Let's Take it Down a Notch Tonight...

We find our protagonist sitting quietly at his home computer, thinking of where he really should be, at this point in his life. He returned to his parents' home years ago, with small hope of escaping. without prospects, without a real job, without even a car. The seclusion wears him down, weighs heavily on his every thought. Far from friends, from hope, from life. From time to time, he manages to get out of his alabaster prison and see the world as it truly is, full of life and splendor and variety. he's living in someone else's perfect vision, but the truth of the world is just so much more beautiful. Unfortunately, this merely gives him a brief look into how life could be. He meets new people, makes new friends, and learns about their daily lives. There are places in the world, where the rare and exciting are close at hand, and whatever spice of life you desire can be had at a whim. Vivid, myriad life, at your fingertips. The dream of such a thing seems so impossible, but he sees it, so clearly, through the vision of his new friends. Do we take heart, nkow that this heaven is real? Or do we despair, realizing that the path to this place branched off from ours long ago, and the hope of experiencing while we're still alive enough to truly appreciate it is slipping away, daily? We fight we drop everything else, we fight. We see so clearly how things could be. We know that the light is out there, glimmering, if we only seek it out. His life was once shining with possibility. It is time to bring back the light.

Code Academy is Great.

Anyone who hasn't experienced the simple fun of Code Academy, should really head over there right away. I you're already an expert coder, there probably won't be anything new for you, but for the rest of us its a fantastic little site that can teach anyone the basics of coding in a number of different styles.

Personally, I'm pretty comfortable with JavaScript, but I still ran through the entire Java course just as a refresher. The HTML stuff mentions how much 'best practices' have changed, and teaches some easy lessons to people who've always wondered how to do things like this in forums. I'm currently going through Python, working up my practical skills, and earning points(!) and achievements (!!) all the while.

Everyone should have some basic coding skills, and this is a pretty excellent way to get that.

A Molydeux Inspired Wardrobe

After watching Patrick Klepek of Giantbomb.com and his cavalcade of friends produce a ridiculous number of tiny games based on the insane tweets of Peter Molyneux-spoofing twitter account @petermolydeux, I found myself trying to come up with just such an outside-the-box idea. I don't think I'm nearly insane/genius enough to get there, but here's what I came up with.

What about a game based around your wardrobe?

Specifically, I was thinking medieval attire, general fantasy trope business. War armor? Travel garb? Court attire? How would that affect what your character is doing at the time?

I load up my game, customize my character's look etc, then head to the palace in the middle of the Capital. I wear least mud-stained togs, and try to get a job- clerk, huntsman, guard. I choose whichever aspect of the game appeals to me most, say hunting, and get some good leather jerkins and pants. I'm given a small room, with limited customization options, and one set of decent clothes for when I'm in the presence of royalty.

Now the assignments come in. There are skirmishes, but I have no good armor- I act as scout/messenger/archer. There are riding missions, with a goal of foraging, hunting, or delivering a message, and for those my thick travelwear is perfect. But perhaps I'm ambushed. That iron sure would be nice about now. Other assigments take place on the streets of the city, and who knows what outfit is best for that- embroidery, leather, armor, it depends on who you're going to meet with, what part of town, etc. Some armor covers two roles, like fancy ceremonial armor being good for anything except running through a forest.

I've got more to this that I'll get back to later.