[could]

To me, there are many things yet unexplored and under-explored.  To find them, you need look no further than to the future.  I am a cyberneticist so this is the expanding sphere of knowledge in which I think; Folks with other backgrounds certainly have other intriguing paths to the frontiers in writing.

Some things are underexplored among the transition from "non-sentience" to sentience.  Is there a boundary?  We keep breeding smarter pets, at what point will you give them rights?  Sure, there's "Planet of the Apes", and various furry fictions, but few actually explore the rise to sentience itself, nor the discovery that sentience does not exist except as a chauvinistic term.  The boundary is arbitrary and does not exist in reality, only varying degrees of awareness exist depending on the complexity of mind.

From my research with neural networks, and pet training, I've found that any sufficiently complex interaction is indistinguishable from sentience...  Books on advanced "AI" abound; Being human, many writers frequently extrapolate to war, but is that the only path evolution will make possible?  I think the term AI is racist: There's nothing Artificial about the materials or complexity that yields Machine Intelligence (MI), not anymore than your own intellect is artificial; Indeed, the human mind is made of such a fragile and slow chemputer, it's almost laughable to be proud of it at all!  If you believed in an intelligent designer, would you call yourself artificial life?

Humans have already discovered devices that can determine the secret thoughts in their minds.  There are many dystopian works about such things.  Where are the works that look on the brighter side of things?  Decoding brain patterns + WIFI = Telepathy.  There are many books on transhumanism, but what of transcending even that?

The problem with many humans is that they see "The Singularity" as a point beyond which they can not know.  HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE?  Humans are now like the languageless people of the past to their future states of being!  This coming transition is just the past repeating itself on ever grander scales.  Humans are as the pre-homo-symbolicus peoples were when they witnessed the dawn of Language itself, and yet some entertain the idea that most everything has already been written?!

I truly feel sorry for such people -- as a human might feel compassion for the speechless ape when pondering the wonderful concepts and knowledge the other minds can not yet know: Who would not pull the apes up and let them know the freedom and power humans wield?  Oh, if only I could give them a piece of my mind!  How wonderful that would be!  Sadly, we must not... The other minds must find their own way beyond their own mental singularities, and so must you. 

Can you sense it, as some encultured apes sense the power of language?  Do any yet have an inkling as to the unlimited stories of epic proportions that will be possible to you when you're finally able to speak?!

Made some colored crystals in the default EGA palette as a test while experimenting with my old QBASIC pixel art tool.  Image editing has come a long way since then, but there's quite a few features modern editors lack that are really handy for very small palette pixel art...

I've been trying to find an odd game for MSDOS, 256 color 320x200 VGA (I think), where you were a little greyish round circle, with a '+' or 'x' in it, and you had to move about the screen and collect things without running into other things. 

What I remember most was the mouse acceleration & movement momentum mechanic.  The circle would drift as if in zero G, little to no friction.  It was maddening, but with practice one could gain fine control.

^ Found this.  It's

(video - Mmm, love them cheesy sound effects).



There's a sequel, which I almost remember playing, and source code has been released for both.
Yay! 

Wait...what?  Link?

Edit: Oh never mind, I think you meant to reply to this thread, but created a new topic instead.

@_Madk: Looking great!  I'm really digging the less saturated look.

@1982: <-- Look...  Ok, then look ^ (a whole thread about pixel art).  Talk about hanging onto the past.  Not that I think that's really what's going on at all, but really now?  Is SIGGRAPH dead to you as well?  If not, think about that for a moment...

If the demoscene is dead to you, then it must be a freakin' unkillable zombie.

@Mono: Could it be

?

I've been trying to find an odd game for MSDOS, 256 color 320x200 VGA (I think), where you were a little greyish round circle, with a '+' or 'x' in it, and you had to move about the screen and collect things without running into other things. 

What I remember most was the mouse acceleration & movement momentum mechanic.  The circle would drift as if in zero G, little to no friction.  It was maddening, but with practice one could gain fine control.

I remember being able to shoot at enemies if you collected certain powerups, and become invincible and destroy things by running into them.

I think the game name had an x in it, but I could be wrong.

My code editor colors members differently than locals & globals, etc.  I don't really like adding additional semantics to the core language with prefixes or suffixes.  One long lived project I worked on had a local double precision float named: gi_gameTimer... It was a global integer at one point, and due to the retarding "don't thrash the CVS with needless renames" rule of the project leader it was pretty confusing. (names changed to protect the innocent).

Now, had it been named gameTimer in a proper namespace (it was C++), then changing its type in a few spots would have been simple.  The same goes for member vars that get made into class wide variables and whatnot.  Needless '_' semantics yield needless renaming issues.

I can rest my cursor on a name and pop up the origin, type, declaration comments, class hierarchy, scope & dependency graphs, etc.  I try to work smarter not harder, so should my editor; I don't need the extra _ or whatnot to make sure I know what var does what at a glance.  Really, if that's an issue, I shouldn't be editing that code if I don't grasp side effects -- That's how the most insidious bugs are born.

That said:  Refactoring is made easy with tools that understand the language, so it's not that big of a deal.  People can do things however they like, doesn't matter much to me, I adopt whatever coding style the project needs; Just stating my preference which has changed over the years with experience...

One exception: I code frequently in C99, which has no namespaces, so I prefix all public facing or global names (the API) with something like vc_ (changed depending on the project name) to help prevent naming collisions (manual namespaces).

I have never seen anyone reputable praise the type of games we're talking about, not ever. I'd love for you to name some.

So, I'm not anyone...

Blanket statements like yours are nearly always false.  Eg: Don't blame the gun for killing people.  Ergo, Don't blame the mechanic for ruining the game.  Besides, I'm not sure anyone really knows exactly what game we're talking about, OP's game hasn't been made yet.

I'm talking about games with time based mechanics that limit gameplay.  Which games have you played with the mechanics that you didn't like?  I'd love for you to list them.

I've already mentioned some of the games.  Have you played them?  Or will you ignore anything I post if it doesn't align with your preconceived notions?  You've yet to back your claims with anything but more opinion.

Crossroads of the Four Elements
Legend of the Red Dragon
Brave Fencer Musashi
Tradewars / Trade Wars 2002
Sim City
Sim Earth

All very popular games that have loyal followings, and three of them are text based, yet still being played because of the devout following.  Google is your friend, if you want to learn more and don't want to take my word for it.

I can list more, but I'm getting the feeling it's not really worth my time responding...

Im making a 2D sci-fi Metrovania, codenamed "Project Mjolnir" because the main weapon is a hammer.

Checked it out, but need more details.  What's the character's purpose?  Any history?  Plot?  Seems industrial/machinist but also has some organic bits.  Megatroid?  (based on looks alone I'm not getting much in the nameness department)

Boards of Canada - Corsair
Ambient / Environmental stuff while I draw up some lonesome dystopian concept sketches.

Yeah, those intros/outros from Kiki's Delivery Service are on my "too damn catchy" playlist.

Finished watching Haibane Renmei.  I really liked the wonder and curiosity this invoked, and the pacing of how they unfolded the world they'd created.  I really wanted more, but I guess they did cover explaining the majority of the world's mechanics.

Cued up Voices of a Distant Star, which I'm stunned I haven't seen yet.

@sigvatr: 8-bit is a technical term, it doesn't refer to the 256 color palette, unless you're talking 8 bits per pixel.  The term generally refers to the processor word size of the machines used at such time.  The palettes were limited to much less than 256 colors on these machines.  However, many systems like the C64 had scanline interrupts where you could change the palette on the fly to generate some broader selection of colors per screen.  8-bit also is used somewhat incorrectly in reference to CGA (4color / 2bpp) and EGA PC graphics (16 colors, 64 in the palette -- 4bpp), since the hardware with such graphics typically had 16 or 32 bit word sizes.

I agree "pixel art" would be a better term.

I'm preaching to the choir here... So, instead, have a short introduction to the history of the demoscene (part of which still carries on the evolution of true "8-bit" creations, and the overall concept of pulling off amazing feats in extremely limited mediums -- despite the common consensus that the demoscene is dead).
Note: I don't agree on all of their example selections, but it should give sort of an idea, and is far better than the crap video this thread is about.

Edit: enable CC for the non-english parts, if you so desire.

I contract too.  I like the idea of not having to and being able to work full-time on my own projects.  Anyway, a simple rebuttal.  By your logic:

1. The software industry will crumble when humanity as a whole becomes disillusioned to artificial scarcity and ceases to treat data like physical products, and contractors will go down with the ship, or

2. That won't happen, and selling one's own creations will remain just as viable as contracting for companies which do so, albeit with greater risk and reward.

1. I didn't say the industry would crumble.  You must fear this to be true, I never said that.  I only talk of change.

2. If you contract then you realize you have a contract to do work, you'll get paid for the work you do... That won't change when people stop charging for copies.  The free & open source software industries are built on the premise that getting paid to do work (provide a service, add new feature, etc) is just fine and needs no artificial scarcity sales.

Your remarks on artificial scarcity make perfect sense, but they don't seem like they bear much practical value.

This is only because you don't realize they already have.

They don't change my inclination to throw ten dollars at a game I think I will enjoy, and they don't change my outlook on the software industry: the significant consequence is that piracy will proliferate, as it is and has already.

Don't change.  Become extinct.  It's the way of the Universe.  Neanderthals didn't die out over night, but where are they today?  Piracy proliferating is the direct result of the disillusionment you mention.  That you'll still pay ten dollars for a game will likely hold true if it's to get a demo turned into a full game or to pay after it's created.  This is the first generation where the global bi-directional instant information networks have existed.  Just like the machine gun changed war, and the printing press changed publishing, change is coming in the digital world.

So let's double back around to the proper topic of this thread.  Piracy increases awareness of a software product and its developer, much like free software increases awareness of a contractor.  The forward-thinking approach in a world where file-sharing is on the rise is to turn it to one's advantage.

The even more forward thinking can prevent piracy from detracting any profit by collecting said profit up front.  Sure, this puts a cap on the greed of being able to make more and more money from little to no work, so established business will resist; However, there's no reason to play by the old rules now just because the old guys do.

Certainly, those bits don't cost anything and the work is in the past, but people don't think this way.  Why do we tip our waitress after our meal?  It isn't going to make her service retroactively better.  Why does the odd passerby throw five dollars to the street busker and his beaten-up guitar?  There's no economic sense to that; his music is FREE as the air through which it ripples.

You're wrong.  Tossing the money to the busker is a payment for providing the music.  You don't toss as much money to a bum as to a busker, that's why buskers exist.  You tip your waitress because of the social contract.  It's part of paying for your meal.  Return visits will reap rewards from tipping well in the past.  Time Exists.  Incidence are not isolated.  The busker can busk more, maybe buy a better guitar and make better music...

People like to show their appreciation to the good things in the world, and to do their part in keeping those things alive.

Well, it seems you're in perfect alignment with my way of thinking here.  This alone would allow us to transition from ransoming bits to getting paid to make good things.

In the worst of worlds -- or the best? -- that is what keeps a software developer alive, and that is why things will not change in the way you suggest.

Do you fail to see the changes I've cited already?  Publishing is becoming extinct, and with it goes their model of artificial scarcity.  They try to apply systems of tangible goods to purely digital products.   Self publishing is gaining a huge adoption among science-fiction writing, and other tech savvy writers.  Same goes for video games, music, movies...

Man, it's like a blind man telling me "blue" doesn't exist because they've never seen it.  I'm done here.

[can]

i agree with this post in part. [...] if copyright and patent law were completely abolished, nobody would benefit more than corporations. tired of paying stephen king that 40% royalty? they wouldn't have to; they could just get his books in stores and not pay him a dime. valve (with steam) tired of paying an indie a 60% royalty for their game? they wouldn't have to: just sell someone's game and keep 100% of the money, no need to give them anything. music company tired of giving the families of the beatles the measley 10-15% of sales that they get? now those families have to be happy with 0%

Let's say you dig ditches, a job I've actually had...  You agree to dig the ditch, and your customer pays you when you've done the work.  They don't keep paying you each time water flows down that ditch.  Instead, you get paid to make new ditches.

Let's say you make software, a job I actually do... You agree to build the software, and your customer pays you when you've done the work.  They don't keep paying you each time they install the software on a new machine.  Instead, you get paid to make new software.

Yes, I'm just as happy as the Painter, or McDonalds worker, or Building Architect who GETS PAID WHEN THEY DO WORK.  Keep propping up the system where you get paid deferred fees for the effort you do, and you'll keep getting shafted by the system.

Now, the problem is getting a contract to make games or come up with ideas up front.  The patent system and copyright system are totally based on legally enforcing artificial scarcity of ideas.  You get payment after the work is done, but with a patent or copyright you didn't really get paid enough up front so you try to extract the money after the fact.  The problem is that the Universe doesn't care about artificial scarcity, hence: infringers can cause you to lose money.  Remove the artificial scarcity, get paid enough up front, and you have nothing to fear, just keep on being an inventor and inventing.

If you work like a home builder, or electrician (both of which I have) then you realize you get paid for the work you do once, people don't pay me each time they use the outlets I installed, or each time someone moves into a house I built.  Copyright and Patent law allows people to try and get paid multiple times for the work they did once, while being paid crap for the initial work required.  IT'S A SCAM.  It's a net waste to the Universe.  No one wants to pay you if you'll do the work for free.  Once an idea is invented, or bits are configured just so, they can be reproduced endlessly.  Get paid up front, or get a contract (a consignment) for your work.  Get in tune with EVERYONE else who works for money.

Let's say I come up with an awesome invention, say the Knifork.  It's a fork with a knife edge, for cutting your food...  Now, let's say patent law didn't exist.  Everyone would be able to use that knifork idea immediately.  Any manufacturer would be able to produce the product without my monopolistic sway.  Ergo, humanity benefits more as a whole than if everyone must license the patent from me.  What's more beneficial to society?  Propping up some dumbass's ridiculous delayed extortion racket business, or having society as a whole benefit as soon as possible?

If I got paid enough to design the knife / fork, then I don't need to worry about all those people using my invention.  I've got other things to invent.

Know why trolls exist?  It's because if you want to license some idea big companies will just wait 20 years to produce the knifork, we were doing fine without it, it'll be a fine product in 20 years (and they have plenty of other expired patented products to produce that the public hasn't seen).

Corporations are immortal.  However, WE HUMANS ONLY HAVE 100 YEARS OF LIFE.  So that means we waste a crap load of time waiting for technology to become available thanks to the patent system.  Without patent laws you'd be able to experience more technological progression.

As an inventor, I say: Screw the inventor, seriously.  Genius doesn't exist.  What's the very SYMBOL for an ingenious idea?  A Light Bulb.  There were patents in the European Patent Office two years prior to Edison's bulb for an improved incandescent light bulb in a vacuum.  If the fabled lightning electrified kite string would have killed Edison, we'd still have the light bulb, as well as electricity, and even AC power (thanks Tesla).  Lots of other people were experimenting with various gases in incandescent bulbs. Someone else would have figured out inert gases helped the bulb burn longer -- Edison had money to research, so he wound up there faster -- There's only so many elements to try, surely you don't think it would have taken that long for someone to improve on the incandescent bulb the same way Edison did?  Should having more money be the prerequisite for being awarded a monopoly?! The patent system just grants arbitrary monopolies and prevents independent developers from benefiting from their research.

The telephone?  Elisha Gray came to the patent office with THE SAME INVENTION one hour after Alexander G. Bell. Gray actually filed his idea first, then went to go sort it out, but Bell made it back before he did.  They both used mercury to modulate electricity.  Everyone was already using telegraphs to communicate.  Everyone knew you could recreate sound with electricity, Telephones were obvious iterative discoveries, not inventions.  So, were it not for the patent system then Gray might not have wound up in the poor house.  Both inventors invented the same thing at the same time -- If that's not proof of obviousness I don't know what is.  With patents, only one inventor is allowed to capitalize on the invention they both researched?!  That's just disgusting.  The patent system has NEVER worked as intended.

Now, if it's awesome hard to research tech, then some folks may opt to license it, but in really, no one is looking through the patent database to find solutions they can license.  That takes longer than just doing what needs to be done.  AND, if you have prior knowledge of a patent you infringe, then you get treble damages levied against you.  Ergo, EVERYWHERE I've worked on software, we've been specifically instructed to NOT EVER look at the PTO patent databases.  Software patents are essentially 100% useless except for trolling.

As for "It's my only hope against big guys", well, if the patents didn't exist you wouldn't have to worry about the big guys.  Compete on quality, compete on innovation, you are small and fast, they are big and slow.  From a business perspective they're just a lawyer's tax.

@aldo: Power Plants?

Just finished off Kino's Journey, which I loved.

Now watching Haibane Renmei... Which I'm finding is charmingly addictive like sugar coated cocaine.  Damn, I might not be able to stop for sleep.

@crowe: I'm not advocating copyright infringement.  Whether or not anyone can justify it, it's going to happen; The reason it even matters when it happens is because of sales systems built on artificial scarcity.  Regardless of how flawed the copyright infringer's logic is, it doesn't correct the fact that the current distribution model is based on duplicating bits and artificially restricting the flow of information...  If you want to talk about logic: Bits are effectively in infinite supply. Thus, trying to make a business out of selling copies of bits is even more illogical from an economic perspective; Indeed, it's down right flawed... To say nothing of the ethics involved.

As to my being "internally consistent": Screw that.  That's bad thinking right there: Life's not internally consistent.  Comments like these are like a pseudo-intellectual finding demons at fault where pebbles were responsible for the fall.  My aim is to communicate; If you get the gist then I've succeeded.  We're humans, our neural networks are fabulous and can extract lots of meaning despite tiny flaws in the signal without getting hung on the details.  If yours gets stuck on small imperfections, then consider retraining it.  Please tell me you didn't just dismiss the rest of my sentiments or that this wasn't the only point you found at fault if you did.

Besides, such statement is unwarranted: See my above statement about bootstrapping yourself into a more ethical position by leveraging the current artificial scarcity system.

If you have trouble getting exposure, you won't be able to be paid upfront, which means you need the finished product to show off and gain support and popularity.

First off: "Pirates" do not hinder your exposure, they're not the problem.  Protip: Radios play music, artists get exposure because people can hear the music for free, people come to concerts to watch them work (where the musicians get the bulk of their income).

Furthermore, if no one will buy into your idea, then it's probably just not a good idea.  You'll waste time creating said idea and end up only selling a few copies.  Ask around, this is actually quite common.  Hey, not saying that you shouldn't make whatever dream you have come true -- I love many quirky unpopular games, but this is the business forum...

No one has all the answers, but basic economic principals shouldn't be ignored.

Here's how I ACTUALLY make a living, without any DRM:

Instead of ignoring Economics 101, and trying to sell sand to beach bums via restricting who can be at the beach, I'm contracting sand castle constructions everyone can enjoy and when I work I get paid.

As a contract software developer I bid on jobs and create the software then get paid the agreed amount.  Sometimes it's time+ for ill defined tasks.  This labor model is the way every other industry works.  Even being employed at McDonald's is a weekly contract for your work.  Art and music consignments exist.  Established studios have the capital to pay developers for their work using the profits from previous games, but in the artificial scarcity system they gamble their futures on uncertainty.  Would you do manual labor if your boss said: I'll pay you if it's good enough?!  That's what publishers do.  Keep in mind they can afford to fail a few times.  If you can't afford to fail then why try and duplicate their business model?

When my business software work is done, the company doesn't pay me per seat of software installation -- copying the bits isn't the work I do, I'm a programmer not a hard disk drive or OS; I have other work to do.  Most of my work is open sourced; These efforts can enrich many companies and individuals not just those who had the problem and paid to solve it (this is a very powerful concept).

True, exposure is an issue.  Many of my jobs come by word of mouth based on my good reputation.  If your games are consistently good, your exposure will happen -- You'll have a reputation for making good games.  If your past works are good, and you want to make something you can't prove will be good until it's finished, then maybe people will fund development based on the fact you have a good track record (See: Double Fine, or Two Guys From Andromeda.  They just had an idea and a good rep).

Also consider that when you release games for free, your work is paying for advertising -- It's not wasted effort.  Giving away useful DRM free business software has helped me gain exposure and a rep for writing decent code...

[We]

The official term for garbage in space is Space Junk. You could work off of that.

Almost... You misspelled the term, it's missing three 'A's: Spaaaace Junk!
Just like memory limits, AKA: Spaaaace Budgets! -or- Orbital Brew, AKA: Spaaaace Beer!
Oh, and you need an exclamation, always.  Seriously, it's one of those things you mispronounce until you hear others say it in common speech (complete with booming echo... No one knows where that comes from). 

I think the game idea is awesome.  Saw some pics in the mockups (or somewhere).  I think it has a good premise.  Hope a name can be arrived at.

Personally, I think Scrapnauts is far enough away from other games.  Folks aren't going to confuse it.  My previous comment about folks like us knowing lots of game names to make comparisons with still stands: We aren't your average gamers...  The people well versed in games won't be confused, it's a matter of pride.  The ones less versed in games probably won't be confused either, they likely won't make the connection of similarity unless you specifically point it out.  Ask around IRL to see.  Being too close to a problem is a thing.

Also: Planetes, <3

Hmm... "Scrap Wars"?  you could do it up like the Star Wars font?