Hello! This semester, one of my classes is a directed study. In other words, I get to do something I want to do, and there are gradable checkpoints every week or two. As the title of this post suggests, I'm making a JRPG. I have a story concept, but I don't have a name atm Below I'm going to put what the assignments are and when they are due-ish (since it's okay if they are a day or so late, according to the teacher).

• Stats Outline – A plan for what stats characters may have, how they affect battles, and how stat growth occurs when leveling up (1/22) complete
• Character Outline – A plan for a cast of characters, both party members and NPCs, and certain character attributes about them unrelated to state | In addition, create classes and plan how they affect stats (1/29) complete
• Movement Engine Outline – A plan for the mechanics of the movement engine (2/5) complete
• Event Engine Outline – A plan for the mechanics of the event engine (2/11)
• Battle Engine Outline – A plan for the mechanics of the battle engine (2/19)
• World Map – A map that includes the entire explorable area of the game, as well as the placement of events and NPCs (2/26)
• Midterm – Present the entire plan for the game (3/4)
• Story – A written version of what the story will be in the game (3/18)
• Create movement engine (3/25)
• Create tile map – A computerized version of the world map, including events and NPCs (4/1)
• Create event engine (4/15)
• Create battle engine (4/22)
• Implement Story through events and dialogue (4/29)
• Write and implement music "loops" – 60-120 second pieces that repeat and set the mood for various areas (5/13)
• Final – Present the finished game (5/20)

I'll update this post with the assignments as they happen (later today for the first two). The full story will be view-able, so I'll put it in layered spoilers. I won't give the story concept until then, so when I release the characters, you won't have any background

All things considered, I didn't have time to put art in my schedule so either
A) I'll have to get art off Open Game Art (And make the game open source)
or
B) If one of you guys is willing to do art I'd be willing to credit you (and give you a share of the profits if I decide to sell the game instead of just open-sourcing it. That is tbd).

[spoiler=movement engine flowchart][/spoiler]

Thought I would create a thread for this over here! Post your culinary concoctions in this thread, and bon appetit!

First off, I made some homemade marshmallows!


And what are marshmallows without hot chocolate? (this is homemade mix, btw)


And tonight I made some pork fried rice because we had some leftover pork chops

So while looking for some freebie stuff to play on GameJolt, I stumbled upon a little gem of a demo for a game called CrossCode. Holy crap this demo is probably the best demo for any game I've ever seen. Seriously, play it yourself. The premise is very SAO-esque, but it doesn't feel like an SAO ripoff (since you appear to be the only real person trapped in the game). As for the gameplay, think top down Zelda mixed with those disk thingies from Tron. The graphics are also beautiful. The demo has the first little bit, a dungeon/puzzle to play through, and a little bit of open world exploration. I suggest you check out the demo. It is amazing.
The official website is here.

So a guy who sat next to me in AP Computer Science and I made a roguelike for our final project. You are a man in a maze with randomly placed torches. You have to find the golden plunger before the "minotaur" (actually a dancing ditto) catches you.

Source here. Screenies soon.

WARNING: This is a project with SDL as its dependency and also has a windows-specific makefile atm (blame netbeans). If you want to make, I'll figure out how to make it setup-independent.

Well, it's that time of year when some of us get really into college students playing ye olde ball in the basket. I get a bit carried away at times (as do several people I know IRL) with bracket creation. I have made a total of 8 brackets so far, so yeah...

Anyways if you want to compete against other calculator community members, I made a group for bracket entry here.

So enter those brackets! (If you want to)

So I had to take this test in AP Pysch as an activity, aaaaannnddddd my last two things changed since I took it last time.
INFJ:
Introvert (67%), iNtuitive (25%), Feeling (25%), Judging (1%)

Which puts me in 2% of the total population, according to this site.
Yay minorities..................

Anyways I can't say that this is inaccurate now. My last two flipped, and the third one is less borderline than it was. If you read the summaries it's actually pretty accurate for when I'm not around a bunch of IRL people and act out-of character to fit in.

So anyways, I say we retake this test and stuff, and see how we've changed, or just take it for the first time.

It's almost that time of year where high school students start building robots to compete in messed up versions of beloved sporting events.
So FRC peeps, represent!

(This topic is the forum FRC topic, yadayada, let's get this started)

Let me tell you this upfront: I can't deal with drama, and I have to deal with a lot of it between home and school. If I stack what is happening online with that, it's too much.

From the beginning: a while ago, DJ and I began discussing the idea of a new site focusing on the unfocused in the community, as well as a broader topic of programming and hardware. The idea spawned out of a multitude of things (and VVVVVV was not one of them ).

Fast forward to November: it becomes official. A team of DJ, Street, aeTIos, Juju, and myself is put together to put this site into action. This became known as CodeWalrus. We thought it would be a good thing for the community. Apparently, we were wrong.

The opinions and statements in this post are my own, and do not reflect CodeWalrus or the admins thereof in any way shape or form. Also if I mention your name here and you would like to say something about it, please do so in the comments below. I am going to be very blunt and not care about if what I say ruins an image.

Here goes:
We were supposed to be in a closed beta until Jan 1st, but a plugin misconfiguration caused allowed for members to sign up in other ways. That started the mess that was today. Of the members who signed up was Kerm. He has now publicly based us on our IRC channel for being a blatant ripoff/attack on Omni. This is not the case. That is not part of this site's mission at all. I still do not hate Kerm. I think his skepticism was founded. I would still like an apology for the bashing and for it to stop at the very least.

I have talked to geekboy on the matter of the site. He is skeptical of our motives as well. I, once again, do not blame him. I ran an idea by him that if it went through, would have allowed for some cross-site communication. This email was written before the Kerm thingymabob, although sent after, unmodified.
[spoiler=transcipt of email]

Quote
I was hinting at this thing earlier on IRC, and you know the truth
from DJ: there's a new site abrewin', with DJ, Juju, Street, aeTIos,
and myself at the helm. As I said in IRC, this is not an attack
against any sites or people, but DJ explained that, so you should know
that already.

Some facts about the site:
We have a closed-beta member base with 5/8 invited non-admin members
being active
Last month we had 963 posts
At the current time this month we have 484 posts
We have project threads from all 10 active members (including admins)
We have a featured project from a non-admin
We publicly announce the site on December 15th (and I ask for you not
to talk of this site or this email until then with anyone but us)
We open to public January 1st

So why do I say this? I needed to show you that we are for-real. Why?
Because I see an opportunity for an inter-site (meaning the new site,
Omni, and Cemetech) project that would be beneficial for all three
sites and the community as a whole: A Cross-Site Competition.

So you know "Project Periodical," right? My idea is that we post all
the projects from all three sites into the periodical (same format,
time-wise) starting with the January editions (Jan 14/15 and Jan
31/Feb 1). The links to the project threads on every site will be
listed in the periodical. If a project has an active thread on all
three sites, then it gets put in the running for the competition. At
the end of the year/start of the next year, a community poll will take
place (outside of all of the sites, on a Google Doc/Poll thing,
probably) determining the winners for each calculator type. As for
prizes, that can be worked out sometime later.

So the benefits are considerable: for starters, it encourages people
to post about and discuss their projects on all three sites, which
boosts site conversation and visibility. It also means that the sites
themselves would be more closely tied together, which means that the
community as a whole would be more closely tied together. In addition,
it provides a support structure where the entire community can be
supported without rivalry and detest.

So why are TI-Planet, HP Museum, etc. not on the list? This
competition idea is for the English-speaking community that has a
focus on TI (with secondary focus on HP and Casio).

So why is this email to you in particular? Well, you are on staff for
both Omni and Cemetech, and you already knew that the site existed. I
would like a yay/nay on the idea from you because if you back up the
idea, it will be considerably easier to get the other admins to hop on
board with the idea.

Regardless of what how you feel or your approval, I once again ask for
you not to talk of this site or this email until then with anyone but
us (meaning the new site admins) until the 15th (or earlier if we
publicly announce earlier).

So why is speed an issue? If you approve of the idea and would like to
move forward, we need a more thought out plan than an idea to present
to the site admins before the new year, so we need all the time we can
get.

I have talked this over with the new site admins and they approve of
this message.

--
Your Lobster-ific Walrus,
pimathbrainiac

[/spoiler]
Geekboy denied the idea due to a similar Omni/Cemetech POTY thing in the works. This is very reasonable.

I also talked to Eeems. He is also skeptical of our motives, but I have a clear understanding of how the Omni and Cemetech admins see the site from that convo. They see it as an attack on Omni. I understand why, and I will address this in a moment.

The concerns date back to things some of the CW admins and others have posted about on Omni complaining and sometimes bashing the Omni admins, and specifically, Eeems (The petition, etc.). I can, however quote DJ directly from a private convo: "i want all sites to thrive | and if possible cooperate" Though I do not have a direct quote from the others, I can assure you that that sentiment is true for them as well.

But all of this is too much for me. I am in the middle of a bunch of drama at home already, and I can't stack what has been happening online on top of this. In addition, I've seen the phrase "dug your grave" from multiple people from multiple sites. This has to stop. We need to coexist, because if we don't, the entire English speaking community tanks over one site and a misunderstanding about the purpose. I am leaving all three sites until there is cooperation and no hatred between the three. Be it January, or be it next December, I am done with the drama, and won't come back until it is resolved.

Needless to say, my contest entry is cancelled and Project Periodical is on hold. Goodbye.

So I'm VM'ing Arch!

This is the one I set up on my PC at home. As you see, it has mate, and that's about it. I'll take suggestions here for what I should do with it.
[spoiler=large]

[/spoiler]

I also set one up at school (with the teacher's permission, no less). I'll get pics of that once it is fully operational.