the sine wave
March 2004

- 31 -
Building an empire
Here's how I want the story of Azenera to pan out.  When you're first trapped in the flooded valley, there are all these enemies who attack you, and you don't know why.  As you go on, you find out that the enemies are not mere rogues or savages, but rather organized groups who have different goals.  For example, the orcs originally seem to be a band of raiders who are out for themselves and have no ties to anyone, but soon it is revealed that they're part of a fledgling empire called Guranga that spans across the entire continent.  The hostile goblins, too, also seem like rogues, and even the friendly goblins believe they've simply strayed from the path of peace and gone wild, as you can see if you find Tesahiva's journals on level 3.  But actually, it will soon be revealed that these goblins are part of a cult that worships Tesunas, a mysterious being who lives in the Rift World.  I'm also adding story elements from Drakan 2.  Surdana is mentioned, as well as some evidence that Azenera is the "Southern continent" with the poisonous air that's mentioned by the book-loving monks.  The poisonous air will be featured in one of the later levels that take place in East Azenera, and the nature of the poison will have ties to the Tesunas storyline.

- 30 -
Some more Azenera changes
At the risk of being like George Lucas when he angered fans by changing a bunch of scenes in the original Star Wars, I'm making a few changes to the first four levels of Azenera.  The biggest change I'm making is making the Greedo of level lighting do the shooting first of being brighter... wait, that makes no sense when I read it again, so I'll ditch this Star Wars analogy and just get to the point and say that I'm raising the brightness of the levels.  I'm doing this because I've been running at 1.20 gamma all this time, and at the normal gamma level of 1.00, the levels are just too dark.  It's not a drastic change in brightness that spoils the mood of the levels, but it'll help people see the enemies they're fighting.  I'm also adding dust effects to the stone doors when they go in and out of the dirt, and I'm adding a little more dialogue to help explain what's going on with the world.

- 29 -
Still searching
Now I'm going to search the Internet for information regarding our missing links.

- I did a search for the toilets of Melbourne and found this, but it's just not the same.  There are no detailed descriptions, just a list.
- Mr. T Ate My Balls and Chewbacca Ate My Balls are both still around on the author's Geocities site.
- Here's a banana sticker site similar to the one Dave Barry mentioned.
- The Wave to the Cats site may be down, but the owner's main page is still visible, although I don't know how long it's been since it was updated.
- Find out about the Captain and Tennille on their main site here, if you really want to.
- Here's a site about cursing in Swedish, but their non-ASCII coding seems to be a bit off.
- This site has some Dutch traffic signs, but I don't know if it's identical to the one Dave Barry saw.  It should be close enough; how much difference can there be in traffic sign sites?
- Here's a Fabio fan club.
- Find out about those deformed Minnesotan frogs here.
- This site talks about musical sand and even has some sound samples, just like the site Dave Barry mentioned.

I didn't find much about the guide to crackers, the Spam cam, or the people with toasters.  I did find some stuff about George Goble, the barbecue ignition guy, but his homepage and everything on it is gone.


- 28 -
Searching Dave Barry's cyberspace
Back in 1996, humor columnist Dave Barry wrote a book called Dave Barry in Cyberspace, in which he talks about his experiences with computers and the Internet.  In it, there's a chapter that lists several interesting web sites that feature things such as viola jokes, banana labels of the world, and flaming Pop-Tarts.  I'm taking it upon myself to find out how many of those links are still active, and if any are, how they have changed since 1996.  Maybe later I'll try to see if I can find out if some of the sites whose URLs don't work have simply been moved to a new place, but for now, I'll just check the links listed in the book.  And here we go!

The Toilets of Melbourne, Australia - This site doesn't seem to be working.  In fact, it looks like the server doesn't exist anymore!  This is a depressing start.  Let's move on.
Giant Collection of Viola Jokes - Hooray!  It still works!  And it even mentions Dave Barry's book!
Guide to Crackers - This isn't working for me.  It can't even find the server.
Mr. T Ate My Balls - This is probably archived somewhere on the web, but it's not found here.
Chewbacca Ate My Balls - This one's not there either.
The Spam Cam - This was about the meat, not the junk e-mail.  It's not there anymore.
Piercing Mildred - This is still around!  The link now redirects to here.
Banana Labels of the World - No banana labels here, I'm afraid.
Wave to the Cats - This is no longer active.  It was a web site where you could make a mechanical hand wave to some cats.  Do you suppose those cats are still alive?
Trojan Room Coffee Machine - It's a webcam type of site, so I didn't expect it to still be around, but it is!  Go check on that coffee machine!
Captain and Tennille Appearances - You can probably still find information about what the Captain and Tennille are doing these days, but not on this site.
Cursing in Swedish - This isn't around either!  När jag blir av med gipset skall du få se på sjutton!
Dutch Traffic Signs - Nothing to see here.  Insert appropriate Dutch curse words.
Federal Corpse Slice Photos - The Visible Human Project is still around in all its original glory.
People with Toasters - This site seems to be as dead as the cadavers featured in the previous link.
Fabio - I can't believe it's not working!  Actually, I can.  Personal pages on non-university sites usually don't fare too well... oh wait, my site is one of them!  Uh oh...
Deformed Frog Pictures - This local Minnesota link isn't working, but I remember reading about problems with deformed frogs in school.
Musical Sand - The server's still around, but the site is not.
Exploding Whale - This link works, but the site has moved to here.  Exploding whales are just too crazy to let fall into oblivion.  Be sure to check out some of the intelligently written letters shown on the new site.
World Record Barbecue Ignition - "The people in charge have requested this web site be removed."  Oh no!  The Barbecue Illuminati claim another victim!
Flaming Pop-Tart Experiment - It works, and it mentions Dave Barry!  Watch those Pop-Tarts burn!

Well, that's it.  I'm surprised so many of those sites were still active, given the ephemeral nature of the Internet.  Tomorrow, I'll try to see if I can find information related to some of the stuff that I couldn't get to through the links listed above.


- 27 -
Let's talk about Metroid again
I spent three days talking about Unreal 2, so I should really spend some more time talking about Metroid: Zero Mission, which is a much better game.  First I finished Normal mode because I've played all the previous Metroid games and I thought Easy mode would be too easy, and I died a few times, but mostly I did all right.  In fact, I got a few items before I was supposed to, and I didn't even know it.  First, I did the bomb jump to get the Energy Tank in the ceiling near the beginning of Brinstar.  Then, after beating Kraid, I got the super missiles by doing the ball shinespark trick in Brinstar instead of waiting until I had fought the giant bee enemy.  I also got the Screw Attack before I even went to Ridley's lair by building up speed in the room with the three pipes and doing a shinespark jump into the ceiling.  Later, when I was challenging Hard mode, I took the passage on the far right side of Norfair and ended up going to Ridley's lair without the wave beam and with only a few missiles and energy tanks.  I must have discovered the secret 15% completion path that lets you skip most of the items, but I had already gotten too many items to complete that challenge, so I just restarted the game rather than face Ridley in my unprepared state.  When I take on a challenge like that, I want it to be for something that gets results.

- 26 -
It's unreally over!  Okay, no more puns
No more Unreal puns, at least.  I'll still make bad puns about other game titles, because I'm too dumb to think of anything better.  I finished Unreal 2, and I have to say, there were some parts of that game that really seemed like they had some promise, but the execution of those ideas wasn't very good.  For example, there are a few interesting twists in the story that are revealed near the end, but they don't really have the emotional impact that the developers probably intended because the characters involved in the story really aren't that interesting.  Also, the base-building sequences are more fun than the straightforward action sequences, but even they are hampered by your character's slow movement and the fact that you can't give orders to your teammates over long distances.  And then, there's the level design.  The original Unreal had much more intricate levels, with sprawling temples, castles, and fortresses that, although fundamentally linear in nature, allowed for some exploration and felt like part of a much larger world.  Most of the levels in Unreal 2 are short, and they seem like you're just walking down a corridor with different scenery in the background.  There are usually only one or two kinds of enemy per level, but the original Unreal was the same way so I guess I shouldn't expect more from the sequel.  Sometimes in my Technical Japanese class, someone will give a translation of a sentence that doesn't quite make sense, and the professor will say "You've got elements of it, but you had a little trouble putting it together."  In the same way, Unreal 2 has some elements of a good game, such as diverse worlds, a suspenseful plot, and interesting weapons, but when those elements are put together, it doesn't necessarily make a great game.

- 25 -
Virtual unreality
I'm a few levels into Unreal 2, and I'm not very impressed.  Actually, I do think the graphics are really good, and I like the environment mapping effects on all the shiny objects, but those graphics don't do much for me unless they're part of a good game.  Unreal 2 isn't really much of a game at all.  It's more like playing a movie than playing a game, except in this movie, you have to press keys and click the mouse in the correct sequence or else the movie will go back to an earlier point and you'll have to watch the same events all over again.  In the first level, the Sanctuary, you go down a completely linear path, fighting only one type of enemy all the way.  Then you get stuck in an elevator and attacked by a Skaarj (this was the end of the demo), and this part of the level is kind of cool, but then you get to an outdoor part of the game where you go back to the same kind of linear path, this time fighting Skaarj (pronounced "Scar" by the characters in the game, like in Return to Na Pali) instead of monkey-lizards.  After this level, there's a level where you have to help a group of marines defend a base in the swamp from invading enemies.  These "defend the base" levels seem to really be the best part of the game, but the Unreal Tournament games do this kind of team-based gameplay so much better.  One of the things I've noticed is that your character walks so slowly, especially compared to the player character in the original Unreal.  The only way you can go fast is to double-press a movement key to do a dodge move (but only after setting "Dodging" to something greater than zero in the options menu), and taking a page right out of the Book of Drakan, you can actually go faster by continuously dodging forward than you can by running!  That seems like a serious oversight to me.

- 24 -
Keeping it unreal
Another game I picked up over Spring Break was Unreal 2: The Awakening.  I played the demo earlier, and it wasn't all that great, but the full game was only $20, so I decided to get it.  It's single-player, but there's a multiplayer expansion called XMP that contains vehicles and tactical elements and I might get around to playing that someday, but for now, I'll just stick with the single-player game.  I'm not expecting much though.

- 23 -
I am a Metroidsexual!
So I picked up the new Metroid game, Metroid: Zero Mission, for the Game Boy Advance, and I'm lovin' it!  Ba da da da da!   Oh jeez, I'm sorry, that just slipped out.  Anyway, Metroid: Zero Mission is a sort of remake of the original Metroid, but it contains some elements from Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion as well.  The level structure and plot are basically the same as Metroid 1.  You go around Brinstar and Norfair collecting items and abilities, and you go into the lairs of the bosses Kraid and Ridley and defeat them.  Once they're dead, you can get to Mother Brain's lair of Tourian, where you'll face the Metroid and finally Mother Brain herself.  When you defeat Mother Brain, you have to get to your ship and flee the world of Zebes before a bomb goes off, and that's the end of the game... or is it?  So, the basic structure is pretty much the same, and there are some familiar areas that'll trigger a fit of nostalgia in anyone who's been a Metroid fan from the beginning, but there are also some major differences.  Items from later games such as the Speed Booster and Super Missiles are included, and the Wave Beam and Ice Beam can be used together instead of one replacing the other.  The above-ground realm of Crateria makes a return from Super Metroid, and Kraid and Ridley take on their Super Metroid forms rather than that of their smaller Metroid 1 counterparts.  In Zero Mission, there's a ton of stuff to unlock and many challenges for expert players.  There are bonuses for getting 100%, for finishing the game in Hard Mode, for finishing under certain time limits, for beating the game with less than 15% of the items, and for different combinations of these feats.  Most of the bonuses come in the form of different ending screens, but there's also a sound test and you can play Metroid 1 in its original NES form.

- 22 -
Back to the old routine
Spring Break is over and it's back to the drudgery of everyday life.  I almost didn't finish my homework yesterday because I had a headache, which I sometimes get after I ride the bus.  One thing that may have contributed to my headache was the fact that one of the movies I saw was Bad Boys 2, which is one of those movies that you're watching and you think to yourself, "This can't be a real movie."  That is, it's so over the top and full of clichés that you wonder if everyone involved in the movie was just playing a big joke and somehow a movie got made out of it.  Let me tell you, if you see Bad Boys 2, then you'll never need to watch another buddy-cop movie ever again, because this movie completely exhausts the genre.  Here, let me describe everything about the movie that I haven't suppressed from my mind.
Bad movie, bad movie, whatcha gonna do
You've got Will Smith as a cop who plays by his own rules, with Martin Lawrence as his more reserved partner who gets dragged into all the shootouts and car chases kicking and screaming.  Then you've got Joe Pantoliano as the police chief who's always yelling at our two heroes and telling them they're off the case.  On top of that, you have Will Smith's love interest, an undercover agent who also happens to be the sister of the Martin Lawrence character, and you've got a plethora of villains led by a maniacal Cuban gang leader with ties to Castro who chops up his enemies in his kitchen and kills henchmen who disappoint him in front of a bunch of people, including his mother, because that's just how evil he is.  I should also mention that nearly all of the main characters are involved in some kind of new-age anger management program where they try to control their rage by repeating the mantra of "woosah" or something like that.  The story begins with our two heroes undercover with the Ku Klux Klan, who decided on a whim to burn a cross right in the middle of a drug deal they were supposed to do.  The Bad Boys take off their masks and try to arrest the KKK members, but there's a shootout and Will Smith accidentally ends up shooting Martin Lawrence in the butt, and this becomes important later because it paves the way for a scene where they talk about the shooting, and they think they're alone, but there are cameras on them and people are watching them, and it sounds like they're a gay couple and it's just so funny and original.  After the incident with the Klan and the inevitable chewing out by the police chief, the Bad Boys have a few shootouts with the Haitians (cue Grand Theft Auto: Vice City joke here), and they go sneaking around the Cuban gang leader's house, where they learn about a plot to smuggle killer ecstasy into America inside hollowed-out corpses.  This, of course, leads to "hilarious" scenes such as a corpse falling out of a van and getting beheaded by another vehicle, and Will Smith ogling the corpse of a young woman with large breasts.  Yes, that's right, they're playing necrophilia for laughs here.  I started to drift off after the first few hours of the movie, but I remember it ended with a car chase in Cuba that destroyed a hillside town, followed by a showdown with the villain on a minefield, in which the villain ends up getting shot and blown up.  Since he got blown to pieces, there was thankfully no way to play out the old, tired "you thought he was dead, but he wasn't really!" cliché that was last seen in Mission Impossible 2, but we did get a final scene where Will Smith makes out with the love interest in the middle of the minefield with Martin Lawrence yelling at them to be careful because of all the mines.  Unfortunately, they don't all get blown up at the end, and that means there's a chance that there might be a Bad Boys 3.  Woosah.

- 11 -
Freedom!  Wonderful, temporary freedom!
Well, I've finished blindly stumbling my way through another midterm.  Seriously, this has been like a mini finals week, and it's insane.  I'm really worried that I might not have done well on those midterms, and this isn't like the kind of worried I was about all those literature classes.  This is real worried, because these are Computer Science classes that I'm supposed to be really good at because, you know, it's my major.  I guess I can hope that I at least did relatively well compared to the rest of the class, but even that's not for sure.  I'm always a little worried about classes that grade on a curve because I get afraid that maybe this semester, a few hundred really smart people and aspiring professional economists simultaneously decided to take Econ 102, and they'll be in the top 50% with a perfect 100 on every test, while anything less than a 100 will be a C at best.  Also, there's the whole competition thing, because success depends on the failure of others.  Since I've taken my Environment and Global Economy midterm and I have population dynamics on the mind, I guess I could say that a class graded on a curve is sort of like a predator-prey relationship, or at least a case of survival of the fittest.  Luckily, the savanna that is my economics class seems to have enough straggling wildebeest, so I'm not too worried about getting eaten by the lions of bad grades.  But all this talk of midterms is old news right now because it's almost Spring Break and I am free, free, free!  I'm free to... oh wait, I still have to get that report for my Operating Systems class done the week after break, and I don't know what's going to happen with my Technical Japanese homework.  Oh well, at least I'll have a temporary break from all this homework and studying.

- 10 -
Playing mustard... or catch-up, either way
Oh god, it's worse than I thought.  There's blood everywhere.  I just took my Environment and Global Economy and my Operating Systems midterms today, and they were a bit harder than I expected.  Especially the Operating Systems exam.  What'll I say if I get a bad grade on one of these exams?  Will I finally have to face up to the reality that every minute I spent on games could have been spent on studying instead?  Or even worse, will I find out that all this lack of sleep has ruined me forever?  You know what?  I'm just going to get to sleep right now.  Tomorrow I have my Artificial Intelligence midterm, and I want to at least feel like I did decently on that.

- 9 -
No entry today
Because I'm studying like a superfreak!  A superfreak!  I'm superfreaky with the studying and the reading and the oh no this is not making any sense!  Seriously though, there's nothing I can say today, but if you want to, you can just pretend I'm saying something really funny right now.  Laugh!  Come on, I said laugh.

- 8 -
It's crunch time
Midterms are coming up so this is my Week of Dread.  I won't be able to play Jedi Knight before Spring Break... well, not much, anyway.  I have to study up on my environmental readings, operating systems information, and artificial intelligence systems, and it's not going to be fun.  I'm going to get distracted.  That's a given.  Or maybe it's a gibbon, I'm not sure.  Say, I wonder, are gibbons an endangered species?  They probably are, since so many primates (other than humans) are endangered due to habitat loss and... oh, sorry, I got distracted.  See, I told you I would.  Well, at least it was about something related to the environment.  And also, I'm on the computer, and you can do studying on computers, so I guess you could say I'm engaged in studying-related program activities.  That's gotta count for something.

- 7 -
On the level
The level design in the first Jedi Knight is pretty good.  There are some repetitive passages in some places, but for the most part, the levels flow well and have a wide variety of areas.  There's a level with a house you have to find your way inside, a level where you follow a series of water drainage pipes, and a part of the game where you go up on a rooftop and you have to dodge an enemy ship that tries to drop bombs on you.  In addition to being diverse, these levels are huge.  It takes a long time to get through a single level, and there are often lots of keys to find and force fields to disable along the way.

- 6 -
Forced entry
Now let's talk about the Force.  You know, I've always had the mistaken notion that Force Push and Force Pull are central to the entire Jedi Knight series because they play such a pivotal role in Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, but the first Jedi Knight doesn't even have Force Push!  There is Force Pull, but it only pulls items toward you and disarms enemies.  Force Speed and Force Jump are available near the beginning, and they're pretty good powers to have.  Jedi Knight was actually designed so that it's not necessary to have any force powers at all, and Force Jump often lets you get to places you wouldn't normally be able to go, like to a catwalk high above a canyon.  Force Healing, which is available later, takes a lot of force power to use, but it works more quickly than its counterpart in later games.

- 5 -
Saber the flavor
The saber fighting in Jedi Knight isn't as advanced as that of its sequels, and I suppose that's understandable because Kyle just picks up the saber and starts using it with no training, so he hasn't yet learned all the acrobatic moves that he can do in Jedi Outcast.  You can still block blaster fire, but not as well as in the sequel and Jedi Academy, so you'll end up using the long-range weapons more often.  The weapons in this game seem to be more powerful than the ones in later games, especially the concussion rifle.  This weapon is just as powerful as the Stouker rifle in Jedi Academy, but it only uses 8 power cells instead of 40 metallic bolts.  Maybe the weapons just seem so much more powerful because in this game you're just fighting mercenaries and stormtroopers most of the time, and while there are dark Jedi to fight, they're bosses rather than normal enemies who pop up everywhere.

- 4 -
Let's talk graphics
Let me tell you, these Jedi Knight graphics aren't as good as I remember.  I suppose they were pretty good for their time, but now everything looks blocky and artificial.  Someone made a model enhancement pack for System Shock 2, and while it would be nice to have something similar for Jedi Knight, that still wouldn't help the low graphical complexity of the world geometry.  The indoor parts mostly look fine, but the outdoor areas don't really seem outdoor to me.  For example, there's this one part of level 3 where you can stand on some barrels and when you jump, you'll bump your head on the sky.  The explosion effects are pretty much a joke, because each explosion consists of a single 2D sprite, like the explosions in Quake 1.  Fortunately, the gameplay has held up better than the graphics, and I'll talk about that tomorrow.

- 3 -
Like a Jedi, sabered for the very first time
I'm getting back to the first Jedi Knight, since I never actually finished it in the first place.  This time I'm more familiar with the whole Jedi Knight system of combat and force powers, and I've done some reading on the advantages of different powers, so I pretty much know what to do.  One of the things I remember about this game that kind of put me off the first time is how you have to find all the secret areas in each level if you want to get all the force stars.  I'm kind of a completionist who likes to get all the special items and bonuses, and that's what draws me to games like the new Castlevania games and Ratchet and Clank, but scouring every wall, floor, and ceiling of all the Jedi Knight levels just seems tedious.  I'll talk about Jedi Knight some more later.

- 2 -
No time to talk
Oh no, oh no, oh no!  I have three midterms next week!  This is just crazy!  I've gotta study or else.  And on top of that, I have a bunch of homework assignments to do.  I'm glad they're not scheduling all the midterms for the week after Spring Break, but they could have at least had one this week or something.

- 1 -
A new month and a new beginning
It's time to get back to the important things, like Journey to Azenera, which I promised I would work on.  Actually, I made a specific point to not promise anything, but in the end it's still going to be treated like a promise.  I'm finally getting around to adding textures to the main outdoor areas, and I'm using the usual technique of setting the walkable surfaces to 33°, hitting the A key to see the outline of all the places you can walk on, and then placing a grass texture on the walkable part of the landscape.  It's not as easy as it sounds, because you have to add the edge and corner textures separately, and you have to make sure everything is aligned properly.  If you fail to include a row of edge textures, which is easy to do since they're so hard to see in the editor, then there'll be a smooth line separating the rock and grass, which doesn't blend in well with the landscape.  Sometimes, when I'm texturing the top of ridges, I extend the grass outline a square or two beyond the walkable area so that the grass on top can be seen from lower areas.  I find that this method of landscape texturing produces a pretty consistent pattern, but sometimes I feel like there's not enough grass to suit the climate, at least compared to other games that take place on the same kind of landscape.  Come to think of it, I don't know what Azenera's climate is even supposed to be.  I'm kind of going for a swamp canyon feel, but swamps don't really seem to go with tall mountains.  The closest real-world landscape I can think of that compares to what I've made in Azenera so far would be something like the cloud forest of Costa Rica, especially with the close fog that has to be in every Drakan level because of engine limitations.  This may be the last level in this particular climate, though, because level 6 will be an arid canyon that you explore on foot, and level 7 will be a huge desert that separates West and East Azenera.  I was originally planning to have East Azenera be the same type of landscape as the levels I've made so far, but now I'm thinking about making more open areas and fewer narrow canyons, and maybe I could make the valleys lower so Arokh can have more room to fly.

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