Mar 2nd.
So, I think I'm about settled on the platform of choice for this project. Adobe Flex, with a lot of php on the back end. Knowing next to nothing on either language means there's a sheer cliff of a learning curve.
Today I managed to compile a simple little hello world & button program, and now that I - well, barely understand how the syntax works from both an action-script and mxml point of view, I'm ready to try and adapt it to this example chat program in order to see how well php socketing can work.
As you may or may not know, a browser based game usually uses the normal get/post function (basically a browser refresh) to update the game... This works well for non real-time games, but it has it's problems. For instance, if someone closes the browser, everyone else will have to wait for the person to time out and the server to call their connection dead. Since sockets are real time, if someone closes the browser, the game immediately knows and lets everyone else move on.
Just think of the difference between forums and a chat client. Forums are get/post style, while chat is socketed.
Feb 20th.
Huh... Funny how you can find out about a rare event like a lunar eclipse merely an hour before it's about to start.
Anyway, we playtested as I said we would. I have to say, I'm extremely pleased with the results. Three major changes, and one minor change - all of which didn't even break the mechanics one little bit. Although as we're changing something we called 'passes' to turns, and what we called turns to 'rounds', it does mean we'll have a lot of card descriptions to re-write. Oh well, that's more tedious than anything else.
The list of changes are as follows:
Everyone will start with the same AP.
Speed on cards just adds to your base speed for calculation, instead of altering what your base speed does.
Movement can be done multiple times without breaking your turn.
Changed the term pass to turn, and the old term turn to round. Someone's turn is when they're the active player, a round measures when you get AP back...
Don't worry, when we can show you the rules, it'll be a little clearer.
One last little thing, I've got the RSS feed completed for JRants. Or at least, I will very soon.
Feb. 19th.
We've been busy lately getting the site up to snuff and working out the finer details on how the game is going to be implamented on an online version.
It's a difficult choice between going with flash, or learning proper AJAX and DHTML. Both of them have their distinct advantages and disadvantages. Flash mostly in it's uniformity - AJAX and DHTML are a combination of css, html, java script at their core.. Then some xml, php, and mysql rounds out the last few things you could ever need.
Learning all those things would make us better webmasters, which means a cooler site for you.
Regardless, there are two things I wanted to mention today. The first thing I want to mention, is we're playtesting the cardgame again tomorrow. Hopefully, this will be one of the last alpha-tests and we can get some local people to take the game through it's paces in offline beta.
The other thing I wanted to mention was I (FDJustin) am working on making a proper artical on the Found Dice BOINC team. I hope some of you find the idea cool enough to join the team, and let your idle computer help change the world.
January 10th.
A day and some change ago I downloaded a BOINC client from BOINCstats and began putting my computer to work for rosetta@home and SEMPI, because they both have to do with protiens, which are basically the bits that are made up from DNA that come together to make cells and such. I'm sure I'm botching my description, but nevertheless it's nice to help out the scientific community.
How it basically works, is you get pieces of data that your computer calculates over time using the spare clock cycles from your CPU that would be otherwise doing nothing. There's also a credit system, but that's really just an epenis to say 'Look! I've contributed sixty thousand credits worth of work!'.
Anyway, I went ahead and made a Found Dice team so people that are interested can help us out.
So, I think I'm about settled on the platform of choice for this project. Adobe Flex, with a lot of php on the back end. Knowing next to nothing on either language means there's a sheer cliff of a learning curve.
Today I managed to compile a simple little hello world & button program, and now that I - well, barely understand how the syntax works from both an action-script and mxml point of view, I'm ready to try and adapt it to this example chat program in order to see how well php socketing can work.
As you may or may not know, a browser based game usually uses the normal get/post function (basically a browser refresh) to update the game... This works well for non real-time games, but it has it's problems. For instance, if someone closes the browser, everyone else will have to wait for the person to time out and the server to call their connection dead. Since sockets are real time, if someone closes the browser, the game immediately knows and lets everyone else move on.
Just think of the difference between forums and a chat client. Forums are get/post style, while chat is socketed.
Feb 20th.
Huh... Funny how you can find out about a rare event like a lunar eclipse merely an hour before it's about to start.
Anyway, we playtested as I said we would. I have to say, I'm extremely pleased with the results. Three major changes, and one minor change - all of which didn't even break the mechanics one little bit. Although as we're changing something we called 'passes' to turns, and what we called turns to 'rounds', it does mean we'll have a lot of card descriptions to re-write. Oh well, that's more tedious than anything else.
The list of changes are as follows:
Everyone will start with the same AP.
Speed on cards just adds to your base speed for calculation, instead of altering what your base speed does.
Movement can be done multiple times without breaking your turn.
Changed the term pass to turn, and the old term turn to round. Someone's turn is when they're the active player, a round measures when you get AP back...
Don't worry, when we can show you the rules, it'll be a little clearer.
One last little thing, I've got the RSS feed completed for JRants. Or at least, I will very soon.
Feb. 19th.
We've been busy lately getting the site up to snuff and working out the finer details on how the game is going to be implamented on an online version.
It's a difficult choice between going with flash, or learning proper AJAX and DHTML. Both of them have their distinct advantages and disadvantages. Flash mostly in it's uniformity - AJAX and DHTML are a combination of css, html, java script at their core.. Then some xml, php, and mysql rounds out the last few things you could ever need.
Learning all those things would make us better webmasters, which means a cooler site for you.
Regardless, there are two things I wanted to mention today. The first thing I want to mention, is we're playtesting the cardgame again tomorrow. Hopefully, this will be one of the last alpha-tests and we can get some local people to take the game through it's paces in offline beta.
The other thing I wanted to mention was I (FDJustin) am working on making a proper artical on the Found Dice BOINC team. I hope some of you find the idea cool enough to join the team, and let your idle computer help change the world.
January 10th.
A day and some change ago I downloaded a BOINC client from BOINCstats and began putting my computer to work for rosetta@home and SEMPI, because they both have to do with protiens, which are basically the bits that are made up from DNA that come together to make cells and such. I'm sure I'm botching my description, but nevertheless it's nice to help out the scientific community.
How it basically works, is you get pieces of data that your computer calculates over time using the spare clock cycles from your CPU that would be otherwise doing nothing. There's also a credit system, but that's really just an epenis to say 'Look! I've contributed sixty thousand credits worth of work!'.
Anyway, I went ahead and made a Found Dice team so people that are interested can help us out.