Zarfplan: summer, July, occasional rainbows

The weather has been awfully nice around here. Not the ridiculous 95-degree weather, not the equally ridiculous wave of 50-degree drench that followed it -- but strong sunlight and rainclouds, silhouetted against each other in layers. The full Spiral celestial archipelago, for those of you who remember Michael Scott Rohan.

Sorry, slightly euphoric.

HL got cranked firmly along this month, so you can go home and reassure the cats that June was just a temporary aberration. Number of puzzles implemented... I think the correct count is five, although things are getting complicated and it felt like more work than that.

The situation I dealt with (just to give you the idea) is "getting outside the starship". This is a minor complex of puzzles in its own right, with two different external areas, three access points, two magic items, different possibilities at different stages of the game -- you get the idea. As I said a couple of months back, I am implementing everything twice and the specter of untested plot combinations looms over me like, like a specter. Spectrally. It's somewhat exhausting.

But now you can get outside the starship, in all possible ways and by all possible means. Unless I decide to implement that sixth red-herring option. That'll be extra work.

Otherwise -- taking breaks from the airlocks -- I made some progress on the iOS board game that I've also been putting off. And I pushed the Seltani project a ways forward, although I managed to keep my hands off it for the latter half of the month. (I do well juggling two big projects at once. Three, not so well.)

What remains on the puzzle list is... hm. Surprisingly few major items. Several ways to mess around with lead weights. Some hijinks outside the starship which I will not detail. A lot of irritating map-navigation cases. (You acquire shortcuts as the game goes on, which complicates the automatic "go to X" code.)

I won't claim I'm getting near the end of mechanical implementation, because there's an inevitable shedload of minor game reactions and interactions too minor to be called puzzles. (Unless I'm in a mood for academic discourse. But that's not this post.) But I can hope to have those major items done in August. That would be good news.

So, short update for the month, but encouraging, I hope.

Reminder: Sept 14-15 is IF meetup weekend here in Boston.

Bitcoin and MMO-RPGs: somebody get on this

When we talk about MMO games and their problems, the first question is "Who's running the server?" We take for granted that an MMO is a machine with a trusted server and a bunch of not-very-trusted clients. (I myself have been working on a multiplayer MUD-like game, and while it is open-source, there's still a trusted server that players log into.)

This assumption is fundamental, but it's bunk. Let me explain.

Zarfplan: Seltani, or what I did in June

Up front, here: what I did in June was not work on Hadean Lands. The secret project ate my soul and my life.

This will happen sometimes. I spent a bunch of 2011 working on Meanwhile and other early iOS projects. In 2012 and 2013 I have made steady progress on HL but not daily steady progress, and this is because I am balancing the usual large number of things. In June I got obsessed and the balance went sideways. In July I will drag it back.

(I could make myself look better by pointing out that this idea clobbered me in February, and I managed to put off starting it until May. Okay, that doesn't make me look good, exactly...)

Shall I leave the post with that? No, that would be tacky. If I'm going to foist you off with this "secret project" excuse, I should pull back the curtain and give you a look. Behold -- (shwoooosshh) Project Seltani.