At my lovely new job, we got a trainer to teach us about Ruby, Rails, and agile methodologies. She was pretty good overall, but one thing she mentioned a few times really got on my nerves: “use implicit returns in Ruby because there is a performance hit when explicitly returning”. Continue reading “The horrible cost of using explicit returns in Ruby….”
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, problems launching, problems playing, and windows 7
This drove me completely freaking crazy for the past few days. Hopefully my pain can help somebody else.
After dealing with the incredible disappointment of Elemental, Stardock’s newest game (a subject I will probably go into further detail on the another time), I decided to break out Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. Continue reading “Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, problems launching, problems playing, and windows 7”
Ruby lovers rejoice! Net::YAIL 1.4.0 released!
I suspect there are still some bugs, as I only have one bot I use to test the thing, but there’s a lot of really good new stuff. I’m trying to move everything that makes sense into github, so the changelog is available on the Net::YAIL github wiki. Highlights: there’s finally a topic-change event, you can now register a block as a handler, some core issues are fixed in parsing, and I’ve paved the way for object-based handlers and filters. Continue reading “Ruby lovers rejoice! Net::YAIL 1.4.0 released!”
I’m not dead yet. Celebrate H-day!
WTF is H-day, you ask? Why, it’s the anniversary of the day I survived a workplace shooting that was almost potentially likely to become a very real possibility!
A little over a year ago, I (and various coworkers) were threatened by somebody I had once considered a good guy. (Quirky, way over-sensitive, but a good guy.) We will call him Mr. H. Continue reading “I’m not dead yet. Celebrate H-day!”
Diminishing Returns… the summary
Okay, so I pretty much forgot about this until I got an email about the logarithms article. And I realize there’s not a lot to say that hasn’t been said already… or, at least, not a lot for me to say, as a mediocre-at-best game designer :P
So anyway, I’ll just recycle the same stuff I’ve already said.
Diminishing returns are essential to just about any complex game. They can give a more realistic feel to a game, such as modeling human learning or supply and demand economics. They can bring a level of balance into a game with almost no effort. And if nothing else, they add a level of mystery to the game.
In some situations, it’s better to choose the wrong diminishing returns formula than to not have one in your game at all. Look at bloodsport colosseum’s fame system, for instance – it just goes up forever, and is almost entirely meaningless once it breaks about 1000. I think any of the formulae I’ve discussed here would have been a dramatic improvement over that system.
Enjoy!
Diminishing returns articles on Nerdbucket:
Diminishing Returns in Game Design: Exponential Decay and Convergent Series
Finally, another exciting episode of NAME… THAT… DIMINISHING RETURNS FORMULA!!! Today we look at exponential decay and the convergent series, both of which are in my mind the only limit-based formula that should be considered for 99% of situations. Continue reading “Diminishing Returns in Game Design: Exponential Decay and Convergent Series”
Diminishing Returns in Game Design: Roots and Negative Exponents
Okay, first off, this was supposed to be up a good while ago, but a combination of real life and work got in the way far more effectively than I had planned. Anyway, today’s diminishing returns formula is roots. Continue reading “Diminishing Returns in Game Design: Roots and Negative Exponents”
Diminishing Returns in Game Design: The Logarithm
For the first topic in programming a diminishing returns formula, I present: logarithms! Continue reading “Diminishing Returns in Game Design: The Logarithm”
Diminishing Returns in Game Design
Diminishing what?!?
Okay, first of all, what is this concept of “diminishing returns”? Put simply, “diminishing returns” is the concept of getting less out of some system the more times you put in a constant amount. In the real world, diminishing returns are all over the place. Take, for instance, your body’s tolerance to alcohol…. Continue reading “Diminishing Returns in Game Design”
myAutToExe and Ruby for the win!
As I’ve mentioned maybe once or twice before, I like myAutToExe a good deal. It’s great for tinkering around with AutoIt programs that have been “secured” by compiling to tokens. In some situations, being able to decompile these scripts is an absolute necessity Continue reading “myAutToExe and Ruby for the win!”