Author Archives: Anthony Messina

Vacation at Olympic National Park

Went to Olympic National Park this past weekend with Amara, Jin, and Eileen, and we all had a blast! It was the best trip since Tahoe. Dr. Eileen dropped in from California, and we hastily planned a trip to the park. We avoided both the summer crowds and the fall rains (for the most part). My favorite parts were Second Beach in La Push, and the Blackberry Cafe on Highway 112. Can’t wait to do it again!

2014 Picture Dump

A Darker Day

Before going further, I wanted to write an update on last summer’s microtransaction purchases. It didn’t turn out well.

Total cards purchased: 18
Total foil cards purchased: 2
Total cost: $8.09

Total items in inventory: 16
Current market value: $1.76

Net profit (loss): -$6.33

You can’t beat the market, folks.

MetalX Update

The newest update is available here.

I put it up mainly to showcase the new sprites and animations. They’re all created from a single 200×200 spritesheet. The size and animation cell lengths are arbitrary. Each room pulls its own tiles from where it wants. If no tiles are assigned, the room will paint itself in a single color. This is my first built-from-scratch engine animation.tileset

Behind the scenes, I’ve added blueprints. Blueprints are a set of rooms that are independent of a ship and its rooms. It allows the ship to add/remove rooms from itself based on its blueprint (probably a better word for ‘blueprint’ would be ‘schematic’). A blueprint can be given to any number of ships. I’ve also prebuilt blueprints for testing purposes: a smaller ship as seen in 1.1.0.2, and a gigantic ship. These can be swapped by one line of code.

The other major change was redoing the way controls work. Now they’re a lot more robust, with panels, texts, and rotations all built in. The tabbed group on the right is another type of control. Eventually I want most of the commands available via similar sliding controls.

For awhile, there was a way to add additional blueprints and the ability to create ships based off of those blueprints. You could then “launch” those ships (really just shooting a ship out of a hangar room just like a bullet). These weren’t the actual blueprints as explained above, so when I added the real blueprints, this ability got borked. It will be back!

To make future builds easier, I created my first .bat file. It creates a folder onto the desktop, copies the javascript and image files into it, and then merges all the .js files into one. I then create the obfuscated .js file, make a shitty HTML5 page, and upload it all to the site. Still takes long than I’d like, but it’s getting there. I had to hardcode the .js files into the .bat file since I couldn’t parse the HTML file correctly. The file is shown below. Edited for readability.

set today=%date:~10,4%_%date:~7,2%_%date:~4,2%
set now=%TIME:~0,2%_%TIME:~3,2%_%TIME:~6,2%
Set targetDir=%userprofile%\Desktop\MetalX_%today%_%now%
Set sourceDir=”%userprofile%\Desktop\My Dropbox\workspace\MetalX”
md %targetDir%
xcopy /s/e %sourceDir%\js %targetDir%
PING -n 5 127.0.0.1>nul
for /d %f in (%targetDir%\*) do copy %f %targetDir%
md %targetDir%\images
copy %sourceDir%\images\ %targetDir%\images\
copy %sourceDir%\metalx.html %targetDir%
cd %targetDir%
copy requestAnimationFrame.js+vector2d.js+…+metalx.js MetalX_1.1.0.2_unobfuscated.js

A Dark Day in History

I bought micro-transactions today. Not even for a game. For Steam trading cards. I have failed life.

I had four out of ten. So I bought the remaining six. Then I bought another set of ten. Just to see if I’m right in that the prices will eventually go up and I can make a buck each on them. Putting my money where my mouth is, I guess. Since I’m afraid of buying into a bull market, this will have to placate my investing desires.

My Internet privileges should be revoked.

Summer Picture Dump

So many activities in so little time. I can’t believe my life is this busy!

 

Adventures in Space with MS Paint: There’s No Sound in Space

Well, the first alpha version of Metal X is out, version 1.1.0.1.

I’m elated how quickly this is coming along. HTML5 is fantastic because I don’t have to compile anything, and it’s available on the internet right out of the box. Javascript is okay, and I know I’m doing things wrong (my developing tool Firebug doesn’t know how to read my function names), but it’s workable. Learning as I go. I’ll probably buy Sublime Text 3 when it comes out, as I’m currently using ST2. I’m looking forward to adding each new game feature, and I get excited visualizing how I want the game to end up.

In the immediate future, you will be able to build ships from your fleet blueprints, launch and recall those ships, and send crew onto planets and watch them run around. I wrote a 15-point To Do list to achieve this, and it’s taken me a week just to get through the first two. Building buttons and text boxes from scratch is not sexy. But it was worth it, and I’m proud that they work. I did that.

Eventually they’ll be starmaps, and enemies you can shoot down, and factions, and multi-tile rooms for bigger and better weapons, engines, command centers, and more. First I’m focusing on building up your ship and fleet. Then comes advanced crew missions and orders. Then enemies and allies and collision detection in space. And then story mode. Maybe. Oh, and music and better visuals. Or I’ll just rename it to Adventures in Space with MS Paint: There’s No Sound in Space and call it a day.

 

It’s not 1.0.0.1 because I got rid of a build mode where it zoomed in on your ship and time slowed down. It looks cool and is still in the game, and I hope to use it later (to set repairs and see your crew / boarders). The build mode is now Blueprint mode, which for now just edits your fleet’s blueprints, but will eventually edit your main ship’s blueprint as well.

And it’s not 1.1.0.0 because there was a game crashing bug when exiting out of the text box. Yay for last minute code changes!

So it’s 1.1.0.1. I think. I’m not exactly sure about version history numbering.

I used http://javascriptobfuscator.com/ to obfuscate the code to deter offshoots and stealing. Like that’s going to happen. Next time I’ll try using the instructions from http://www.thetechhub.com/2010/04/combine-text-files-into-one-with-single.html instead of copy/pasting 20 .js files into one file by hand. Oh me.

Holy Fuck I Did It

I emailed four government people today (Obama, two congress people, and my representative), and even posted to facebook about it. I’ve never written a letter, and I can’t remember the last time I posted on Facebook. I’m probably I’ll go to a protest on July 4th, too.

Below is the full text of what I sent, plus a modified paragraph I sent specifically to Obama. Maybe it matters. Maybe it doesn’t. The fact is I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and couldn’t sleep until this was done. It’s 5:40 now. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.

Oh, and fuck Hoover.

 

Subject: End sweeping surveillance programs

Dear congress person,

The recent revelations concerning the NSA and Edward Snowden inspired me to write to you today. It doesn’t matter what Mr. Snowden has done, what his educational background is, or what he decides to do next. What matters is he’s right. He’s right in that eventually, the information gained by the NSA and our government will be used, by one or many persons, against the public for less-than-wholesome reasons. History has seen what the vengeful and paranoid have done. Imagine what they would do with the technological advances of today.

My first letter to an elected official probably should have been about the U.S. drone program. Military involvement is my most important issue, as far as the federal government is concerned. Everyone has their own values. Defense, education, social equity, the environment. But whatever our opinions may be are moot unless we live in a free and open society, and have leaders who will listen.

My first letter concerns PRISM, all other programs like it, and the direction U.S. policies and intelligence agencies are headed, because they have the potential to destroy free societies. With enough information, a picture can be painted on anyone to discredit them no matter how innocent they may be. The more information that can be used, the worse it can get.

It doesn’t matter if the surveillance programs are currently being used for just causes, and everybody involved is acting with their best intentions. It doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s just meta-data, targeted querying, or reviewed via warrants or subpoenas, or if the data is given voluntarily. The fact is that some time down the line, a person or persons will be in put charge, and they will not think twice about using the collected information to attack what they believe to be their enemies, wrong or right, legal or no.

We can let the future become that. Let it get so bad that there’s no turning back, when letters and rallies and public discourse won’t matter anymore. Or we can stop it now. Begin stopping it, before it gets too late.

Ideally, I would like the end to the NSA and all surveillance done on the public in general, foreign and domestic. Also, I would like to see a return of a transparent judicial system, with traditional public oversight and review, without programs like FISA and secret interpretations of the law.

Thanks for reading.

Modified paragraph for Mr. President:

My first letter probably should have been about the U.S. drone program. While I believed in most of your promises in 2008, Mr. President, your actions lost my vote in 2012. Military involvement is my most important issue, as far as the federal government is concerned. And everyone’s values are different. Defense, education, social equity, the environment. But whatever our opinions may be are moot unless we live in a free and open society, and have leaders who will listen.

People contacted:

The White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

Maria Cantwell

http://www.cantwell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/email-maria

Patty Murray

www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactme

Derek Kilmer

https://kilmer.house.gov/contact/email-me

Getting back into a routine (I hope)

We just returned from the Y. Since the 5k April 14th, I’ve been out jogging three times. Three times for a whole month. Disgraceful! But today’s a new beginning, the start of the rest of my life, turning a new leaf. Be the change you want to see in the world. These are the lies I tell myself daily 😀

Did the 5k stunt my drive to work out?

Growing up I hated competition. It revealed a rabid, hateful Anthony. I remember in middle school, getting angry and roughing up other kids in basketball. Playing softball freshman year of high school, swearing up a storm for missing a pitch. And this was just in normal gym class! I don’t recall the anger playing strangers in elementary school, though. Maybe it’s just when I compete with friends.

Running is a lot more personal to me. It’s not you versus another. It’s yourself against the world. It’s your will against your body. You versus you. Running the 5k turned running into a comparison against others. Now I could just race against myself, trying to beat my last time. But I don’t need an official score tracker for that.