Half-assed coding

A fundamental rule of the Internet:

Trying stuff is cheaper than deciding whether to try it. (Compare the cost of paying and feeding someone to do a few weeks of [Perl or PHP] hacking to the full cost of the meetings that went into a big company decision.) Don't overplan something. Just do it half-assed to start with, then throw more people at it to fix it if it works.

(Via kottke.org)

Hero's Rest progress report

You may have noticed I promised an update in the form of a new area -- Hero's Rest -- that hasn't arrived yet. There are a couple of reasons of this, the main one being laziness. I've drawn most of the new images needed, done some of the back-end database stuff, and have ideas for the new mechanics that are being implemented, so it's not like I've done nothing, it's just I haven't finished it yet, and should have.

One of the main problems I'm having is working out how to lay out the area's map. I just can't get it to look right, and I can't decide if it's the graphics I've drawn, or the layout of the map, or some combination of the two which is putting me off. I'll get some liquor in for the weekend and have another good go at it: all my best code changes and design decisions are made while drunk ;)

Christmas in libraries

Posted to library_mofo:

"Where's your Christmas music!?"
"Did you want it on cassette or CD?"
"No, I mean why aren't you playing any?"
"This is a library."
"Yeah, but everyone looks so down, and Christmas music always perks me right up!"

Please go away and die.

FreeRice vocabulary game

I found a great vocabulary testing game called FreeRice, via a post on Gamers With Jobs. It gives you a word, and you have to pick it's synonym from a multiple-choice selection. Each correct answer donates twenty grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program, who in turn give to the people who really need it.

It's a really nice idea, well implemented, and has a simple levelling mechanic, so words get harder as you keep playing. The FAQ has more on where the rice comes from, and how the levelling system works. It says there are fifty levels, with it being rare to go about 48. I'm hovering around 46, so I need some more practice :)

In Flames - The Jester Race (live)

Cookies!

The login script has been altered again. In the course of fixing the login code earlier, I added more error reporting and noticed the very next day that every log in was throwing one of the errors, even if the login was successful. Obviously this wasn't correct, so I sat down tonight and fixed it again.

It was a problem with sending the cookie-setting headers and the way the main script reads them, nothing too serious but it was worth fixing. The game also now reacts in a more sensible way for people with cookies turned off, and if you delete a cookie mid-session or fake a cookie in an attempt to log in as someone else.

All this talk of cookies is making me hungry...

Hell and High Water

This is the unofficial song of the game so far. I seem to listen to it a lot while adding in new stuff. For a while, the Hipster Goblin's Music Player let you watch this video, embedded in your inventory screen.

(I found Black Stone Cherry through the guys on the Underground Shortbus podcast.)

Signing up and logging in

I think there were some problems with either the account creation code or the login code. Today someone managed to create an account, then log in, trigger the login event, but not actually, y'know, log in. I looked at the code and decided this was impossible, but yet, it happened.

Then I looked at the code some more, swore a couple of times, rewrote a bit, and concluded it might happen if you have cookies turned off, or refuse one of the cookies set during the login process. I can't believe I hadn't checked for this already, but there you go.

All the changes I made have been pushed onto the live server, so this bug should (finally) be fixed. There have been a number of login-related bugs so far. I think I must have been drinking when I wrote the original script.

Huge update!

The long promised rebalance is live!

First things first - a warning: your weapon has been unequipped! This was a side-effect of the weapons being rebalanced. You can re-equip a weapon using the equipment menu as usual.

Here's a list of everything that's changed:

• Monsters now have a level and power rating, and have been rebalanced.
• New monsters!
• Two new areas: The Tuffet and The Farm!
• Areas now unlock, and more monsters appear in them, as you level up.
• More weapons!
• Weapons now have a level-based equip restriction...
• ...which means the one-handed short sword has been nerfed.
• Exp granted is now based on word score, rather than length.
• A level cap of 10 has been introduced. This will be incremented gradually to 20 in future updates.
• Damage formulas have been tweaked slightly.
• New item icons and descriptions!
• Chat system has been tweaked and should be more responsive.
• Support for medals: you cannot aquire any yet, but hang on to all those bits and guts.
• The drop rate on the Hipster Goblin's Music Player has been nerfed adjusted.
• Account creation / log in bug has been fixed.
• Infrequent (but annoying) "combat state is corrupted" bug has been fixed.
• Additions and fixes to the stylesheet and HTML header should mean better support across all browsers.
• Various behind-the-scenes database stuff you don't care about.
  

So, enjoy all that. If you find any bugs or problems, please leave a comment here, or e-mail me from the contact link in the main menu. Thanks for playing!