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5.29.06/03:27 daikon warrior game news
Okay, fine, I'm excited already.
Oh? The title of the post? That's right, I've been spending lots of time on the Daikon Warrior RPG again, and making some good progress on that most foul of fronts: the chipset. The chipset is that thing you use to make all the places your character walks around in, places like castles and towns and dungeons and spaceships and porn stores and, well, you get it.
The style of the game is very much FF6, since that was probably my second favorite game ever (Chrono Trigger-like coding would be impossible to work with...), and I think it will be a nice change from all the other games people have tried to make. Problems I have with these games: too many dialogue scenes, too much fantasy, and most of all, not enough sweet attacks and fun enemies. Fighting, getting new spells, getting new weapons. There's nothing quite like getting your ass kicked by all the local monsters, finding a chest with a new sword, and having your fighter character mollywhomp the hell out of everything. Am I right? Well, am I?
Oh yeah, almost forgot...SECRETS. Secret stores, secret dungeons, secret debug rooms, rare enemy drops, these equal satisfaction. Games are designed so that people will get through the story, but some are designed so that only a very few elite and pathetic gamers will discover all the secrets. 5.22.06/05:50 peachycomics news alert!!! The Michelangelo Code Draws Ire of Christians, No Papal Comment by Jordan Baugher (jbaugher@rocketmail.com)
VATICAN CITY, Rome - Justin Smith's controversial book The Michelangelo Code has raised the eyebrows of millions of readers and upset Christians around the world. After its second reprint, the movie is being released in a few weeks amid a massive furor.
The premise of the book is that an Indiana Jones-like art collector discovers amid the many works of Michelangelo a sort of code revealing the true nature of the Christ. Using a decoder ring from a box of cereal, and a used edition of a college Intro to Art textbook, the protagonist discovers the true nature of Jesus: he liked to touch little boys. The main character has this revelation while noticing that all the women in the Sistine chapel look like bodybuilders with female breasts stapled to their chests.
While the idea is controversial to say the least, what's upsetting many is the lack of an official Papal ban on the book or the upcoming movie. Christians and non-Christians alike have expected the Pope to come out swinging against such a blatant stab at the world's 4th most popular religion.
Father Ron Baker had this to say about the lack of an official ban on the book: "Jesus was totally all about forgiving and stuff, maybe condemning Justin Smith's book would just reinforce how hateful we are, what with the Crusades and our unofficial support of the Holocaust."
"It's just like with that other scandal they had a few years ago," says resident Howie Ford of Memnochsburg, Rhode Island. "You know what they say, people who live in stained glass houses shouldn't throw stones."
When asked for comment, former Nazi Pope Benedict said, "We're constantly being attacked in books. That's why I'd like to take this opportunity to condemn the book that has done us the most damage: the next book in the Harry Potter series." 5.22.06/05:36 all good things do what? Our supply of Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper is almost gone, and the dust is already attacking Edgar from every angle. Will it fry his circuits? I don't know yet. It's a game of waiting, with only one rule. Yes, disorganized thoughts. Yes, they don't make sense. I know this. When it comes to knowing this, I do.
And it's over. Done, really. Finished, I say. I've finally defeated Mother 3 (Earthbound 2) after 39 hours of squiggly hiragana and more SMAAAASHes than you can count. It really is heartrending, and I'll have to say I'm amused how much it borrows from Star Wars and postmodern ideas of video games (which its predecessors helped create, by the way, as a backlash to the DQ/FF phenomena...).
Seriously, though. Good times. Pokey's quite the dorchbag. And I also finished Lolita. The liberties he takes with the English language and his verbose phrasing would never work if he weren't so freaking brilliant. Would I go so far as to say the word 'demigod?' Hmmm. I don't know, but there's an elementary school 5 minutes from my house.
Kidding! Sheesh, people can be so touchy. 5.17.06/04:45 dueling lolitas
I made an attempt to write something pseudo-Borgesian, something that serves the double purpose of further explaining the novel-by-factors idea I put up last month and also telling its own story. It's just a rough draft, but I've also started work on the implementation of the idea behind it, though I hope to have better results than my hapless protagonist.
[novel by factors] short story
And the title of today's post? While on the writing retreat, there was this kid, Brian, who was reading the same edition of Lolita that I'm still reading. We basically just kept exchanging shocked glances after reading certain skin-crawling passages, which the book is full of. Although, if you've read any of the short stories (any of the ones marked [graphic], tatoeba...) then you already know it takes more than a little Nabokov to raise my eyebrows.
Palahniuk's Guts came pretty close, but that was more like morbid joy for me than contempt and disgust. Also, I'd like to give some love to Jesse's coffee shop in Philadelphia, Milk Boy Coffee, and if you're ever in the Ardmore area, you should stop by and give them some love. They've got some real good coffee and Open Stage on Tuesdays, and a sexy, long-haired beast for an assistant manager.
As always, send your love, complaints, favorite Japanese curse words, etc. to jbaugher@rocketmail.com. Also, the site didn't go down as an implementation of my April Fool's joke, but it did conveniently seem like it might have for a few days there. 5.8.06/17:46 the retreat
This picture is of the refrigerator, a bastion of edibles second only to the tableful of food a little further down the page. I think the throwers of this party went a little over budget on food and snacks, but as a guest with nothing to do with the logistics of it, it was all good to me. And even vegans and vegetarians were accommodated.
5.2.06/20:06 and the diagnosis gets a little worse
Within 10 minutes, I dug up my portable radio, got all my stuff together, and woke up Gabi. We grabbed the most dangerous weapons available (rusty sword and a sock full o' quarters) and headed out into the night to kill whatever zombies/aliens/etc. were responsible for this power outrage.
It's dark and scary and weird to drive around during a blackout. Every other car stands out more (the only other lights) and must contain malevolent forces. Half a mile away, we saw a utility man working on a transformer. No zombies. No aliens.
Unless it was a cover-up.
But that's not enough. I was thinking yesterday, and it occurred to me that I could get a gamecube, a game boy player, and have Mother on my television. So, of course, I did. And it's amazing. This attack thing is really awesome, this rhythm fighting. The game, too, really. Non-stop goodness.
And, in case you didn't know, April is in the archives. 5.1.06/14:15 the aftermath of the party
I played five games of air hockey, and won five of them. Yeah, that's right. Though if I'd gotten a chance to play Dad or Dennis, I doubt I'd still have that perfect record. Joyce and Chubbs came here with Dad from IN, and Uncle Denn brought the Aunts and Uncle Dan as well.
Check out the hot little Asian girl on the carousel, and that suave-looking gentleman moving too fast for the forces of camera to capture his graceful form. A champion among men, that one. Maybe that's going a little too far, but I think you can catch where this is going. Not conceited.
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March
is drawing to a close, and I find myself charging towards the summer
solstice. It was supposed to be a break, but I've not properly
broken at all in the last few weeks. There's supposedly something in
the pipeline about a vacation to SF with the father and the sister, but
I'm going to wait for a ticket receipt before I get excited.
And I've been making some
sweet new attacks and thinking of weapons and features I want the game to
have. My Daikon Warrior Manifesto goes like this: since the parts I
enjoy most out of the RPG's that I play are fighting and side-quests, this
game will have very little plot and all side quests. Right from the
start you can walk straight to the final boss and beat the game, provided
the super-strong monsters surrounding him don't decimate you first.
Lots
of stuff going on this week. I flung a hopeless application to AEON,
as I hope to do to some other reputable companies, took a two-day road
trip to Philly, wrote a new short story, and did horribly naughty things
they never warn you about in drivers' ed. Also, I resumed work on
the 
To
remain consistently drunk for three straight days requires special
planning and guts of steel. There were nightly readings, and there
was much talk of writers and writing and literary-type stuff. Also,
there was the corrupting of impressionable minors.
And
Seven Springs is sweet beyond belief, with the huge hotel with a large
arcade, swimming pool, miniature golf, a bar, and six-dollar packs of
cigarettes. I smoked four packs...a ridiculous murder of my lungs.
We started with vodka, moved on to beer, and as I always knew would
happen, ended up dipping into the flask of Everclear. Good thing
there were plenty of mixers to use.
And
before I forget, thanks to Mr. Briggs for posting my article on
The
first thing I noticed was that the dehumidifier kicked off. Then I
noticed all the little diodes from the computers and the modem were off.
Then the clock...blank. Complete darkness on all sides at 1am.
Sure, it was a power outage. But why? A normal person would
just go back to sleep. But that's not how I've been programmed by my
masters.
Man.
It was unadulterated good times to the doubleplusmax. If you were
there, thanks for coming and I hope you had fun. My whole family
showed up, and everyone got along pretty well, I think. Steph
brought Brody, Kim traveled all the way from Florida to pop out and scare
me, and Jesse flew up from Melbourne. I was, of course, really
surprised.
Chuckie
and Jill came, and Chuckie bought me a big shot of vodka, and my waitress
gave me a saabisu rongu airando. Love it. I got to hang out
with my mom a little beforehand, but not for very long. She did,
however, bring very embarassing pictures of me, like the one on the cake.
I'd like to say that was Halloween.