cfgt's Lua Interpreter v0.01! - Updated!

Here's an awesome release of one of the components from my upcoming game! It's a Lua interpreter! It doesn't work perfectly yet. I've added a command so that you can print out variable contents (since lua can't write out to the console normally using the print command): it's called consolewrite - and all you have to do to use it is type 'consolewrite(variablename)' and it'll print out the contents of the variable no problem. It's a great piece of software - very minimalist user interface (I love command line programs). You'll need .NET Framework 3.5 (grab it here if you don't have it installed) installed on your computer to run it.

Download it here (Mediafire) 129kb

Have fun playing with it! I've hidden a command in it (it's real easy to find, trust me - so you don't have to worry about spending hours trying to decipher a crazy puzzle - that's for next year).

A few things you should know before trying it out:

If you've got a Lua script that's purely Lua and nothing else, it should run perfectly using the dofile command (I've made sure it works.)

I believe the program shouldn't crash just because you're typing gibberish into it. It may be rudimentary - but it should have pretty OK error handling.

To exit the program, type 'exit' or 'quit' and the command prompt and the program will close itself. It doesn't leave behind any log files and the error messages are generally unhelpful - although that's probably something I'll work on.

If you find any bugs in this very early alpha version, report it!

Update - I made a small mistake during compiling which may cause problems for some people. Not sure if it'll fix anything, but I've updated the EXE anyway. I've called the new version 0.02 although it's only a hotfix.

Red Alert 3: Uprising Short (P)Review!

Well, not too long ago, RA3 Uprising was released on digital download! Woo-hoo! I managed to try it out and play a couple of missions. (OK, that's a lie, I finished the relatively short campaign.) I believe most of the meat in the game is in the Commander's Challenge, which I'm not going to play until later.

The campaign is simple and short - 13 missions total. Then again, the Tale of Yuriko doesn't really feel like missions, so there are 10 new campaign missions to play through. I'd say a lot of them are standard RA3 fare - start off, fight your way through to gain a foothold, whack everything else in sight. I can't say much  about how good they are, but they're a good way to get a look at the new (and most certainly IMBA) units like the Mortar Cycle, Pacifier and Giga-Fortress.

The Tale of Yuriko is interesting, putting the game into a dungeon crawler-esque mode where you have 4 abilities to use against your enemies. The story is ultimately pointless, but the campaign is fun nevertheless. What else could be better than whacking everything with a single unit? It even comes with boss battles! (Well, sort of.)

I haven't played the Commander's Challenge, where I believe most of Uprising's content is actually at. I guess that'll have to wait until after my exams. :D

Experimenting with CG Bokeh

Now, I don't have the money for lenses with good bokeh - especially since I don't use them, so I started experimenting with other cheaper ways to simulate the effect - like generating the effect in Photoshop - no, not with Gaussian blur or lens blur. Something a little more convincing.

(Don't worry about the white line in the original, that's part of my selection work going a little awry.)

After a little selecting work, some third party filters, and the result is this:

If you think it looks fake - look carefully at the table - and compared the two photos. You'll realise that only a very specific portion (or distance) from the Coke can has been blurred!

Seemingly Unending Hiatus

I've been studying and thinking about a lot of other things - and those tend to lead to writer's block. I've been thinking about filling in with 4koma (like I did for a while), photography (which I also did for a while), writing a story (which I did a long while back). And then I suddenly thought about making a viable version of an application for table top card games. I thought, why not make a table top card game version with fully scriptable cards? Of course, if I did make one, the first target would be Magic, and Wizards would probably come after me - but hey, unlike the makers of Magic Workstation, I have no intention of selling it.

Magic Card: Sensei's Divining Top

I promised 3 years ago to write an article about the Sensei's Divining Top. I never did. Not until now, that I've realised that it has gotten banned in Extended that I realised that I should really say something about this great card.

It took me a while to collect a playset of these - and when I did, it went into every combo deck I made after that. Why was that?

Sensei's Divining Top was great for finding combo pieces - and it had incredible synergy with shuffle effects - another thing common in combo decks. Why was shuffling good? Every time you shuffled, you'd get to look at fresh cards after a Sensei's Divining Top activation.

What shuffle effects am I talking about? Cards called tutors often end with a shuffle. Tutors are cards which allow the player to search their deck for a card - following that, a shuffling of the deck to prevent people from knowing what your next few draws contain - something the Top does handily.

What makes this worse? Extra Tops turn into cheap ways to draw - and combined with shuffle effects, you don't have to pay the cost of drawing the Top next turn.

Unfortunately, this is exactly why it got banned. It got everywhere and started slowing down everything. Tops and shuffling effects were everywhere - slowing down gameplay and disrupting the smooth flow of the game. They concluded that it was something that was damaging to both the game and the metagame - resulting in a seemingly innocuous card getting banned.

I'm unconcerned - it's not an overpowered card, and I only use it in combo decks. No one I play with is really gonna complain. After all, if I do use an Extended-legal tournament deck, it'd probably be a whole can of whoopass they won't want to play against anyway.

(No, I haven't begun playing Magic again. There was little appeal to me past the Planar Chaos set - which only appealed to me because of the colourshifted cards.)