Summary:
A high res remix of FF6 with a improved battle system, extended more in depth plot, and a lot of additional new features.
Details:
So, I put in my game blu-ray disc, to see what all the buzz was about with this final fantasy 3/6 TWO controversy; Having enjoyed the hell out of the first FF6, I was really skeptical about the remix. To my surprise, it both exceeded my expectations and blew my mind with awesomeness.
A lot of it is really fuzzy in memory, but Kevka was a lot mroe seriously evil in this one, and the plot was changed to match up with the more recent final fantasy's; The idea of 'magic' being used to dominate and ultimately destroy the world was still there, and espers were still there, but holy shit they are scary as hell in high res. Also, the espers are a lot more interactive, not merely quest items; They do actually converse, follow you around and make suggestions depending on how you treat them. Naturally once you kill an esper, it only exists as a spirit, so they cannot do anything until you summon them, which always costs 1 HP + some amount of MP. The battle system was vastly improved, implementing a mixture of both real time fighting and strategic turn based trickery; Also all done in glorious 3D. You had the option to command classically, where actions were mere dice rolls, or you could switch to Star Ocean mode, and stop-time fight all at once, OR you could keep the 'Neo' mode, where it was classical turn based, but each action had *you* play it out, so if you said 'Sabin -> Pummel' then you have to run in with Sabin, and mash buttons or do some sort of mini-game. Sometimes, basic attacks are just running and aiming correctly; which means doing so gives you far more options to have critical attacks, since WHERE you hit an enemy determines that, but only in Neo mode (IE using a sword against the neck = critical hit)
The graphics were photo-realistic photon ray traced HDR Spherical Harmonics ambient occlusion self shadowing ect. goodness. It was amazingly pretty to look at, all of the objects had absurd levels of detail, when you put it in star ocean mode and paused, you could move around the battlefield to look at all the detail of the characters and monsters, seeing every little scar, emotion, item, scrap of clothing, was crazy! Kinda like the first time you discovered link wore earrings in Ocarina of Time.
So, now we have a excellent combat system, an amazing visual presentation, and the traditional orchestral music but this time with less music; Most of the game takes place in an 'ambient' environment, only when you do something that requires a beat, or a induced emotion is there a musical score. This adds greatly to the emotional and immersive impact of the game; For example, walking through a town sounds like a town, but stopping at a shop to do mundane purchasing pops up the lively 'shop' music, and it all blended acoustically together, forming a seamless transition. Lots of the environment was interactive, pots, crates, bushes could be examined or broken; Obviously sometimes with consequences; Most of the time you wouldn't really find anything either; Exploring was well emphasized, there were still invisible walls, but they were there only to help you, and eventually dissapear if you push on them long enough. Though, trying to walk off a cliff, your character stops youl, not a wall. They don't want to jump in lava, spikes, acid, death.
The controls meshed well with a PS3 remote. Was very intuitive for an RPG.
So the plot! Because that's what was so awesome about FF6, is how you got drawn into the world by the story. This is where I'll likely make mistakes; because I didn;t even get past the first part of the game, since I only played it for about 6 hours.
I remember being 'Setzer' in a team with Edgar, Cloud (wtF? musta been gau), Celes, Terra, and Relm (who is an adult this time around, if I could draw you a picture of her she'd get instant cult fame), and we were walking around some town, stocking up before attempting to infiltrated on of the larger magitek ships that had been docked in port. The world was torn, there were multiple powers fighting for supreme control of the magitek and espers, and there was of course the resistance that aimed to stop them from killing the planet/espers. That's what you do, and the first part was just going from town to town, fighting monsters (another note, monsters are very dynamic in Neo mode; They have a lot of specialized attacks and depending on the monster, you can indirectly tame/lure them depending. IE, I would have Setzer try and bait them with food, then Cloud critical them when they got close. Earning me a 'Evil' ranking most of the time, but hey, times are tough. I'm sure the game will cause that to backfire on me later, for being evil to so many of a specific enemy I'll probably run into a much larger one that kicks my ass)
So, eventually, after a lot of fighting and killing magitek guards, we found a drawbridge, and had to solve a physics puzzle with an open ended solution. WE srewed it up, so we had to find a boat and cross the moat; didn;t work, we ended up swimming into the sewer pipes of the ship (if it HAD worked, we would have saved a lot of time & got some cool items)
So now we're in the bowels of this really large, iron rusty colored monster, it was insanely large, larger than the superbowl; it had lots of smoothed out high tech looking cooridors, and the platforms above this sluice, which Terra figured out was 'cooling' their magitek reactor, which contained an esper, we eventually got cloud to ninja us a guard so we could take their weapons; The room we were in was about 35 ft tall, the bottom half had a hemispherical cutout that was full of hte sluice we were hiding in, and was really dark. The top half had cutout platforms nad rooms, lots of scientists in white walking around, and guards with white and red symbols. They looked a lot like the ones from FF6, mind you. so we split up, and each took some positions to try and get intel on where the reactor was. Most of the girls took labcoats and became 'scientists' and the guys took on casual appearances (there was a entire city in this ship, after all.) After some espionage, we got really unlucky, and Kevka showed up. Kevka, in this stage of the game, looked a LOT like sephiroth, but with a much crazier grin all the time, and was tall, but did not yet reach feather in hat stage. He was becoming mad with power, but hadn't completely lost it. Well, Kevka has a few bodyguards, and was actually being pretty personable, hitting people he didn't know on the shoulder, really hard and laughing about 'How's the Day' or something like that, knocking them down and just laughing about it. Was quite fitting. Apparently, Cloud got pissed off and confronted him...
So suddenly, boss mode happened.
Boss mode is really different; If you confront a boss OUT of character, this special mode comes up, where time is slowed down a lot, and you get all these new special gauges; Because if you were to actually defeat kevka at this point, it would probably mess up the game, the game makes sure to give you a damn good challenge. When a boss fight occurs, your teammates can suddenly join the 'battle sphere' which is a large area surrounding the boss. Joining it gives you your command queue;
Once the fight starts, everyting happens in REAL time, but slowed down about 10 times; so you can see everyone attacking at once; thinking quickly is the only way to survive. Kefva had a revolver like the joker, and luckily missed cloud but killed two people in the immediate area (battles don't "transport" you somewhere else, you exist in the world at all times, so your fights can fuck up the world!) cloud tried to hit him but got stabbed in the gut (Kevka had armor on under his white suit) so he backed off; Kevka ended the fight by default, so we couldn;t fight him. Apparently, he had no idea who we were, and was actually delighted we tried to kill him. Something about "I haven't seen such fire in a long time! Cecil, get this man to the recuiting station!" And just continue on, laughing manically after hitting shocked cloud on the shoulder, knocking him down. Kevka's bodyguards never entered the fight, indicating they knew you were no match.
There is so much detail in this dream, but I can't really remember all of it. Point is, if it was written out correctly, I sure hope that someone makes a RPG like it. Woudl be awesome.
-Z
2010-01-31
2010-01-29
Picking, Mouse Projections, Screen to Ray
The Problem:
When the user clicks on the 2D screen, how do we know in 3D coordinates where they actually clicked, so we can select the object they clicked on?
The Solution:
Obviously a simple geometric / linear algebra problem. It is commonly done by querying the graphics card for the projection, modelview, and viewport. I despise asking the card for anything, as it should be a one way pipe. (minus CUDA, which is still new).
Our special case is, if we know how we constructed the projection matrix, we can easily invert the process to convert a screen ray into world coordinates. Then we can make those world coordinates relative to our "camera" matrix, and you can then perform a ray to scene collision detection;
This is also called "picking", "selection", and has a variety of other names. I highly reccomend never using any method but your own geometric methods, since you can't rely on this type of functionality to be consistent, without ensuring your own code is.
In layman terms, "You can click things in 3D" / "What you see is what you get"
The orange dot is the actual 3D position of the Ray -> AABB intersection
(A Ray is defined by a point and a direction, a AABB is a axis aligned bounding box, so it has a minimum position and a maximum position, or a center and a half-size for each axis)
Here's some code snippet:
Works beautifully! Onward with my megaman project.
-Z
When the user clicks on the 2D screen, how do we know in 3D coordinates where they actually clicked, so we can select the object they clicked on?
The Solution:
Obviously a simple geometric / linear algebra problem. It is commonly done by querying the graphics card for the projection, modelview, and viewport. I despise asking the card for anything, as it should be a one way pipe. (minus CUDA, which is still new).
Our special case is, if we know how we constructed the projection matrix, we can easily invert the process to convert a screen ray into world coordinates. Then we can make those world coordinates relative to our "camera" matrix, and you can then perform a ray to scene collision detection;
This is also called "picking", "selection", and has a variety of other names. I highly reccomend never using any method but your own geometric methods, since you can't rely on this type of functionality to be consistent, without ensuring your own code is.
In layman terms, "You can click things in 3D" / "What you see is what you get"
The orange dot is the actual 3D position of the Ray -> AABB intersection
(A Ray is defined by a point and a direction, a AABB is a axis aligned bounding box, so it has a minimum position and a maximum position, or a center and a half-size for each axis)
Here's some code snippet:
From reading that code, you'll notice the projection matrix is defined by:class matrix
{
public:
//+X = left, +Y = up, +Z = forward
float Xx, Xy, Xz, Xw; //Order from spec; Colum major 0..16. Have to transpose all the mathematics (internally)
float Yx, Yy, Yz, Yw;
float Zx, Zy, Zz, Zw;
float x, y, z, w;
...
void mingl::matrix::frustum_get_ray( int umouse_x, int umouse_y, int window_w, int window_h, float distnear, float distfar, float fovangle, float & Rx, float & Ry, float & Rz, float & Rdx, float & Rdy, float & Rdz )
{
float scrn_x = (float)(2*umouse_x - window_w) / ((float)window_w);
float scrn_y = -(float)(2*umouse_y - window_h) / ((float)window_h);
float td_dx, td_dy;
float td_tan = tan( fovangle * (M_PI/360.0f) );
if( window_w > window_h ){
td_dx = td_tan * scrn_x * ((float)window_w/(float)window_h);
td_dy = td_tan * scrn_y;
}else{
td_dx = td_tan * scrn_x;
td_dy = td_tan * scrn_y * ((float)window_h/(float)window_w);
}
//Generate points on the projection viewport
float p1[3] = { td_dx*distnear, td_dy*distnear, distnear };
float p2[3] = { td_dx*distfar, td_dy*distfar, distfar };
float dv[3] = { (p2[0] - p1[0]), (p2[1] - p1[1]), (p2[2] - p1[2]) };
//Note this is a specialized "To Global" operation (because of the inversion on axes)
//Ray does not start from center of camera.
Rx = x - Zx * p1[2] + Xx * p1[0] + Yx * p1[1];
Ry = y - Zy * p1[2] + Xy * p1[0] + Yy * p1[1];
Rz = z - Zz * p1[2] + Xz * p1[0] + Yz * p1[1];
//note the conversion.
Rdx = -Zx * dv[2] + Xx * dv[0] + Yx * dv[1];
Rdy = -Zy * dv[2] + Xy * dv[0] + Yy * dv[1];
Rdz = -Zz * dv[2] + Xz * dv[0] + Yz * dv[1];
}
//3D projection matrix via symmetrical frustum; the most common projection.
float fov = 60.0;
float aspect = 1.0;
float unear = 0.125;
float ufar = 1024.0;
float top = tan(fov*0.00872664625997f) * unear; //0.00872665f = pi / 360 = (pi / 180) * 0.5
if( (window_h > 0) && (window_w > 0) ){
if( window_w > window_h ){
aspect = float(window_w)/float(window_h);
projection.frustum( aspect * -top, aspect * top, -top, top, unear, ufar );
}else{
aspect = float(window_h)/float(window_w);
projection.frustum( -top, top, aspect * -top,aspect * top, unear, ufar );
}
}
void mingl::matrix::frustum( float ul, float ur, float ub, float ut, float un, float uf )
{
float dx = (ur-ul);
float dy = (ut-ub);
float dz = (uf-un);
dx = (dx <= 0) ? 1.0 : dx;
dy = (dy <= 0) ? 1.0 : dy;
dz = (dz <= 0) ? 1.0 : dz;
identity();
Xx = (2.0*un)/dx;
Yy = (2.0*un)/dy;
Xz = (ur + ul)/dx;
Yz = (ut + ub)/dy;
Zz = -(uf + un)/dz;
Zw = -1.0;
z = -(2.0*uf*un)/dz;
w = 0;
Works beautifully! Onward with my megaman project.
-Z
2010-01-24
Dream; Apparently, photon rendering is a big thing
Summary:
reed, scott, amanda and I go on a failed tulsa telescope trip; then reed and I play a VR cube-like game.
Details:
I'm trying to remember the events leading up to the start of the 'game', there was something about a really long trip to tulsa, and scott, reed, amanda and I broke down so squeeky came by and had to rescue us, with nathan, turned out we had to get a rental car or something and who knows what else. I think we were going on a camping/telescoping trip, but I really don't remember as there was this phase shift,
Suddenly, it was virtual reality videogame time, and after watching this boring plot introduction to these two biologists, both of which were studying some fossils up in the mountains, got killed by natural enemies like venomous spiders and snakes; It was odd, as if the grounds were possessed.
Suddenly, it fast forwards, and this place as near this ancient ruins site that looked like a Cube level, I began running around, pickup up weapons in the arena; Little chuck came by and asked me some stupid question, I ignored it and showed him how awesome the graphics were. After that, the gameplay started, and I was waiting for someone else to join. Apparently though, there was a pterodactyl as an enemy, and fucking hell it was invincible. So I'm running around, this super skill avian like monster, at least 12 ft wingspan, is trying to hit my collision box and transfer away 25% of my health; I pick up this regular pistol, an AK-47 like weapon, my M-16 (favorite), futuristic purple plasma belcher, and a green flux rifle, all of which had multiple secondary modes, and looked awesome like they SHOULD be doing some damage. Nothin, the damn bird was invincible. So now I'm running around avoiding getting pecked to death, trying to shut doors behind me, but the goddamn thing could open them with it's face; so it was able to follow me everywhere, there was no escape. Randomly, Nemesis shows up with a rocket launcher and is now also trying to kill me. Luckily, Reed logged in and we both started trying to kill nemesis, but the stupid dinosaur was continuing to attack me only; who knows why. Nemesis could run like nobody's business, so we were having trouble getting away from him; The arena was a very large place, with ruined columns jutting out all over the floor, there were 2 main corridors you could go down anbd a 5 - level rope bridge with huts area in the middle of this Colosseum like ring; The other corridors led to many separate and unique rooms, and a grand hall; the separate rooms usually had a theme, like trophy room, bath room, study, torture chamber, ect... But we ended up climbing our way to the top of the huts since nemesis couldn't jump, continuing to get hit by that stupid pterodactyl, and eventually make it to the top hut with a large button panel. I hold the door shut, the damn dino bird was really strong, it tris to swipe my feet or grab my ankles, since it was able to hold the door partially open, easy to dodge b ut I thought twas was an unusual detail for an enemy that basically just runs into you; maybe there were conditional attacks that we'd really need to avoid?
Either way, there was a puzzle, I tell reed to solve it, he does, but in a way the designers didn't intend, so a giant swarm of anti-dermestic beetles comes from nowhere, and we start running and shooting at them, nemesis shoots them all with a rocket, and we continue playing the game.
reed, scott, amanda and I go on a failed tulsa telescope trip; then reed and I play a VR cube-like game.
Details:
I'm trying to remember the events leading up to the start of the 'game', there was something about a really long trip to tulsa, and scott, reed, amanda and I broke down so squeeky came by and had to rescue us, with nathan, turned out we had to get a rental car or something and who knows what else. I think we were going on a camping/telescoping trip, but I really don't remember as there was this phase shift,
Suddenly, it was virtual reality videogame time, and after watching this boring plot introduction to these two biologists, both of which were studying some fossils up in the mountains, got killed by natural enemies like venomous spiders and snakes; It was odd, as if the grounds were possessed.
Suddenly, it fast forwards, and this place as near this ancient ruins site that looked like a Cube level, I began running around, pickup up weapons in the arena; Little chuck came by and asked me some stupid question, I ignored it and showed him how awesome the graphics were. After that, the gameplay started, and I was waiting for someone else to join. Apparently though, there was a pterodactyl as an enemy, and fucking hell it was invincible. So I'm running around, this super skill avian like monster, at least 12 ft wingspan, is trying to hit my collision box and transfer away 25% of my health; I pick up this regular pistol, an AK-47 like weapon, my M-16 (favorite), futuristic purple plasma belcher, and a green flux rifle, all of which had multiple secondary modes, and looked awesome like they SHOULD be doing some damage. Nothin, the damn bird was invincible. So now I'm running around avoiding getting pecked to death, trying to shut doors behind me, but the goddamn thing could open them with it's face; so it was able to follow me everywhere, there was no escape. Randomly, Nemesis shows up with a rocket launcher and is now also trying to kill me. Luckily, Reed logged in and we both started trying to kill nemesis, but the stupid dinosaur was continuing to attack me only; who knows why. Nemesis could run like nobody's business, so we were having trouble getting away from him; The arena was a very large place, with ruined columns jutting out all over the floor, there were 2 main corridors you could go down anbd a 5 - level rope bridge with huts area in the middle of this Colosseum like ring; The other corridors led to many separate and unique rooms, and a grand hall; the separate rooms usually had a theme, like trophy room, bath room, study, torture chamber, ect... But we ended up climbing our way to the top of the huts since nemesis couldn't jump, continuing to get hit by that stupid pterodactyl, and eventually make it to the top hut with a large button panel. I hold the door shut, the damn dino bird was really strong, it tris to swipe my feet or grab my ankles, since it was able to hold the door partially open, easy to dodge b ut I thought twas was an unusual detail for an enemy that basically just runs into you; maybe there were conditional attacks that we'd really need to avoid?
Either way, there was a puzzle, I tell reed to solve it, he does, but in a way the designers didn't intend, so a giant swarm of anti-dermestic beetles comes from nowhere, and we start running and shooting at them, nemesis shoots them all with a rocket, and we continue playing the game.
2010-01-20
Dream - Fanservice; Slightly disturbing
As stated, this is somewhat a fanservice dream. Don't read if you don't like reading disturbing things.
Summary:
Something about folks visiting someone's friend because their friend's just got killed in some accident, or maybe from cancer. So we visit this freaks house, nice house, then go get some groceries before going home and I find a dreamcast and play this crazy vore fanservice game where you were some chick that could turn into a dolphin.
Details:
I remember some of the dream, not the events leading up to visiting this random guy. Apparently, some friend of my parents had kicked it, don't really know how they died, but they had no surviving relatives, just a friend that had been taking care of them intermittently, so they decided to pay a visit to him to get the scoop. This dude lived on the coastline, somewhere further east, was a beautiful 4 acre lot on the water, with it's own jeti and pier, boatdock, multi-part house (had a main home, and a side home for tools/games like Bill's 'Mancave') and a very well kept lawn. This guy was single though, which was odd. Either way, I'm bored, the dude doesn't seem that interesting, and he actually had a friend over, which I thought was strange, since he knew we were coming over, but I guess the friend was just leaving. Ironically, I overheard some of their conversation, and some words came up about eka's and such, and I wondered who this guy really was.
So, we putz around his house, he shows us all the cool shit he had, like the exercise room with TV and his tool filled garage with a classic car, his two cats, blah blah blah. He asked me some question, I can't remember what it was, but it was indirectly asking if I was a member of eka's too, so I responded "I bet Imaginary Z would know." and then we left.
Was really weird, and boring. No cool events, but the house was pretty awesome.
Second part, we're driving home, it's raining a lot, so we stop in at a place that is topologically identical to my Homeland in mustang, so the folks go in and start shopping, me and sis hang out in the front, where they had some crazy arcade games. I find this one, I make fun of it, because it was something like a mermaid/transformation game thing, the demo reel looked like Ecco from the dreamcast. So, I give it a shot, it played fairly well, like a mario 64 type game, there wasn't really anything slowing down the gameplay, you could run around as some chick, use a energy whip to kill shit like Zero suit samus does in brawl, and, if you jumped in the water, you could turn into a dolphin and fly around. The dolphin form initially could not shoot, and the game did not prevent you from going into 'difficult' areas, so, that's the first thing I did. Not too surprisingly, there were these lightly lavender/grey colored plesiousaur/dragon monsters slowly moving around, and since you didn't have any weapon equipped, speed-ramming them did nothing, I tried it a few times, but apparently, if you get too close to their neck/head kinematic range (kinematic range is a probabilistic region defined by the "energy" required to stretch a chain of bones to that position; Much like the 'rope around a silo' problem) you get treated to a funny little cinema scene of the thing swallowing your dolphin with ease. Though, the designers, being sick fucks apparently, let you mash buttons to try and wriggle enough to make it spit you out; So it wasn't really insta-death, though you were given the option to 'suicide' or attempt escape. I thought that was rather bizarre, so I experimented with it; It turned out a glitch allowed you to change back into human form while being eaten, but due to the way the game was programmed, your dolphin form would still exist, so your human form just pops into existence next to your assailent, so you can wail on it's ass while it eats your old form. If you happen to rescue the old form, your human form dissapears, and you're a dolphin again. Was quite strange, and even MORE weirdly, if you let the sea dragon finish off your dolphin, your human form would NOT disappear, but you would switch control back to the swallowed dolphin, from which you could struggle indefinitely, with accompanying highly detail animation (the "object under a silk cloth" type animation) until you got bored of the screen telling you to restart. But when you DID restart, you would start from where you left off the human form, in a way, you had a glitchy emergent behavior trick; Maybe this was intentional, I don't know.
The environment of the game was very blue and icy looking in color, the waters were dark blue and deep, there were very few creatures or plants or things in it, just a couple of those sea dragons and some glowing rocks at the bottom, maybe 500+ ft deep. The point was, this was obviously subconscious fanservice; I'm not complaining but I sure wish I had those models. They looked oddly similar to one of the models I'm currently working on though...
Summary:
Something about folks visiting someone's friend because their friend's just got killed in some accident, or maybe from cancer. So we visit this freaks house, nice house, then go get some groceries before going home and I find a dreamcast and play this crazy vore fanservice game where you were some chick that could turn into a dolphin.
Details:
I remember some of the dream, not the events leading up to visiting this random guy. Apparently, some friend of my parents had kicked it, don't really know how they died, but they had no surviving relatives, just a friend that had been taking care of them intermittently, so they decided to pay a visit to him to get the scoop. This dude lived on the coastline, somewhere further east, was a beautiful 4 acre lot on the water, with it's own jeti and pier, boatdock, multi-part house (had a main home, and a side home for tools/games like Bill's 'Mancave') and a very well kept lawn. This guy was single though, which was odd. Either way, I'm bored, the dude doesn't seem that interesting, and he actually had a friend over, which I thought was strange, since he knew we were coming over, but I guess the friend was just leaving. Ironically, I overheard some of their conversation, and some words came up about eka's and such, and I wondered who this guy really was.
So, we putz around his house, he shows us all the cool shit he had, like the exercise room with TV and his tool filled garage with a classic car, his two cats, blah blah blah. He asked me some question, I can't remember what it was, but it was indirectly asking if I was a member of eka's too, so I responded "I bet Imaginary Z would know." and then we left.
Was really weird, and boring. No cool events, but the house was pretty awesome.
Second part, we're driving home, it's raining a lot, so we stop in at a place that is topologically identical to my Homeland in mustang, so the folks go in and start shopping, me and sis hang out in the front, where they had some crazy arcade games. I find this one, I make fun of it, because it was something like a mermaid/transformation game thing, the demo reel looked like Ecco from the dreamcast. So, I give it a shot, it played fairly well, like a mario 64 type game, there wasn't really anything slowing down the gameplay, you could run around as some chick, use a energy whip to kill shit like Zero suit samus does in brawl, and, if you jumped in the water, you could turn into a dolphin and fly around. The dolphin form initially could not shoot, and the game did not prevent you from going into 'difficult' areas, so, that's the first thing I did. Not too surprisingly, there were these lightly lavender/grey colored plesiousaur/dragon monsters slowly moving around, and since you didn't have any weapon equipped, speed-ramming them did nothing, I tried it a few times, but apparently, if you get too close to their neck/head kinematic range (kinematic range is a probabilistic region defined by the "energy" required to stretch a chain of bones to that position; Much like the 'rope around a silo' problem) you get treated to a funny little cinema scene of the thing swallowing your dolphin with ease. Though, the designers, being sick fucks apparently, let you mash buttons to try and wriggle enough to make it spit you out; So it wasn't really insta-death, though you were given the option to 'suicide' or attempt escape. I thought that was rather bizarre, so I experimented with it; It turned out a glitch allowed you to change back into human form while being eaten, but due to the way the game was programmed, your dolphin form would still exist, so your human form just pops into existence next to your assailent, so you can wail on it's ass while it eats your old form. If you happen to rescue the old form, your human form dissapears, and you're a dolphin again. Was quite strange, and even MORE weirdly, if you let the sea dragon finish off your dolphin, your human form would NOT disappear, but you would switch control back to the swallowed dolphin, from which you could struggle indefinitely, with accompanying highly detail animation (the "object under a silk cloth" type animation) until you got bored of the screen telling you to restart. But when you DID restart, you would start from where you left off the human form, in a way, you had a glitchy emergent behavior trick; Maybe this was intentional, I don't know.
The environment of the game was very blue and icy looking in color, the waters were dark blue and deep, there were very few creatures or plants or things in it, just a couple of those sea dragons and some glowing rocks at the bottom, maybe 500+ ft deep. The point was, this was obviously subconscious fanservice; I'm not complaining but I sure wish I had those models. They looked oddly similar to one of the models I'm currently working on though...
2010-01-10
Odd Nuclear Disaster Dream
Parts of this are in fragments, but it was rather long.
Summary:
I pick a fight with some douchebag highscool kid trying to currupt one of my friends little brothers, he pulls guns, I smack them away and shoot him. Nuclear disaster happens ,the world floods, all temperatures rise near 110 constantly, people starve and run out of water, marine life comes ashore (all the way to Kansas) bizzare cults and non-eco friendly clans develop, me and the dragon clan have a huge fight out with this large group of savages; we win in the end.
Details:
The first part of the dream involved me going to some sort of high school graduation; Apparently, mike, dustin and some people I forgot I knew were there, and dustin's kid was graduating to middle school finally (zach), so I went along to see him walk along his ceremony. At the same time was a high school graduation, filled with lots of idiot punks as usual. Though, Zach started hanging out with this greaser punk in leather, I'd never seen this kid before, and he was trying to tell zach to do drugs, and hang out with the cool crowd. Zach was a smart kid, and knew to stay away, but I saw this event occur later, and confronted the idiot, and we got in some sort of stupid argument and he pulls a gun on zach and threatens to shoot him, so I pull a gun as well, taken from some kid I secretly swiped, and I shot at him. Lucky for him, the gun sucked and it grazed his head so he let go and put his hands up and ran away, so I went to talk to Zach but zach ran off to go with the punk kid.
Chase scene ensues, and the punk drives off but only for about 100ft since car's don't work without gas; And they take off running. I eventually chase him down to this large apartment building, and we face off, I disarm his stupid ass and he pullls an old knife out, threatens me with it until I disarm him from that too, then I just shoot him in the foot and kick him out the door, which at this time led to the ocean, tens of feet down. The fish got him.
So now time fast forwards, zach is in his teens, dustin and co are living in this high rise building, we're on the 20 somethingth floor, which the bottom or so floor are completely underwater, networks of floating bridges are made between buildings, and ours just so happens ot have the only working well, so we are naturally well armed and defended, I had personally executed hundreds of people, and fed them to the local fish so we could have food.
IT wasn't exactly a pretty future, but there were still lots of good people in existence, but the beutiful thing is it's OK to weed out the stupid people now, unlike today where we seem to encourage the breeding of idiots; In the future, if we were breeding idiots it would be for food.
So one day, I was sitting in the window with my homemade sniper scope, and I notices some large black asian dragons flying around some of hte other buildings, I showed everyone and pointed out that they were people holding up these elaborate costumes, running around like idiots. I heard one of them come up the stairs, and this weird ass group of Yoga people just ran through the building in dragon costume, saying a few passing words and leaving just as quickly; taking nothing, but making their presence known.
Eventually, I went over to their cult, and found out they were a group of ecologically minded folk, who were valuing the same ideals my tower did, preserving the marine ecosystem so that it would naturally sustain and preserve itself, and us in the meantime. So we banded up, and I joined the dragon cult minus the goofy rituals.
Well, one day they pointed out that there was this large band of stupid idiots trying to drag nets across our oceans; but they were heavily armed and there were many of them. I confronted them once, killed four of them and slashed their nets; all before their bandwagon began firing back and I ran them into a trap, as hundreds of these motherfuckers came out of nowhere, wasting shots trying to kill me. I lured them into the courtyard of a hollow building, where our dragon clan rained death upon them using medeival weaponry and some of my own custom devices; After a long battle, both sides had heavy losses but we mostly wiped out the intruders, I ran down and cut their throats, those that survived. I alone, apparently, was immune to death b ecause I knew what the future meant for humanity, and I also knew that executing a few humans would mean nothing on the cosmic scale; especially those who believe that might makes right, and anchient reptilian function that lives on as our own personal demon.
Eitherway, we fed the fishes, and birds, and made out with a large feast; sadly our numbers had been halved, but we set out a ritual for them to be given back to the earth; And time proceeded on. Maybe sometime in the hundreds of years distance the earth would start repairing itself, and we could recontinue a new human spirit; One that values peace, balance, and the cosmos more than itself.
Nothing feels better than killing stupid people, then feeding them to the earth. If only our world's educational standards could promote real thinking instead of political regurgitation. Don't forget that there are a lot of scientists and engineers that are stupid; Stupid is defined as lack of tolerance and understand, and lack of diplomacy. you can be book smart, money smart, street smart, and still be stupid as a rock. Only the scientific mind that values the cosmos is intelligent; your reptilian brain is the enemy. Rise up against it.
La mayor victoria esta en vencerse a si mismo.
(The greatest victory is to conquer yourself.)
Summary:
I pick a fight with some douchebag highscool kid trying to currupt one of my friends little brothers, he pulls guns, I smack them away and shoot him. Nuclear disaster happens ,the world floods, all temperatures rise near 110 constantly, people starve and run out of water, marine life comes ashore (all the way to Kansas) bizzare cults and non-eco friendly clans develop, me and the dragon clan have a huge fight out with this large group of savages; we win in the end.
Details:
The first part of the dream involved me going to some sort of high school graduation; Apparently, mike, dustin and some people I forgot I knew were there, and dustin's kid was graduating to middle school finally (zach), so I went along to see him walk along his ceremony. At the same time was a high school graduation, filled with lots of idiot punks as usual. Though, Zach started hanging out with this greaser punk in leather, I'd never seen this kid before, and he was trying to tell zach to do drugs, and hang out with the cool crowd. Zach was a smart kid, and knew to stay away, but I saw this event occur later, and confronted the idiot, and we got in some sort of stupid argument and he pulls a gun on zach and threatens to shoot him, so I pull a gun as well, taken from some kid I secretly swiped, and I shot at him. Lucky for him, the gun sucked and it grazed his head so he let go and put his hands up and ran away, so I went to talk to Zach but zach ran off to go with the punk kid.
Chase scene ensues, and the punk drives off but only for about 100ft since car's don't work without gas; And they take off running. I eventually chase him down to this large apartment building, and we face off, I disarm his stupid ass and he pullls an old knife out, threatens me with it until I disarm him from that too, then I just shoot him in the foot and kick him out the door, which at this time led to the ocean, tens of feet down. The fish got him.
So now time fast forwards, zach is in his teens, dustin and co are living in this high rise building, we're on the 20 somethingth floor, which the bottom or so floor are completely underwater, networks of floating bridges are made between buildings, and ours just so happens ot have the only working well, so we are naturally well armed and defended, I had personally executed hundreds of people, and fed them to the local fish so we could have food.
IT wasn't exactly a pretty future, but there were still lots of good people in existence, but the beutiful thing is it's OK to weed out the stupid people now, unlike today where we seem to encourage the breeding of idiots; In the future, if we were breeding idiots it would be for food.
So one day, I was sitting in the window with my homemade sniper scope, and I notices some large black asian dragons flying around some of hte other buildings, I showed everyone and pointed out that they were people holding up these elaborate costumes, running around like idiots. I heard one of them come up the stairs, and this weird ass group of Yoga people just ran through the building in dragon costume, saying a few passing words and leaving just as quickly; taking nothing, but making their presence known.
Eventually, I went over to their cult, and found out they were a group of ecologically minded folk, who were valuing the same ideals my tower did, preserving the marine ecosystem so that it would naturally sustain and preserve itself, and us in the meantime. So we banded up, and I joined the dragon cult minus the goofy rituals.
Well, one day they pointed out that there was this large band of stupid idiots trying to drag nets across our oceans; but they were heavily armed and there were many of them. I confronted them once, killed four of them and slashed their nets; all before their bandwagon began firing back and I ran them into a trap, as hundreds of these motherfuckers came out of nowhere, wasting shots trying to kill me. I lured them into the courtyard of a hollow building, where our dragon clan rained death upon them using medeival weaponry and some of my own custom devices; After a long battle, both sides had heavy losses but we mostly wiped out the intruders, I ran down and cut their throats, those that survived. I alone, apparently, was immune to death b ecause I knew what the future meant for humanity, and I also knew that executing a few humans would mean nothing on the cosmic scale; especially those who believe that might makes right, and anchient reptilian function that lives on as our own personal demon.
Eitherway, we fed the fishes, and birds, and made out with a large feast; sadly our numbers had been halved, but we set out a ritual for them to be given back to the earth; And time proceeded on. Maybe sometime in the hundreds of years distance the earth would start repairing itself, and we could recontinue a new human spirit; One that values peace, balance, and the cosmos more than itself.
Nothing feels better than killing stupid people, then feeding them to the earth. If only our world's educational standards could promote real thinking instead of political regurgitation. Don't forget that there are a lot of scientists and engineers that are stupid; Stupid is defined as lack of tolerance and understand, and lack of diplomacy. you can be book smart, money smart, street smart, and still be stupid as a rock. Only the scientific mind that values the cosmos is intelligent; your reptilian brain is the enemy. Rise up against it.
La mayor victoria esta en vencerse a si mismo.
(The greatest victory is to conquer yourself.)
2010-01-09
F'd up dream
Summary:
Pan-Man family versus Super Mario Bros as they begin to destroy a holiday resort; I bash in a bobcat's skull with a 2x4 to save Scott, who fell down a rusty sewer grate.
Details:
I remember being in some sort of older van, like a 1996 Chevy Lumnia or something, with my sis, dad, mom, all driving up to Colorado or somewhere equally resort like. It was cold, snow glazed the hills but the temperatures were not bad, so the roads were fine. There was plenty of traffic, I had my Sega GameGear and was playing Sonic 2 on the trip. Eventually, we reached this large ski-resort place, which was connected to a hot spring, it was a nice place, rustic decor, but elegant tables, paintings, and professional attire everywhere, somewhat like the interior rooms on a cruiseliner.
So, we moved our luggage to the room, which had the typical 2 bed Suite, a small kitchinette and 1 bathroom. Obviously, you were not meant to use the room for more than sleeping, so we all discussed where to go grab some food; Turned out there was a really nice buffet downstairs in the lobby, with lots of types of ethnic foods. So, we go wait in line and eat dinner aqt the buffet.
Meanwhile, the camera pans over to the entrance where people check in, and , well, Pac-Man and his family (pac jr, pac baby, mrs pac man, pac man and that little dog) check into the resort as well; If you have ever seen the pac man cartoon (I do not recommend it) You can imagine the stark contrast as cartoon characters walk into a resort with humans ala Roger Rabbit style; It was nightmarish, but they were just vacationing as well, nothing weird. Of course, in the background see Clyde and Pinky conjuring up a plan to kill him as per usual.
The camera goes back to use, and we all split up, mom + dad hit up the casino area, and I just went to the game arcade to see if I could beat donkey kong and galaga 88'; I dunno where sis went to, I think ben was there too, so they went somewhere. Odd that ben was not in the car ride with use but appeared later.
So I'm in the arcade, and it pans back to the pac fammily as they tour the resort; being pac people means they don't have any luggage; Pac man had on his red tophat and mrs pacman had some sort of scarf/ascot thing on. Either way, they were looking at the pool area, which was a lake formed by natural springwater, so it was a large, moderately temperatured swim resort, but nobody was in there, weirdly. Spatially, the pool was rectangular, one half had a large auditorium for concerts, the other had the arcade casino, and the other half was leading back into the resort complex. So, at this point, the ghosts come out of nowhere and attack that pac family, and they go all super-pellet and try and fight off the ghosts; It's comedic, and total 80's cartoon style, but as a team they eat teh ghosts and those creepy as hell floating eyes go back to whence the came. They brush up, and pac man decides he needs to get cleaned up before hitting the casino!
The ghosts respawn from somewhere, and start messing around in the arcade, I leave as soon as I see them, I have strong racial prejudice toward non-physical entities. But they check out my game, and do some sort of ghostly magic and pull the mario brothers OUT of the video game, even though it was donkey kong, we get the Super Mario Galaxy looking brothers in the real world, which was more cartoonery nonsense. Of course, the mario bothers immediately stare at the ghosts, who shy away, and they start talking like mario and luigi, and begin destroying bricks and bouncing around like maniacs.
Pac man hears the commotion (Apparently the pac family is well adjusted to western lifestyle and causes no harm) and they rush in to stop the brothers, but, none of their pac-magic works against them; they aren;t ghosts, and they kick the hell out of pacman, but they really aren't willing to do too much, since they get confused about what is going on.
Meanwhile, Pinky gets a cardboard cutout of bowser, and a princess (live, real person that looks like somewhat like Peach) and lures the brothers, but they tank this, and both pull out super stars...
When they do, the game changes, and the brothers start pulling insane acrobatic stunts and just plow through the pac family, and contiue breakign and destroying the resort. The weekend police show up and rain firepower on them, but all of them get 'thrown' away from the super star powers. Everyone is now running around screaming, trying to escape these invincible madmen, people swimming away, going places they shouldn't. Scott apparently was there, and was running away from teh crowd down a rickey, rusty railroad tie area which led away from the resort through the hot spring, but a large metal grate collapsed and he fell down some tunnel. I didn;t notice for a while, since I made sure my folks had got to safety, and I went back to see if any hot chicks were in trouble; None to be seen, but I heard some bullshit and found scott trying to scar away a large bobcat, who was lured by the smell of blood and injury. So, I picked up a two by four and yelled at it; The cat was hardly persuaded, and jumped at me, so I bashed it's head in Scout style. The cat reeled, and started walking funny, it's skull caved and blood pouring down it's face, as it laid down to die from the concussive loss of lifegiving fluid. Ihelped scott up, he got scraped up pretty bad, but only twisted his ankle. So we left, and the mario brothers had run away, jumping around and screaming like madmed, powered by the ilusion of star power. The pac family was knocked out, and the ghosts had one this time.
None of this mess made any sense. What a waste of sleep power.
Pan-Man family versus Super Mario Bros as they begin to destroy a holiday resort; I bash in a bobcat's skull with a 2x4 to save Scott, who fell down a rusty sewer grate.
Details:
I remember being in some sort of older van, like a 1996 Chevy Lumnia or something, with my sis, dad, mom, all driving up to Colorado or somewhere equally resort like. It was cold, snow glazed the hills but the temperatures were not bad, so the roads were fine. There was plenty of traffic, I had my Sega GameGear and was playing Sonic 2 on the trip. Eventually, we reached this large ski-resort place, which was connected to a hot spring, it was a nice place, rustic decor, but elegant tables, paintings, and professional attire everywhere, somewhat like the interior rooms on a cruiseliner.
So, we moved our luggage to the room, which had the typical 2 bed Suite, a small kitchinette and 1 bathroom. Obviously, you were not meant to use the room for more than sleeping, so we all discussed where to go grab some food; Turned out there was a really nice buffet downstairs in the lobby, with lots of types of ethnic foods. So, we go wait in line and eat dinner aqt the buffet.
Meanwhile, the camera pans over to the entrance where people check in, and , well, Pac-Man and his family (pac jr, pac baby, mrs pac man, pac man and that little dog) check into the resort as well; If you have ever seen the pac man cartoon (I do not recommend it) You can imagine the stark contrast as cartoon characters walk into a resort with humans ala Roger Rabbit style; It was nightmarish, but they were just vacationing as well, nothing weird. Of course, in the background see Clyde and Pinky conjuring up a plan to kill him as per usual.
The camera goes back to use, and we all split up, mom + dad hit up the casino area, and I just went to the game arcade to see if I could beat donkey kong and galaga 88'; I dunno where sis went to, I think ben was there too, so they went somewhere. Odd that ben was not in the car ride with use but appeared later.
So I'm in the arcade, and it pans back to the pac fammily as they tour the resort; being pac people means they don't have any luggage; Pac man had on his red tophat and mrs pacman had some sort of scarf/ascot thing on. Either way, they were looking at the pool area, which was a lake formed by natural springwater, so it was a large, moderately temperatured swim resort, but nobody was in there, weirdly. Spatially, the pool was rectangular, one half had a large auditorium for concerts, the other had the arcade casino, and the other half was leading back into the resort complex. So, at this point, the ghosts come out of nowhere and attack that pac family, and they go all super-pellet and try and fight off the ghosts; It's comedic, and total 80's cartoon style, but as a team they eat teh ghosts and those creepy as hell floating eyes go back to whence the came. They brush up, and pac man decides he needs to get cleaned up before hitting the casino!
The ghosts respawn from somewhere, and start messing around in the arcade, I leave as soon as I see them, I have strong racial prejudice toward non-physical entities. But they check out my game, and do some sort of ghostly magic and pull the mario brothers OUT of the video game, even though it was donkey kong, we get the Super Mario Galaxy looking brothers in the real world, which was more cartoonery nonsense. Of course, the mario bothers immediately stare at the ghosts, who shy away, and they start talking like mario and luigi, and begin destroying bricks and bouncing around like maniacs.
Pac man hears the commotion (Apparently the pac family is well adjusted to western lifestyle and causes no harm) and they rush in to stop the brothers, but, none of their pac-magic works against them; they aren;t ghosts, and they kick the hell out of pacman, but they really aren't willing to do too much, since they get confused about what is going on.
Meanwhile, Pinky gets a cardboard cutout of bowser, and a princess (live, real person that looks like somewhat like Peach) and lures the brothers, but they tank this, and both pull out super stars...
When they do, the game changes, and the brothers start pulling insane acrobatic stunts and just plow through the pac family, and contiue breakign and destroying the resort. The weekend police show up and rain firepower on them, but all of them get 'thrown' away from the super star powers. Everyone is now running around screaming, trying to escape these invincible madmen, people swimming away, going places they shouldn't. Scott apparently was there, and was running away from teh crowd down a rickey, rusty railroad tie area which led away from the resort through the hot spring, but a large metal grate collapsed and he fell down some tunnel. I didn;t notice for a while, since I made sure my folks had got to safety, and I went back to see if any hot chicks were in trouble; None to be seen, but I heard some bullshit and found scott trying to scar away a large bobcat, who was lured by the smell of blood and injury. So, I picked up a two by four and yelled at it; The cat was hardly persuaded, and jumped at me, so I bashed it's head in Scout style. The cat reeled, and started walking funny, it's skull caved and blood pouring down it's face, as it laid down to die from the concussive loss of lifegiving fluid. Ihelped scott up, he got scraped up pretty bad, but only twisted his ankle. So we left, and the mario brothers had run away, jumping around and screaming like madmed, powered by the ilusion of star power. The pac family was knocked out, and the ghosts had one this time.
None of this mess made any sense. What a waste of sleep power.
2010-01-02
Nebulous Cacophony to be removed
I'm going to be taking down www.gocaco.com; The site will still be up but until I work some deals involving some clams, I won't have the new site up for a while, and it will instead be used for hosting files that should be on my blog.
Eventually it will be an accompaniment to my blog, and ultimately be turned into my blog. I intend to have a generic phpBB forum as part of the site, and a project management page for keeping track of my code and music projects (using lmms, code::blocks, GiMP, blender as core software components)
So you'd better hurry up and download all that crap, lest you lose it forever!
-Z
Eventually it will be an accompaniment to my blog, and ultimately be turned into my blog. I intend to have a generic phpBB forum as part of the site, and a project management page for keeping track of my code and music projects (using lmms, code::blocks, GiMP, blender as core software components)
So you'd better hurry up and download all that crap, lest you lose it forever!
-Z
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