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  The Hamumu Revue 09:20 PM -- Sat February 5, 2011  

Herein forthwith shall I review my few hours of the Rift beta! This is all kind of shorthandy, probably doesn't mean a lot to people who don't play WoW, but since those people are a small minority with no redeeming worth, we can ignore them.

Let me start with the final conclusion. Rift is a good game. If it had no monthly fee, I would buy it and play it. The problem is, as soon as you get a monthly fee, suddenly it's a direct comparison. Almost nobody pays for two monthly-fee games. Not just because that's a lot of money to pay, but more importantly, the second you pick up another one, you're suddenly getting less for your money out of the first game! You only have so much time in a month, and moreso only so much MMO-playing time. I can pay $13/mo to play WoW for 20 hours a week, or I can pay $26/mo to play WoW for 10 hours and Rift for 10. Not cost-effective!

Rift is better than Lord of the Rings Online and D&D Online. It's very similar to those games (it falls into the "drab brown dwarf-packed medieval fantasy" realm they fit in. I dare you to distinguish screenshots of the 3 with the UI hidden! That sounds like a fun facebook game), but does everything in a more streamlined, easier way, and feels less clunky. Is it better than City of Heroes, Champions Online, or DC Universe Online? I dunno, those are a whole different kettle of fish. I'm inclined to say no, because they interest me, while this brown world of trees and goblins really doesn't.

Make no mistake, Rift is a true WoW clone. I mean, TRUE. In any place where they could have done something any millions of other ways, they did it exactly the way WoW works (I instinctively tapped P when I wanted to see my list of skills, and N to see my list of talents - both worked!). Yes, there are differences and innovations, but at its core, it's not just the same type of game, or "inspired by", it's clearly the result of people poring over WoW with notebooks in hand, scratching their chins and saying "mmmm, yes. Indeed". My favorite example was their totally original "Transmogrify into a squirrel" spell as opposed to "Polymorph into a sheep".

They did a good job on this cloning, so the resulting game is good and solid. It's still not as polished and good as WoW of course - they're not Blizzard. And that's the fundamental problem. By duplicating WoW, they are explicitly making it one or the other, and they are guaranteed to lose there. If you want to play something like this, play WoW. It's better. If they had done something unique (see Champions Online for example), then that can appeal to people who are into superheroes instead, or who prefer the way Champions does things, since there is an actual difference there.

And hey, I am sick and tired of drab brown forests. Look at WoW, people! It's gorgeous and colorful! It's a fantasy, make it fantastic! The real world alone is more colorful and pretty than these games, and it's real.

The class/skill system in Rift is pretty cool, though it does result in a large pile of repetitive skills (since you get to mix any 3 'souls', you're guaranteed a very redundant set of basic bolts and blasts, because they had to make sure every soul offered those basic features). One other thing they have going for them that I want WoW to rip off is a very small thing that is nice: AOE looting!

I have this main complaint about Rift, and this is why it will never come close to WoW: they appear to have copied WoW the way it worked back when they started making Rift, several years ago. But in all that time, WoW has been improving. All the quests I've seen in Rift (up to level 10ish) have been totally blah. Not once have I manned a catapult or ridden a giant's back, not once have a I flown a bat around dropping bombs, and not once have I changed the world around me with my victory. I collected things and killed things. Total basic MMO biz. That's fine, but it definitely doesn't give me any reason to choose this over a game that has all of that good stuff going on constantly.

So Rift: it's better than WoW was 5 years ago. If you don't mind brown.

Revue OVER!
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  The Power Of Caffeine 07:45 PM -- Wed February 2, 2011  


Pedro In The Office

I haven't been able to sleep in weeks, and I'm nearly run down to complete non-functionality. But today I tried the innovative approach of downing a giant Coke. BZZZOOOOOMM!! Got a bunch of Pedro done! Here he is, vacuuming up the office. There's tons of stuff to see in that shot, so squint down tight and find what there is to find. I mean, there's no magical secrets, I'm just saying there are a lot of different game elements going on there, and you are welcome to find them.

Now my caffeine has worn off and I sink into dizzy confusion. Enjoy. Let's hope the caffeine crash can help put me to sleep.
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  Jamul's Lament 09:06 PM -- Mon January 31, 2011  

Yeah, I've been sick for the past week (or 9 months, however you want to count it), and so far the cure is significantly less pleasant than the illness (a sinus infection). I'm hoping it will get easier to handle as it goes, but man, I'm exhausted and yet completely incapable of sleeping. I am also not getting much done, as you might have guessed. I have gotten a bunch of Pedro done, but sharing screens is too much work. And it's not nearly enough, so I need to keep on trucking when I have the energy. I seem to be solar powered now. And it's night time, so adios.
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  Another Release!? 01:55 PM -- Tue January 25, 2011  

Yes! Hamumu now releases a new project every couple of days, apparently! Well, much like the last game, this isn't something I'm actually releasing, and this time it's not a game, either. It's Writing Prompts 3 for The Journal.

The Journal is software I use, I have it startup with Windows (fun fact: I know my Windows is loaded up and ready to use when The Journal pops up. Prior to that, it'll sit there showing the desktop for minutes on end, but not actually be usable. Really, super lame, Windows!). It's what the name implies - a journal in which to write things down. But it's also tons more than that. Basically, it's a complete writing desk, I guess. You create folders and categories, you can have things where it gives you a new 'page' each day (for a daily journal type of thing) or just manually create named pages. You can have it automatically apply templates, or create your own, etc. It's really powerful. I use it as an address book, daily journal, scratchpad, writing practice, and record keeping.

The writing practice is where my add-on Writing Prompts 3 comes in. As does my previous creation, Writing Prompts 2! Writing Prompts 3 is really simple, it just randomly generates a first sentence of a story for you, then you're supposed to spend the next 20 minutes finishing that story! It's just a nice tool for practicing fiction writing. Or I suppose you could do non-fiction, but it'll only work if the starting sentence happens to be true. Here's an example, the first sentence it just showed me now:

Write for 20 minutes (without editing). Your story begins with this sentence:

The manager showed me into his office, and hissed, "We found something."

(Wow, that was fun, I never did a dashed-border before!) So there you go! What did the manager find? Why is he being secretive about it? Why am I someone he is confiding this in? Or is it that he found something in my desk, and I'm in trouble? It's all a very exciting beginning that could go a million directions.

Also, if you're curious about Writing Prompts 2, it does something quite different, but also a set-up for writing practice (it has a variety of different kinds of prompts you can choose from, I just clicked Surprise Me to get this one at random):

For 20 minutes, write following these ridiculous rules:

#1 - A huge cast of characters (relative to your writing time available). They are teenagers. They all serve (or used to serve) in the military. Focus as much as possible on the characters' mental state and feelings instead of actions.
#2 - Perspective - First Person. Find a way to incorporate your own life experience.
#3 - No sentences under 8 words.
#4 - Very terse dialogue, preferably one word at a time.
#5 - Use a number in every sentence (written out or numerical).

"Crazy" (seen above) is just one of the prompt types, others are a lot simpler like "Basic Challenge" or "Setting And Mood". As you can imagine, that many rules at once is tricky. If it's not enough though, it always has an "Add A Rule" button you can repeat as much as you like. It's all about getting you to think and broaden your skills.

Anyway, if you're interested in writing, I would recommend The Journal to you (give it a 45-day trial!), and of course, my fun and wacky prompts. I actually recommend The Journal regardless - it's a perfect tool for me, just jotting down notes and bug reports, looking up addresses, recording things I need to get done, marking down appointments (it does reminders!). I really want to work on writing myself... if I ever find any more time.
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  Eddie's Lament! 01:51 PM -- Sun January 23, 2011  

Hamumu has just released a game! But you won't find it on this site, because it's not really something that belongs here. It's not that it's inappropriate, it's more like one of those things that if someone posted it on the forum, I wouldn't delete it, but I'd consider it on the edge. There's a tiny bit of blood, and it has slightly graphic descriptions of violence. Overall, it's just more "adult" than what we have here, being a dark comedy about grief and loss (or something like that).

And so, without further ado, I link you to it, and remember the warning: it's a little bit adult, and fairly dark! Play Eddie's Lament!

And hey, I get a bonus if it gets to be featured on Kongregate or on another site I definitely can't mention here but that 2/3 of you frequent daily (separate bonus for each site!), so please rate it highly on both of those sites! Don't you want to help me rock?
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  Learning To Blend: Week 3 10:03 AM -- Sun January 23, 2011  


A Drab Penguin

This week's project was to make a humanoid figure. But when I sat down to do it, I really wasn't sure what humanoid meant. My 'human' characters are not particularly humanoid. So I stopped and thought about it, and decided to make the kind of character I might use in a game, whatever that might be. The first thing that came to mind was a penguin.

The thing that I am finding odd and difficult is that I can't seem to make anything look vibrant at all in Blender. It's all blah and washed out. The yellow on this penguin is maxed out 255,255,0 pure yellow, but it looks like that. Maybe I just need to figure out how to boost the ambient light. I hope so. It's obviously very low considering the pitch black shadows on this. Anyway, building-wise (which is all I'm supposed to be doing at this point), this was a lot harder than it should've been. Mirroring is very funky and hard to figure out. I guess I'm learning something... we'll see! At some point I might actually consider touching a tutorial instead of fumbling blindly in the lack of ambient light.
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  Pedro's Ignominious Entrance 12:28 PM -- Thu January 20, 2011  


There's 1000 words on how Pedro's day starts. Much more fun in action. Also, witness the normal-sized dustbunny!
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  Pedro's Archive Gears Up 01:39 PM -- Tue January 18, 2011  


I haven't progressed in terms of the map and tiles and things in this game, but what I have done is implement a variety of Pedro's tools! Not pictured here is the key, but I think you know how that works (if not, try Time Pygmy - it will explain it very clearly... provided you can figure out how to get the key). So, so far Pedro has a stepladder to reach higher places (no double jump for you!), a broom with which to beat Dustbunnies into dust, and a vacuum. The vacuum's official purpose is to catch ghosts (not implemented), but its secondary purpose is that it sucks in enemies and other objects from a distance, which is bound to be full of puzzly goodness! I'm really happy with how it works.

Also pictured is a giant Dustbunny. They are normally smaller, that's sort of a 'miniboss' one. This is in place of the idea of actually sweeping the floor. Maybe it will be more exciting to pummel living dirt than sweep up the dead kind?
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  Learning To Blend: Week 2 09:26 AM -- Sun January 16, 2011  

This week may actually seem a step back, and I actually did spend less time on it. But last week was theoretically just to make a box, so I'm still following what I'm supposed to do! This week's goal was a pine tree, and not some real-life pine tree, but the classic Hamumu type. So there it is:


Loonyland 2 in The Matrix

It was really easy, I doubt I spent more than half an hour total messing around with Blender at all this week, but I am staying on schedule and maybe learning things. I did switch it to left-select and turntable rotation as was suggested last week. I'm still not entirely sure what turntable did, but left-select is nice.

You should learn along with me! Download the latest Blender beta from www.blender.org, and make a pine tree! You can skip the church-making, since that week was supposed to be a box, and you have to have some background in 3D modeling to very quickly get into all the vertex-scooting that it took. But this week's project was very basic: All I had to do was add primitives to the screen and scale and translate them. Then I got them textured in a sense, but that's not actually scheduled for many weeks, which is good because it's utterly confusing how that works so far. Don't forget there's always an undo button!
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  Pedro's Archive More 08:14 PM -- Thu January 13, 2011  


Now I've started the process of making tiles! Pedro spends this game in a basement of sorts, so yeah, pretty much bricks and more bricks. At least so far. Also, you can see that gettable items have a white outline around them to make them obvious. It looks like it's in a bubble. Pedro will not have a monkey on his head at release... that's Mad Planet leftovers.
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