January 2004 Archives

In Programming for Digital Media, I am building a game of Hex to eventually support a multi-player component over the Internet. The game currently requires two people to play at the same computer, alternating turns.

Hex is played on a diamond-shaped board made up of hexagons. Alternate sides of the board are designated purple and black, and the goal of the game is to complete a chain of pieces between two sides of the same color. The game cannot end in a draw since no chain can be completely blocked except by a complete chain of the opposite color.

To play, just click on my Hex logo and have a little fun with someone. Thanks to Eric Willis in the Multimedia Tutor lab for figuring out why Director was behaving strangely with my code.

Nintendo revealed on Tuesday the first details of their "mystery" game device which they have only hinted at previously. The Nintendo DS, which stands for Dual Screen, will house two separate 3" LCD displays for unique gaming possibilities. Scheduled to be announced during this year's Electronics Entertainment Expo in May, the device is set to ship before the end of the year. Read the article from Gamespy.

Finally finished my midterm project for Web Site Design early this morning, I stayed up until 6AM putting the finishing touches on it. The assignment was to create a site about a place you have lived, to be interpreted loosely. So, having spent a great portion of my life, so far, playing video games, it seemed natural to me to construct a site around my favorite of all game consoles: the Nintendo Gamecube. In it you will find references to some of the greatest video games of all time, and reasons why I have logged so many hours playing Nintendo games. Many of the graphical elements were provided by Nintendo, however I composited and manipulated several different images in Photoshop to come up with the consistent look and feel of the site. I hope it's as enjoyable for you as it was for me to make.

Destination: Gamecube

I haven't been just sitting around playing games these last few days, though the project I'm working on is as fun as playing one. For the Programming for Digital Media class I'm taking this quarter (4002-434) we are working on a concept called: Smart Agents. These agents are characters of our own design, though referred to as Turtles based on their similarities to those of the Logo programming language. I chose to draw Scorpions as my smart agents, both for the play on words and for their gangly legs and tails which serve to add to the desired effect: they dance around the stage changing color and direction like a kaleidoscope - hence the name: Kaleidoscorpions!

It's not entirely done yet, though it's rather entertaining in its current form, just click on the image or the link above to view the movie. I still have to add an element of user interaction, and I plan on animating each individual scorpion. Stay tuned!

Update: Kaleidoscorpions is completed!

Play Kaleidoscorpions