Normal warning: These posts are not to entertain.  They’re to put a pin in my sanity.  If you want funny, please head off to reddit.  Because honestly, nothing is funny anymore.

After fixing the RSS feed, I am still double-posting for some reason.  It’s something screwy with the feedburner replacement plugin.  I’ll find it and it’s not a pressing issue.  It’s also better than not posting at all, which is where I was at before.

I know I’ve plugged it before, but I want to plug it again: if you need something to help punctuate the anxiety, I recommend mynoise.net.  Both the Irish Coast mixes and the Japanese Garden mixes do it for me.  MyNoise + Exercise does a nice job of breaking up the constant jitters.  I know not everyone is experiencing anxiety during this time, but if you are, this is working for me.

I spent hours last night laying on the couch reading near-ancient articles about game narrative design and story structure.  Characters, characterization, puzzle design, puzzle classification, etc.  Good stuff, learned some things, read until the allergies caught up with me and I literally couldn’t see anymore.

I also found an exceptionally good walkthrough for a Unity + Ink integration (and a React/Redux + Unity integration).  Half tempted to play some hooky to get that up and working.

I really do wish I could get the power of an Inform7 with the integration/deliverability of an Ink or a Twine.  I’m working my way through Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform7 and following all the walkthroughs and examples.  Even though the system is old and hardly maintained, it’s super powerful for creating interactive experiences.  (The other two are actively maintained… I’m on a discord for Ink now.)

The packaging problem is killing me.  If you ever tried playing Hadean Lands on your iPad, you know what I’m talking about. (And it’s a really really good game!)  What is “the packaging problem?”  It’s how software is bundled, delivered, and accessed in production.  Hadean Lands installs fine, plays fine, and the UX is painful.

The best text game on mobile I’ve played is A Dark Room.  Also playable on web.  But better on Mobile.  And it’s more a CYOA game than a parser game, which leads me to thinking again about Ink + Unity which will compile down to a native iOS app and have a clickable interface.

But I spend too much about the technology and not about story.  I’m focusing on reading about story, characters, narrative, puzzles, etc.  Content creation!

I thought up a cool adventure for Swords of the Serpentine last night involving bananas and old horrible gods that I want to write up.

As for what is happening in the real world, outside of my head, I can no longer tell the difference between Donald Trump’s Administration and Idiocracy.  How long until he pimps Brawndo from the podium?  It has electrolites!  It’s what plants crave!

I mean, he was literally answering Morning Joe on Twitter while he watched TV instead of doing his job while people die.

My only joy is the the fight Trump is trying to pick with Larry Hogan over the 500K of tests Hogan procured from the South Koreans.  Trump told the Governors to get their own supplies so hey, Hogan did so!  What do you mean he was just supposed to fail.

Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee are all “opening up” this weekend.  That will work out well.

Stats:

  • 801,763 confirmed cases.
  • 42,972 dead.  (Although the number may be 21K too low.)  14.43 9/11s.
  • 14199 cases in Maryland with 531 dead.

We’ve had a major increase in cases week over week.  Not flat yet.  My new favorite site is rt.live, though.