In this side-scrolling fantasy game, fight through 5 branching levels and stop the Queen of Monsters from conquering the Human Kingdom! A dynamic difficulty system will send you to harder or easier levels depending on whether you succeed or are defeated!
That is… unless there’s an unexplained software problem that may make victory completely impossible.
CONTROLS:
Explained in the game. – [Author's description]
100% obsessed with this series of cheese on marbled backgrounds. Patterns on patterns on patternsssssss
“Oh, you’re straight? So is spaghetti until it gets hot. ;)”
Are you suggesting we boil heterosexuals
Here are the raw images which make up the
EAT NO FOOD A BIRD HAS TOUCHED human hygiene infopamphlet
of yesteryear. I don’t know what happened to the design document which had them in layout. But this is basically it.
Still have some copies of it anyway. Feel free to print out the fifth image and sign it. If you are a serious person who is determined to choose order over filth and destitution.
I wrote before about the process of making Codex possible to play asynchronously by compressing all the decisions an opponent has to make on your turn into just one step, rather than like a thousand steps. It turned out surprisingly well. There was one detail of combat that became more confusing with that change though.
You have two units, we'll call them A and B. I attack your unit A with some of my stuff and I also attack your unit B with other stuff. Because all the opponent's decisions all occur in the same step in the asynchronous version of the game, it means you can have your unit A block to protect unit B *and* have your unit B block to protect your unit A. Then later we'll see which of those units is still around to actually block depending on the order that the attacker decided to resolve things. This particular situation made it difficult to understand how you should even block sometimes. Meaning "if I decide to do it this way, what will end up happening?" In one playtest a situation like that came up and a group of experienced players argued over the strategy for like 10 minutes about which way they should block. And one of them was factually incorrect about how it even worked. This really shouldn't be so hard.
Maybe we should fix that? I mean if it's that confusing to an expert then something seems to have gone wrong somewhere. There is no simple fix to it though. Stuff like saying "if I attack unit A, then unit A just can't block to protect another unit" doesn't work. It might be possible to change the way combat works entirely though, such that this situation can't come up, or maybe change it so that if it does come up, the way to resolve it much simpler.
"Is this worth fixing?" was a real question here. There's nothing mechanically wrong, though maybe we should do something about it anyway. This was just the beginning of unravelling of a lot of rules though. The very prospect of changing anything about how combat works made me think of other questions, too.
"Do games take too long?" This is another judgment call. How long is too long? And more to the point, what if usually game length is ok but sometimes it's too long? Like 20% of the time? Or 10%? It's not so straightforward but several times I've thought "this game took too long to finish I think." There seem to be two main reasons for this: 1) combat situations are sometimes so complicated to plan for that it takes players a really long time to decide what they should do and work through all the possibilities and 2) by nature of how the combat system works, defense is pretty good. Sometimes it just takes a while to really be able to punch through someone's defense.
And then another possible issue is that it's pretty great that all the opponent's decisions are now concentrated into just one step during your turn, but should we have really figured out some way to make it 0 steps? As in, just take your entire turn without having to wait for the opponent? One way to fix that confusing combat situation I mentioned before is to go up to TWO waits for opponent decisions per turn, but maybe that's wrong direction? Is it ok if we did that, or should it stay at just one wait period for the opponent during your own turn, or should that go all the way down to zero to be fully asynchronous?
So now there's four issues on the table:
1) Combat has one situation that can come up that is especially confusing.
2) Combat often causes analysis paralysis.
3) The way combat works inherently favors defense, and possibly a bit too much.
4) Maybe combat should remove the step where you wait for the opponent to make decisions to make the game fully asynchronous.
No one complained about *any* of these things though. (The last one will only matter for online versions someday). Everyone who plays the game seems to really like it as it is. So which, if any of these things are worth caring about? None? All? Just one? It's not clear at all how to address any of those things even if we did care. And it seems unlikely to be able to address all of them. Probably some tradeoffs will make it so that fixing one of those problems would just make a different one of the problems worse. Who knows.
The last time I tried to make Codex more asynchronous, the first step was "just let it be totally terrible, try it, and see if that sparks any ideas. If not, we can just revert it all to what it was before." That worked well, so I tried that technique again here. It was pretty difficult to think of any system that could address all those points, but at least some things line up. If blocking could somehow happen "automatically" then that means it would probably end up faster, probably end up less confusing, and probably end up with defense being a bit weaker.
After thinking through a new system for about a week, I had something to try, at least. When I tried it against a friend, immediately on turn 1 it was terrible. I had thought through many examples of how it would go mid-game, but I hadn't really thought about turn 1 when you don't have much in play.
So we abandoned that idea and improvised a variation of it. What if you had a "patrol zone" and any units or heroes you put there would automatically block? It turns out that many possible ways to handle "automatically block" involve really complicated rules, so how about the attacker gets to choose exactly how the blockers block? That makes defense hugely weaker, so to make up for it somewhat, after each attacker is blocked by one patroller, if there are any remaining patrollers then they get to "harass" and deal their damage for free without getting hit back.
It turns out, this actually worked fairly well. You don't decide the specifics of how your guys will block, but you do decide which guys will block at all and which are "in the back row" protected by your patrollers. This worked well sometimes, though were several frustrating situations that came up where the opponent choosing blockers in the most favorable way was just too favorable. Sometimes it was fine though. All attempts to make this more fair to the defending player made it much, much more complicated though. As soon as you try to make up some algorithm about exactly how these blocks happen, there are just tons of loopholes and special cases you have to take into account, and it sucks.
So I tried coming at it from a different angle. Instead of trying to really fix these problems, how about just a small step toward fixing them? Then we can see how that goes. That step was to let you say that one of your patrolling guys is a "patrol leader." That patrol leader always automatically blocks the attacker with the highest attack power (or the attacker chooses if it's a tie). I was very surprised how much difference this made. It wasn't a small step, it was a huge step. It felt like an actual working system. The ability to choose which of your guys patrol at all AND which will block their most threatening thing makes the automated blocking system function a lot better than I would have ever guessed.
There was also another implication I hadn't thought of until playing this experimental, fully asynchronous version. Each turn in Codex, there's a step where you modify your deck a bit. In live play, if it really is asynchronous (so you don't make any decisions during your opponent's turn), then their turn is the natural time for you do that step where you modify your deck. That way no one is waiting on you to do that and it actually flows very well. We weren't able to it that way before because during the opponent's turn, in the old days the opponent is constantly having to ask if you want to respond to this or that, so it wasn't a good time for you to do the deck-modifying step.
Anyway, I updated about 1/3rd of the cards in the game to function correctly in this new fully asynchronous version. Playtesters liked it so much that they said the whole game should be converted to this. It's faster to play, easier to understand, and still had the parts of the game they liked. One person said it was like a more concentrated version, in that it was delivering a similar kind of fun as before, but in less time. Another player said he had no idea why any of these changes were made because he wasn't around for any discussions, but that just playing the newer version with no context, it was "far more accessible." He liked it a lot, so I have since converted all cards in the game to work with this new combat system, held another playtest with even more players, and they liked it too.
There is currently no work on an online version of Codex (maybe a kickstarter for it someday?) but when it eventually does exist, the ability to play like 10 simultaneous, asynchronous games of it is going to be pretty awesome. And the current players who are trying the live version and not even thinking about online stuff have so far all approved it due to faster play time and less confusion. I actually like that offense is a bit better now so we don't get locked up board states where no one can do anything for a while.
Codex has been through several major system changes, and each time it seems to have emerged a bit more streamlined and with various new and good properties. Hopefully all these experiments will have been worth it once you can finally play it too. Lots of art development is going on right now, so it's getting there.
Photo by:A.S Nagpal
"Paint War Engagement Session"
oh my fucking god i can’t even take how cute this is
THIS IS SO CUTE.
If you’re a boy writer, it’s a simple rule: you’ve gotta get used to the fact that you suck at writing women and that the worst women writer can write a better man than the best male writer can write a good woman. And it’s just the minimum. Because the thing about the sort of heteronormative masculine privilege, whether it’s in Santo Domingo, or the United States, is you grow up your entire life being told that women aren’t human beings, and that women have no independent subjectivity. And because you grow up with this, it’s this huge surprise when you go to college and realize that, “Oh, women aren’t people who does my shit and fucks me.”
And I think that this a huge challenge for boys, because they want to pretend they can write girls. Every time I’m teaching boys to write, I read their women to them, and I’m like, “Yo, you think this is good writing?” These motherfuckers attack each other over cliche lines but they won’t attack each other over these toxic representations of women that they have inherited… their sexist shorthand, they think that is observation. They think that their sexist distortions are insight. And if you’re in a writing program and you say to a guy that their characters are sexist, this guy, it’s like you said they fucking love Hitler. They will fight tooth and nail because they want to preserve this really vicious sexism in the art because that is what they have been taught.
And I think the first step is to admit that you, because of your privilege, have a very distorted sense of women’s subjectivity. And without an enormous amount of assistance, you’re not even going to get a D. I think with male writers the most that you can hope for is a D with an occasional C thrown in. Where the average women writer, when she writes men, she gets a B right off the bat, because they spent their whole life being taught that men have a subjectivity. In fact, part of the whole feminism revolution was saying, “Me too, motherfuckers.” So women come with it built in because of the society.
It’s the same way when people write about race. If you didn’t grow up being a subaltern person in the United States, you might need help writing about race. Motherfuckers are like ‘I got a black boy friend,’ and their shit sounds like Klan Fiction 101.
The most toxic formulas in our cultures are not pass down in political practice, they’re pass down in mundane narratives. It’s our fiction where the toxic virus of sexism, racism, homophobia, where it passes from one generation to the next, and the average artist will kill you before they remove those poisons. And if you want to be a good artist, it means writing, really, about the world. And when you write cliches, whether they are sexist, racist, homophobic, classist, that is a fucking cliche. And motherfuckers will kill you for their cliches about x, but they want their cliches about their race, class, queerness. They want it in there because they feel lost without it. So for me, this has always been the great challenge.
As a writer, if you’re really trying to write something new, you must figure out, with the help of a community, how can you shed these fucking received formulas. They are received. You didn’t come up with them. And why we need fellow artists is because they help us stay on track. They tell you, “You know what? You’re a bit of a fucking homophobe.” You can’t write about the world with these simplistic distortions. They are cliches. People know art, always, because they are uncomfortable. Art discomforts. The trangressiveness of art has to deal with confronting people with the real. And sexism is a way to avoid the real, avoiding the reality of women. Homophobia is to avoid the real, the reality of queerness. All these things are the way we hide from encountering the real. But art, art is just about that.
”
Dirty Coursebooks by Pavel Fuksa and Karolina Galácz
With the announcement of Porn Studies, an academic journal dedicated to the exploration of gittin’ it on, Pavel and Karolina created these Penguin-style educational books, each focused on various interdisciplinary branches of pornography such as bukkake, squirting, and making me giggle uncontrollably.
Considering I secretly want to design book covers for a living, this is quite appealing…
this is epic. i would actually read them all.
Jake Eakleclick through for good poetry
Friday, September 6 — 1:00 PM
The Koppaites definitely seem to be fans of meat in Pikmin 3′s dialogue, so I have to wonder why they never feast on the enormous remains of their predators. And Louie’s write-ups in Pikmin 2 hint at just about everything on PNF-404 being edible and delicious. True, this large diplopod probably doesn’t have bones, but it’s the quickest way to get across the idea of a giant barbecue without making it look kind of disgusting.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite finish editing the newest Pikmin-related podcast in time, so that’ll have to wait until Tuesday. However, for those of you that want to hear me talk games sooner than that, I have made an appearance on Show Me Your News.com’s podcast! The link is here, but it’s rated PG-13 for language, so younger readers should just move on by and check back on Tuesday!
There are some site snafus going on thanks to some jerk out there in the ether, but we’re working on getting everything back to normal, so stand by.
-By Matthew
Amber & Derek - Cha Cha - DWTS 17 (Opening Night) (by TheVocalVault)
SHE KILLED IT
SHE KILLED ME
I’M DEAD
mama, YESSSSSSS. so good. i love seeing big, curvy ladies killin’ it like this on the dancefloor. BOOM.
In the early years of space flight, both Russians and Americans used pencils in space. Unfortunately, pencil lead is made of graphite, a highly conductive material. Snapped graphite leads and particles in zero gravity are hugely problematic, as they will get sucked into the air ventilation or electronic equipment, easily causing shorts or fires in the pure oxygen environment of a capsule.
After the fire in Apollo 1 which killed all the astronauts on board, NASA required a writing instrument that wasn’t a fire hazard. Fisher spent over a million dollars (of his own money) creating a pressurized ball point pen, which NASA bought at $2.95 each. The Russian space program also switched over from pencils shortly after.
40 years later snide morons on the internet still snigger about it, because snide morons on the internet never know what they are talking about.
Jessica Williams proposes applying New York’s Stop and Frisk policy to Wall Street bankers.
This all day.
Oh yes.
This a Moonmelon, scientifically knows as asidus. This fruit grows in some parts of Japan, and is known for its vibrant blue color. What you probably don’t know about this fruit is that it can switch flavors after you eat it. Everything sour will taste sweet, everything salty will taste bitter, and it gives water a strong orange-like taste. It’s also very expensive…costing about ￥16000 JPY (which is about 200 dollars).
or you know this could be photoshopped
but idk
you tell me
this is alexandrias melon (wow)
it never grows seeds but it can still produce other melons (its magic)
it is grown deep in the jungles of peru and can prevent you from aging well into the hundreds
it is known by the natives there as k’uhul ajaw cacao shi-jiiy.
its really strange how all of these pictures look exactly the same because everything on the internet is true
This is the Peppermeloni. (seriously gosh just look at that sexy mother fucker) Its scientific name is Tumblrous Pepperonus.
The only known specimen is in a pot in David Karps treasure dungeon. It is a tradition that a single slice is given to every tumblr blog that reaches 500,000 followers.
It has the remarkable property of being as healthy as watermelon but tasting like cheesy pepperoni pizza.
This planet is really just so amazing guys wow.
Patrickmelon
The taste of this melon will always surprise you.
I’m fucking done with this site
Yao Ming recently launched a public awareness campaign in china targeting the nation’s consumption of ivory and rhino horn, after having spent twelve days last august in kenya and south africa.
poaching kills more than 25,000 african elephants annually, while 668 rhinos were killed last year in south africa alone, meaning that if current trends are not abated, both species will be extinct within our lifetime.
according to shark fin traders and hong kong import statistics, yao’s previous campaign against the shark fin trade is credited with a 50-70% reduction in chinese consumption last year.
"no one who sees the results firsthand, as i did, would buy ivory or rhino horn," yao stated. “i believe when people in china know what’s happening they will do the right thing and say no to these products."
he continued, “we would be outraged if people were killing our pandas. we should be just as upset with what’s happening to rhinos and elephants in africa."
photos (including a baby elephant orphaned by poachers) by kristian schmidt in kenya for WildAid. from yao ming’s blog.
Respect.
Well done!
Do not watch this if you are offended by the Daily Mail, tabloid newspapers, or nipples.
Amanda addresses the recent Daily Mail article on her Glastonbury Festival “nipple slip"… as directly as possible, through the medium of song.
You’ve probably never heard of Jackie Ormes and that’s a goddamn tragedy. But it’s not surprising—there is no “Jackie Ormes Omnibus" available on Amazon.com, no “Collected Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger," no “Essential Torchy Brown." She won no awards, can be found in no hall of fame, and is usually treated as “an interesting find" by comic historians. She’s become a curio, a funny little facet of history, undiscovered, even, by today’s wave of geek-oriented feminism.
Jackie Ormes was the first African-American woman cartoonist. Yeah. That’s who we’re ignoring. Her work for the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender—both incredibly influential African-American newspapers—was utterly groundbreaking and remains unique, even in the context of modern comics. Her first work, Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem, featured the adventures of the titular Torchy, a stylish, intelligent young African-American woman who (feigning illiteracy) boards a whites-only train car to New York City and changes her life. Torchy’s story is a great, irreverent window into the migration of Southern-born African-Americans to the North, a movement that defined 20th-century America—but it is also the story of a girl on her own, living her own life and making her own choices. Torchy was an incredible aspirational figure, the likes of which barley exists in modern comics: an independent, optimistic, fashionable and adventurous black woman. Ormes would later revive Torchy’s story in Torchy in Heartbeats, a strip that introduced international adventure into the heroine’s life. In Heartbeats, Torchy traveled to South America, dated idealistic doctors, battled environmental exploitation and confronted racism at every turn. She was, frankly, awesome.
And then there was Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, her most successful and longest-running work. Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger was a single panel gag strip, like Family Circus—an illustration with a caption beneath it. Ginger was a beautiful, stylish young woman always accompanied by her little sister Patty-Jo, a clear-eyed, sardonic kid who spent most strips calling out the bullshit they endured on a daily basis as black women. Ormes’ talents shine through especially well in these little stories: her canny wit, the absolutely gorgeous clothes she drew her women in (seen also in her Torchy Togs paper dolls) and her skillful, succinct way of imparting to the reader just how goddamn stupid our society can be about gender and race. Patty-Jo is never shamed or taken down a peg for being an intelligent, outspoken little girl—in fact, she was made into a highly popular doll that wasn’t an obnoxious Topsy-style stereotype. She preceded Daria, Emily the Strange, Lian Harper, all those wry little girls we celebrate today—and yet, I see her on no t-shirts, can find her in no libraries. Patty-Jo is celebrated only in doll-collecting circles at this point, as the cute little symbol of a bygone age.
At Jackie Ormes’ height as a cartoonist, her work reached one million people per week. In the 1940s and 1950s, she reached one million people per week. She didn’t just surpass barriers—she leapt merrily over them. She introduced the general populace to a voice that had always existed, but was seldom heard—a voice that is still smothered today. She created African-American women who unapologetically enjoyed glamour, who pioneered their own futures, who refused to keep silent about the walls they found themselves scraping against every day. I haven’t even covered the half of it: Ormes was also an avid doll collector, served on the founding board of directors of the DuSable Museum of African-American history, and was targeted by the McCarthy-led witchhunts of the 1950s. Remember Jackie Ormes. Celebrate Jackie Ormes. Visit The Ormes Society and support the essential work they do. Keep her memory alive so that we may enjoy a million more Torchys and Patty-Jos in our comics—instead of the paltry handful we are offered today.
(First in a series on women in the comics industry.)
Jake EakleThe Old Reader suddenly regurgitated this post from 2008. I had forgotten it; it is.. quite something.
