(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 8
The view in the mirror w…
(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 7
The grass alongside the …
(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 6
One odd thing about time…
(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 5
"And how do you feel abo…
(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 4
The flash was brief. The…
(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 3
I barely even heard Mish…
(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 2
The black of deep space …
(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)
Chapter 1
The damp streets of Naks…
Foreword (specifically for GameDev.net)
by the author, Henry Stone.
A long time ago, I fell into one of those talks with a girl at my dorm back then. We had been watching a movie in the common room and were debating the kind of movies getting made (although not entirely relevant, …
Hi! I'm a crazy person who has studied pretty much every science known to humanity and started drawing it all into one, continuous series of cause and effect, from The Big Bang and quantum mechanics to modern history and the workings of your cell phone (yes, your cell phone, Richard!), and I am …
(For the full series, click here)
Life. What would we be without it. And what would crazy scientists be without trying to make it! The connection between dead materials and simple life are rarely taught, and even more rarely understood, but…
My work on making scientifically smart games continues. I have been dabbling with some educational game ideas lately, and happened to notice that an old test-of-concept of mine was still online. Here it is: http://nakskovuniversity.com/
The idea is very simple: Distract the player/student fr…
Gamification. It's a word that has been thrown about a bit this last decade. Most just use it to describe awarding points for trivial or easily ignored tasks, to encourage people to do them. Points for cleaning the house, keeping a score on your pedometer or whatever fancy new fitness-on-my-wris…
Well, I have become a rare guest these last few months, haven't I? Sorry about that. My deep dive into the sciences related to my game ideas has pulled me into a very different "game" project. The people that wanted me to do a presentation are still talking about things, but one of them offered …
Little over a month ago, some guy noticed me by my nickname on another website (I use Embassy of Time several places), and asked if I was the one who also posted on GameDev. I said yes. Apparently, he was amongst those reading my scientific ramblings (like Read more in Creating Complexity
Quick status update for anyone who may be actually following my rants: I still do the kitten orphanage thing and recently took in a homeless and very pregnant one, who gave birth 2 days ago (four tiny kittens, all still alive). Expect.... lowered volume from me these coming days
A while back (years, because I'm ooooold), I came across some articles about a "game development language". It was apparently a hotly debated topic at the time. The idea was that there should be a programming language, just like Python, C++, Java, or many others, which was directly designed for …
My still fairly unoriginal work with blocks has reached a benchmark point: I have started shaping the previously random blocks into actual landscapes. Other than the octree level-of-detail thing, it is still just the beginning of a weak Minecraft clone, but way is being made, I swear!
My cur…
The titles will only get weirder from hereon, people. I apologize, in advance.
Aaaaaanyways... I am sinking my already soaked feet deeper into the murky waters of "maybe original, maybe not". As stated in Read more in Creating Complexity
I still remember the weird feeling of "I was there" that struck me the first time someone reminded me that "First Person Shooters" or FPS used to be called "DOOM clones", because DOOM was seen as the "original" FPS. It's a weird transition, going from one product-linked title to another openly c…
Quick, what is the one thing you don't want your work to be called?
Likely answers (I am just guessing, my mindreading is on the fritz these days) include boring, ugly, and a series of other detractors. But one thing that a lot of passionate people really do not want ot hear is the word "uno…
Holy.... mother.... of.... god....
Well, that was a learning experience. The kitten orphanage is on hold for now. After a few weeks, I was handed two feral cats and their four kittens to care for. It did not go well. They basically destroyed my home office in disgusting ways (the kittens wer…
Yes, I am being quiet, and if you follow my stuff, sorry about that. I recently made my house available to local animal shelter assstance, and am now living in a "kitten orphanage", caring for 13 abandoned kittens (in addition to my own 2 cats) until they get adopted or move on through the 'syst…
I recently had a very fulfilling conversation with an old buddy of mine. It was about an idea I have had for a while now about how to create artificial life for my game. For those who do not know it, most other procedural generation of life is basically like those cardboard faces some of us made as…
(other entries in the series: 1 2 3 4 5 )
I am about to reenter one of the most difficult thinking challenges I have ever dealt with. The work I did in an earlier version of the game actually surprised me in how far I got. Now, I am going to have to repeat that, and afterwards, I'll have to go farth…
This was not an entry I had planned on making, but I am in a weird state of mind right now. Bad weird. I just buried my kitten, Egon. I live near a road, and that road is a bit infamous for killing cats. Back in january '16, a friend of the family gifted me with a lovely black cat, named Bastian, a…
(other entries in the series: 1 2 3 4 5 )
No picture today. I'm doing some heavy updating to the movement of objects on scales ranging from galaxy-wide to dirt-under-your-feet wide, and it's moving forward.... with significant resistance. It, too, will soon bow to me! But trudging through 0s and 1s …
(other entries in the series: 1 2 3 4 5 )
You know what's really neat to have? A universe. It gives you a place to put your stuff, and you can look at it whenever the boss isn't breathing down your neck. I really like having a universe, and I don't even mind sharing it with other people. That's just…
(other entries to this series: 1 2 3 4 5 )
The reboot is coming along nicely. What you see in the picture is the basic space full of stars that is now being generated seemingly correctly. I will be porting and improving the code for galaxy formation, superclusters and cosmic filaments in the next fe…
