“Oh John, I loved you even before I found out about the Lost Levels” August 22, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Category / Uncategorized
I Win Again, Lews Therin August 12, 2010 at 11:44 am
Social Media is Pure Id July 28, 2010 at 9:24 am
I see why this is popular.
Aldrin May 3, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Painting again after a long time. The muses sing.
Small World December 31, 2009 at 8:47 am
I gave my sister a copy of Small World for Christmas. For those who are not aware, I am pretty serious about my board games. If you are interested in game design, as I am, there’s often a lot more meat in a board game than in a computer game. So yeah. I guess you could call this “research”.
Premise of the game:
Someone took the “Rise and Fall” Civ 4 mod and made it a board game. In “Rise and Fall”, you control a civ during it’s golden age, then you cycle to controlling a new one. You often end up sacking the civs you have built up in the past.
So the real genius in this game is threefold:
First, the civilizations you play each game are randomly generated from a stack of “adjective” tiles and a stack of “race” tiles. Like so:
The adjectives and races each have their own special powers, so when you combine them, you get a ton of replayability. It’s like Cosmic Encounter when you play with more than one alien power at a time.
Second, these adj/race combos are sorted in a priority order, so that each player effectively “bids” on the combo that they want. To skip over a combo in the order, you need to place 1 VP on it. Unloved combos accumulate VPs until someone snatches it up.
Third, unlike “Rise and Fall”, the player is in control of when to put their race into decline and pick up a new one. Picking up a new race is nice, because new races come with a vital stack of tokens, which allows you to do more on your turn. Old races tire and eventually run out of tokens, but you score points for every territory they hold. Choosing when to throw in the towel with your current race is often a difficult decision.
In any case, Small World is fun, and if you like to play board games you should pick up a copy. It’s the best new game I’ve played since Dominion.
ROBLOX? More like LOLBLOX! October 3, 2008 at 3:58 pm
"God darn it, I didn’t enter.
DARN! I would use profanity but this is Roblox.
Not Sparta." – A user
Back? September 1, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I haven’t posted since Joanna and Doug’s graduation last year. The end of an era I suppose.
I haven’t posted regularly since way before that – it’s mainly something I did to procrastinate from doing school work. So I guess this blog really died around June 2006.
I’ve recently gone through the trouble of migrating it to yet another host, though. So to justify this expense of effort I think I may start using it again.
Impostor! June 17, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Game Developers Conference 2007 March 13, 2007 at 10:45 am
Last week was crazy. I spent most of it at GDC, the largest annual event in the videogame industry. As I mentioned in a previous post, I went to GDC to both compete in the Student Finalist Showcase (10 games out of 102 submitted made the cut; our game Euclidean Crisis was one of these), and to advance Roblox’s bid for world domination.
GDC is a week-long event that boasts expo halls (3), info sessions, lectures, tutorials, round table discussions, awards ceremonies and good old fashioned demos. This year GDC was held in San Francisco, which meant it was an easy train ride away for me and my friends.
Team Euclidean Crisis went up to SF Tuesday afternoon to setup our exhibit booth. We got to meet and greet the other finalists, some of whom had flown in from the far-flung edges of the world, places like the Netherlands, Finland and Vienna. Various members of the team hung out at our exhibit area talking about EC with random passerbys. One russian guy came by and spoke with us about our game for 20 minutes, and offered us some good design advice. Later that evening at the GDC awards ceremony, we saw the same guy walk up on stage to receive a life-time achievement award for his pioneering vision in casual games development. He was none other than Alexey Pajitnov, creator of Tetris. The next day he came back to our booth to show his friend our game. I guess he really liked it. Maybe he’ll copy our idea and you’ll see an EC clone on XBox Live someday.
GDC awards night was held on Wednesday evening and it was ridiculous. Everyone in the industry who is anyone was there. The Student Showcase event, sponsored by DigiPen, was won by a team from DigiPen, for their game Toblo (from DigiPen). This was pretty egregious since there was another student game that was clearly the best – The Blob – a Katamari-like game from the Netherlands team. Awards were also given to industry games. The Gears of War team cleaned up – I think they won several awards including Game of the Year. Shigeru Miyamoto was also onstage a lot, collecting a small pile of awards for Wii Sports and a Lifetime Achievement award. For those not in the know, Miyamoto is the genius behind Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, and Zelda. Respect!
After a hard night of shouting and making a ruckus at the GDC awards ceremony, we really wanted to just go back to the bar in our hotel and play Magic (free cards from WotC? Best expo swag evar). I think the poor sap in this photo won one game all night. Incidentally, this is my friend Doug, who was covering GDC for Gamespot (which is cool because a Press pass lets you cut lots of long lines at GDC). His best article of the week was about the annual Game Development Contest, where top industry designers take some absurd idea and try to design a game around it.
Members of Roblox came up for GDC too. Someone different came up each day. Team EC had dinner with Builderman. Matt and I went to go see Steve Jackson give a vacuous presentation on blindtesting (come on Steve…). Erik and I attended an interesting round table presentation on virtual worlds.
The Eve Online founders gave the best presentation of the whole week – a discussion on the inner workings of their backend architecture.
Thousands lined up to hear the prophet Shigeru Miyamoto speak.
IBM doesn’t care who wins the console wars – they back all major players.
San Francisco in the spring. Just outside the convention center.
We have a lot of friends in the city. Walking back to the train one night we randomly ran into some.
GDC: GG!
Malbolge March 3, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Malbolge
'98, Ben Olmstead
I hereby relenquish any and all copyright on this language,
documentation, and interpreter; Malbolge is officially public domain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Malbolge
'98, Ben Olmstead
Introduction
^^^^^^^^^^^^
It was noticed that, in the field of esoteric programming languages,
there was a particular and surprising void: no programming language
known to the author was specifically designed to be difficult to program
in.
Certainly, there were languages which were difficult to write in, and
far more were difficult to read (see: Befunge, False, TWDL, RUBE...).
But even INTERCAL and BrainF***, the two kings of mental torment, were
designed with other goals: INTERCAL to have nothing in common with any
major programming language, and BrainF*** to be a very tiny, yet still
Turing-complete, language.
INTERCAL's constructs are certainly tortuous, but they are all too
flexible; you can, for instance, quite easily assign any number to a
variable with a single statement.
BrainF*** is lacking the flexibility which is INTERCAL's major weakness,
but it fails in that its constructs are far, far too intuitive.
Certainly, there are only 8 instructions, none of which take any
arguments--but it is quite easy to determine how to use those
instructions. Subtract 8 from the current number? With a simple
'--------' you are done! This kind of simple answer was unacceptable to
the author.
Hence the author created Malbolge. It borrows from machine, BrainF***,
and tri-INTERCAL, but put together in a unique way. It was designed to
be difficult to use, and so it is. It is designed to be
incomprehensible, and so it is.
So far, no Malbolge programs have been written. Thus, we cannot give an
example.
"Malbolge" is the name of Dante's Eighth Circle of Hell, in which
practitioners of deception (seducers, flatterers, simonists, thieves,
hypocrites, and so on) spend eternity.
Environment
^^^^^^^^^^^
In many languages, the environment is easy to understand. In Malbolge,
it is best to understand the runtime environment before you ever see a
command.
The environment is, roughly, that of a primitive trinary CPU. Both code
and data share the same space (the machine's memory segment), and there
are three registers. Machine words are ten trits (trinary digits) wide,
giving a maximum possible value of 59048 (all numbers are unsigned).
Memory space is exactly 59049 words long.
The three registers are A, C, and D. A is the accumulator, used for
data manipulation. A is implicitly set to the value written by all
write operations on memory. (Standard I/O, a distinctly non-chip-level
feature, is done directly with the A register.)
C is the code pointer. It is automatically incremented after each
instruction, and points the instruction being executed.
D is the data pointer. It, too, is automatically incremented after each
instruction, but the location it points to is used for the data
manipulation commands.
All registers begin with the value 0.
When the interpreter loads the program, it ignores all whitespace. If
it encounters anything that is not one of an instruction and is not
whitespace, it will give an error, otherwise it loads the file, one non-
whitespace character per cell, into memory. Cells which are not
initialized are set by performing op on the previous two cells
repetitively.
Commands
^^^^^^^^
When the interpreter tries to execute a program, it first checks to
see if the current instruction is a graphical ASCII character (33
through 126). If it is, it subtracts 33 from it, adds C to it, mods it
by 94, then uses the result as an index into the following table of 94
characters:
+b(29e*j1VMEKLyC})8&m#~W>qxdRp0wkrUo[D7,XTcA"lI
.v%{gJh4G\-=O@5`_3i<?Z';FNQuY]szf$!BS/|t:Pn6^Ha
It then checks it against the characters listed below, and performs an
appropriate action.
If the result is not one of the characters listed below, it is treated
as a nop. If the original character is not graphic ASCII, the program
is immediately ended.
When the interpreter parses the input file, it checks each non-
whitespace character with the process above. If any result is not one
of the eight characters below, the file will be rejected.
After the instruction is executed, 33 is subtracted from the instruction
at C, and the result is used as an index in the table below. The new
character is then placed at C, and then C is incremented.
5z]&gqtyfr$(we4{WP)H-Zn,[%\3dL+Q;>U!pJS72FhOA1C
B6v^=I_0/8|jsb9m<.TVac`uY*MK'X~xDl}REokN:#?G"i@
j
sets the data pointer to the value in the cell pointed to by the
current data pointer.
i
sets the code pointer to the value in the cell pointed to be the
current data pointer.
*
rotates the trinary value of the cell pointed to by D to the right 1.
The least significant trit becomes the most significant trit, and all
others move one position to the left.
p
performs a tritwise "op" on the value pointed to by D with the
contents of A. The op (don't look for pattern, it's not there) is:
| A trit:
________|_0__1__2_
0 | 1 0 0
*D 1 | 1 0 2
trit 2 | 2 2 1
Di-trits:
00 01 02 10 11 12 20 21 22
00 04 03 03 01 00 00 01 00 00
01 04 03 05 01 00 02 01 00 02
02 05 05 04 02 02 01 02 02 01
10 04 03 03 01 00 00 07 06 06
11 04 03 05 01 00 02 07 06 08
12 05 05 04 02 02 01 08 08 07
20 07 06 06 07 06 06 04 03 03
21 07 06 08 07 06 08 04 03 05
22 08 08 07 08 08 07 05 05 04
<
reads an ASCII value from the stdin and converts it to Trinary, then
stores it in A. 10 (line feed) is considered 'newline', and
2222222222t (59048 dec.) is EOF.
/
converts the value in A to ASCII and writes it to stdout. Writing
10 is a newline.
v
indicates a full stop for the machine.
o
does nothing, except increment C and D, as all other instructions do.
Turing-Completeness
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Though I have not proven it, I _think_ Malbolge to be Turing-complete.
To be Turing-complete, there must be some data construct which can be
used to do any mathematical calculation. I believe that using *p in
various clever ways on the tritwords can fulfill this requirement.
Turing-completeness also requires three code constructs: sequential
execution (which Malbolge obviously has), repetition (provided by the
i and, indirectly, j instructions), and conditional-execution (provided,
I believe, by self-modifying code and altering i destinations).
I do have my doubts, particularly about data constructs, but I *think*
this works...
Appendix: Trinary Conversion Table
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Trinary to ASCII to decimal to hex table, provided, strangely enough,
for the convenience of Malbolge programmers.
00000 NUL 000 00 01012 032 20 02101 @ 064 40 10120 ` 096 60
00001 SOH 001 01 01020 ! 033 21 02102 A 065 41 10121 a 097 61
00002 STX 002 02 01021 " 034 22 02110 B 066 42 10122 b 098 62
00010 ETX 003 03 01022 # 035 23 02111 C 067 43 10200 c 099 63
00011 EOT 004 04 01100 $ 036 24 02112 D 068 44 10201 d 100 64
00012 ENQ 005 05 01101 % 037 25 02120 E 069 45 10202 e 101 65
00020 ACK 006 06 01102 & 038 26 02121 F 070 46 10210 f 102 66
00021 BEL 007 07 01110 ' 039 27 02122 G 071 47 10211 g 103 67
00022 BS 008 08 01111 ( 040 28 02200 H 072 48 10212 h 104 68
00100 HT 009 09 01112 ) 041 29 02201 I 073 49 10220 i 105 69
00101 LF 010 0a 01120 * 042 2a 02202 J 074 4a 10221 j 106 6a
00102 VT 011 0b 01121 + 043 2b 02210 K 075 4b 10222 k 107 6b
00110 FF 012 0c 01122 , 044 2c 02211 L 076 4c 11000 l 108 6c
00111 CR 013 0d 01200 - 045 2d 02212 M 077 4d 11001 m 109 6d
00112 SO 014 0e 01201 . 046 2e 02220 N 078 4e 11002 n 110 6e
00120 SI 015 0f 01202 / 047 2f 02221 O 079 4f 11010 o 111 6f
00121 DLE 016 10 01210 0 048 30 02222 P 080 50 11011 p 112 70
00122 DC1 017 11 01211 1 049 31 10000 Q 081 51 11012 q 113 71
00200 DC2 018 12 01212 2 050 32 10001 R 082 52 11020 r 114 72
00201 DC3 019 13 01220 3 051 33 10002 S 083 53 11021 s 115 73
00202 DC4 020 14 01221 4 052 34 10010 T 084 54 11022 t 116 74
00210 NAK 021 15 01222 5 053 35 10011 U 085 55 11100 u 117 75
00211 SYN 022 16 02000 6 054 36 10012 V 086 56 11101 v 118 76
00212 ETB 023 17 02001 7 055 37 10020 W 087 57 11102 w 119 77
00220 CAN 024 18 02002 8 056 38 10021 X 088 58 11110 x 120 78
00221 EM 025 19 02010 9 057 39 10022 Y 089 59 11111 y 121 79
00222 SUB 026 1a 02011 : 058 3a 10100 Z 090 5a 11112 z 122 7a
01000 ESC 027 1b 02012 ; 059 3b 10101 [ 091 5b 11120 { 123 7b
01001 FS 028 1c 02020 < 060 3c 10102 \ 092 5c 11121 | 124 7c
01002 GS 029 1d 02021 = 061 3d 10110 ] 093 5d 11122 } 125 7d
01010 RS 030 1e 02022 > 062 3e 10111 ^ 094 5e 11200 ~ 126 7e
01011 US 031 1f 02100 ? 063 3f 10112 _ 095 5f
11202 128 80 12221 160 a0 21010 192 c0 22022 224 e0
11210 129 81 12222 161 a1 21011 193 c1 22100 225 e1
11211 130 82 20000 162 a2 21012 194 c2 22101 226 e2
11212 131 83 20001 163 a3 21020 195 c3 22102 227 e3
11220 132 84 20002 164 a4 21021 196 c4 22110 228 e4
11221 133 85 20010 165 a5 21022 197 c5 22111 229 e5
11222 134 86 20011 166 a6 21100 198 c6 22112 230 e6
12000 135 87 20012 167 a7 21101 199 c7 22120 231 e7
12001 136 88 20020 168 a8 21102 200 c8 22121 232 e8
12002 137 89 20021 169 a9 21110 201 c9 22122 233 e9
12010 138 8a 20022 170 aa 21111 202 ca 22200 234 ea
12011 139 8b 20100 171 ab 21112 203 cb 22201 235 eb
12012 140 8c 20101 172 ac 21120 204 cc 22202 236 ec
12020 141 8d 20102 173 ad 21121 205 cd 22210 237 ed
12021 142 8e 20110 174 ae 21122 206 ce 22211 238 ee
12022 143 8f 20111 175 af 21200 207 cf 22212 239 ef
12100 144 90 20112 176 b0 21201 208 d0 22220 240 f0
12101 145 91 20120 177 b1 21202 209 d1 22221 241 f1
12102 146 92 20121 178 b2 21210 210 d2 22222 242 f2
12110 147 93 20122 179 b3 21211 211 d3
12111 148 94 20200 180 b4 21212 212 d4
12112 149 95 20201 181 b5 21220 213 d5
12120 150 96 20202 182 b6 21221 214 d6
12121 151 97 20210 183 b7 21222 215 d7
12122 152 98 20211 184 b8 22000 216 d8
12200 153 99 20212 185 b9 22001 217 d9
12201 154 9a 20220 186 ba 22002 218 da
12202 155 9b 20221 187 bb 22010 219 db
12210 156 9c 20222 188 bc 22011 220 dc
12211 157 9d 21000 189 bd 22012 221 dd
12212 158 9e 21001 190 be 22020 222 de
12220 159 9f 21002 191 bf 22021 223 df
