Project 12: The Chrono Trigger Sprites Live - Marle

Once again, I've made some progress on my Chrono Trigger Perler Sprites. This time I got Marle done.

It's been a long, long time since I started working on these. In that time I've moved at least 3 times trucking an unfused sprite around with me. A little while back I finally fused the Marle sprite, and now that I have a little time and space, I'm going to try to push on. I'd like to finish the 1-to-1 sprites before September and then I'll see if I still want to do the double sized sprites.

The Marle Sprite

Similar to the Crono Sprite, I started by determining all of the colours in the sprite and which sprite colour of Perler bead I would use to match them.

The colours in the Marle sprite and Perler Beads colours

Thanks to the lessons learned on the Chrono Sprite, I produced a map for each bead colour in the form of a separate sprite image (and included the bead colour in the file name, which I really appreciate returning to these two years later). The table of those colours are below.

Sprite Part	Hex Colour	Perler Colour	Notes
	---	---	The Original
	#381838	Purple	Again I chose to outline the sprite in purple which gives a good definition to the outside. Might look a little better with the top and bottom filled in as well.
	#f8a838	Butterscotch	Highlights in Marle's hair.
	#584848	Dark Grey	Darkest shadows on the crossbow.
	#807060	Light Grey	"Metal" in the crossbow.
	#f86810	Orange	Low lights in the hair, belt and shoes.
	#488878 and #205040	Parrot Green	Two sprite colours into one perler colour. Largely shadows.
	#f8a8a0	Peach	Pinker skin tone.
	#80f8b8	Pearl Blue	Pants.
	#801800	Rust	Shadows and Crossbow Body
	#f8d8d0	Sand	Skin tone highlights, a little more beige than the true colour.
	#a0a8a8	Silver Perl	Crossbow highlights.
	#f8f848	Yellow	Hair highlights.
	#ffffff	White	Highlight pixels and filler for the crossbow.

Success of the Sprite

I made sure that the full bottom of the sprite was level all thew ay across. This allowed me to avoid the problems I had with Crono where he tips over if not propped up on the edge. Possibly not a problem in some applications, but if you want your sprites standing, then they need a consistent bottom row. I think here I added in a little extra purple on the bottom to make it stand (although looking at the purple pixels, I can't really see). I hope that me!from-3-years-ago knew what he was doing.

The other change I made was filling in the crossbow. It's technically empty in the real sprite, but for structural integrity I opted to fill it in so that the sprite would be much more rigid and robust. In terms of looking at the sprite in the real world, you barely notice and I think it still looks good.

I'm quite happy with the sprite. I have it sitting next to the Crono sprite in my office window and they look very good together. I am especially enjoying being able to see them from the garden outside.

The process of putting everything together was a bit rough. This project fell way down my priority list, so the couple of times I jumped back in there was a long figuring out what was going on period. On the plus side, I was much more organized about generating the sprite-part sheets, so building the sprite and putting together this post was fairly straight forward.

My next sprite is Lucca. I haven't started yet, but I'd like to have the sprite finished and the next blog post in the series made by August 23, 2019.

Project 1: Blog x 9

Happy August! Also happy blog end and start day (belated)!

As of August 1, I've completed the latest year of blogging and I'm going to lay out my plans for another year of blogging. Now, it's time to update the Blog as Project and the Blog as Blog again. Also it's time to sit in my garden and enjoy August.

I finally finished my PhD in 2019, which I hope will open up my time to work on interesting projects and write about them here. The last year was a little thin on those with the bulk of the posts being reading updates, with a few other posts sprinkled in. I'm starting to get some momentum up though and trying to use that to carry through and get things done.

Back in May I set myself a goal of writing 4000 words a month for the blog. This has been pretty largely a failure, but I think the tracking has been good for me. I've probably written about 2000 words a month and I think for now that's ok. My primary focus has always been to try to be doing more things, which means I think I should be putting my time to working on projects rather than writing about stuff.

So for the Ninth Edition of the Blog, I'm planning to get at least one project post out a month (which ties in nicely with my New Year's Resolution to finish a project a month). I'd also like to put in a few more video game thoughts posts, as I've been playing a lot of good games this year.

Let's go make something!

via GIPHY

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Identity. Independence. Intrigue. Initiation.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Plans. Love. Plots

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Thoughts on Long Live the Queen

I saw Dan Floyd play Long Live the Queen a while back and was reminded of the weird awesomeness that was Princess Maker (2) back in the day. Last week, it was on significant sale in the Summer Steam Sale, so I bought and played it for about 3 hours. I feel a bit conflicted about the game, but at the moment I don't really want to play more, so I thought I'd write up a quick thoughts post now.

Long Live the Queen

 As always, beware spoilers for Long Live the Queen (at least one of the major endings).

Things I Liked

I like making numbers go up. I think I've mentioned that in some other of these "Thoughts On" posts, but I have a long history of falling into games that have a numbers go up mechanic. At one point towards the end of my undergrad, I found myself obsessively playing a "Stop Being a Loser" simulator and realized that if I quit playing the game and did the things I was getting my avatar in the game to do, I'd be a lot happier.

All the things the Queen might learn.

Long Live the Queen follows on the tradition of the Princess Maker games, where in, you are responsible for taking a young lady and preparing her for life. In this case as a queen of a moderately sized country. You do that by sending her to various classes, such as Queenly Deportment, Sword Mastery, Ecclesiastical Divination, Economics or Magic Use. The points you (or the Queen) gain in are then used to pass or fail various checks which determine how following events go.

The Queen is feeling under pressure today.

In the case of Long Live the Queen, failure at a lot of these checks seems to either lead to nothing or to fairly swift death. Passing the checks, however, is quite satisfying. Knowing that you’ve prepared the Queen by learning avoid insulting a guest by understanding courtly manners feels great.

The Queen is not immune to arrows (without training).

I also generally enjoyed the setting of the game. I’ve been reading through all of the Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga books and the idea of playing an Aral Vorkosigan simulator appeals to me as well. Can you take the leader to be and grow them up to be a strong, caring, beloved, leader (or a horrifying, but entertaining monster)? The setting of the internal and external forces on our Queen are interesting and lend themselves to the possibility of some interesting storytelling.

Things I Didn't Like

While the possibility is there for interesting storytelling I feel like there isn’t that much effort put in to actually telling that many stories. The story of the game hinges on the various tests of the Queen’s abilities and on a few of her choices (but generally the choices only master if she’s able to pass the check first). There seems to be one strongly preferred plot, with small side deviations (generally leading to death). There seem to be a few other larger plots, but they seem to require playing the game in very specific ways to trigger them. As such the plot felt a little as though I was being railroaded in my choices about how to develop the Queen.

The Queen knows production and trade, so can make good choices.

In one example you sentence a criminal to execution and he tries to personally attack you. To the best of my understanding, the only way to successfully manage the situation is to have the archery skill prepared, so that you can fling a sceptre (or something) at him (unless you’ve learned magic, but we’ll return to that point in a moment). If you fail the test in that particular case, you survive, but I can’t help but feel that the responses to that situation were very limited.

The Queen cannot defend herself.

For instance, if instead of training archery, you trained fencing, you could grab a sword and personally defend yourself, or if you were trained in diplomacy you could talk the criminal down, or if you studied tactics you could position yourself so that your guards could better defend you. In these situations the direct pass or fail may not actually matter, but it could lead to more interesting stories.

Beyond the specifics of the various tests the Queen must pass, it feels very much as though the only acceptable path through the game is to learn magic. After several playthroughs where I died in various ways I ended up taking a walkthrough for the last time and was able to navigate most of the checks I had struggled with. I think having the magic route be important is excellent and I enjoyed that playthrough, but it felt very much as though having magic rendered all other decisions in the game somewhat moot. I wish there had been a slightly different way to approach that.

I also feel a bit that there’s a limit on the endings of the game. I certainly haven’t exhausted the potential endings at all as though you die in some fun way, or you survive and marry someone. Either, I wish that the game had more interesting outcomes available to you, or that if it does have those more interesting outcomes, it indicated them to you a little better.

The Queen did not live long. Long Live the Queen.

Things I Noticed

I like the mood system to moderate the bonuses to the various scores, but I feel as though it lead a little to the railroading of the game for me. For example, if the Queen is angry, she gets a bonus to martial and military skills. That’s a great approach, but it means that you have to select activities for the week that will make her angry. I think a few other mechanisms to modify the mechanics might have been a good idea to bolster the emotional side.

The Queen is feeling very emotional right now.

Things I'd Include in A Game

I think my problems with Long Live the Queen are that it’s not quite the game I want to play. I think the creators were aiming for telling a story within some boundaries of personal investigation. I think I was hoping for something that allowed you to explore how an initial situation might evolve if a person made a particular set of decisions.

I see the “plot tree” of Long Live the Queen as a few strong trunks with a some lighter, shorter branches off in other directions. I would like to play something with many branches around the same length with a few interesting shorter ones to break up the game play.

Final Things

I liked Long Live the Queen, even if it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. I’ll probably drop back in on it at some point, but for right now I feel like my three hours has been enough. That being said, in doing a little research for this post, I noticed that Princess Maker 2 has been remade and is on Steam, so I might dive that way for a little while.

The Queen is a magic queen!

Long Live the Queen has given me some food for thought for a game I’d like to make at some point and I’m glad I played it.

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Truth.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Past.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Self.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Games of June 2019

My June was mostly dedicated to playing on the Switch. I'm really enjoying the ease of picking up the controller (or the console) and being into a game within second.

My top six games (by play time) for June were:

1. Super Mario Odyssey - Thanks to this game I can now pretty regularly spell Odyssey. The more I've played the more I've gotten into it. I keep thinking I must be running out of fun (or at least Power Moons), but so far it just keeps showing more and more depth.
   
   

   

   In context, this doesn't make any sense either.



2. Animal Crossing: Amiibo Fest - This usually doesn't land so far up the list, but my play time was pretty spread out this month. As always this is a nice way to wake up on weekend mornings with my partner and even though we basically know all the events by heart by now, it's still a charming thing to play.
   

   

   Sunday Morning Business meeting.

   
   


3. Xenonauts - Less charming, but no less fun. I am surprised by how long it took me to get into this game, but I have been pretty thoroughly enjoying it. The only real complaint I have at the moment is that I'm readier to end this campaign than the game seems to be. I think there's a little bit of pacing trouble between the missions you play and the research the game does for you that actually advances the plot. Otherwise, I'm enjoying the combat and I feel like they've arrived at a spot where "failure is fun". (But that might just also be my brain relaxing from the PhD).
   
   

   

   Oh sure, deal with my shotgunners by building all your ships like tubes...



4. Cadence of Hyrule - This game is pretty awesome. I was really bad the first hour or so, but then found my groove (so to speak) and got the idea of the game. Since then I've really enjoyed it, although I find it needs a particular mindset to really appreciate (and because it's rhythm based, you can't drink and play well). I wouldn't mind if it had a little more meat on it, but I'm only about halfway through right now, so there may be more to come. I'm interested to see how it replays (it feels short) and I think I might also take a look at Crypt of the Necrodancer for the purer Rogue-Beat genre.
   
   

   

   **Guitar Riff**



5. Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana) - I was not spoiled on this, so when Nintendo announced the Collection of Mana in its E3 direct I pretty much fell out of my chair. Seeing Seiken Densetsu 3 released in English in North America is fantastic and so I bought it as soon as it was released (which was that night as I recall). I haven't played too much of either SD3 or SD (Final Fantasy Adventure) yet, but having Secret of Mana to hand has been a total blast. Also I discovered that the UK localization is very slightly different (and better?) than the US one.
   
   

   

   **British Whale Sounds** 

   
   
6. Pokémon Go - I really haven't spend that much time sitting down to play PoGo the last little while, but trying to keep streaks up, I've played a few minutes each day. That's been enough to get it into the top list for the month.
   
   

   

   Good catch ... 

   
   

Here's my total play time chart for June:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Marks.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Mayhem. Mystery. Miles.

I'm on Good Reads

Project 1 & Project 11: June Monthly Update

Well, I'm kinda giving up on this idea. I'll update more / better come August, but I've decided that these projects just aren't the priorities I want to focus on right now. I didn't write any on my creative writing project The Roofs at all. My blogging output was acceptable, but I'm not reaching to change it all that much in actuality right now.

Updates:

Project	New Words	Total Words	Percent of Target
The Roofs	0	81	1%
Blogging	1174	3407	43%

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Momentum.

I'm on Good Reads

Project Update: PhD

I thought I should write a post commemorating the fact that I finished my PhD. It seemed appropriate considering I’ve been doing the PhD as long as I’ve been keeping the blog, and the blog has (in a tiny part) been about me getting stuff done (particularly the PhD).

Photo Credit: FotoBart

I had some idea of writing about the things I learned (not 100% sure what those are), or possibly to sum up the project I worked on (don’t really want to do that yet), or maybe to give some suggestions about PhDs in general (which I don’t have). So for now, I'm just happy to say: I'm Done!

I worked a long time, fairly hard, but slowly, and managed to finish, mostly refusing to stop. I’m proud of myself. It may not be all I had envisioned, but it is finished. Someone once pointed out to me that the PhD is supposed to be the beginning of your research career, not the end, and I’m trying to keep that in mind now.

I didn’t get my PhD to become a researcher or to become a teacher. I mostly worked towards it because I was interested in the work. I’m still interested in that work, and some of that work will filter along here in the shape of smaller projects. I also enjoyed the journey, for the most part. There was stress, and I stayed put a bit too long. 

I feel extremely free to take on new projects. To some extent, that’s a statement that practically anything I take on can’t be as large as the PhD, so I should probably be able to do it. I am also enjoying being rid of that stress every time I sit to do anything, that I should be doing something else. It’s not a cure all, that stress is still there, but I feel like I’m more able to compartmentalize my time and stop working when it’s time to stop working.

Practically, I’m pleased to say this caps of the revival of #nafyofuthmo. Project in the books (literally), done and dusted. I’m a bit sad though, because: how fun is it to say #nafyofuthmo. (Seriously say it out loud, naf-yo-futh-mo). I’ll have to find some other snazzy, weird agglomeration of words to say now.

So there. I finished my PhD. I built the software I needed to build. I did the experiments I needed to do. I wrote the words I needed to write. I made the edits I needed to make. This isn’t the end of the road, but it’s a spot I should put a marker to remind myself I made it this far. 

I don’t really know what’s next. I’m a little burned out, I’ve been a grad student since January 2007 and that’s been a while. In the short term I’m teaching and enjoying the parts of computer science I enjoy, and I’m taking a rest. I’ll figure the rest out, but for now I’m glad to be done.

via GIPHY

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Lies.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Heroes.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2019

People.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Games of May 2019

My May was fairly busy, but it was also the first month I owned a Switch. Generally I've been pretty happy with the Switch so far. I think I haven't enjoyed the "gimmick" of the Switch so much, but the joy-con are pretty good controllers. I generally don't like the hand-held consoles, so I've mostly used it docked, but the couple of times I've taken it "on the road" (all the way to the back yard) it's been fun.

In addition to Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Tennis Aces, I also played Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. All in all it didn't quite grab me the way Odyssey did and I found it a touch ... sloggier ... than I'd hoped. I also picked up Celeste, but actually only played it on the one day in April I owned the switch. And finally I downloaded the Demo for Katamari Damacy Reroll, and I owe Dan a real apology for all the shouting I did watching his let's play. (But seriously, how do you TUUUURN?)

Also really enjoying having a console with a working screen-shot facility again. If you want to see what I'm up to you can follow @gamesTJPlays on Twitter.

My top five games (by play time) for May were:

1. Super Mario Odyssey - This is a really good game. I enjoy the bite-sized nature of the moon hunts in the "after" game. I also generally like the "main" game play following bowser, even if the "story" is possibly the worst ever in a Mario game. There's no question that between the this and Breath of the Wild (as the two big games in the first year of the Switch), I love Breath of the Wild significantly more, but I have fully enjoyed my play time in Odyssey. (Even if I've been slow learning to spell odyssey.)
   
   

   

   Looks like a nice place to adventure.

   
   


2. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Back in with my no-fast-travel play through. It's been fun and caused me to be a little more thoughtful about how I play. I've enjoyed the planning and side tracking such as, I need more storage for swords, now I have to go all the way to the Deku tree to get my inventory expanded, maybe I should stop in on Kakariko on the way. Also I'm still mad at the Bokoblins who exploded my horse.
   
   

   

   It feels like we've been here before, but it's good to be back. (Still need to fix the Wii U internet connection)

   
   


3. Animal Crossing: Amiibo Fest - I have news. Your Amiibo top out at Level 6. We are not amused. (There are like 40 different emotions!)
   
   

   

   True Love.

   
   


4. Pokémon Go  - I haven't really deeply settled in to a routine playing, but I'm still doing the mostly daily.
   
   

   

   Adventuring.

   
   


5. Mario Tennis Aces - This game has a single player and I basically can't finish the first 4 levels. I assume I'm just not getting the idea of the game, but my history of not really hitting it off with the Mario Tennis games is long. However, I figure the best way to point out that I'd really like a new Mario Golf or Mario Strikers (in that order please) was to pick up Mario Tennis.
   
   

   

   Even the start menu is kinda hard to learn.

   
   

Here's my total play time chart for May:

And here's a chart of how much I've played over the month:

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Civitas.

I'm on Good Reads

Blog: Books Read in 2019

Family.

I'm on Good Reads

Project 1 & Project 11: Monthly Update

Woah. That was harder than I figured. A little bit because I've taking a sessional teaching gig for May/June, but more so just from the freedom to be able to sit down and write. Blogging wasn't too bad, mostly things I'd been thinking about for a while, but the fiction was really hard to start.

Updates:

Project	New Words	Total Words	Percent of Target (for Month)
The Roofs	81	81	2%
Blogging	2233	2233	55%

As far as the blogging goes, most of that was my Earthbound Post, I also counted my Games of April post, but I didn't count the book updates. For next month I'd like to produce at least 2 posts of the size of the Earthbound one.

For the fiction, I'm not sure I'm ready to dive in as much as I thought I was. I'm going to keep the goal where it is for now, but I'm working on a few other projects right now (more blog posts to write) and I'm not feeling like diving into a project the size of the the thing sitting in my brain right now.