Nephilim

Adobe wakes up

2010-10-27T08:42:00.003-06:00

THIS should have been Adobe's first public response to Apple dropping Flash support. It's an HTML5 animation editor (in the prototype stage) called "Edge".

If they had announced this when Apple publicly declared they were going to drop Flash support, instead of posting petulant rants about how Apple is doomed as a result, Adobe would have looked forward-thinking, professional, capable, and supportive of their users with whatever technology they choose to deliver to. It would have saved them a lot of bad press, and it wouldn't have fostered an Apple vs. Adobe mindset (or a "dang it, I'm going to have to choose or double my work, aren't I?" mindset) among its customers.

This is the first thing to come along in years that has given me hope for Adobe's product strategy. With the standout exception of the excellent Photoshop, Adobe has been nothing but disappointing with its product decisions of late. But this is smart; it's going where the web developers are going instead of trying to drop anchor and keep us where we are for as long as possible.

Gotta give kudos to Adobe on this one; I'm already a customer of this product, if they can deliver it before a compelling alternative emerges.

The Rosetta Dongle

2010-10-12T23:13:00.006-06:00

I just rage quit Lightwave before even getting it installed.

All I wanted to do was use Lightwave on my OSX laptop without installing Rosetta. Not such an outrageous request, given that OSX is a supported platform, right? I have a registered copy that ran fine before updating my system software, but now I don't want to install Rosetta - I want to run it under straight-up OSX. So I download the updater files, and I'm all paid up and everything, and I've even got my hardware dongle plugged in. (Seriously, what is this, 1996?) I run the installer. It installs the OSX version. Almost there!

Then I get this message: "Donglecheck requires Rosetta to run. Want to install it now?"

You know, if I wanted to install Rosetta, I wouldn't bother downloading the OS X update, now would I?

NewTek, if you're going to make my life difficult and use separate programs to enforce and/or unlock your clumsy, draconian DRM, at least keep them up to date. Don't make me install Rosetta for the sole purpose of unlocking your software (that I've already unlocked!) so that I don't have to run it under Rosetta.

That's worse than having no OSX version at all - at least then, I'd be installing Rosetta for some real purpose.

Sadly, this is not an isolated frustration - it is indicative of the software NewTek ships: haphazard, buggy, obtuse, nonsensical, poorly-thought-out software running on the fumes of long-passed greatness, all protected by paranoid, burdensome DRM disproportionate to the value of the software it protects.

I make purchasing decisions about 3D software for our multimedia studio. I'm going to be making a different choice for 2011.

Okay, this is the geekiest thing I've ever done

2010-08-23T22:13:00.004-06:00

I've done some geeky things in my day, but then there's today.

Today, in my sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game I'm refereeing, that I wrote the rules to myself, I let my players use their iPads or iPhones to connect to a web application I wrote which emulated the actual sci-fi personal data assistant their characters use in the game world.

Let me reiterate this so it sinks in. I wrote a web application for fictional people to use on fictional devices. For a sci-fi tabletop roleplaying game. I am geek.

Here's the thing, though - it was a hit! The campaign is about unraveling a mystery about a murdered friend in a dystopian future, and this allows the players to investigate, analyze, and explore on their own, in a way that evokes the setting. The web app tracks the leads that the characters can follow up on, provides background information about the game world, and gives them a way to "receive data files" from characters. For instance, I was able to drop in new leads on-the-fly using my own iPad as they appeared in the story. It worked really well; the players were using it practically the entire time.

In fact, they're requesting new features for their in-the-game-world PDA. I'm about to get even more geeky - I'm going to be a fictional software developer responding to in-game-world software update requests... Gah!

New Sci-Fi Campaign

2010-08-16T23:28:00.001-06:00

I started refereeing our usual Monday night game tonight, picking up where we left off at the beginning of summer.

Unlike my usual medieval fantasy fare, I'm branching out into new, unfamiliar territory: sci-fi. Thinking back on my refereeing history, I cannot remember running a campaign in an original sci-fi world, and I certainly never refereed sci-fi of the stripe I'm running now: "hard" sci-fi with a dark edge to it. Back in the day, I played Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, and Star Frontiers (sadly, I never tried Traveller), but to be honest, these are just fantasy games with sci-fi trappings. They don't cleave closely to what sci-fi is really about: exploring who we are and where we are going as a society. Those other games just replace orcs with aliens and dragons with bugblatter beasts, and call it a day.

I'm going for realism, plausibility, and social commentary with this campaign, and even though we've only played one session, I think I'm off to a good start, but man, is it difficult. I'm way out of my comfort zone here. Even though both fantasy and sci-fi worlds are fictive and require answering questions on the fly about geography, social norms, economics, technology, etc., the bar is higher when it comes to sci-fi, because if it's going to be believable, there has to be two things that you don't need in fantasy: (a) a plausible path from "now" to the time the game world is set in, and (b) enough creative looking ahead to make it sci-fi without becoming ridiculous. Magic in a fantasy setting, it turns out, provides the would-be referee with a lot of crutches, because you can literally get away with anything when magic is in the mix. To a certain extent, you can do that with sci-fi technology, but the bullshit detectors of the players is a lot harder to get around when you're trying to achieve realistic technology.

I may have bitten off more than I can chew. The fictive universe of this new campaign is not Star Wars or Star Trek. It's as realistic as I could make it while still allowing some of the sci-fi tropes I wanted to bring in, such as visiting other star systems on some kind of reasonable time scale for telling stories. There are no alien intelligences in this game world - humans are all there are. Life, it turns out, is (relatively) abundant in the universe, but the vast majority of it is bacteria, algae, and the like, with a rare planet boasting more complex forms. I felt good about taking this approach, thanks to recent discoveries in Astronomy, but it still omits a LOT of the standard sci-fi storylines. Mars needs women, but it's just in the usual way that Earth needs women, because humans live there now.

So your typical space opera is out, which begs the question: what are the details of what is in? I'm having to flesh out a game universe that is a lot more detailed than I usually create. Already, in this first session, even with all the thinking and prep work I did, I ran into a whole slew of questions that needed adjudication on the spot. How do people back up their data in the future? How do people share contact information? What do peoples' living quarters look like? How has law enforcement technology changed over the years? How much surveillance is there? How do people go to the bathroom (do we still use paper, or are there the "three seashells")? How has religion changed?

Ultimately, though, that stuff doesn't matter. My players are smart and in it for fun, so if I screw something up, they can handle me retroactively changing stuff if I really have to. What matters is setting a compelling challenge at the players' feet, and that, thankfully, is the same task as in any system or game world. Even with all the starfaring and high technology that is available in this new universe, it's a human story they'll be exploring: understanding the death of a beloved friend. Emotion is the hook. Hopefully, that will make the story worth experiencing for me and for my players.

We'll see if I can pull it off. Wish me luck.

ADDED_TO_STAGE doesn't always fire

2010-07-22T10:05:00.003-06:00

Flash development geekery ahead. This is mainly so I can remember the solution to this problem in the future, but maybe this will help someone else, too...

I was struggling with a problem in Actionscript 3 for two hours trying to figure out why some ADDED_TO_STAGE events weren't firing on some MovieClips I had added to some MovieClip symbols I was instantiating.

I had four identical symbols, all the same class inherited from MovieClip, added to another MovieClip symbol in the library. Each would register for an ADDED_TO_STAGE event in itself in the constructor, but when the parent MovieClip was instantiated and added to the stage, only the first of the four MovieClip would actually fire.

The solution? Instead of registering for the ADDED_TO_STAGE event in themselves, I registered in "this.parent", i.e., I would watch for when the parent MovieClip gets added instead of the MovieClip itself. It works, but doesn't seem right. What if I need to make the parent MovieClip a sub-clip of another MovieClip? Will it break again? And how do I remove the listener if the parent changes?

I like the concept of Actionscript 3, but in practice, I'm finding lots of gotchas that make development seem harder than it should be.

Treadsylvania is live!

2010-07-07T13:34:00.002-06:00

Finally, the ATV safety game we created for National 4-H is live and available for the general public to play. It's called Treadsylvania, and features some fun monster-fighting action! Check it out.

This is exactly what I was afraid of

2010-06-14T22:45:00.002-06:00

I remember the first time I heard the idea floated about "microtransactions" in gaming, the so-called "freemium" model, where instead of paying $20-$50 up front for a game, you get it for free, and then pay for small bits of content or on an as-you-go basis.

I remember thinking, "yeah, that's going to suck." Why? Because it sets up a situation where the developer's goals and the gamer's goals are at odds.

In the traditional model, the goal of the developer is to maximize fun for the gamer - the more fun the game, the more the gamer is willing to pay for it, and once the game is purchased, there is nothing standing in the way of the game developer trying to make everything as fun as possible.

In the "freemium" model, the goal of the developer is to not maximize fun for the player, but instead maximize the frustration of the player, without having them quit the game altogether, so that they are willing to pay as much as possible.

I remember trying to make this point with some fellow gamers, and being told, no, no, I've got it all wrong - it will just be used to deliver more content. In other words, it's the same model, but the framework for delivering content is free.

Well, some games may follow that model, but those weren't the ones I was worried about.

Lo and behold, I was bitten by the freemium model recently. GodFinger, by Ngmoco, for the iPad, was a casual little game with charming graphics and some fun, toy-like mechanics. My boys enjoyed watching over my shoulder as I played it. At its core, it is a "grinding" game, namely, it takes exactly zero skill to play; instead, you advance by patiently and dutifully issuing commands to your units, buying new resources for them with the in-game money they amass, etc.

Now, as with most "freemium" games, GodFinger also allowed you to buy "Awe points" with real money to skip over the things that require patience. "Instantly recharge your mana!" "Build this building now instead of waiting 24 hours!" And so on. But for the time being, I was willing to patiently grind away without buying Awe points. I saved up for a long time to buy a Deluxe Tavern, which would allow me to refresh four units at a time AND earn income while doing it. It was an expensive item, and took a long time to save up for, but after getting it into operation, it was working well.

Then a game update hit. Suddenly, all money-generating buildings began giving less money, and instead of yielding gold multiple times before needing to be recharged, would only yield gold once, and would not start on this process until they were fully charged. Moreover, you could no longer "top off" buildings, so you had to let them fully drain before recharging them, which not only made your time spent between playing inefficient, but also removed a fun gameplay mechanic wherein you could place multiple buildings together and recharge the next building with the over-charge from the first.

But worst of all, my new Deluxe Tavern now only refreshes three units, and it no longer yields income. My $2400 Deluxe Tavern now does the same thing as a $400 tent.

Now, I can see no way this update, nerfing players across the board, was done with the players' interests in mind. The effect of this update, across many changes, is to slow everything down and make mana less productiv, presumably to get people to buy more "Awe Points" with real-world cash. Heck, they even added in-game goals to award experience points for spending Awe points. This was nothing but a transparent, deliberate change to add frustration to all players to wring money out of them.

Now, lest you accuse me of being a freeloader, consider this: Awe points add nothing to the game. All they do is allow you to not wait for something to happen. The rate at which things happen in the game is arbitrary, is set by the developers, and may be changed at a whim on system updates. This is not paying for new scenarios, new gameplay capabilities, new fun. This is pure and simple throttling back the gameplay to extort money out of people. (There are a few buildings which can only be bought with Awe, but each of them has a nearly identical alternative that can be purchased with the in-game currency, so I am not counting these.) Ngmoco is not really offering anything content-wise for the money you give them; only a different speed at which things happen.

And what if I had invested some real-world cash in Awe points to buy that Deluxe Tavern instead of grinding for it? That Deluxe Tavern would have cost me $5 in real world money to purchase in Awe points. Days later, its capabilities - that which I was buying, essentially, would have been arbitrarily removed without warning or recourse. It's one thing to hold back some special premium-only game features, but it's an entirely different thing to offer players cool new in-game gadgets they can buy with real-world dollars, and then after they buy them, remove the capabilities that prompted you to buy the gadget in the first place. At this point, I'm glad I didn't buy any Awe points, and I feel sorry for anyone who did, because every dollar they spent was turned into a fraction of its in-game value with this last update.

It's also relevant to note that while the value of mana and gold you buy with Awe points has gone down, because they can do a lot less now than before, the cost of Awe points has not gone down proportionally to the value of what it can buy. All of the above might be excused if it was balancing everything across the board, even Awe, but that is clearly not the case.

Basically, this has all been a very telling (and sadly, predictable) experience with the "freemium" game model. Ngmoco is "freemium" at its worst - starting a game on false pretenses, and then slowly throttling back the fun to frustrate the poor saps who have been playing the game into buying Awe just to get an approximation of their old experience back. This is why I like to own my game instead of rent my game.

The sad thing is: this game was actually very nice. In other circumstances, I'd have given it five stars. It had excellent interface elements, beautiful graphics, a unique tone, and high production values. I'd gladly have picked it up as a for-pay game in the App Store. And I would have even dropped money on Awe points if the for-pay model was to use it to provide new content like a story mode or scenarios. But this nickel-and-dime model feels like money-grubbing, and is antithetical to the relationship between developer and player wherein both are pulling for the best overall experience.

Okay, I've ranted a lot. I do want to say that there are a few developers who "get it." I'm still convinced that a scrupulous developer can make the "freemium" model work. Examples include:

Ramp Champ by the IconFactory, wherein you get honest-to-god new content, artwork, challenges, and other ancillary benefits when you buy a new ramp pack.
WarpGate HD by FreeVerse, which does let you "buy forward" in the game by purchasing a big, pointy ship, but they don't also run down the fun of the "normal" gameplay to make you want to buy it out of frustration
Crosswords by Standalone, which lets you subscribe to premium crossword puzzle providers in exchange for honest-to-god core content. Here, the payments go to the crossword puzzle provider and not Standalone, but the pay-for-play model is still there, and offers real, tangible value aligned with the interests of the player.

Sadly, these seem to the the exception rather than the rule.

Easy Depth Sorting in Actionscript 3

2010-06-14T13:49:00.002-06:00

I'm working on an ActionScript 3 project, and I needed a way to height-sort objects on the screen (so that elements further down the screen are drawn on top of elements further back). Thanks to a little web searching and my own hacking, here's an easy solution to the problem. It's called "DepthSort Space", and it's a movie clip that depth sorts all its children each frame. Currently, it uses bubble sort on the list, but if speed is of the essence, you could probably use some other sorting mechanism.


package {

 import flash.display.*;
 import flash.events.*;

 public class DepthSortSpace extends MovieClip {
 
  public function DepthSortSpace() {
   super();
   this.addEventListener( Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, this.addedToStage, false, 0, true );
  }
  
  private function addedToStage( e:Event ) {
   this.stage.addEventListener( Event.ENTER_FRAME, this.enterFrame, false, 0, true );
  }
  
  private function sortDisplayList():void {
   var len:uint = numChildren;
   var i,j;
   for( i=0; i < len-1; i++ )
    for (j=i+1; j < len; j++)
     if ( getChildAt(i).y > getChildAt(j).y ) this.swapChildrenAt( i, j );
  }

  private function enterFrame(e:Event) {
   this.sortDisplayList();
  }

 }
}

To use this, just make a new symbol, and set its class to DepthSortSpace (or subclass DepthSortSpace as your movie clip if you're already adding custom code for it). Then, add any objects you want to depth sort as children of this movie clip. It will handle it automatically.

Safari 5's New Feature

2010-06-10T08:23:00.002-06:00

While Safari 5's new extensions feature is getting a lot of buzz, I can already tell you what my favorite new feature is: Safari reader.

Basically, when you're presented with a site that has something interesting to read, but it's all crufted up with horrible layout, ads, navigation, banners, tiny type, etc., a button appears in the URL bar. Click it, and the page fades to black, and the article, presented with nice, clean CSS, slides up for easy reading.

Predictably, some people are up in arms over this feature because it hides their precious ads. These people should listen to Lukas Mathis, who argues that if you're upset about Safari reader, then you've only got yourself to blame for it - if your site was readable, people wouldn't need to click a button to make it so.

In particular, I don't feel the need to click the reader button on Lukas' site. It would be redundant, because his site is so readable. But I've used the feature already today on a different site.

Apple's HTML5 Gallery

2010-06-04T08:32:00.002-06:00

Apple just released an HTML5 Showcase showing what's possible with the current generation of browsers (read: why the need for Flash is overstated).

I think what's clear is that Flash is still the way to go if you want to do vector-based interactive animations (i.e., games), but Flash is no longer necessary (or, at least, should be the fallback) for the things it's been used for in its most popular contexts, like video playback. That's a good thing, since video is a media type that browsers should understand, just like images, and it's in the spec. The sooner people are coding to the spec, the better.

But even the interactive animation context is under assault. With the canvas element, you can already create interactive animations using bitmap graphics and crude vector graphics. It won't be long before HTML5 games start showing up. If Adobe wants to make the case for Flash's long-term relevance, they need to stop putting all their chips in fighting against the video tag - they lost that one when YouTube jumped - and start focusing more on staying ahead of the canvas element. Adding "real" 3D support (ala Shockwave3D) to Flash would go a long way toward that.

Or, better yet, make a Flash-like IDE for HTML5/Canvas, and migrate Flash users to that, and become the de-facto IDE for developing next-generation interactive web content just like they dominated the last generation. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of confidence that Adobe is that forward-thinking from their track record with products like Director. But maybe.

We are hiring!

2010-04-13T09:08:00.002-06:00

We're hiring at NMSU Media Productions:

Web developer - Develop web applications for NMSU internal and external clientele using PHP, MySQL, XHTML, CSS, and Javascript. If you are good at coding the back end of a web site AND good at crafting excellent UI's, we want to talk to you.

Game developer - Develop educational games, mostly using the Flash platform, although we may also be moving to Unity and Objective C (iPhone OS). Artistic skill is not as important as capability to write games and game logic code, as you will be integrating art assets by our artists and animators.

NMSU Media Productions is a great place to work - talented and personable people, fun projects, supportive management, and work that has societal benefit rather than just being for generating revenue for investors. We're located in sunny Las Cruces, and the green chile is bountiful.

"Letter Writer Space" now available

2010-03-20T08:06:00.002-06:00

Our new educational iPhone game, Letter Writer Space, is now available in the App Store!

This sequel to Letter Writer Oceans lets kids learn and practice their lower case letters while learning about fun astronomy concepts.

They begin by selecting a letter against a scrolling backdrop of the Very Large Array in New Mexico at sunset, and then they blast off to an animated scene where they can practice drawing the letter. Each scene is about an astronomy concept starting with the letter, so they can learn to draw their "q" glyph when viewing a "quasar", or learn to draw their "c" glyph when viewing a "comet".

A little space shuttle prompts the child where to start the stroke, and follows along as the child follows the pulsing dots to the end of the stroke, reinforcing the stroke before, during, and after the child's action. If they make the stroke correctly, they move on to the next stroke, and when they complete the letter, they earn a star. (This encourages correct strokes, rather than just allowing for random scribbling, as other letter writing apps do.)

When the child has earned four stars, an info panel with more information about the animated scene becomes available. Touching the info button shows the info panel, and fun facts about the scene are fully narrated, sharing the wonder of astronomy and the space program with kids while they play.

Buy it now!

Mormons and Boy Scouts in Child Sex Abuse Coverup

2010-03-20T00:15:00.001-06:00

This one cuts a little close to home for me. It looks like Mormon church leadership may have colluded with the Boy Scouts to cover up the sexual abuse of seventeen boys by a BSA scoutmaster. I was in the same organization, under the same leadership, in the same church as those seventeen boys, at the same approximate time period. I'm realizing retroactively that I wasn't nearly as safe as I thought I was, and it is alarming, especially now that I have kids of my own.

Now I understand my naivete, and while it makes me sad for those boys, it does make me all the more certain I made the right decision quitting both the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts as a kid. While it never occurred to me as a teenager that a bishop would behave in such a reprehensible manner as described in the article, the behavior is still consistent in theme with what I came to understand in both organizations as a young man, namely, more emphasis on the appearance of virtue than upon virtue itself. Upon reflection, the events described in the article do not surprise me, sadly; they are merely the natural extension of the trajectory the church and the BSA have been on for decades.

It is why my children will not be joining the scouts. Any parent who entrusts their kids to the BSA organization is a fool, because the BSA has made their priorities clear by fighting legal battles to avoid revealing what they know about sexual assaults against kids they were responsible for. They seem more concerned about avoiding embarrassing headlines than they are about the kids in their care.

The BSA is not about the boys. It is merely about the BSA.

Apple's approval times for iPhone apps dropping

2010-02-09T20:28:00.002-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, our latest iPhone app, Vile Haberdashery has been released.

And guess what? We submitted the game on February fourth, five days ago. Apple has reduced its turnaround time on app approval from two weeks to five days. I'll leave the debate on whether the app store approval process is a good idea to others to hash out, but I think we can all agree that less time is better. Thanks, Apple, for putting the resources behind reducing the turnaround time on releasing apps.

Vile Haberdashery released!

2010-02-09T20:22:00.004-07:00

Good news! Vile Haberdashery has been approved by the App Store, and is now available.

I'm afraid the murder rate at creepy victorian mansions among disreputable nobles is about to increase.

Vile Haberdashery

2010-02-03T23:16:00.003-07:00

This past weekend, I participated in the Global Game Jam, and our team came up with a really fun and innovative game like I haven't seen anywhere before.

It's a creepy, unpleasant turn-based strategy game about murder and intrigue called Vile Haberdashery, and it borrows a lot of play elements from my old "Death in the Family" card game, but slides them all over to iPhone casual party play.

The premise is that you are one of four would-be heirs to a fortune, and you're trying to kill off your siblings so the inheritance all falls to you. You accomplish this by blackmailing, flattering, and intimidating your subordinates into doing violence to the other players.

The game is played on the iPhone. You take your turn, then hand the phone to your friend to take his turn. He hands it to the next player to take her turn, etc. Audio cues give clues as to what each player is doing. The goal is to gain influence over your subordinates, get one of them a weapon, and then send them over to hang out near other nobles. If you have enough influence over the subordinates around another player, and one of them has a weapon, then they kill that player, and you're one corpse closer to winning! (Of course, the other players are trying to do the same thing to you.)

We built the game in 48 hours, and the artwork is excellent thanks to the involvement of the three artists who worked hard for those two days to draw all 19 characters in the game. I programmed the game and did interface design.

The game has been submitted to the App Store, so you should see it in a few weeks. In the mean time, head on over to the Vile Haberdashery web site to check out the screenshots.

Interesting Use for Yorick

2009-11-05T01:45:00.002-07:00

Here's a use for our digital puppets I hadn't seen before: recreating the audience chamber scene from Wizard of Oz.

For Halloween 2009, Chris used our "Yorick" digital puppet as the ominous head over synthetic flames to retell the story with his own, Tim Burton-esque spooky spin on it. Be sure to check out the other cool stuff this home haunter put into this year's highly original haunted theme while you're there.

Carnival of Souls 2009 a success!

2009-11-01T08:50:00.002-07:00

We're exhausted, but Carnival of Souls 2009 was a success.

In all, we had nearly 40 volunteers helping at our house this year at one time or another. All together, we were able to put on one of the best seasons of Carnival of Souls ever. New elements this year included:

The Cursed Treasure - A new carnival game which lets kids roll balls down an inclined playfield where stacks of coins and other pirate treasure lay scattered. Depending on where the ball rolls, the kids would get different amounts of candy. It was a huge hit, and a great improvement over "toss a rat in a bucket".

The Spider Cave - Though a little too imposing for some kids, the spider cave allowed the brave souls who attended to go inside and have the spider answer a question, any question. It turns out our spider puppeteer did such a great job that the spider cave became quite popular.

The Pirate Graveyard - This walkthrough attraction included a ghostly possession of Madame Sarita, a large ruined bastille inhabited by undead pirates, and a journey over the sea on a sunken pirate ship helmed by an undead captain, where kids could shoot cannons at the damned crew of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. We had some technical difficulties with the final scene a few times, unfortunately, but we got them ironed out quickly.

Pirate Barter - Instead of just getting candy this year, the attractions doled out pirate treasure: coins, jems, strings of pearls, etc. Walking around the show were some greedy pirates who would barter with kids for this treasure in exchange for candy and toys. Kids loved being able to buy their treats with the booty they earned.

Of course, some of the old mainstays were still in effect, such as the Magic Mirror, which is always a hit with the kids. And Dr. Richman returned with his "Creepy Crawly Emporium".

All in all, it was a fantastic year for the tots. Thanks to all our volunteers and visitors! We're already looking forward to 2010.

Carnival of Souls 2009 teaser

2009-10-25T18:32:00.005-06:00

Here's a teaser photo for Carnival of Souls 2009. These are some pirate ship cannonades my brother built for the main walkthrough haunted house attraction. They look awesome, don't they?

And oh, what's that little black cable sticking out from under the cannonades? Is that a USB cable...?

I'm looking forward to seeing all our friends on Halloween next weekend. See you then!

"Big Hearts in Big Country" up for People's Choice

2009-10-21T00:10:00.002-06:00

As you may know, my 1KM1KT 24-hour RPG competition entry was a wild west themed RPG with saloon-inspired trappings called Big Hearts in Big Country. It's got a fun, cinematic combat system, a character-driven storytelling system, and a heavily fleshed-out setting, all in one free package.

Well, if you like it, then you should head on over and vote for it, because it is nominated for a people's choice award in the "Honey, Where's My Dice Bag?" category.

And as always, play reports are welcome!

New Versions of Digital Puppets Up!

2009-10-19T20:38:00.003-06:00

We've been busy at ImaginEERIEing with our home haunt, but that doesn't stop us from trying to help you make your Halloween better.

We just released two new versions of two of our signature digital puppets:

Mirror Mirror has been updated with a new feature that allows the Mirror face to fade away when it is set to "asleep" mode. This allows your Mirror face to magically appear somewhere your visitors may not expect it.

Gordo has been updated with a new feature that allows Gordo's exterior to be rendered completely black. This allows you to project Gordo onto a real pumpkin, and have it appear that it is magically animated. The effect is truly fantastic - I'll try to get some video of this up in the coming days.

(Since both of these improvements haven't been tested extensively yet, the downloads are only available on the main site. The download link you receive when you buy will still be the older, known stable version. If you don't need the above features, we recommend you stick with the stable versions, since these are not maintenance releases.)

Keywords in the Apple App Store

2009-10-16T00:35:00.005-06:00

In the last several months, my wife and I dove into iPhone development. Frustrated with the quality of apps for kids, we decided to take matters into our own hands and create the sort of app we wished was generally available. My wife has a PhD in educational technology, and I'm a multimedia developer, so we've been creating educational multimedia for almost a decade.

We worked long and hard on LetterWriter Oceans, a game to teach letter writing to kids. When we started development on it, there wasn't quite the glut of cheap letter-writing apps that there is now on the app store, but the steady rise of cheap apps in our target space didn't really bother us, because we were confident that we could grab a good niche because we were shooting for higher quality, better interaction, and a different tone - less "Saturday morning cartoon" and more "trip to the aquarium".

Unfortunately, the sales numbers have been only slightly better than abysmal, with only a few sales per day. We're aware that the days of the iPhone App gold rush are over, but this was even worse than we expected.

And here's the main reason: people just aren't finding our app.

I'm convinced that if our app was listed alongside the other apps of its ilk, we'd fare much better than we are, but we're struggling to get in even the first page on any search of the app store other than an explicit search for the name of our app.

The reason appears to be due to a new policy for App Store applications: keywords.

Recently, the App Store has started asking for keywords. Near as I can tell, new applications are required to add keywords, and only these keywords are used in searches. But legacy applications, added before the keyword mandate, are searched for based on the full text of their application description.

Thus, if you search the App Store for "letters", something that a letter writing application should come up very high on, you'll see things like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books before you see our app. Why? Because they list the person who drew the letters for the comic in the application description.

Worse, you won't even find our app in the search results. We used the word "letter" as a keyword for our app, but we didn't use "letters". I had assumed that Apple's search engine would match simple plurals for nouns, but I was wrong. If you search for "letter" in the App Store, you will see our app in the first page. If you search for "letters", we don't exist.

Furthermore, Apple's search engine doesn't filter out what we'd all assume are "noise" words. Our other app, Tap Treats Halloween comes up on a search of "trick treat", but not if you search for "trick or treat", because I didn't include "or" as a keyword, thinking that Apple would either filter it out as a noise word, or at least display our app if two of the three words matched. Nope.

Oh, and you only get 100 characters worth of keywords, and that includes the comma delimiters.

As far as I can tell, there are no recommendations from Apple for crafting your keywords (if you know of any, please share!), so we're left to do it by trial and error. But even that is problematic because your keywords are set in stone and unchangeable until you upload a new version of your app. You can't even change the title of your app from, say, "LetterWriter Oceans" to "Letter Writer Oceans" without submitting a new binary.

The net effect of all this is that we have been practically absent from the App Store, even with very relevant searches. And that directly affects our sales, perhaps moreso than any other factor. I really enjoy making iPhone apps, and the iPhone development environment has rejuvenated my desire to create apps like no other environment has in recent memory. But this one piece has been a real letdown. Hopefully, Apple engineers are working on ways to make the keyword searching smarter (plural-aware, noiseword-aware), and this problem will go away. But in the mean time, my competitors are snaring sales that I can't even compete for.

And what's going to happen when we have thousands of developers submitting incessant fake updates so they can tweak their keywords? I can't see any outcome other than the approval process slowing to a crawl.

Update: Our new version of LetterWriter Oceans is up on the app store, so if you try the above-mentioned keyword search for "letters", it might start showing up, since this means our new list of keywords is live.

The Free RPG Blog reviews "Big Hearts in Big Country"

2009-10-06T07:12:00.002-06:00

The Free RPG Blog reviewed Big Hearts in Big Country today.

By any account, it's a glowing review, which is gratifying. The real measure is whether players enjoy the game, though. If you play Big Hearts in Big Country, please drop me a line and tell me how it went for you. I'd love to hear how it works in practice for people who didn't write the rules (heh).

LetterWriter Oceans featured at Playgrounder

2009-10-02T07:00:00.002-06:00

LetterWriter Oceans was featured today at Playgrounder.com.

Playgrounder is the brainchild of Dan Benjamin, usability and lifestyle blogger of HiveLogic which features quality children's products. Unlike some sites, Playgrounder is not a "pay for play" site - they feature products based directly on quality of product, rather than kickbacks from promoters, so we're very happy to be featured there.

Problems with our Hosting

2009-10-01T23:02:00.004-06:00

Our long, reliable host, which we've been hosting with since the 90's, was bought by another company called "agavue" recently, and already the service is careening downhill. We sell digital puppets for Halloween, and on October first, of all dates, all the files we had hosted on their servers vanished. The entire directory is just gone, so it's not even something that could have been user error on our part. And our original host's late-hours technical support has been replaced with a nine-to-five tech support, so I can't even talk to them about it until tomorrow. Super.

If you were trying to download one of the demo versions of our digital puppets in the last few days, and were told that the file no longer exists, well, this is why. I've updated the demo download links to grab them from a different server.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

LetterWriter: Oceans Now Available in the App Store

2009-09-22T19:28:00.003-06:00

It's official! We're a published iPhone developer now!

LetterWriter: Oceans, our handwriting training game for kids, is now available for sale on the iPhone App Store. It's $1.99, and packs a lot of underwater fun and poetry into a little package.

If you download it and enjoy the game, I'd appreciate it if you write a glowing review for us, and tell your friends about the game. We need some word of mouth to get the news out, because a whole raft of letter-writing games showed up on the App Store in the last couple of weeks. (Bummer for us!) So far, ours looks like a standout, but it won't take much to get lost in the glut.

We hope you enjoy it!

Gameplay Video for LetterWriter: Oceans

2009-09-16T12:19:00.004-06:00

I uploaded some gameplay video of LetterWriter: Oceans last night to YouTube. You can get an idea of what the game looks like and how it plays.

In the clip, you get to see several of the features:

• The panorama where you select the letter to practice.
• Several of the letter backgrounds.
• The earning of starfish as you complete letters.
• Earning four starfish unlocking the storybook.
• The options screen.

Enjoy!

LetterWriter:Oceans

2009-09-14T11:13:00.003-06:00

I just submitted our first iPhone game for approval at the Apple App Store. It's a game called LetterWriter:Oceans, and it's an educational app that helps kids learn how to draw the capital letter glyphs in a fun undersea environment. Follow the link for more screenshots.

We've been working on this for several weeks, because we have a child who is just learning to write, and we've been unhappy with the quality of iPhone apps out there for this. So, for our anniversary, my wife and I took a vacation up to Cloudcroft and designed the game we wished was available, and now it's done.

Watch for it at the app store in a couple of weeks.

Bhut Jolokia Brownies

2009-07-06T21:34:00.003-06:00

Hot on the heels (as it were) of releasing "Holy Jolokia," a hot sauce made with Bhut Jolokia, the NMSU Chile Pepper Institute is now selling Bhut Jolokia in powdered form. It's a boon to chefs everywhere who like their food spicy.

(For those of you who don't know, the Bhut Jolokia is the world's hottest pepper, rather recently discovered, whose heat goes into the millions of Scovilles.)

To celebrate, my wife made a whole tray of brownies with only a teaspoon of powdered Bhut Jolokia mixed in. And boy, did it add some zip! Not enough to be painful, but certainly enough to give you a pleasant chile burn for a while. If you're looking for a way to add a little zing to your cooking, just a little bit of this stuff will go a long, long way!

(Cue jokes about putting mind- and body-altering substances in brownies...)

Preloading Flash SWF's without Executing Scripts

2009-07-02T13:49:00.005-06:00

For a project we are doing at work, I had a game engine shell which would load .SWF's into the shell for playing individual vignettes and cutscenes. Because it was going to be served via a web server, I wanted to preload these vignettes during play so that when the vignette was encountered, it would play immediately, instead of the user having to wait to download the item.

However, one of the vignettes had a custom cursor in it, which would hide the regular cursor. The end result of this was that when I preloaded that SWF, it would execute that code and hide the cursor for the movie before displaying that vignette.

The solution was to use URLLoader to load the vignettes to get them into Flash Player's cache, and then, when they were needed, using the Loader class to load them into the engine:

import flash.net.*;
public class SWFPreloader {
 public function SWFPreloader() {
  //  Preload a list of SWFs here, or call preloadSWF()
  this. preloadSWF( 'intro' );
 }
 
 public function preloadSWF( url:String ) {
  var urlr:URLRequest = new URLRequest( url );
  var _loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
  _loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;
  _loader.load( urlr );
 }
}

Using this method, you could preloadSWF() the MovieClips you will need later, and the Flash Player will put them into the cache. Load the MovieClips normally using the Loader() class, and Flash Player will pull the SWF's from the Flash Player cache instead of downloading them again from the web server.

Sometimes, it Takes an Outlaw to Bring Justice

2009-06-27T23:40:00.000-06:00

I've updated the original version of Big Hearts in Big Country to version 2 of the rules.

In this new set of rules, you will find:

Rule tweaks and clarifications, including a full example of a sample gunfight.
More good guys to befriend and more bad guys to stand against.
More detail and story hooks for the sample setting, Sangre De Dios.
Spiffier, more western-themed layout.
More detail in the character archetype generator.
More artwork.

Enjoy. If you play it, please send me a play report - I'd love to hear how it goes for you.

More work on "Big Hearts in Big Country"

2009-06-25T23:23:00.005-06:00

I've been working on fleshing out the rules from Big Hearts in Big Country a little more over the last week or so. It's starting to look really good, and the more I work with it, the happier I am with the original rules I wrote.

I'm finding that I have less cleanup than I originally thought. It's funny - I went back in to add a lot of detail and complexity, and found myself, after much typing, deciding that I liked the simpler, original mechanics better, and deleting everything I'd typed and instead just doing an editing pass on the original content, clarifying what was in my mind as I wrote the thing. I think the 24 hour limitation actually made the game better, because it kept me from going in a direction that would have weakened the game.

Out of my wish list of new features, I've got just about everything but a map for Sangre de Dios, the sample setting for the game. I'm also a lot happier with the layout:

I'm toying with the idea of commissioning some original artwork to be created for the game, such as portraits of the various characters in Sangre de Dios and some more scenic set piece type illustrations. I know better than to try to illustrate the game myself; I'm not "Mr. Stick Figure," but for a game that's all about mood, drama, and character, I know my drawings wouldn't be able to set the tone I want to set. In order to recoup the cost, that means I'd have to try to sell it (or ask for donations, or sell ad space on a web site for it, or something.)

The question is: is there a market for something like this?

Big Hearts in Big Country

2009-06-18T00:35:00.004-06:00

I just finished an entry for the 1KM1KT / FreeRPG Blog 24 Hour competition, a competition where you have 24 hours to design a tabletop RPG from the ground up. You pick a theme from a list, and I chose the theme "Cowboys with Big Hearts." Since my life has kids and work in it, my game represents far less than 24 hours of work - more like 6 or 7.

My game is called Big Hearts in Big Country. Here's the pitch:

Welcome to Sangre De Dios.

The villagers stare as you ride into town. They don’t know what to make of you. Strangers are rare here, and usually don’t stay long. They either have a drink and continue on their long journey northeast to Las Cruces, or they take a much shorter trip southwest up to Boot Hill.

Long ago, the townspeople stopped daring to dream that a big hearted gunfighter would come clean up the town. But then, they’ve never met you...

Big Hearts in Big Country is a cowboy-themed RPG which centers on what cowboys do best, at least in the movies: staring down the villain in the black hat, waiting for him to twitch, and then being fast on the draw. You’re the guys (or gals) who clean up bad towns.

Featuring six pages of simple rules, a starter setting for gameplay, a simple core mechanic for telling dramatic, character-based stories, a tense, edge-of-your-seat system for high-drama shootouts, and theme-appropriate game materials like poker cards and chips instead of character sheets, "Big Hearts in Big Country" is quick to pick up and play, and focuses on telling stories that would make Sergio Leone or Sam Peckinpah proud.

Enjoy. If you have any questions, suggestions, or play reports, let me know in the comments.

Update to MVC Framework

2009-06-11T15:52:00.003-06:00

I've released an update to the MVC framework for developing Shockwave3D applications in Director. Changes include:

Models now receive the act() message each frame.
Fixed bug that makes demo scene not work.
info() gives more information, and more complete information without parameters.
Fixed thumbnailer to include headings on member thumbnails.
Added floor() and ceil() math functions.
Added event() and replaceController() to the Controllers object. The Controllers object is now implemented a little differently, but the API should be the same.
Added centerImage() imaging lingo routine.

Online Trick-Or-Treating

2009-05-28T22:13:00.001-06:00

Doorless Chambers is a site that organizes online trick-or-treating for virtual Disney-themed goodies from October 25 through 31. Interesting concept. I might have to participate this year, if I can come up with something decent to share.

My "One Page Dungeon" entry

2009-05-25T23:43:00.003-06:00

Recently, an old-school tabletop roleplaying site hosted a one page dungeon design challenge. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to craft an entry, and the deadline passed.

However, due to some confusion, the deadline was extended, and I was able to scrape together some time to make an entry of my own: The Poseidon Adventure. It's released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.

The dungeon itself is a much abbreviated version of an adventure I ran quite a while ago (one of the first I ran using third edition). Some might accuse it of being a device to deliver the punch line of a terrible, terrible joke (it certainly got some mighty groans from my players when I said, as we were putting away the game table, "thanks for playing...the Poseidon adventure."). But really, I think the adventure stands on its own, too. The bad joke is gravy.

If there is interest, I might post what I have from the original adventure, but the primary macguffins from the original adventure are retained in the one-page-dungeon entry itself: the good magic gone bad, the impending rise of a new evil demigod, the drastic change to the dungeon environment halfway through the adventure, and the final race against time to escape the ruins. (And the terrible joke, natch.)

The changing environment in particular made a one-page presentation difficult, since I had to present the environment in both contexts, one in each orientation. As a result, I went more "new school" and kept things short and more plot-oriented than some of the other entries I've seen, but I think the thrill of such a dynamic environment is worth the space devoted to it. We'll see if the judges agree.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Holy Jolokia!

2009-04-28T14:10:00.001-06:00

It's official. NMSU has its own hot sauce, taken from the hottest pepper in the world, the Bhut Jolokia. Sales of Holy Jolokia go towards an endowed chair at NMSU. Burn your mouth and help higher education at the same time!

DIY Magic Mirror

2009-02-02T10:05:00.001-07:00

The guys over at DIY Magic Mirror used Mirror Mirror and Yorick to create the videos for an installation-based Magic Mirror program. You can extend what his mirror installation does by using any of our digital puppets.

If you create an installation from them, be sure to send us photos and videos - we love to see what people do with them!

Just got back from Puerto Rico

2008-11-25T18:55:00.002-07:00

I just returned from Puerto Rico, where I met with a group of fellow Director enthusiasts. It was good to finally put some faces to the names of various Director gurus I've been following for years. (Universally, a great bunch of guys, by the way.) It was Director chatting from morning to late at night for two days straight, and a great look into what other people are doing.

After seeing some of the things these guys are working on, and talking to them about how their current projects are going, I'm more encouraged about the future of Director than I've been lately. It's good to get connected to the community again, and I'm looking forward to doing more Director work in the future.

And a special thanks to Adobe for organizing the retreat. Thanks for one of the best times I've had at a conference in a long time.

You Reap What You Sow

2008-11-20T00:37:00.001-07:00

Kathleen Parker, an old-school conservative columnist wrote Giving Up on God for the Washington Post, where she bemoans the fact that the GOP is being dragged down by the Bible-thumping wing of their party. She says, "the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows....shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party -- and conservatism with it -- eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one's heart where it belongs."

Well, duh. That's what liberals have been trying to tell you guys all along. Religion is not politics is not religion. Mix them at your own peril, dumbasses.

You reap what you sow. For years, the GOP has been pandering to the uneducated, the superstitious, the resentful, and the xenophobic, using them as an easily-riled base who doesn't really question whether the leaders they elect really legislate in their best interests. They were your "useful idiots," and you built an ongoing drumbeat of spin, misdirection, and outright fabrications to rile them up and draw more into their fold. But ultimately, if that's what you increasingly rely on, if that's where your rhetoric goes, and, as the generations turn, that's where you draw your fresh political blood from, that means you, by definition, will become them.

No whining about it. It's a monster of your own creation. The villagers have torches and pitchforks, Dr. Frankenstein. Your time in the castle is over.

Spinebreakers

2008-11-19T21:03:00.002-07:00

Spinebreakers is a site sponsored by Penguin Books which appears to be bringing print publishing up to Web 2.0 sensibilities. It's interesting because traditional print publishers need to keep up if they don't want to become irrelevant, and Penguin Books seems to be doing the right stuff. Between initiatives like Paper Cuts, a competition to get kids to write 100 word essays on what really matters to them and collecting the best ones into a printed volume, to fantastic cover design for classic reprints, they're doing the right stuff.

(And speaking of visual design for book jackets, be sure to check out the Penguin blog, which celebrates print design with articles like this one about designing the covers for a series of horror novel reprints. Good stuff.)

Anyone have a copy of Creature Castle?

2008-11-18T19:45:00.001-07:00

You may remember my earlier "nostalgia games" blog entry about Creature Castle.

Well, I've been contacted by someone related to the original creators of the game who is looking for a copy. If you have a copy you're willing to part with, please contact me, and I'll put you in touch.

The Page Has Turned

2008-11-04T21:47:00.001-07:00

To all who voted today, and in previous days, for Barack Obama: thank you.

And my children thank you - they just don't know it yet.

Carnival of Souls 2008 a success, but not without problems

2008-11-02T20:35:00.002-07:00

This is just a brief note, for those who may be watching, that Carnival of Souls 2008 was a big success this year, but we did have a few problems.

The haunted house was spectacular. The many volunteers came together to make a thrilling experience for visitors. Cries of "That was AWESOME!" were heard throughout the night, and we even had kids stop by the day after to tell us how much fun they had.

There were some problems, however. We had a lot of last-minute cancellations from volunteers, leaving us with eight fewer volunteers than we expected. In addition, we had some people who were only able to work part of the night, so even with covering those losses, we still had holes over the course of the evening. The front yard bore the brunt of this - the carnival games stood unmanned for a good portion of the night, and there was no usher for the Magic Mirror, which caused some trouble. The people who were here soldiered on, and some last-minute volunteers made the situation better than it otherwise would have, though, so it wasn't a disaster. But I do feel bad for the smaller kids who were too young for the haunted house who came and found none of the front yard stuff going.

I'll try to get a page about 2008 up on the web site in a few days. Until then, if you are a volunteer or a visitor, feel free to leave a comment about how YOU thought it went.

Apple's Other Excellence

2008-10-23T10:39:00.002-06:00

You know, there's a lot of buzz about Apple these days, what with the fantastic gains of the iPhone in the market, the dominance of the iPod, and how great Mac OS X is compared to Vista.

But there's another realm of excellence I experienced today: customer service.

I had a problem with my iPhone that was annoying me for the past few days, and I called customer service about it, even though I was out of warranty. I was prepared to pay for some pay-as-you-go tech support to get the issue fixed.

The person on the other end of the line was very helpful and friendly, and walked me through all the basic troubleshooting steps, and then into the advanced steps. Finally, we decided that the best thing to do would be a complete software reinstall, so rather than make him wait through it, I let him go, saying I could handle it from there. He sent me an email so that I could pick up with him personally if that didn't work.

Now, at that point, I figured I was done with tech support unless I called them back.

However, while I was going through the software install, I received a call from another Apple customer service representative. He said that they were talking about my case after I hung up with them, and he wanted to ask me a few follow-up questions. They'd begun to suspect it was a hardware issue.

Seriously. These guys remain service-oriented on an issue after you have hung up with them and the ball is no longer in their court.

Not only that, but they are going to fix the hardware issue for free and send me a loaner iPhone to cover me while it's being repaired.

I have to say, if I wasn't an Apple fan already, I would be now. I can't remember when I've had such a positive experience with calling tech support for a product. Yes, a hardware issue is frustrating, but it happens. What matters is knowing that Apple will step up to the plate and make it right when it does.

And so it's come to this

2008-10-20T23:31:00.002-06:00

Death threats against families with Obama yard signs.

What's it going to be, America? Hope, or hate?

Tonight's Debate Reaction

2008-10-16T02:48:00.001-06:00

The third debate is over, and thankfully, McCain is 0 for 3, according to the polling by most major media news outlets (even Fox). McCain lost them all. Even the town hall meeting.

A few thoughts:

Regarding America's trailing scores in math and science, Obama said "This probably has more to do with our national future than anything." Yes - Obama gets it. Education is infrastructure.

Again with the "$3 million overhead projector" thing from McCain. The Sky Theater planetarium projector is an "overhead projector" like Google or Amazon is "someone's web site". Technically true, but intentionally disguising the nature of what is being discussed by leaving out the important detail of how much amazing technology is behind it. The Sky Theater projector is not what people think of when you say the words "overhead projector," and McCain knows it. It's dishonest.

McCain predictably excuses his lifetime position of giving education the short shrift by saying "throwing money at the problem won't solve it." Again, technically true - we can't just throw money at our educational system to fix it.

We need to hire and retain better teachers, find better ways to teach, provide safer and more conducive learning environments, lower the student:teacher ratios, update outdated modes of teaching that don't connect with today's kids, provide after school programs for at-risk kids, fix our crumbling schoolhouses, etc.

And you know what, McCain? Those things cost money.

Yes, you can't just throw money at the system to solve everything - it needs true educational leadership and responsible stewardship for that money to do what it needs to do. But they do need money.

Besides, McCain sure is one to talk about "throwing money at a problem." This is the guy who would be fine with spending $2,400,000,000 per week in Iraq for 100 years. This is the guy who "suspended his campaign" to go throw $820,000,000,000 at the international banking system. Doesn't he see the irony? At least when we talk about funding teachers, science programs, and... ahem... high-end planetarium star projectors, we know exactly what it is we're going to be spending the money on, that we're spending it here at home, and what we can expect as an outcome.

More Juvenile Antics

2008-10-14T13:54:00.001-06:00

You might remember my earlier blog post about how some idiot stole the Obama bumper sticker off my car.

I've been talking to people, and it sounds like this is not an isolated incident. Two of my friends, also Obama supporters, have told me that they have had yard signs stolen, and I noticed that two Obama signs that I pass on the way to dropping my son off at day care went missing and were replaced by a different yard sign.

It's also apparently happening elsewhere. Personally, I like this response.

Sarah Palin would make a terrible wizard

2008-10-09T23:10:00.002-06:00

It looks like Sarah Palin has an IQ score of 83.

For you Dungeons and Dragons players McCain is always talking about, that means that if you made a character sheet for Sarah Palin, she'd have an Intelligence score of 8.

Adler's Response to McCain

2008-10-08T22:25:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, I blogged a bit about McCain attacking Obama for supporting informal, all-ages Science education, namely, Obama's support of replacing the 40-year-old planetarium projection machine (not merely an "overhead projector" as McCain called it) for the Sky Theater there.

Well, here's an update. The Adler has posted a response to McCain detailing the exact position of the Adler and clearing up McCain's erroneous implications about the funding, namely that it's somehow frivolous or wasteful.

Education is infrastructure. Probably the most important infrastructure we have long-term, because if we slide technologically, there is no way we'll remain a leader of the free world. If our kids and grandkids cannot keep up, then we're looking at our potential enemies outpacing our weapons technology, our surveillance technology, our security technology, our energy technology, our medical technology. Economies ebb and flow, alliances rise and fall, but the one constant is that whoever has the best technology wields the most power. If McCain doesn't get that, if he openly mocks science education and says we don't need it, then he should not be president. He cannot possibly be a good steward of America's future.

McCain against Education Again

2008-10-07T22:01:00.006-06:00

I just watched the presidential debate, and I am struck once again by John McCain's contempt for educational efforts.

It's probably not going to get a lot of play, but the one thing that stood out to me as strange was McCain attacking Obama for supporting spending money on a star projector for a planetarium in Chicago. He's referring to a $3 million earmark for replacing the 40-year-old projection system at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the first planetarium in the western hemisphere, let alone America, and a major science education venue in the Chicago area.

To my mind, that's not "pork," at least, not in the derisive sense of the word, like a bridge to nowhere. This is perfectly in line with what Obama was saying about the need to invest in America's educational infrastructure.

Modified photo by Arlette.

As a child, I remember planetariums being one of my favorite places to visit, second only to theme parks. As an educational venue, planetariums conveyed to me, like no other venue can, the enormity, wonder, and adventure that is represented by the universe we live in. It got me interested in topics like Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics.

In particular, planetariums did a far, far better job of that than school did. In school, it's all academics and textbooks. But there was something almost spiritual about going through those double doors that opened by themselves, into the serene, dim theater, surrounded by celestial ambient music and dramatic lighting. And there, in the center of the room - the projector. That strange alien-like contraption, a black cylinder with two spheres at each end adorned with thousands of tiny eyelets, the whole thing supported on a rack, displaying it in the middle of the room as it sat dormant and quiet.

And when the show started! The lights would fade, and the music would swell, and that alien device would come to life, rising and falling, turning on its axis, spinning the spheres at each end, throwing stars into the sky above. And the narrator would speak - not the dry monotone or the finger-wagging admonitions I heard in church, but the sage and simple voice of a guide, who would take you through the universe and back. In those tall, comfortable seats, pitched back to look up at the stars, we'd observe the magnetosphere of the Earth protecting us from the fiery conflagration of particles spit out fitfully from the sun, or travel out of our galaxy so far that we could observe it from afar, a swirling sea of stars so huge it was difficult to wrap your mind around it.

To this day, as you can probably tell, I have a childlike awe of the things I learned at planetariums.

But more to the issue at hand, planetariums are educational venues. They are venues for traditional education - school trips to planetariums are common - but they are also venues for informal and adult education. If we're going to be serious about turning around our nation's educational infrastructure, it must include more than just textbooks. We have to fundamentally embrace education as a part of life, not just a part of school. We need to support the things that make kids (and their parents) interested in math and science, that get them interested in careers in the math and science industries, and help them understand how important, far-reaching, enriching, and fulfilling these pursuits are.

If the worst instance of "pork spending" support John McCain can come up with in Obama's legislative history is this, an initiative which fundamentally embraces, celebrates, promotes, and (most importantly) strengthens America's math and science educational infrastructure, then he's better off not pointing it out. Especially in terms of what we're spending in Iraq - the $3 million for the planetarium renovation Obama asked for is what we spend in Iraq every 13 minutes. This would have been a relatively tiny investment for a big return, and given that the projector the money would have replaced was forty years old and is no longer serviceable since no one makes parts for them any more, it's not likely money that would have been squandered; that the Adler kept the last projector running so long beyond its lifetime shows that they are frugal and responsible stewards of the money apportioned to them.

To me, the fact that Obama supported a public, informal educational effort like funding a planetarium, and didn't try to distance himself from it when McCain derided him for it, just reinforces the kind of man he is, especially in contrast to McCain, who has voted against education time and time again.

Oh, and by the way, the $3 million didn't get funded. I guess we needed that 13 extra minutes in Iraq instead.

Obsidian Portal

2008-09-27T16:08:00.001-06:00

Obsidian Portal is a "Web 2.0" service for organizing and tracking your RPG campaign. It's basically a wiki keyed to the particular information architecture you see in tabletop RPG design.

This is the software that Michael Harrison from GeekDad is using in his world building tutorial series.

Kohler Haunt's Magic Mirror

2008-09-27T10:59:00.001-06:00

Here at the Carnival of Souls, we love to see what people do with the digital puppets we provide for people to use.

Today, the House of Kohler sent us some great video of the Magic Mirror in action at their haunt. It looks like they have a great little yard haunt, complete with fireworks.

This video is a good one to watch because the puppeteer of the mirror had to deal with a rather quiet young boy who looked a little apprehensive about the entire place. He did a really good job setting the boy at ease while still maintaining the sense of magic about the place.

You can see other peoples' implementations of our effects at our Friends of ImaginEERIEing page. If you have photos or video of the Mirror (or any of our other ideas) at your own home haunt you'd like to share, be sure to submit your haunt.

Punctuation Man Endorses Serial Comma

2008-09-26T08:36:00.000-06:00

Yes! Finally, it's settled. Oxford wins out over AP, because Punctuation Man has endorsed the serial comma.

And it is just. Using a serial comma buys you clarity. Omitting the serial comma buys you a drop of ink on a printed document or one less byte in a word processing document. Which is more important when you're trying to communicate an idea?

Boney Island

2008-09-22T23:53:00.001-06:00

I don't often find other haunts which really strive to be age-appropriate for all audiences. But the Boney Island Yard Haunt, by Simpsons producer Rick Polizzi, certainly captures the spirit of "Halloween for Everyone."

Although he takes a different tack than our own Carnival of Souls - his is much more whimsical and humorous - we both agree that there should be a Halloween venue for younger kids which doesn't involve getting chased with a chainsaw.

His display looks absolutely fantastic. He has many motorized props, so the place looks like it is bursting with activity: singing skeletons, ferris wheels, rides, spooks telling jokes, etc. It all has a very charming look to it.

Unfortunately, due to neighbor complaints, 2007 was his final year, after a ten year run. Sad to see, but I'm very happy I got to see this inspirational footage. Rick obviously added a little magic to many kids' lives with his work.

Update to Printable DM

2008-09-17T21:30:00.002-06:00

I've made some updates and changes to the Printable DM Encounter Manager.

This version has more whitespace between the entries to help differentiate the rows as enemies. This version also has a lighter backdrop to the hit point track, to make it easier to use when printed in grayscale, and the word "init" has been removed from the bubble because it was hard to read a number written in there with the word in there also, even though it was faint text.

If you have any other suggestions for improving the Printable DM, let me know.

Printable DM Works Really Well!

2008-09-16T22:57:00.002-06:00

I finally got a chance to try out my Printable DM Encounter Manager sheet in a gaming session today.

In short, it rocked. I was really happy with how it worked. Everything I needed to run a combat (beyond the monster stats) was contained on the page. This makes DM'ing fourth edition really easy, because it's got spaces for everything you need organized in a clear, accessible way.

Now, we've only tried it with 3rd level adventurers, so it hasn't been tested with the higher-level combats, so perhaps there are elements of high-level combat that I'm leaving out here. But so far, it's a really handy reference for adjudicating. Just print out one copy of the page per encounter, fill it out before the game, and you can hit the ground running.

There are a few minor changes I need to make. When printed in black and white, the hit point tracks and the "Init" word in the initiative tracker are too dark and get in the way; I intended them to be lighter so they could just be written over and easily read. I'd also like to reduce the size of the rows and add some more whitespace between them, to make it clear which pair of rows go with which monster.

Do you have any other suggestions for improvement?

McCain: Making America Stupid

2008-09-14T22:06:00.004-06:00

Thomas Friedman's op-ed in the New York Times called Making America Stupid (thanks Digg) rightly makes the argument that we need to quickly improve our educational infrastructure if we don't want America to slide into global irrelevance.

But what Friedman doesn't really do is make it clear what sort of approach our two presidential candidates would take on this issue.

I don't have to tell you that you can see what Barack Obama plans to do about it. He lays it all out.

It's harder to tell what McCain is going to do. He offers a page about his early education policy, and while it's filled with a lot of platitudes, it's extremely vague. A close read makes it clear that he's not planning on doing anything to improve things other than shuffle things around. Check out his carefully-crafted language to make it look like he'll be doing something:

"There is no shortage of federal programs..."
"There is much to be achieved by leveraging and better coordinating these programs..."
"John McCain will focus federal resources..."
"Each Head Start Center identified by the Secretary as a Center of Excellence will use their funds to expand their programs to serve more children..."
"We should also encourage and enable states to better align Head Start with their own pre-K programs."
"...partnership grants and targeted federal funding can be used to encourage and facilitate early screening programs..."
"John McCain will ensure that there are no federal prohibitions against preschool programs..."
"Current federal programs will be focused on educating parents..."

...and so on. A careful read of his entire early education document indicates that John McCain does not plan to increase funding for early childhood education by even a dime. The one place where he even has a dollar amount - $200k for Head Start programs he identifies as "centers of excellence" - he adds the caveat "...depending on availability of funding." (And even then, it's not clear whether the dollars come from a new federal program or are merely cannibalized from other Head Start programs.)

His idea is, apparently, to sail along with current programs, while imposing upon them reporting restrictions and federal-level mandates to shuffle around the existing programs. Yeah, that's exactly what we need - more unfunded mandates mixed with increased federal bureaucracy. I thought the Republicans were supposed to be against that kind of thing.

Of course, a better predictor of what McCain intends to do about our educational infrastructure is to look at his past votes on education issues. See the table below. To put things in perspective, I'm including the price of each educational program that was proposed, and how much sooner we could leave Iraq to pay for it.

Year	What he did	Cost	Iraq Time
2006	Voted against rolling back Bush's earlier cuts to education, health care, and job training programs for education.	$7 billion	20 days
2000	Voted against a small estate tax increase for school repairs and teacher training.	$3.5 billion	10 days
2001	Voted against raising the national student-teacher ratio to 18.	$2.4 billion	7 days
2003	Voted against funding for educational programs and dropout prevention.	$210 million	15 hours
2005	Voted for the largest cut to federal student loans in history, a vote that was voted against by crossover Republicans to make it a 50-50 vote, with Cheney casting the tiebreaker. If McCain had been the "maverick" on this issue, and also broken with his party, the student loans would not have been cut.	$12.7 million	53 minutes

In addition, he has voted multiple times against funding for Pell Grants, voted against a $12,000 college tuition tax credit, and practically every time it's come up, he's voted against school breakfast and lunch programs for low income students, even though this has been shown to increase school performance. Etc.

You get the idea. Clearly, McCain is hostile to even modest amounts of money going to improving our educational infrastructure in America, despite what he likes to say on the stump. McCain is willing for us to spend 100 years of America's economy on Iraq, but he's not willing to spend even 53 minutes on our schools here at home.

Our economy is weak, our schools are weak, and the world is increasingly relying on an information economy. The number one thing we can do to ensure America's longevity is to shore up its future economic might by making sure our kids are the ones who are inventing new technologies in the future. Everything in our future hinges on remaining excellent innovators compared to the rest of the world. We need new energy sources coming from here. We need new information technologies coming from here. We need new defense, threat detection, and investigation technologies coming from here. We need new medical and transportation technologies coming from here. We need to explore our universe, our seas, our deserts, and our genetic structure. If we don't, if we slide into a consumerist, superstitious society hostile to "ivory tower elitists," then we do so at our own peril.

We simply can't afford for McCain to win.

What is this, middle school?

2008-09-10T13:49:00.003-06:00

Coming out of work today to head to lunch, I look down at my car's rear bumper and notice that someone stole the Obama bumper sticker off of my car. There's a little scrape mark where they got it started, and they peeled the rest of it off.

Seriously, since when do middle schoolers care about politics? What's next, ding-dong-ditching me?

Printable DM

2008-09-09T21:57:00.001-06:00

After reading David Seah's "Printable CEO" blog, it occurred to me that some of the productivity philosophy he uses could be applied to the process of dungeon mastering. I've been running a fourth edition game for a while, so I took a look at ways I could improve the way I organize my combat forces.

The result is the Printable DM, which aims to help clarify and organize your encounter's monsters so that it's easier to keep track of initiative order, monster health, status effects, who is marking whom, who is bloodied, etc.

Download it and take it for a spin, and let me know how it works for you in the comments. I'm going to use it in my game in the coming sessions, and if anything interesting emerges, I'll post it, too.

Save Madame Sarita Page Up

2008-09-08T01:27:00.002-06:00

I finally got around to posting a web page about Save Madame Sarita.

This was our new attraction for 2007, basically an interactive, installation-based video game where players use mystical artifacts to enter the spirit world, defeat Marius Blackwood, and Save Madame Sarita.

For more detail, video, and a behind-the-scenes look at how the mystical controllers worked, visit the web page.

Singing Busts Hacked!

2008-09-05T23:50:00.001-06:00

As I mentioned earlier, I was planning on using the instructions at my-mania.com to hack the 2006 Target talking busts to create talking busts that move their mouthes to custom audio.

Well, long story short, I had a bit of trouble, but managed to work around it. I also noticed a few shortcuts in terms of accomplishing the hack. To see video of the final hack, and get some more info on how we worked around the problem, you can visit our talking busts page. If you want to do this hack yourself, you will still need to use the instructions at my-mania.

A Quick Plug for Midnight Syndicate

2008-09-04T12:29:00.003-06:00

As much as we'd like to take credit for it, Midnight Syndicate is the soundscape source for our haunt every year.

As a refreshing change from most bands, Midnight Syndicate is uncommonly open to people using their music for horror-themed attractions, going so far as to give you permission royalty-free right over the web using a form on their site. They touch base with their haunters every year, and even feature people using their music at both pro and home haunts on their web site.

They have a new CD available for the 2008 season called The Dead Matter, a soundtrack that is paired with a movie they scored of the same name. You'll find it in the usual places for music, but you will also find it at your seasonal Halloween stores, in all likelihood. If you'd like a spooky soundtrack, be sure to pick up a Midnight Syndicate CD. These guys are active, generous supporters of the home haunt community, and make Halloween that much more magical for kids all over the country.

Upgrading the look

2008-09-01T02:19:00.001-06:00

They say beauty is only skin-deep.

In the case of the Carnival of Souls web page, that's certainly true.

I've just updated the look of the main Carnival of Souls web page, but I haven't had a chance to update the stuff behind it. (I also updated my main page, too.) I'm not sure if/when I'll get to the other pages on the site, because, well, it's a mess under the hood. This site has grown organically since 2003, and it needs to be cleaned up. Unfortunately, Halloween is a mere two months away, so I'm not sure how much time I'll be able to spend on it.

My goal is to get some of the most oft-visited pages re-skinned, just to save people from looking at my early-2000's web design. Just don't expect to have every page skinned anytime soon.

Voter Registration Drive

2008-08-29T22:22:00.003-06:00

A few weekends ago, I volunteered for a voter registration drive being organized by the Barack Obama campaign. It was an interesting day.

I'd never done it before, so I had to get a bit of instruction on what to do. The Obama staffers I worked with, a group of uncommonly intelligent and personable young men and women, were pretty patient with my questions, and walked me through the process.

In particular, they told me that we were registering any and all voters. Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, we were providing a service that day to get as many people registered as possible. The main thing they wanted to express was openness and inclusiveness, so anyone who wanted to register would be registered. This is significant, because in talking to some people afterward, I was met with a lot of cynicism about whether we were actually willing to register anyone but Obama supporters. The truth of the matter is, with most of the people I signed up, I didn't tell them who I was doing the voter registration for, and they didn't tell me who they were supporting. I wasn't wearing any Obama pins or shirts, we didn't have a table, or anything. I was just a guy with a clipboard full of voter registration forms. If they asked, I'd tell them, of course, but the vast majority of the time, political leanings were not even mentioned during the act of signing up people.

In addition, the campaign staffers made the point that one thing that would solidify someone's distrust of the Democrat party would be to sign up with a Democrat registration drive and not turn it in, and conversely, if a Democrat helps a conservative sign up, it might break down stereotypes and help us reach across to other constituents. It's clear that they're not just interested in doing what it takes to win this election. They're taking the long view, which is a good sign.

I was also impressed with the people I met. Many, many people were already registered, and a lot of people thanked me for just trying to get people registered. People from all walks of life, who drove up in a Prius, an Oldsmobile, or a bicycle, valued the role of voting. It was pretty heartening to see how many people took it seriously and how many people were genuinely appreciative of what I was doing.

Of course, there were a couple of uncomfortable moments.

I talked to more than one college-age young woman who "just wasn't into voting." This is sad, especially considering McCain's obvious misogyny. This is the man who referred to his own wife as a "c**t" in front of reporters, remember. Not a lot of respect for women in that man, despite the politically-calculated choice of a woman for VP, a cynical attempt to grab expatriate Hillary supporters who haven't been paying attention to what McCain actually does with his political power.

I also got a little vitriol from both the left and the right.

I talked to one woman who told me that yes, she was registered, and that there was no way in hell she would vote for "that fascist Obama." Fascist, really? I don't think that woman has read Obama's position papers on his web site - the legislative work he's done has clearly been democratizing work, rather than supporting fascism, such as requiring new standards for making the government's behavior and spending open to public scrutiny ("Google for Government"), and limiting the power of lobbyists (see his political ethics reform plan for more). And she especially hasn't paid attention to McCain's voting record over the last several years, which really has been sweetheart deals for corporations. My guess is that she was a disgruntled Hillary supporter, but I really don't understand how someone who supported Hillary would take it out on Obama by voting for McCain. Unless the only reason she supported Hillary was because she was female, it doesn't make any sense. Vote policy, not plumbing.

On the other end of the spectrum, I talked to a, shall we say, forthright individual who, when I asked him if he was registered to vote, told me that it didn't matter whether he votes or not because the outcome of the election could never subvert God's will. He went on to say that he looks forward to my destruction at the hands of his God. And then stormed away. I watched him go, thinking, "yup, it's probably a good thing you don't vote." It's been a while since someone has launched into the whole "my god hates you" thing against me, but it's always a surreal, depressing, and saddening experience, no matter how many times I get it.

But all in all, it was a positive experience. I personally signed up people who may not otherwise have voted. I spurred people into taking part in the political process. I don't know how they're going to vote, but the mere fact that more people will be voting because of me is a good feeling. It may not make a difference in the final count, but I'll at least know I was part of the solution and not part of the problem. And even if my guy loses, at least the winner will have been selected as a representative of more people than he otherwise would have been.

SW3D Bone Animations from Lightwave

2008-08-28T12:51:00.002-06:00

I've written an article about exporting bones from LightWave for use in Shockwave3D. It collects a lot of the information I've learned on the web about the finicky process of exporting bones for animation in Director.

In particular, I disagree with something that seems to be conventional wisdom about Lightwave export to Shockwave3D. You can have more than one weight map influence a vertex. Before, it was said that each vertex is assigned 100% to a single bone, but that's not true - you can spread a vertex's influence over multiple bones and it will work.

The article contains two Lscrpts (scripts for controlling Lightwave) I wrote which help ease the process. There's a "Weight Detail" script which lets you set the weight values of a point (or a set of points) across all your weight maps all at once in one dialog. This is really handy, since Shockwave3D likes all the weight maps to add up to 100%. The other Lscript is "Weight Analysis" which will analyze your model for you and show you all the vertices which don't have 100% weight assigned to them. That way, it's easy to find problem areas in your model before export.

I also mirror Mike Green's "BlurVMaps" script, which is also handy for blurring the weight maps so that they flow naturally over the surface.

Taken together, these Lscripts really make preparing models in Lightwave for Shockwave3D export a lot easier.

Hacking the Target Talking Busts

2008-08-28T00:19:00.002-06:00

Oh, happy day. Jeff Baird has posted detailed instructions on hacking the Target talking busts from 2006 and making them respond to custom audio.

We've used these for two years running, after embellishing them a bit to give them a bit more presence:

...so I'm happy to see this how-to. My plan is to take a trip to the corner Radio Shack this weekend and get our three busts hacked to accommodate custom audio.

Mirror, Mirror

2008-08-27T01:07:00.003-06:00

For those of you still subscribed to my blog, I thank you for your loyalty. Sorry I was away from posting for so long, but when my second son was born, well, I had to focus on that for a while. No offense to you, dear reader, but he's hella cuter.

Anyway, to make it up to you, I'm announcing Mirror Mirror, our new digital puppet for the 2008 haunting season. It's a massive overhaul of the original Magic Mirror effect we did way back when we started Carnival of Souls.

It includes all the features you've come to expect from ImaginEERIEing's digital puppets: customizable lighting and other appearance options, multiple modes of control, and an easy-to-use onscreen console for configuring your puppet. Plus some spiffy new tricks, such as cool background effects like fire, spectral emissions, and necrotic venting. (Necrotic venting is shown at right.)

If you try it out and find any problems, please let me know. I want to get any bugs knocked back well in advance of the 2008 haunting season if possible.

Happy haunting!

New Article on Additive Blending Effects

2007-11-14T01:16:00.000-07:00

Now that Jorge at IsoInteractive has teased out how to use additive blending in Shockwave3D, I figured I'd put up a page in my Shockwave3D Developer's Center showing how additive blending techniques can really enhance the look of a Shockwave3D piece.

Here's a screenshot of what the featured effect (called "FireJet") looks like:

Special Effects using Additive and Multiplicative Blending includes a discussion of what additive blending is, and includes exposition, details, and the source code to recreate the above FireJet effect.

It also has a demo that lets you click between several particle textures to see their effects in an additive context, which might give you some ideas for spell effects for your next Director-based RPG game. (Hint, hint!)

Frosty Demo Available

2007-11-13T22:55:00.001-07:00

Okay, I've just uploaded the demo version of Frosty to the ImaginEERIEing site. Frosty is our new Christmas-themed digital puppet, for all you home haunters who start putting up animated reindeer and Santas after you tear down your animated zombies and witches.

The puppet is not for purchase yet, since I want to get some testing done on it before I start charging. I'd appreciate it if you'd try it out and let me know whether you experience any bugs or problems with him. Thanks, and enjoy!

Strange Eons adds Arkham Investigations support

2007-11-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

For those of you that play Arkham Horror, Chris Jennings' excellent Strange Eons, a Java program for creating custom Arkham Horror material, has a new alpha build available which adds support for Arkham Investigations casebooks and foldable tomes. Ia! Ia! Chris Jennings fthagn!

Gordo for charity, other testimonials

2007-11-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

I've put up some testimonials on the ImaginEERIEing site which tell some good stories.

One is the story of a home haunter who charmed everyone from toddlers to parents, including some college girls in between, with the Magic Mirror.

But even more gratifying was the story of Gordo being used for a charity event for children and adults with severe disabilities. When we first built the Magic Mirror and offered it as a free download, we hadn't anticipated its use outside of the context of a home haunt, or possibly a haunted house attraction. But this was a great use of the puppet, because it was engaging and spooky enough to connect with the kids, but (thanks to Gordo's "happy face") not so intimidating that it put them off. Having an adjustable level of friendliness with moods really does come in handy for managing your performance to be appropriate for your visitors, on the fly if need be.

As stories come in about people using our digital puppets, I have to say: it's really great to know that our creations have spread smiles all over the country and beyond. It's a great feeling.

Shockwave Additive & Subtractive Blending

2007-11-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

Oh, happy day! Jorge Rodríguez at isointeractive has figured out how to do Additive and Subtractive Blending in Shockwave.

Video of the Madame Sarita Game for 2007

2007-11-06T00:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, I got some video of kids playing the Madame Sarita game up on YouTube. Here it is:

All in all, it turned out pretty well - most of the kids seemed to really enjoy the custom controllers. The fact that they didn't have any wires, and that you didn't even touch them (except for the skull, which could be picked up off the table and still work), gave them a really mystical feel.

We did have a few technical difficulties during the night, but once we got through the first few sets of visitors, it ran smoothly for the remainder of the night.

Digital Puppet Fun for 2007

2007-11-01T16:18:00.000-06:00

It looks like ImaginEERIEing's digital puppets really contributed to some fun for kids outside of our own little home haunt this year. There have been a lot more downloads of the puppets this year than in 2006, and the reports are starting to come in about how they worked for people.

Dez, who lives in a not-very-Halloween-oriented town up in Canada, decided to get the ball rolling in his community by using the Magic Mirror to get kids interested in a spooky, fun tradtiion. He's wwritten a really good blog post with his mirror implementation and response, complete with video and photos. The facade he built looks great, and he describes how he built it. He had some interesting ideas on keeping the cost low for it - it's worth a read.

And Brent used our Yorick puppet to greet his guests with a really big pirate skull. The facade he constructed carried the theme through, complete with a treasure chest and iron sconces. Very nice!

As for our own haunt, the Magic Mirror remained an audience favorite, with people lining up all down our sidewalk to have a chance to talk to it. My buddy Rich provided the entertaining and engaging voice for it, and parents were telling us nonstop all night how their kids wouldn't miss the mirror on Halloween.

If you used the Magic Mirror or one of our "pro" puppets in your haunt this year, be sure to send us a note!

Haunted Mansion Interior for Madame Sarita's Spirit Parlour

2007-10-24T23:57:00.001-06:00

Well, I have the second of two vignettes pretty much modeled out and ready for non-programmer art to be dropped in for the Madame Sarita's Spirit Parlour video game for Halloween. It's looking pretty nice. If I have time, I'm going to go back into all the environments and add spiderwebs and debris, but I'll be happy with this if I don't have time.

Moreover, this vignette is now fully playable. You enter the foyer, and a chill wafts over you. Suddenly, two ghosts come screaming out of the dark corners at you!

Dispatching them with your abjuration cards, you proceed towards the staircase, where the spirits offer to let you choose your fate.

As you tentatively select one of the fate cards, you hear a horrible scuttling from behind! Spinning around, you gasp in horror as a swarm of spiders come skittering out of an open doorway! Your valor casting had better be up to snuff!

Was the other fate card a better choice? I guess you'll never know. Such are the vagaries of fate. (Or perhaps this will prompt you to strike up some conversations with other visitors to see what their experience in the Spirit Parlour was like...)

More Progress on Madame Sarita's Spirit Parlour

2007-10-21T23:12:00.000-06:00

Today, the crew came over and we did a lot of work on the Spirit Parlour. We got more walls made and hung up in the garage, we got a good start on the window frame, we got the crown moulding put over the window box, and we got the "casting cards" finalized for the game. Moreover, we managed to get in a test of the interface, and it revealed some problems which I have fixed tonight. The game now has very fine configuration controls that allow much more crisp responses to the players' actions, far better than before. This thing is really coming together well. I can't wait to get it in front of some kids.

The "casting cards" are:

Valour: The card shows a knight vanquishing a terrible foe. When the Mage player places his or her hand over it, it casts a spell that smites your foes with fire and steel.
Abjuration: The card depicts an undead specter cowering in fear from the light beaming forth from a man's hands. When selected, it casts a spell that banishes the spirits of the undead.
Sinister Knight and Dexter Knight: These paired cards show skeletal knights facing left and right. They are used to communicate your wishes to the spirits of the dead.

The cards themselves were drawn by local artist Bob Diven, and look spectacular close-up. They are in the style of old Tarot cards from the dark ages, but are completely original, since we didn't want to actually use the Tarot, in case someone objects. You can get an impression of them in the photo above. They sit in small boxes, back-lit by small utility lights. Also in the photo above, you can see the new configuration screen, showing the current configuration of the system. It now has readouts of the current settings, ways to adjust thresholds and sensitivities, and feedback icons so that all game systems can be tested within the configuration screen. (You can see the circular targeter, the palantir HUD, and icons for the four cards.)

Spirit Parlour game coming along nicely

2007-10-21T00:50:00.000-06:00

Tonight, I did my first complete test of the controllers for this year's Madame Sarita's Spirit Parlour, and it works. It works! Yes!

All three control types for the game are now prototyped and working smoothly:

The Palantir of Abyssinia, a crystal ball filled with water from the river Styx, sits on the right, where the "Mystic" player waves his or her hands over it to generate mana.
Four Casting Cards that once belonged to Marie Laveau sit on the left, so rife with power that they glow of their own accord. The "Mage" player need only pass a hand over them to access their magical energies.
The Skull of Rasputin grins horribly in the center, where the "Medium" player will lay hands upon it to draw the team into the dark nightmare of the spirit world.

Now, all I have to do is make the game which uses the controllers. Erm...

Sneak Peek at Carnival of Souls 2007

2007-10-18T18:41:00.000-06:00

Warning: Spoilers for Carnival of Souls 2007 ahead! Don't read this post if you want to preserve the magic.

As many of you may know, we've lost a lot of volunteers for 2007. Among the regulars and semi-regulars you won't see haunting our house this year include: Holly, Byron, Jen, Dana, my parents, Barb's parents, Jim, Janice, and Stephanie. We've also got some tentatives and some not-heard-froms. Thankfully, we've recruited many volunteers to pick up the slack, but it still meant we got a very late start this year.

But does that mean we won't have any spine-tingling surprises for our visitors this year? No way! The Carnival of Souls crew are innovating a new garage attraction this year which should be a lot of fun and require fewer workers to maintain.

This year, Madame Sarita's Spirit Parlour will challenge our visitors to do some ghost talking of their own. Sarita is looking for apprentice guardians, and she needs Mystics, Mediums, and Mages to help her defend against the forces of darkness.

Mystics will use the crystal ball to generate the mana required to fuel magic spells. Mediums will use their "third eye" to project their vision into the spirit world. And Mages will cast the spells to put down that which should never be called up.

Here's a shot of the new spirit parlour construction:

You can see the window box we're building. That will house a 4' wide rear-projection screen where the adventure is displayed. An Apple laptop will control the action. You can see the crystal ball which one player will use as a game controller. The "Mystic" player will wave his or her hands over the crystal ball to generate magic power. The skull on the table is a tentative stand-in for the Ouija Board cradle which the "Medium" player will use to control progress in the spirit world.

Here's a shot of the gameplay:

Now, if we can only get it done before Halloween...

Quickly view HTTP headers

2007-10-18T09:20:00.000-06:00

Found this little gem today. Web-Sniffer.net allows you to enter a URL and it will display the HTTP request and response header.

Thanks, AT&T

2007-10-05T13:30:00.000-06:00

I just got this text message from AT&T: "As of 10/7/07, text messages sent to 505 area code will not reach you and sender will not be notified. Advise contacts of your new 575 area code."

Ah, such great service.

So, all you friends of mine who are subscribed to my blog: update your numbers for us in your address books to area code 575, please. Our other service providers are giving us a grace period of a year, so while you should update all your numbers for me, text messaging is apparently more urgent, since apparently, AT&T can't be bothered to forward you or notify you that I'm not going to get the text message you just sent.

Creating Accessible Flash Content

2007-10-05T10:07:00.000-06:00

WebAIM has posted an article on making Flash content accessible. Widely it is asserted that Flash is accessible, but the reality is that it's not unless you make a Herculean effort to make it so. Thus, a how-to guide is good to have.

In addition, it has a good overview of general accessibility issues for any web content, not just Flash content:

Hearing disabilities
- Provide synchronized captions for any audio that conveys content
Photo epilepsy
- Remove strobing content that flashes between 2 and 55 times per second
Motor disabilities
- Ensure the Flash content is keyboard accessible
- Do not require fine motor skills
Cognitive disabilities
- Give users control over time sensitive content
- Provide easy to use controls and navigation schemes
- Be consistent
- Use the clearest, simplest language appropriate to the content
Low vision
- Provide plenty of contrast
- Allow the Flash content to scale to a larger size
Blindness
- Ensure screen reader accessibility or provide an accessible alternative
- Ensure keyboard accessibility
- Do not interfere with screen reader audio or keyboard commands
- Provide textual equivalents for all non-text elements that convey content or provide a function.

This list of accessibility items is always a good thing to look at when you are faced with a site that you need to update or design. Keeps you in check when you (or someone else) is looking to get funky with AJAX, general Javascript, or Flash on the web.

Flash "memory leak" in Director

2007-10-02T13:24:00.000-06:00

For our current project, I've been trying to nail down what appeared to be a memory leak in Director with respect to Flash members. It's not technically a "leak," per se, but the end result is the same: memory gets allocated that cannot be de-allocated. After some investigation, here's what is going on.

I was using Flash members to store bitmap graphics for a project which required cartoony characters. These character graphics were 256x512 pixels in size, so I could either use 16k to store a Flash member that contained all the frames for the animation, or I could use 512k per frame of animation to store the bitmaps. No brainer, right?

Well, there's a problem. Apparently, if you use "the posterFrame" property of a Flash member, Director's engine will become unable to unload it. My guess is that this is because it is flagged as "changed" in the same way that a bitmap cast member cannot be unloaded after you change its image using its image property. I suppose this makes sense, because the posterFrame set would be lost if the member was unloaded.

So, basically, we have a situation where, if we store graphics in a Flash member and extract them via the posterFrame property, you can never unload them.

What to do? As with most things in Director, there is a workaround. Since the Flash member can never be unloaded when you set its posterframe, the trick is to not set its posterframe, but instead set the posterframe of a duplicate. Make a copy of the Flash member, yank the posterframes from that, and then erase it. The original Flash member can remain unloaded in this case, and the member which cannot be unloaded is instead erased. Here's the code:

on getFlashImage theMember, thePosterFrame
  
  -- We can accept either a literal member reference, a string, or a number.
  if (theMember.ilk = #member) then m = theMember
  else m = member(theMember)
  
  -- Duplicate the member, and set its posterframe
  theTempMember = member(m.duplicate(), m.castlibnum)
  theTempMember.posterframe = thePosterFrame
  
  -- Grab the image
  i = theTempMember.image.duplicate()
  
  -- Erase the temporary member
  theTempMember.erase()
  
  -- Unload the original member
  m.unload()
  
  -- Return the image
  return i
  
end getFlashImage

Smooth Move, NBC

2007-09-28T22:33:00.000-06:00

So, my wife and I have been buying The Office (among other shows) on iTunes for the past two seasons. With a toddler, it was impossible for us to catch prime time television, so we had resorted to getting it online. It cost money, but we were willing to pay it to be able to watch the shows we were trying to follow on our own schedule in a convenient format.

Unfortunately, NBC recently threw a hissy fit with Apple about not wanting to, oh, have a reasonable, consistent price for digital media at the Apple Store. Apparently they think that their content should cost more than everybody else's content and that Apple should pay them more money for the right to deliver it. They took their ball and went home.

So, looking on the Apple Store for the new season, it's not there. I can't pay $2 an episode to Apple and NBC because NBC are being a bunch of petulant children. Instead, we go to NBC.com to watch it fer free!!! That'll show Apple, right?

Wrong. A show like The Office is all about comedic timing, and since you can't actually download the episode, out of some paranoid fear of who-knows-what, you have to watch it streaming. Except that their media player is crap, so it cuts out, stutters, and even fails, which makes the comedy fail. And their chapter browser doesn't even work - when we selected chapter 5 for the fifth time because the video cut out, it kept starting back at chapter 1. It stops being funny if you have to watch it several times in a row.

Indeed, I ended up thinking, while watching a frozen frame of two characters in mid-sentence talking to each other for several minutes, "You know what? This show isn't really worth the effort, even if it's free now." The extra hassle made what was once an enjoyable treat after the kid goes to bed into a frustrating experience which I eventually abandoned. I'm not going to follow The Office any more.

And do you know something else? The Daily Show actually IS on iTunes. And they let us download it (granted, with DRM, but that's never going to change so long as the content owners continue living in the fantasy land where they can hate and love their customers at the same time). So NBC just lost a paying customer. If we hadn't been forced to watch the painful first episode of The Office separately on NBC.com, we probably would have bought the season pass. But now, that cash is going to go to a different network. Apple's still getting their cut, NBC's not.

Bye, bye, NBC. Call me if you ever pull your head out of your ass.

9 JavaScript Tips You May Not Know | Ayman Hourieh's Blog

2007-09-11T14:19:00.000-06:00

Ayman Hourieh has provided a nice overview of 9 JavaScript Tips You May Not Know. I knew almost all of these, but there were a few nuggets in there I thought were clever, such as the way to model linked lists with arithmetic, and the static local variables trick.

Preloading Both Images AND Scripts in Javascript

2007-09-11T13:32:00.001-06:00

We've lately begun developing content for the iPhone and other mobile devices, so I'm starting to get into Javascript programming more.

For an educational game I'm building, I wanted to show a loading screen while the device is downloading all the script information over the slow EDGE network. Unfortunately, while there is a lot of information on the web about preloading images for faster response time in Javascript applications, there's not much about preloading Javascript scripts. In fact, I saw several "it can't be done" type responses.

It turns out it can be done, and quite easily, by leveraging the power of Prototype's AJAX calls. Because Prototype will eval() any AJAX response that comes back with a Javascript MIME type, you can essentially use it to deliver your scripts, rather than using the typical <script> tag, and provide a pretty download bar as it goes.

Here's some code:

//   asset_loader.js
//   This object handles all the assets for the page.

//   First, the master list of application assets to preload.
//   All images are considered to be optional unless required is set to 1.
//   All scripts are considered to be required unless optional is set to 1.

var assets = {

   //   List images here.
   //   Each image is an associative array with:
   //      id: an identifier
   //      url: a url to load the image from (can be relative)
   //      required: (optional) if '1', calls failure callback
   //         if there is an error loading this image
   //         (Thus, all images default to being optional.)

   images: [
      { id: 'an_image', url: 'images/an_image.png' },
      { id: 'another_image', url: 'images/another_image.png' },
      { id: 'required_image', url: 'images/important_image.png', required: 1 }
   ],

   //   List scripts here.
   //   Each script is an associative array with:
   //      id: an identifier
   //      url: a url to load the script from (can be relative)
   //      optional: (optional) if '1', does not call failure callback
   //         if there is an error loading this script
   //         (Thus, all scripts default to being required.)

   scripts: [
      { id: 'required_javascript_thing', url: 'javascripts/important.js' },
      { id: 'optional_thing', url: 'javascripts/optional.js', optional: 1 }
   ]

};

//   The preloader object.
//   This object handles the job of preloading everything.
//   Usage:
//
//      preLoader.startLoading( preloadSuccess, preloadFailure, preloadStatus );
//
//   Where:
//      preloadSuccess: the function to call when preloading was successful
//      preloadFailure: the function to call when preloading failed
//      preloadStatus:  the function to call to report status of preloading in progress
//
//   Scripts grabbed in this manner are eval()'d by Prototype.

var preLoader = {
   errors: { images: 0, scripts: 0 },
   errortext: '',
   progress: 0,
   startLoading: function( completeCallback, errorCallback, statusCallback ) {
      this.success = completeCallback;
      this.failure = errorCallback;
      this.status = statusCallback;
      this.loadNextImage();
   },
   loadNextImage: function() {
      if (this.progress >= assets.images.length) {
         this.progress = 0;
         this.loadNextScript();
         return;
      }
      imageObject = new Image();
      imageObject.onload = function() { preLoader.imageLoaded(); }
      imageObject.onerror = function() { preLoader.imageError(); }
      imageObject.src = assets.images[ this.progress ].url;
      assets.images[ this.progress ].image = imageObject;
   },
   imageLoaded: function() {
      var perc = Math.round((this.progress + 1) * 100 / assets.images.length);
      assets.images[ this.progress ].success = 1;
      this.preloaderMessage( perc, 'Loading Images', assets.images[ this.progress ].url );
      this.progress++;
      this.loadNextImage();
   },
   imageError: function() {
      var perc = Math.round((this.progress + 1) * 100 / assets.images.length);
      assets.images[ this.progress ].success = 0;
      this.errors.images++;
      this.errortext += '<div>Error loading ' + assets.images[ this.progress ].url + '</div>';
      this.preloaderMessage( perc, 'Loading Images', assets.images[ this.progress ].url );
      if (assets.images[ this.progress ].required == 1) return this.failure();
      this.progress++;
      this.loadNextImage();
   },
   loadNextScript: function() {
      if (this.progress >= assets.scripts.length) {
         this.progress = 0;
         this.success();
         return;
      }
      this.ajax = new Ajax.Request( assets.scripts[ this.progress ].url, {
         method: 'get',
         onSuccess: function(transport) {
            preLoader.scriptLoaded();
         },
         onFailure: function(transport) {
            preLoader.scriptError();
         }
      });
   },
   scriptLoaded: function() {
      var perc = Math.round((this.progress + 1) * 100 / assets.scripts.length);
      assets.scripts[ this.progress ].success = 1;
      this.preloaderMessage( perc, 'Loading Scripts', assets.scripts[ this.progress ].url );
      this.progress++;
      this.loadNextScript();
   },
   scriptError: function() {
      var perc = Math.round((this.progress + 1) * 100 / assets.scripts.length);
      assets.scripts[ this.progress ].success = 0;
      this.errors.scripts++;
      this.errortext += '<div>Error loading ' + assets.scripts[ this.progress ].url + '</div>';
      this.preloaderMessage( perc, 'Loading Scripts', assets.scripts[ this.progress ].url );
      if (assets.scripts[ this.progress ].optional != 1) return this.failure();
      this.progress++;
      this.loadNextScript();
   },
   preloaderMessage: function( perc, header, msg ) {
   
      this.status( perc, header, msg, this.errortext );
      
   }

};

...and here's a sample usage which tries preloading the given elements, and displays a "Failure" or "Success" message depending on whether the items were successfully loaded. (In practice, you'd probably not burn out all that innerHTML each frame, but this works as a demo.)

<html>
   <head>
      <title>Javascript Preloading Demo</title>
      <meta name="viewport" content="width=320, user-scalable=no" />
      <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/main.css" type="text/css" media="screen, tv" />
      <script src="javascripts/prototype.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
      <script src="javascripts/game_loader.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
      <script>
         // <![CDATA[
         //   Sample preloading code.
         
         function initialize() {
            preLoader.startLoading( preloadSuccess, preloadFailure, preloadStatus );
         }
         
         function preloadStatus( perc, header, msg, errors ) {
               $('preloader-message').innerHTML = '\
                  <div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold; color: #999; margin-top: 80px;">' + header + '</div> \
                  <div style="margin: 0px 20px; border: 2px solid #00f; position: relative; height: 16px;"> \
                     <div style="position: absolute; left: 0px; top: 0px; width: ' + perc + '%; height: 16px; \
                        background-color: #008;"></div> \
                     <div style="position: relative; text-align: center; color: #999;">' + msg + '</div> \
                  </div>';
               $('preloader-error').innerHTML = errors;
         }
         
         function preloadFailure() {
            $('preloader').innerHTML = '<div style="text-align: center;"><h1>Failed to Load!</h1></div>';
         }
         
         function preloadSuccess() {
            $('preloader').innerHTML = '<div style="text-align: center;"><h1>Success!</h1></div>';
         }
         // ]]>
      </script>
   </head>
   <body onLoad="initialize();" style="border: 1px solid #666;">
      <div id="preloader">
         <div id="preloader-message"></div>
         <div id="preloader-error"></div>
      </div>
   </body>
</html>

If you're not using Prototype, this same principle could be applied using a standard XMLHttpRequest.

Update

Some notes on the usage of the above code. As is typical with eval()'ed code, objects that you create in the global namespace using the above method will not persist. Depending on how you've architected your code, you may not be able to just "drop in" your Javascript and have it work.

However, this is easily remedied. All you need to do is create an object that will persist, and then attach your objects and methods to that. (This is generally a good idea anyway, rather than cluttering up the global namespace.)

For instance, you might add, to the loading script code above, a global object called "app". Then, if you wanted to add a "mainMenu" object, do "app.mainMenu = { whatever };" Since app persists, so too would app.mainMenu.

Update#2

See Andrew's comment below for an alternate method for preloading scripts. (Thanks, Andrew!)

Update to Gordo

2007-09-10T00:12:00.000-06:00

I've released a new build of our "Gordo" digital puppet which includes a new feature suggested by one of our users.

Basically, it extends the "keypress performance playback" control mode by letting you control Gordo using the keyboard (not the microphone) when a performance is not playing.

This way, you can have a prerecorded performance with a soundtrack that can be triggered with a keypress (say, for the introduction to a show), but you can still have Gordo interacting with your visitors while they are getting themselves seated.

If you try it out, let me know whether it works for you, or if you have any other troubles. Thanks!

Frosty: a New Digital Puppet in the Works

2007-09-07T01:00:00.000-06:00

Here's a teaser for the new digital puppet I'm working on for ImaginEERIEing:

I hope I didn't scare off any of my fellow home haunters, but my wife thought that people would be interested in these puppets for the holiday season, too. As you can see, I've been working on a singing snowman with a top hat. I will probably name him "Frosty" for obvious reasons.

Question: What would you use a Christmas-themed digital puppet for? I know what Halloween-themed digital puppets are used for, so I can customize the controls and other features to the use that they'll be put to, but I'm less sure about what a Christmas-themed digital puppet would be used for. If I had an idea of how Frosty might be used, I could probably have a better feature set.

Gordo Available For Purchase

2007-09-04T22:04:00.000-06:00

Well, the Gordo demo has been out for quite a while, and I haven't received any problem reports, so I've released Gordo for sale.

Gordo is our new digital puppet for 2007, a new addition to our existing line-up of Yorick and Mirror digital puppets. It's a haunted pumpkin that has a friendly, tot-friendly side and a corrupted, angst-ridden-teen-friendly side. You can spook or delight your visitors, or do both - Gordo can switch between modes instantly to accommodate all your visitors.

There is a free demo you can download to try it out. The full version is $15.

If you like Gordo, or Yorick, or any of our offerings, I'd appreciate it if you spread the word a bit to your fellow home haunter friends. We're not getting rich off this; it's just helping to offset the costs of our own home haunt each year.

And, as always, if you use Gordo in your home haunt, please send us a link where we can check out videos or photos of it in action - we're always amazed at the creative uses people put our products to.

Happy Haunting in 2007!

The Perils of Virtual Playtesting

2007-09-03T00:23:00.000-06:00

I thought I was so clever.

For the Carnival of Souls Board Game I released yesterday, I had done a fair amount of playtesting, so I was pretty confident that the game balance was pretty good.

However, the playtesting was done by myself using a small Javascript application that modeled the game, and allowed me to run through many playtests quickly.

We played the physical game "for real" for the first time tonight, and one thing is clear: virtual playtesting doesn't get you all the way there. While the game balance was right on, with the game coming right down to the wire, it was the physical game components that bogged the game down and needed work.

It's a good object lesson that the "twiddly bits" of a game are not merely conceptual, but need to be experienced to understand their impact on the gameplay. You just can't tell what the tactile experience of the game will be until you play it.

In the case of Carnival of Souls, I have a lot of little chips representing different resources, which you earn every turn. Then, you spend them every turn to take on different challenges. This means that whoever is banker ends up shuffling these little chips around incessantly, which became rather annoying to that player.

The fix, I think, is to introduce character cards, a'la Arkham Horror, which have little sliders for each resource type, so that each player can keep track of his or her own resources, and eliminates the need for a banker. (In the interim, until I release a fix, you may want to track your resources on paper if you decide to play the game.)

I also learned some other things about the physical game, such as the need to print out and assemble more than one of each die. They were being passed around too much. (If you decide to play, print out the die sheet two or three times and assemble more dice.)

On the flip side, there were some pleasant surprises. It was the first time the boards had been assembled together, and it made for a nice little layout. The crypt doors and the gravestones worked better than I thought they would, because they had a nice tactile feel to them; I might change the others to be similar, so that you're flipping things over in all cases.

On the whole, the game worked pretty well. I still need to come up with a mechanic that makes the end of the game not end up having so many turns of just trading in resources for other resources. I have a few ideas about that, but the game is still pretty well balanced, so it still works as a good diversion, I think. I enjoyed it.

If you play the game, let me know what you think.

Carnival of Souls Board Game

2007-09-01T00:39:00.000-06:00

Continuing the tradition of releasing other fun things for our Halloween visitors besides candy, we've made a fun board game about the Carnival of Souls that you can print out and play at home.

It's a cooperative, rather than competitive, board game, where the players take on the roles of the spirit guardians who defend the mortal world from the evil ghosts of the vile Blackwood family, who seek to slip out of the spirit world and plunge us into a nightmare world of darkness. With the help of Madame Sarita, the players work as a team to defeat the forces of evil, taking on challenges like fighting werewolves, befriending the Magic Mirror, and exploring the Blackwood Family mausoleum.

We're releasing a draft of it now in hopes of some people trying it out and letting us know how it plays. We're going to be handing out URL's at Halloween where people can come and get all sorts of information about the Carnival of Souls, and the board game will be one of the site's offerings. If you try it out, please let us know how it works, whether good or bad.

Enjoy!

I Phone

2007-08-19T21:48:00.000-06:00

I got an iPhone today. This is a big thing, because not only is it the sexy cool, but also because, up until today, I have managed to live my life without a cell phone at all. I've eschewed the little buggers all this time, watching other people get tied down and tripped up by them as friends call in the middle of conversations, classes, movies, etc. I've watched people merrily jabbering away on them at restaurants, completely ignoring the person across the table from them. I've watched people turning into complete fools when it rings, freaking out trying to find where it is. I've watched people start driving like drunk monkeys as soon as they hold the phone to their ears. And the one time I borrowed my wife's cell phone while going out on an errand, I got three calls (for me!), all of which added extra errands to my trip. I haven't seen a lot to advise for it beyond emergency situations.

I admit it. I'm an introvert at heart. I don't particularly enjoy being connected to someone every moment of the day. I like holing up in my office and pounding away on some code, or curling up on a weekend with a good book or other personal project. Cell phones, to me, do not appear to respect this human need for disconnectedness. And here I am, buying a cell phone today.

Why? Because it's an Apple product. It's not that I'm so fanboyish that I had to have it because of the brand. Actually, it's the other way around - I like Apple because they consistently meet my expectations with grace, simplicity, and an eye to integrating into my lifestyle. I spent some time with the demo model iPhone today and convinced myself that the iPhone is no exception, and down plunked the cash. I'd always suspected that if anyone could lure me into the world of worrying about roaming charges and checking my personal gadgets before movies start, Apple could. It looks like I was right. I knew it within minutes of picking it up - this is not my wife's clunky cell phone. It's art. It doesn't have everything I want (cough cough API cough), but it's a quantum leap beyond every other cell phone I've seen, and that's enough. And I know how to write web apps, so I'll be able to do plenty of stuff with it.

Still, I'm going to make a conscious effort not to let having a cell phone change my life. I'm going to stick it away and ignore it sometimes to keep my sanity. So, those of you who know me may be able to start ringing my cell. Just don't get annoyed if I don't pick up all the time - it's nothing personal. I could just be reading a book.

ImaginEERIEing.com opens its doors

2007-08-14T21:56:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Apple's new domain name support, I can now host my haunt-related stuff on its own separate domain, and have the digital puppets not look like such a fly-by-night operation.

Introducing: imaginEERIEing.com.

As part of the launch celebration, our new digital puppet for 2007, Gordo is now available for download as a demo version.

It has not been extensively tested yet, and this is why it's not available for purchase yet. I hope to get some feedback and testing done on it over the next several days, after which point, Gordo will become available for purchase. If you try out Gordo, please drop me a line and let me know how it works for you. Gordo has a higher-resolution model than Yorick or Mirror, so it will probably demand higher system requirements than the other puppets did.

Speaking of our other puppets (Yorick and Mirror), they are still available and have their own pages on the new site.

Enjoy, and happy haunting!

Gordo, everyone. Everyone, Gordo.

2007-08-12T02:10:00.000-06:00

Here's a preview of the next digital puppet we're brewing up at ImaginEERIEing for 2007...

His name is...Gordo.

(If you're interested in helping out on the beta test for Gordo, drop us a line.)

.Mac upgrade

2007-08-07T23:05:00.000-06:00

Well, Apple just gave me a big gift today. Not only did they drastically bump up the bandwidth and file size limits for my web site hosted with .Mac, but they also added support for domain names, so I can finally start working on a more professional site for our haunt products.

Just in time for the haunting season, too - my peak bandwidth time. Thanks, Apple!

There is no Fold

2007-07-24T23:12:00.000-06:00

I have recently been called to account, in two separate occasions, for a link on a web page being "below the fold."

"Below the fold" means roughly "below the visible part of the page when it first renders." Or, "stuff you have to scroll down to see." There is an urban myth going around that you shouldn't put anything of any remote importance "below the fold," because, apparently, the web is rife with drooling morons who haven't been able to get the scroll bar to work.

The problem is that a lot of non-web-designers have somehow got it into their head that this is the ultimate litmus test on whether you have a good page design: are there any links they like "below the fold" as it is rendered on their personal computer? If so, well, why don't you go back and redo that page?

The problem with this is that there is nothing you can say to this without sounding defensive or uncooperative. If you say, "well, it's not below the fold on my computer," you're being flip. If you say, "if your content is good, they'll scroll," you're just saying that to avoid doing work (as if moving a link up the page is some Herculean task).

That's why I was glad to see this article about the myth of the fold line.

It actually goes over the research that examines the validity of the "below the fold" argument, and the research is pretty damning. Not only has research shown that scrolling been pretty much universally understood since the late nineties, but there is also evidence that the vast majority of users actually do scroll down web pages.

One juicy tidbit is that there is no fold. When you make the argument that it's dumb to base design decisions on the fold since there are so many factors that influence its position (browser, OS, browser features, browser settings, device, screen resolution, default font size, etc.), you get the argument "yeah, there will be a few pages that don't, but you can take the fold location that most users have." However, research shows that this percentage of users is about 10%. In other words, if you plan your page layout for a specific fold line, only 10% of users maximally will see that optimal design. Even if you lump in fold lines that are close together, you only account for 26%. There is no such thing as a fold line for "most" users.

But the best part of the article, actually, was in what one of the commenters on the post said. She pointed out that every novice user she's introduced to the web intuitively began scrolling without any problem, but she always sees them "back right out from a visual overload without thinking to seek lower." That's the real point here. By embracing this "fold line" nonsense, we may actually be driving people away because bad, cramped design does more to deter users than having to scroll to get to information.

Now, how do I get these armchair web designers to read this article?

Chore Wars

2007-07-18T18:20:00.000-06:00

Chore Wars is a great example of using a gaming aesthetic to improve the experience of a non-gaming activity.

Say you are living with a bunch of roommates. You all create characters on Chore Wars, and together create a set of "adventures," such as taking out the trash, doing the dishes, folding laundry, etc. Each adventure has an associated experience point award roughly equal to the number of minutes it takes to do the activity.

As your roommates do their chores, they gain experience points, and start leveling up. The character class mimics the types of chores done - for instance, someone who does a lot of heavy lifting chores, like moving furniture, will become strong like a warrior, while someone who does a lot of "smarts" chores, like balancing the checkbook or paying bills, will become smart like a wizard.

Even better, you can assign fun treasures and monsters to each adventure for a little bit of fun.

The resultant mechanic is no different than just keeping a spreadsheet of chores, but it's much more interesting this way, and provides a built-in competitive incentive to do chores. And by letting your roommates measure the chores done, you can easily tell who should have to clean up the dog vomit in the middle of the living room floor...

Pictaps Sauron

2007-07-09T18:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I was bored.

(Note that I drew this with my laptop touchpad, not a mouse.)

Full Performance of Madame Sarita's Spirit Parlour 2006

2007-07-06T18:14:00.000-06:00

I've just uploaded the full performance of Madame Sarita's Spirit Parlour 2006 to the ImaginEERIEing site.

This year, things take a darker turn as Sarita, desperate to stop Marius's evil plot, is forced to make a pact with the Dark Powers of the Earth.

Bug Fix in the Code Thumbnailer

2007-06-28T01:09:00.000-06:00

It came to my attention that there was a bug in the Code Thumbnailer code that was up on my Shockwave 3D Developer's Guide page. It doubled-up the type names on the thumbnails, instead of showing it once, and then including the rest of the member name.

Anyway, it's been fixed on the thumbnailer page. The updated version will also be included in the next release of the MVC Framework which I'm working on.