not much of an artist. It's free, so I'd be surprised if you were able to tell me why you shouldn't try it at least.

It was exactly what I was looking for in terms of drawing programs, one that emulates a physical canvas(at least somewhat), and aren't dealing with those vectors(which are annoying and lengthen the process greatly)

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Spore

With Spore coming back in fashion at my school, I thought it would be fitting to dig it out of my collection to play again. I was amazed by the graphics it was able to present on my current(gaming) computer. It is far better than I’d thought, though Galactic Adventures crashed immediately after the tribal cutscene, which was a bummer.

One of my friends showed me his creature, which was far more aesthetically pleasing than any which I had made previously, which brought up an interesting part of the game which I had always neglected: the appearance of the creature. I realize that many of them are designed to look cool or resemble some real life creature, but I had never tried this approach. My method was always to build something with an overbearing sense of functionality; usually coming out as giant spindly monstrosities which were monocolored.

This time I hope to actually make something worth looking at, which are the only kind of thing for tribal and civilization stages. If there can be a rational behind the design of a creature, how it should look, then I think there should be, after all it is simply ridiculous to make something as uninteresting as many of my early creations were; despite their effectiveness which guaranteed their survival.

With the advent of Galactic Adventures came a new reason to build cool realistic creatures. Though unlike space/civilization/tribal stages it also allowed some of the original anatomical functions which made creature mode so awesome, to come back. The editor of Galactic adventures also made it so much more interesting because it allows you to make whole story lines and plots which make the game richer, it also created an oportunity to make your creature behave like you designed your creatures to. The entire process takes a long time to get right, though it is usually worth it, a deep plot with developed characters can make even the most tired players to find something new and amazing about the game.

I have the entire series of spore PC games, the Cute and Creepy parts pack is somewhat nice, though I’ve not found any justification for my little brother buying it, but of course, if you really want to make as many diverse and different creatures as possible then its good. However the Galactic Adventures expansion pack is a must, it adds far more replayability than the original game had in itself.

Spore may be an aging game, but if you’ve missed it, then I’d highly recommend you find a copy, it is worth playing and while some of the stages are rather uninteresting, they are usually worth playing, they certainly make important changes to the species history, and eventually come to enriching the space stage further.

Spore Level Design Considerations

IIn Galactic Adventures in spore, the amount of experience/whatever points is determined by the number of people who have played it and their ratings for it. This makes the level design and enjoyability of the level even more important than ever. A good level should usually have some kind of coherent plot, preferably something that would engage player’s interest.

The scenery is also very important, if there is an appropriate amount of scenery present in the level, the level is also appropriately decorated, and the flow of it is coherent, then it will, with luck, become a far more popular level than it would be otherwise. If there is some kind of atmosphere that is desired, then you, as the level designer, must commit to it completely, otherwise you tend to have a jumbled together level which puts off the player.

The creatures used in these adventures should be used only where their designs are appropriate, unless it is designed to be a parody. If you have a planet which is designed to be a Buddhist monastery, you should not have dino-Jesus, unless of course he is trying to convert the creatures to his religion. It should make sense that it would be a bad idea to mix things that have no connection to each other in the plot. another example, if you have a cyborg invasion, you probably don’t want to have a bunch of Vikings defending, unless of course you can justify this as the cyborgs invading the Viking planet, which would probably be an awesome narrative if you don’t mind me saying so.

Overall, the entire thing should work like a well written book, if you are writing about Vikings and Jesus, then you have to find a way of justifying their coexistence, even if it in itself does not necessarily make sense to begin with. Either way be creative, but finish your ideas, don’t release a halfway realized level, finish it before you present it to the world in all its glory.

There was a single amazing level which I played which explained basic molecular biology, it was incredibly creative, it was done really well and if you can make any introduction to any subject, then do so; people will learn about it.

These tools were made for the spore player to use because EA realized that the kind of player it brought was overflowing with creativity. Spore will continue to exist as it is mostly player driven, and as long as the players still have ideas, there will be new content to be found for it.

Please, I implore you to make a Dino-Jesus level which follows Dino-Jesus through the new testament, it will be amazing, and probably do fairly well.

Wireless Security

Many people who have broadband use a wireless router. Many of them are aware of a danger to their own data if it is unencrypted. However it is important to realize that there are many who might just use your router to gain somewhat illegitimate access to your own internet connection(Please don’t call this unkind or wrong, its not like they can cause you to be charged more). There is a fairly minimal risk to you if you use a credit card online, but that is far less likely than some idiot with an RFID reader to steal yours while shopping at the mall.

I’d not recommend some of the more invasive security measures such as WPA-2 or LEAP, because they are simply too strong of an encryption. You are typically at such a low chance of being hacked or exploited that it would be really quite silly to get worked up about it.

If you’ve been hacked over an unencrypted network, and you have proof, then I’m sorry, but that scenario is less common than many people make it out to be.

Dwarf Fortress

Dwarf Fortress is my favorite video game. Its depth is greater than nearly any other game I’ve played, it is simultaneously an adventure game and a strategy game. It sounds like a great game doesn’t it?

The first issue which most people have with it is that its graphics are all extended ASCII characters. It has extreme moddibility, and a decent tileset capability(I don’t use them myself). The second issue with Dwarf Fortress is that it has a terrible interface which nobody can figure out on their own, well I did that, but I was only persistent because of the amazing forum community which exists for it.

If you do nothing else, I’d recommend joining their forum, I was laughing a lot because of its jokes. The community is very nice, the nicest I’ve ever been a part of at least.

The entire world is procedurally generated, along with a history of everything that ever happened in it(making it somewhat easier to write about). The most recent release has also added procedurally generated Demons, and megabeasts(massive dangerous creatures which will challenge a well developed and even well defended fortress). The entire game is moddible via relatively easily read plaintext files, the mods are legal to distribute(for anyone who cares).

The fortress mode is a strategy game, it exposes the player to the most depth, making it possible to make ridiculous contraptions, many spanning many months in real world time to design. It is possible to build a simple binary computer out of the mechanical systems which transfer power and just so happen to work fairly well  as a Boolean system. The fortresses can be works of art, eg statues of armok which shoot lava at your enemies, or they can be simple massive sprawling utilitarian complexes. I’d recommend this mode the most, its what you play most of the game in. Remember this one last word of advice, it is a good end game challenge to build an incredibly complicated world ending device(floods the earth with water/magma/demons), if you can end it with your dwarves spiraling into a madness, that’s also extra points.

The adventure mode is what you use to kill pesky megabeasts which killed your last fortress, or just explore the world. It does not allow the player to build a castle himself(though that’s currently in the works). You can in theory kill every single living thing in the world in this mode(good luck), and it will move the world into the age of emptiness. If the player really wants to make a mark on the history of the world this is the way to do it, you can kill as many goblins as you want in fortress mode, but you can’t set their homes on fire in it.

The game is my favorite, and possibly the most complicated playable computer game out there at the moment, I think it’s very good, but you need a great deal of patience to learn how to play, therefore just enjoy it if you can, but don’t write to me saying that it is a piece of crap, because I know that it isn’t.

Birdy the Mighty Decode

The Orca shaped spaceship piloted by Birdy. Its name is Tute

Birdy the Mighty Decode is a science fiction anime which centers around the pursuit of two highly dangerous criminals named Geegas and Bacillus.

In the first episode Birdy(the investigator/beserk killer) employed by a very large pan-galactic government known as the Federation. She pilots her ship close to the ship being used by these two criminals to escape from the federation. It fires on her ship, but her ship took no damage as its made of tougher stuff.

She jumps out in a really cool space suit made of her ship’s avatar(also known as Tute), blasts into the fleeing ship, captures the pilot, but the criminals have already ejected and headed for earth(which is not part of the federation).

As a result she has to go undercover to capture the criminals again, several months later, she is undercover as a model on earth, who just so happens to specialize in playing an alien girl. Another protagonist sees her picture but doesn’t notice.

The high school student is highly interested in ruins and other abandoned places(he’s an eccentric), it just so happens that he ends up going to the place where Greegas is hiding out(on earth he is a legitimate business man, though he is still doing highly sketchy and evil stuff). He is trying to maintain his brother’s(the other criminal’s) life support, because he cannot survive on earth based food(or any other food which can be obtained legally).

The high school student is injuredkilled in the fight between Greegas and Birdy. His mind is placed inside of her body in order to keep him alive, the federation officially apologizes to him, and tell him that he will have a new body which is currently being grown to replace his dead one.

I’d recommend this series is worth looking into for anyone who doesn’t mind subtitles. It seems like a good series, so just enjoy it if you like anime.

Beta Ubuntu 11.04

I have managed to upgrade an installation of current release Ubuntu on wubi to 11.04. I have for the most part enjoyed it, though there are some issues;

Ubuntu software center is almost always stalling, but it tends to work fairly well. I’ve had some issues with longer installs, and the repositories seem to change, or become unavailable unexpectedly, but this is only every other time. This issue seems to be fixed by updating the catalog information in synaptic or apt-get, but it is annoying nonetheless.

I have to say that the unity desktop is amazing, it looks great, and seems to know exactly what items to take from the menu bar, making it feel fairly similar to Mac, except that it is Linux, and therefore I can love it.  It is fast and the taskbar looks great, but is a bit annoying, though that is probably because I haven’t figured out how to edit the categories which software appears under, not that software management is an issue when you have a search bar which works nearly instantaneously when you know what you’re looking for, but still I’d enjoy having the simple categorical folder layout as well.

The desktop system feels faster than gnome, despite the fact that it really is just gnome wrapped in 3d. Unity feels fun to use, and for the most part it is.

The last issue that I can say that I have with it is that Ubuntu still uses the nautilus file browser, which is fine, it works well, but I simply don’t like it. It simply isn’t streamlined enough, it has too many features in some places and not enough in others. But I’m probably the only one who feels that way about it.

Either way, if you enjoy alliterative software, or even simply good software, then this is going to be a great release. I’d only recommend that you download the beta if you really like new ‘bleeding-edge’ software, and you know how to deal with the little quirks of Linux.