Covid-19 Blues

[Goldengirl]

Maybe it's cliche to see if anyone is devoting time that they may be in lockdown to playing thorugh Spiderweb Software games. I, after all, am mostly not doing that. But, that said, what are y'all doing with your time in lockdown/shelter in place? And if you aren't in lockdown (because you have to work, presumably), what are you doing with the free time you have?

 

Aside from looking at some of my old games nostalgically, I have been reading much more voraciously than I have in a long time, calling my governmental representatives to beg for bailouts, and calling pretty much everyone in my phone contacts list.

[Randomizer]

I hurt my ribs when I woke up falling out of bed and hit the edge of my mattress, so I've been working my way through my DVD collection and replaying Queen's Wish. I hope someday to have figured out more of the endgame code by having tried enough different ending choices.

 

I went out yesterday shopping for food and walked by all the closed shops and ones that will only provide limited access. Retail is going online to avoid human contact with its customers.

[Enraged Slith]

Was a bartender. I've been furloughed until whenever all of this subsides, which, could mean a few months. Maybe more. Going from spending half of near every day on my feet and socializing for the past few years to sitting in my home with nothing to do is a weird transition. I'd been spending some time with my girlfriend and had planned on seeing friends here and there, but I've since decided that it would be better to put that all on hold.

 

I'd already played through GF4 after the GF1 Remaster announcement, and I'm plodding away through 5. Otherwise, it's been thinking of ways to get in proper exercise without access to the gym, continuing to pursue a cooking hobby without regular access to fresh ingredients or the sort of income I'd grown comfortable with, and enriching myself now that I have time to devote more than an hour here and there.

 

And sometimes feeling fortunate for the life I've been afforded. I almost lost a cat this past October. It cost me thousands in savings for vet bills, but perspective is the sound of her still pitter pattering around and purring on my chest. Staring down the looming threat of losing your income after a seasonal dry spell is similarly harrowing, but I'm not saddled with bills and I can comfortably ride this out. It's a similar feeling.

[Vinlie]

Replaying Geneforge series during the quarentine! 

[Alorael at Large]

I'm working in the hospital where, as everyone has publicized, we're having to be cautious and stretch supplies as we run low on personal protective equipment. We're all on edge, getting snippy in between medical teams, and everything not essential has been canceled.

 

—Alorael, who could do with some working from home. It'll happen when he ends up quarantined, probably.

[ladyonthemoon]

I cannot work from home so my employers and I have agreed that I should go work twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. It appears that I am struggling to make my own game, the first one; I use Unity as a game engine and Unity Technologies has made free a whole bunch of their courses; I have about 48 hours of courses to learn from during the next three months!  :d

 

On a side note, I would be very happy if Jeff created a course here about how to write your own game engine; It's something I've always dreamed being able to do. Don't misunderstand me, Unity is a great engine but it's big and very sophisticated and using it doesn't satisfy my curiosity about game engines.

 

 

Edited March 26, 2020 by ladyonthemoon

[Goldengirl]

I've considered playing through Geneforge, but it just feels too topical. I know diseases mostly aren't what gets Shaped, but they're nevertheless present. I've excluded Avernum 6 out of hand as well for this same reason. Fortunately, Jeff mostly doesn't seem very interested in diseases as plot devices; they're harder to kill with swords and fireballs, I suppose.

 

I'm in Washington state, where the governor just issued extra restrictions for our shelter-in-place order. Fortunately, I am still allowed to go out one (1) time per day for exercise purposes, walking my dogs. My pets have really been highly supportive of these quarantine measures, which I'm sure they think are entirely for their benefit.

[Unbound Servile]

I sleep all night and program all day;  which is what I would do too before the Coronavirus came about.

[Soul of Wit]

My employer has allowed me to work from home about half of the time in the past. I underwrite mortgage loans, so I'm the guy who says if you get the mortgage or not. The only change for me is that I currently work from home full time. We are absurdly busy in the mortgage business, due to never-ending low interest rates. I pretty much have to use paid time off to have any free time.

 

Stay healthy out there.

[Unbound Servile]

On 3/24/2020 at 9:17 AM, ladyonthemoon said:

It appears that I am struggling to make my own game, the first one; I use Unity as a game engine and Unity Technologies has made free a whole bunch of their courses; I have about 48 hours of courses to learn from during the next three months!  :d

ladyonthemoon, instead of using the convoluted (and horribly inefficient) Unity Engine, why don't you use Win32, with DXGI and D3D as the rendering backend? Depending on your experience in computer programming, getting started with anything DirectX may seem daunting at first, but once you've got everything set up, it is pretty easy to use. If you just need to render 2-dimensional graphics, you can use the much simpler (but less powerful) Direct2D instead. Considering your post, I assume you have no experience with DirectX; forgive me if I'm mistaken.

 

If you're interested in Jeff's code, you could take a look at the Blades of Exile source code. A little warning: this code was written early in Jeff's career and it ... it shows. The code is also outdated and cannot compile out-of-box on any modern operating system. However, the community has made an effort to rewrite Blades of Exile for modern computers. For what it's worth, Jeff has also written an article on writing more readable code.

Edited March 30, 2020 by Unbound Servile

[ladyonthemoon]

12 hours ago, Unbound Servile said:

For what it's worth, Jeff has also written an article on writing more readable code.

Thanks for the link. :)

 

I have no experience with DirectX and I like Unity which is why I'm using it. I don't like Unreal Engine; I don't know the others you mention and I don't have real time to study them so Unity it will be. My game is a 2D platformer, nothing fancy but I'd really like to make it work. :)

[Vanguard]

I'm one of those that is replaying Spiderweb games during the quarantine. So far I've replayed Avernum 1-3 and for the first time played Avernum 4-6, finishing the whole series. Playing them one after another was quite fun.

 

I've just started replay of Avadon series, after which I only have Queen's Wish left to replay with at least 30 more days of quarantine But the replayability of these games is great; I love revisiting them and have clocked an average of 100 hours per game which is great value for money!

 

I'm retired but starting to feel cooped up not being able to go out much.

[ThomasCats]

Just signed up here, played Exile 1-3 & Blades back in the nineties, got the virus for a couple of weeks and had a desire for 'something like that' and bought Queen's Wish the Conqueror, just finished that and found the big bundle of almost everything on Steam. Didn't even realise Avernum had got up to six, wonder how the Vahnatai coped with Rentar-Ihrno's failure.

Also doing some gardening, and a lot of cat stroking.

[TriRodent]

I finished up another run through A3RW last month & am contemplating another run through the Avadon universe after I finish/get tired of the current non-Sw game that's filling time.  After that I'll probably go back to Queen's Wish.  Probably, as a beta tester I got a little burned out about it a few months ago.  Hopefully by now I'll have forgotten enough/played enough other things to be able to enjoy it again ('not' that it's not an enjoyable game, far from it - I just had to play it in strange ways to try to break things - a 'normal' run through should be fun).

 

Anyway, things are fine/relatively normal around here.  Being sort of disabled/sort of retired, I spend a lot of time around here anyway.  My volunteer activities were shut down a while ago & I miss that/the people there, but it was for the best to do so.  MrsTR was sent home to work from there 6+ weeks ago by her employer (ahead of the state shutting things down).  So other than a couple of stocking/restocking up trips to the grocery store we've been more or less isolated here for closing in on two months.  However, thanks to phone/computer I/we've probably been in touch with parents/siblings/other family/friends more in the past few weeks than we have over the past few months.  Thankfully everyone is still healthy & for the most part employed.  Sadly, with spring ... er ... sprunging, the grass is growing & I fear that I'll be out driving the mower in ever decreasing circles over the next few days...ah well, that certainly falls into 'first world problems'

 

Stay safe & healthy everyone.

[ladyonthemoon]

Any news of Jeff?

[Randomizer]

3 hours ago, ladyonthemoon said:

Any news of Jeff?

Jeff's busy making the Geneforge remake and has coded the first 3 zones of about 80.

[ladyonthemoon]

2 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

Jeff's busy making the Geneforge remake and has coded the first 3 zones of about 80.

That's not what I was asking but it kinda answers the question. He and his family are okay I guess?

[Randomizer]

Oh, Jeff hasn't tweeted any problems. His Twitter feed mentions watching old shows, playing computer games, and going back to his basement to work. I guess he won't take any vacations this summer.

[ladyonthemoon]

5 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

... I guess he won't take any vacations this summer.

Many people won't either.