Archive for 17 December 2007

104 Years Ago Today

Posted: 17 December 2007 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
1

Wright Flyer I

The Wright Brothers had their first successful flight on December 17, 1903. The flight lasted for 12 lousy seconds, but a machine that was heavier than air that they had built stayed under control off the ground. Whether they were actually the first or if their flight was even long enough to be valid, it is undeniable that they have had a massive impact on aviation and the world. They didn’t have to use space age polymers or special blend of fuels. Just ingenuity and hard work. They fabricated a gasoline engine in their bicycle shop and built the body out of a spruce tree. Pretty cool.

It has always struck me as amusing just how worked up people can get over the right to say “first in flight.” I guess because it was such a monumental achievement at the time, we have lost sight of the wonder that must have accompanied it back then. Man had conquered the sky! Of course, this feeling didn’t emerge until a few years later since the Wright Brothers were generally considered to be hoaxsters around the world until a demonstration in France in 1908.

SR-71 Blackbird

I had a friend from New Zealand who claimed a countryman had been the first to fly. Ohio and North Carolina both try to take credit for the Wright Brothers. The first plane was developed in Dayton, Ohio, but actually flown in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. I’ve been to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which is now home of the National Museum of the Air Force. One of the coolest things I saw there was a decomissioned SR-71 Blackbird, a supersonic spy plane. We weren’t supposed to touch it, but I wanted to so much (I was like 12 or 13) and my uncle just said to go ahead and do it. The worst that could happen is we’d be kicked out, right? But nothing happened, and it felt like slightly cool, smooth metal. It was great.

After the Wright brothers patented their invention, there were years of disputes over patent violations. Continued claims of being the first in flight sprang up. After their first little hop on this day in 1903, they maintained a high level of secrecy so that government-backed researchers, who were the big players in the game, couldn’t steal their ideas. They were just two guys who ran a bike shop and wanted to make money on it. I think that was the right thing to do. If they hadn’t been secret, they would have been squashed like bugs by the big guys. I think the real legacy of the Wright brothers should not be the controversy or the secrecy, but the fact that two dudes in a bike shop, tinkering with wood and engines, changed the world in 12 seconds.

Level 4 Human Wizard

Posted: 17 December 2007 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
6

Boredom and insomnia led to the following:

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard (4th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-11
Dexterity-13
Constitution-14
Intelligence-19
Wisdom-12
Charisma-12

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard’s strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Fun Theory

Posted: 17 December 2007 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,
1

At a meeting at school last week, we discussed several ideas about just what made games fun. There were a variety of topics, from the definition of a game (versus a puzzle, a challenge, etc) to gender differences in game appeal. What interested me the most is the actual theory about what it is in a game or puzzle that translates to the experience of fun in the human brain. Many of the ideas we discussed came from the book A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster. I am just beginning to think about these things, so the ideas expressed below are sketches and are still evolving (actually, I believe every idea should be either evolving or evolvable).

One of Koster’s main points is that the human brain is a pattern matching machine. We find patterns everywhere, be they sequences of moves in chess or where to aim in first-person shooters. When the patterns are too complex or are just random (essentially the same thing from an information theoretic standpoint), the brain grows bored or annoyed. When the patterns are too simple and we discover them all (as in Tic-Tac-Toe), that is also boring. Koster says the following:

“If I were Will Wright, I’d say that ‘Fun is the process of discovering areas in a possibility space.’”

My advisor made the point that there is a certain zone you get into during a game where everything else goes away and you are totally focused. This can also happen with an Excel spreadsheet or coding (or knitting or playing sports). So we seek the zone. I think the zone is a state of mind where your brain is attuned to certain patterns and you are able to find new, related patterns quickly. The zone is a feedback loop that arises from the successful discovery of certain initial patterns that allows you to solve increasingly complex patterns.

When I used to play Halo, the zone was the most awesome experience of all. I would charge a base, kill all the guys between me and the flag, grab the flag, rush back out and zoom back to my home base to score. It was addictive (so addictive I had to get rid of Halo).  So how do you make a game that encourages finding the zone?  Koster’s book has some tips, which I won’t go into, but it’s worth checking out.