A Word About The Polish Gaming Market

Last January, I was travelling in the European east. The main purpose of this trip was to finish my post-doctorate research about "Advergames: games as marketing tools" that I developed with Paneurópska vysoká škola at Bratislava (Slovakia). I presented the results and it was great (one more trophy achieved on the academic game).

After some days in Bratislava, I travelled to Kiev (Ukraine) and then to Krakow (Poland). In the last part of this trip, in Poland, I visited one awesome gaming studio named Moonlit. Knowing that the Polish land is a great market for games, I sent some e-mails trying to contact people from the local industry to share some ideas and discover new points of view. I talked to Mateusz Wanatowicz, PR and marketing specialist in Moonlit Games. Below, I surmised our conversation, sharing highlights of the polish gaming industry, Moonlit projects and an overview of polish gaming market.

1.Why do we need to pay attention to the Polish gaming market?

Well, it's one very important market in the central Europe. According to the last Newzoo gaming research, the country (with a population of 34 million people) has profited around 500 million dollars with gaming products. In comparison to Brazil - a country with 210 million people and a profit of 1.3 billion dollars in the gaming market - it's a very interesting emergent market to pay attention to.





2. About Moonlit Games studio

Moonlit is a gaming studio and a software house. In 2018, the company started to produce two authorial projects: Playerless - an arcade game where you need to fix bugs and the NPCs to run it correctly (PC); and Ignis - a battle arena game with wizards, sorcery and combats (PC and Xbox). Below, you can check some trailers and contents from both games.








3. Some aspects of the Polish gaming industry 

It is a promising industry as we saw in the first topic. According to Wanatowicz, the government of Poland sees this industry as a profitable area to invest money in and an entry door for many startups and small initiatives for new business. Wanatowicz highlighted that big events, games jams and young talents are receiving support from the government; and, another important point: careers in gaming area (coding, game designing, 3D art etc.) are also prominent in the academic area.

Another important thing to mention is the fact that the games from the series "The Witcher" were a way to present the Polish gaming industry to the whole world.

It is important to say that board games and card games have a main role in this context too. Local production of analogic games is growing year by year.

4.Polish gamers

Wanatowicz also said that Polish gamers, in a general way, support the local industry and they are proud of the national industry and gaming production.

5.A final message to the Gaming Conceptz audience

Mateusz Wanatowicz emphasizes that part of the success of a gaming industry is about how government, gamer community, studios/companies and universities can join powers to create a fertile ecosystem for different kinds of projects. Big initiatives as "The Witcher" series are fundamental, but supporting indie studios, small startups, events and clear marketing rules are also a key for a good gaming market.



Note: check Moonlit works in the official site and social media by clicking in the links!

#GoGamers

What I've Learned From Programming Languages

I just finished up learning about fourteen new programming languages, and while my head may still be spinning, I've been struck by one thing about learning new languages. Every single new language I learn teaches me something new and valuable about programming. Some languages reveal many new things because they happen to be the first language I've learned based on a new programming paradigm, and other languages may expose only one or two new ideas because they overlap quite a lot with languages I already know. Every language has shown me at least one new thing, though, so I thought I'd take a look back and pick out one thing learned from each language I've encountered. Some of these languages I've used extensively and others I've barely scratched the surface, so I may miss some great insights in the languages less well-known to me, but that's okay. There's still plenty to reflect on.

Logo
Logo was my first programming language. Of all of the introductory programming concepts it taught me, the main thing I learned from Logo was how to give the computer instructions in order to accomplish a goal. What exactly did I need to type in to get that turtle to move the way I wanted it to? I had to be precise and not make any mistakes because the computer could only do exactly what it was told. When things went awry, I had no one or nothing to blame but myself.

QBasic
My programming journey really started with QBasic. As with Logo, I learned a ton of things from it because it was one of the first languages I learned, but since I'm going to pick only one thing, I'm going with fun. QBasic showed me that programming could be fun, and that I loved solving coding puzzles and writing basic arcade games in it. For me, QBasic was the gateway to the entire programming world and it was where the fun all began.

Pascal
Pascal was the first language I learned through study and coursework in high school. Of all the things I learned with Pascal, the one thing that stands out most in my memory is functions. Learning how variables and control structures worked came easily to me, but function declarations, definitions, and calls were the first programming abstraction that really stretched my mind. The fact that the argument names in the function call could be different than the parameter names in the function definition, as well as the rules surrounding function scoping all took time to full assimilate. It would not be the last time a programming concept would challenge my understanding, and every time it does, it inspires me to learn even more about programming.

C
The primary abstraction I learned in C was pointers, and with that comes memory allocation. Pointers are an extremely powerful, confusing, and dangerous tool. With them, you can write elegant, concise algorithms for all kinds of problems, and you'll come back to the code later and have no idea how it works. Most languages try to temper and wrap pointers in soft packaging so they can be used more easily and cause less damage. C leaves them raw and exposed so you can use them to their full potential, but you have to be careful to use them wisely or spend hours debugging segmentation faults (or worse).

C++
The first object-oriented language I learned was C++, so of course, the one thing I learned about was classes (and objects and methods and inheritance and polymorphism and encapsulation. This all counts as one thing, right? I won't even mention all of the other new things I learned in C++.) Object-oriented programming was a huge paradigm shift, and not just for me, but for all programmers. That shift came for me with C++, and it was an entirely new way to organize and structure programs. With OOP, programs could support more complexity with less code so we could all write bigger, buggier software. Yay!

Java
I'm trying to keep this list in roughly the order I learned languages, so Java is next. Java finally did away with manual memory management with the introduction of a garbage collector. I actually had to learn to not worry so much about memory, and that took some time after all the scars left by C and C++. Having the language and runtime handle memory allocation and deallocation was liberating and more than a little disconcerting. At the time computers were just getting enough memory to make this form of memory management possible, but now we don't even think twice about using garbage collected languages for most things. Ah, the luxury of 16GB of RAM.

MIPS Assembly
I was in college going down the technology stack while studying computer architecture, so I learned how to program in assembly language with MIPS. MIPS taught me many things, but let's focus on register allocation. All of those variables, arguments, parameters, addresses and constants have to be managed somewhere in the processor, and that place is the register file. Depending on the processor, you may have anywhere from 8 to 32 (or more) named registers to work with, and much of assembly programming is figuring out how to efficiently get all of the program values you need in and out of that register file to use it most efficiently. Programming in assembly dramatically increased my appreciation for compilers.

Verilog HDL
Even further down the technology stack from assembly language is the physical digital gates of the processor, made up of transistors. It turns out that there are a couple programming languages that describe them, and they are aptly named hardware description languages. Verilog is the one I learned first (VHDL is largely the same, just three times more verbose), and it taught me about fine-grained, massively parallel programming. It's the ultimate concurrent programming language because everything, and I mean everything, in a Verilog program happens at once. Every bit of every variable moves through its combinational logic at the same time. The only way to manage this colossal network of signals is with a clock and flip-flops to create a state of the machine that changes over synchronized time periods. It's an entirely different way to program, and it's programming how you want the hardware of a digital circuit to behave.

SKILL
SKILL was the first scripting language I learned, and it was a proprietary language embedded in the super-expensive semiconductor design software called Cadence. Little did I know at the time, but SKILL is also a Lisp dialect. I did not learn much about functional programming with SKILL because it allowed parentheses to be used like this: append(list1 list2) and statements could be delimited with semicolons. However, it still had car, cdr, and cons, and there were still plenty of parentheses. What I learned without realizing it was how to program using lists as the main data (and code) abstraction. It was a powerful way to extend the functionality of Cadence, and to program in general.

MATLAB
My first mathematical programming was done with MATLAB. The one thing above all else that I learned in MATLAB was how to program with matrices to do linear algebra, statistical analysis, and digital signal processing in code. The abstractions provided for doing this kind of computing were powerful and made solving these kinds of problems easy and elegant. (To be clear, the matrix code was elegant. The rest of it, not so much.)

LabView
Yes, I'm not ashamed to say I learned a graphical programming language. Well, maybe a little ashamed. LabView taught me that for certain kinds of programming problems, laying the program out like a circuit can actually be a reasonably clear and understandable way to solve the problem. These types of problems mostly involve interfacing with a lot of external hardware that generates signals that would make sense to lay out in a schematic. LabView also taught me that you can never get a monitor big enough to effectively program in LabView.

Objective-C
I explored iOS programming for a short time around iOS 4, and the thing that I really loved about Objective-C was the named parameters in functions. While it may seem to make function calls unnecessarily verbose, naming the parameters eliminates a lot of confusion and allows literals to be used much more often without sacrificing readability. It turns out to be a pleasantly descriptive way to write functions, and I found that it made code much more clear and understandable.

Ruby
There is so much to love about Ruby, but I'm limiting myself to one thing so for this exercise I'm going to go with code blocks. Being able to wrap up snippets of code to pass into functions so that it can be called by the function as needed is an incredibly awesome abstraction. Plus code blocks are closures, and that just increases their usefulness. I think code blocks are one of the most elegant and beautiful programming abstractions I've learned, and I still remember the giddy feeling I got the first time I grokked them.

JavaScript
JavaScript is the first prototypical language I learned. Programming with objects, but not classes, was a shocking experience. After spending so much time in OOP land, learning how to create objects from other objects and then change their parameters to suite the needs of the problem can be a powerful programming paradigm. There aren't that many different programming paradigms, so every chance to learn a new one is a valuable experience. It teaches you so much about entirely new ways to solve problems and organize your code.

CoffeeScript
I learned CoffeeScript in tandem with Ruby on Rails, since it's the default language used for coding front-end interfaces. With CoffeeScript, I learned about transpiling—the act of compiling one programming language into another instead of an assembly language. CoffeeScript is neither interpreted nor compiled into an assembly language, but instead it's compiled into JavaScript to run in the browser (or Node.js). Learning that you don't have to live with JavaScript's warts if you would rather transpile from another language was certainly eye opening, and pleasantly so.

Python
List comprehensions are to Python what code blocks are to Ruby. It's amazing how much you can express in a simple one line list comprehension. You can map. You can filter. You can process files. You can do much more than that, too. List comprehensions are an excellent feature, and they make Python programming exciting and fun. They are a scalpel, though, and not a chain saw. The best list comprehensions are neat little cuts in code. If you try to make one big one do everything you need to a list, it's going to get complicated and confusing real fast. List comprehensions are a precision tool that solves many kinds of little problems very well.

C#
When Microsoft designed C#, they tried to put everything in it. Then they kept adding more with each release of the language. Somehow through it all, they managed to make a fairly decent and usable language with some nice features. One of the best features that was new to me is delegates. A delegate is basically a special-purpose list of function pointers. Classes can add one of their functions to the delegate of another class. Then the class that has the delegate can call all of the functions attached to the delegate when certain things happen, like when a button in a UI is clicked, for example. This abstraction turns out to be exactly what's needed to make GUI programming elegant and clean. It not only works for the UI, but for all of the different asynchronous events happening in a GUI program.

Scheme
My first experience with a functional language that I knew was a functional language was with Scheme. Learning how powerful functional programming can be was another eye-opening experience, as learning any new programming paradigm can be. Part of what makes functional programming so expressive is how natural it is to use recursion to solve problems. Recursion is used in Scheme like pointers are used in C. It's the other fundamental programming abstraction.

Io
We have finally gotten to the latest languages I learned in quick succession with the 7 in 7 books. Io is the second prototypical language I've encountered, and while it is much simpler than JavaScript, it seems much more flexible as well. I learned that pretty much the behavior of the entire language is controlled by the functions in certain slots of an object, and these slots can be changed to completely change the behavior of the language, add new syntax, and create custom DSLs on the fly. It's incredibly powerful and, well, scary. The ability to change so much about a language while your program is running is fascinating.

Prolog
So far we have procedural, object-oriented, prototypical, and functional programming paradigms. Prolog introduces another one: logic programming. In logic programming you don't so much write a program to solve a problem as you write facts and rules that describe the problem and have the computer search for the solution. It's an entirely different way to program, and when this paradigm fits the problem well, it feels like magic. The fundamental abstraction that you learn in logic programming is pattern matching, where you write rules that include variables and both sides of each rule need to match up. There is no assignment in the normal sense, though, and one program can generate multiple solutions because multiple combinations of values are attempted for the set of variables. Prolog will definitely change the way you think about programming.

Scala
The one thing to learn with Scala is concurrency done well with actors and messages. Actors can be defined with message loops to receive and process messages, and they can be spawned as separate threads. Then, threads can send messages to these actors to do work concurrently. The actor model of concurrency is a lot safer than many of the models that came before it, and it will help programmers develop much more stable concurrent programs to utilize all of those extra cores we now have available in modern processors.

Erlang
If Scala taught me something about concurrency, Erlang taught me how to take concurrency to the extreme. With Erlang, concurrency is the normal way of doing things, and instead of threads, it uses lightweight processes. These processes are so easy to start up, and the VM is so rock solid, that it's actually easier to let processes fail when they encounter an error and start a new one instead. The mantra with Erlang is actually "Let it crash," which was simply shocking to me. After learning for decades to write careful error-checking code, seeing code with sparse error checking that instead monitored processes and restarted them if they failed was a big change. It's a fascinating concept.

Clojure
One of the Clojure features that stood out to me was lazy evaluation. With the addition of a number of constructs, Clojure is able to delay computation on sequences (a.k.a lists) until the result of the computation is needed. These lazy sequences can significantly improve performance for code that would otherwise compute huge lists of values that may not all be used in subsequent calculations. Generators can also be easily set up that will feed values to a consumer as needed without having to precompute them or specify an end to the sequence of values. It's a great trick to keep in mind for optimizing algorithms.

Haskell
The big take-away with Haskell is, of course, the type system. It's the most precise, well-done type system I've ever seen, yet it's not as onerous as it sounds because it leverages type inference. I was worried when starting out with Haskell that I would constantly be fighting the type system, but that's not at all the case. It still takes some time to design the types of a program properly, but once that's done it provides great structure and support for the rest of the program. I especially learned from this experience to not write off a certain way of programming just because I've gotten burned by it in the past with other languages. One language's weakness can be another language's strength, and a perceived weakness may not be inherent to the feature itself.

Lua
With Lua I learned that if one fundamental abstraction is made powerful enough, you can make the language be whatever you want it to be. Lua's tables provide that abstraction, and depending on how you use them, you can program as if Lua is an OO language, a prototypical language, or a functional language. You can also ignore all of that and use it as a procedural language if you so choose. The tables allow for all of these options and leave the power in the hands of the programmer.

Factor
The final programming paradigm I've learned happened through Factor, and it's stack-based programming, also known as concatenative programming because of the post-fix style of the code. Because of the global stack on which all values are pushed and popped (well, almost all), the stack needs to be constantly kept in mind when analyzing the code. This concept is mind-bending. I'm sure it gets better with practice, but for how long I've used the language, it's a significant mental effort to keep program execution straight. However, some problems can be solved so neatly with stacks that it's definitely worth keeping this paradigm in mind. Stacks can be used in any language!

Elm
Elm taught me another way to do UI development with signals. While C# introduced me to delegates with their PubSub model, signals are a finer-grained, more tightly integrated feature that makes front-end browser development so much cleaner. Signals can be set up to change state, to kick off tasks or other processing, or to chain different actions together when specified events happen. Signals take delegates to the next level, and provide a lot of functionality that you'd have to build yourself with delegates.

Elixir
Elixir combines a lot of things from a lot of other languages, but one thing not covered yet that I learned in Elixir is metaprogramming with macros. Macros are an extremely powerful tool for compacting programs and making difficult or tedious problems much simpler. Any time you're repeating similar code over and over, it's best to start thinking of how to implement it more quickly and efficiently using a macro. Spending any amount of time copy-pasting code and making slight changes is a dead giveaway that a macro could be used instead. Metaprogramming has a way of wringing the drudgery out of programming. It's simply magical.

Julia
The killer feature that I learned in Julia is definitely multiple dispatch. While other languages have to deal with calling the same function with different types in various convoluted ways, Julia says "Screw it. Just give all of those functions the same name with different types, and I'll figure it out." It's a great feature when you need it, and since Julia is built for scientific computing, it probably comes up a lot.

miniKanren
I've learned about how great logic programming can be for certain types of problems, and I've learned how great functional programming can be for other types of problems. Now miniKanren has shown me how powerful it is to combine these two paradigms into one language. Since logic programming works well for isolated logic problems, but doesn't do so well for implementing a complete program, putting it into a functional language bridges that gap so that you can create a fully working program. Having Clojure there to provide the input and process the output of the logic program really ups the ante for what can be accomplished in miniKanren.

Idris
Idris takes the powerful type system of Haskell and turns it up a notch. The novelty of Idris' type system is dependent types that allow types to be specified in relation to other types using characteristics of those other types and operations. It's basically making the type system programmable. Types can be specified so that arrays have a certain length, the output of a function has the same length or combination of lengths of its inputs, or any other set of operations can be done on characteristics of a function's types to specify the dependent type. It is a really powerful type system that stretched my mind even more than Haskell did.


As you can see, I've come in contact with a lot of languages. It looks like 31 so far, if I haven't forgotten any, and I've learned something valuable from each one of them. Some languages have taught me much more than others simply because of where they fell on my programming journey, but old or new, popular or unknown, every language has something to teach. While this is a lot of languages, there are notable omissions including Go, Rust, Swift, and Kotlin, just off the top of my head. I imagine that those languages, too, would have much to teach me about new programming features or improvements to concepts I already know. That's the beauty of learning new programming languages: there's always something more to learn about the craft. You just have to be ready for it.

5 GAMES FOR DECEMBER - STAR WARS!

So, I finally got round to seeing Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Despite the naysayers, it remains a cinematic tour de force so what better way to celebrate than a trove of classic Star Wars games. The short-lived sub-division of Lucas Learning gave us some obscure titles. Learn about physics and momentum in the Star Wars: Anakin's Speedway (1999). Then learn the same thing but with robots in the far superior action-puzzler Star Wars: DroidWorks (1998). Test your biology skills in the Sim-Life a-like strategy game Star Wars: Episode I - The Gungan Frontier (1999). Want a little less learning? Why not try the official tie-in to Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)? Lastly, travel back to a time before the special editions and get your very first look at them in Star Wars: Making Magic (1996)!

Enjoy! And I'll see you in the new year!

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Streets Of Rage (Genesis/Mega Drive)

Developer:

Sega

|

Release Date:

1991

|

Systems:

Mega Drive, Master System, Game Gear

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Streets of Rage on the Sega Mega Drive. Seems weird that it's taken me this long to get around to it, but I was putting it off until I figured out how to screenshot a soundtrack. Turns out that it's all on YouTube though, so you can listen to it there while you read: a link to that thing I just told you about.

But why am I playing this right after playing the very similar Golden Axe? Well, I had this great idea, where I was going to play all three of the games on my Mega Games 2 compilation cartridge. I figured they were so basic I'd get like eight screenshots out of each, but I could put them together to get a full article out of them. Then I saw how long how the Golden Axe section was becoming on its own and realised that my clever scheme wasn't going to work... but whatever, I'm all set up here to play some Streets of Rage so I'm writing about it anyway.

They're both side scrolling beat 'em ups developed by Sega, but Streets of Rage isn't a coin-op conversion like Golden Axe; it was a Mega Drive game from the start. Though it was ported across to the Master System and Game Gear so I suppose I have to check out those versions as well. Here's another exciting fact about it: the fighters shouldn't have amputated legs on the title screen, that seems to be a quirk of the PAL version I'm playing.

That guy's hair is made of spaghetti in all regions though. Also all three of them always wear gloves that cover their knuckles, despite the fact that the game's called Bare Knuckle in Japan.

Read on »

Insurance (Tradecraft)

A nuts and bolts post? Sure, why not.

A business requires insurance. At the minimum, you need liability insurance. There are other types of insurance though. I've got liability insurance, workers comp insurance, key man life insurance, and for years we had vehicle insurance on our van. Insurance is one of those things new store owners don't always think about.

My second year in business I went to a seminar where a store owner had someone drive through their front window into their store. Twice. He was the likely guy to give a presentation on business insurance and for many, needing such a thing was an eye opener. When I started I had a home and assets and made sure the store was incorporated and insured and far away from my personal life. For most young people without a pot to relieve themselves, that might not be a consideration. 

So how do you get insurance? Find a human. I'm not sure if you can get business liability insurance online, but if so, it's a bad idea. You want to talk to a human about your particular business needs and exactly what you do and where you do it. For example, my store went from a regular retail environment to an improved, two story monstrosity in need of rebuilding if it burned down. It probably wouldn't be rebuilt there, but they'll pay to rebuild it somewhere.  If I had just gotten regular liability insurance, I would be left with no protection and a ton of outstanding loans for a burnt out shell. 

Other considerations include insuring Magic singles. My policy has a "fine art" clause that includes those. What you don't want are surprises. Insurance companies are all about taking as much money from you as they can and paying out as little as possible. It's better to be up front, find angles to cover everything necessary, and avoid surprises. Look at your lease and see what you're responsible for.  Plate glass insurance is often inexpensive, but if someone breaks all your windows, you could be out thousands of dollars. Over time, revisit your policy and up your limits when you add inventory or fixtures.

Who is that human? I have a customer who jumps from job to job, and one of his latest was insurance agent. He was an agent for about four months before he moved on. Do not use a green agent. Find someone experienced. I had a new agent misclassify my company for my workers comp policy, thinking I didn't need to be covered as an owner, when in fact it was necessary. A company audit revealed the mistake, and rather than admitting their agent error, they charged me $3,500 in back premiums. Insurance companies exist to do two things: take as much money as possible while denying your claims. 

Personal insurance agents tend not to handle commercial insurance, so you probably won't be able to use your Aunt Kathy's agency to handle your commercial needs (my Aunt K does my personal insurance). Attempt to find a well regarded commercial agent who has been doing this for a while and lay all your cards on the table.

Classification is tricky as there is no "game store" category for liability insurance. You might be classified as a toy store, a book store, a hobby store, whatever is close, and the cost between agencies and within each agency could be enormous. As long as you don't get cute, something reasonable should be fine.

Avoid buying a policy based entirely on price. Ask what's not covered in your case. Have a good heart to heart with the agent. These policies are really cheap compared to what could happen. I once transitioned between agencies and in a 30 day overlap period, someone broke into my store, doing a lot of damage and stealing a lot of cash (foolish me).  I talked to my new agent who walked me through my old coverage, which sucked, and my new coverage, which was great. I filed a claim with the better coverage, and yeah, they canceled me exactly a year later, but I saved $900. 

Make sure you have extensive business interruption insurance, which is usually standard. Knowing that my store could burn down and I have months to find a new place while paying employees allows me to sleep at night. When you get bigger, losing all your employees can destroy your business as easily as fire. 

What's a Good Company? I don't know! They're all terrible! I can't even remember who I have now. Let me check: Travelers for liability, State Farm for key man life insurance, and AP Intego for workers compensation insurance (pay as you go). Farmers burned me on that workers comp policy I mentioned, so maybe avoid them. 

Download Flash Mod For Gta Sandeas

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to activate the flash press=TABE+QorE
to run faste press=w+x+space
to activate more contron see
F5: Toggle On/Off Power Level Control

F6: Show power bar

F7: Toggle on/off for Super Speed (press + to increase speed and - for decrease)

F8: Super Jump (no need to)

press Y or N: toggle on/off Walk on water

Tab: bullet time

To do wall-run: press W + Jump to the wall and hold

You can hold X:  to run faster without Super Speed ability (F7

F9:Flying Jump

F10 Fly

F11 Super Strength

F12 Heatvision

F4 to turn ON/OFF

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Frankenstein: A New Version Of It's Alive From Invedars

Hey guys. News about the game formerly known as It's Alive.

After the first prototypes, two editions of It's Alive from Reiver Games, and two versions of Hanukkah themed versions called Candle Quest by Victory Point Games and on The Game Crafter (still available), the game has been picked up by Invedars, returning to its original Frankenstein theme.

The new version is called Frankenstein and it looks amazing. New artwork, and a figurine and a new events expansion for Kickstarter backers.

The project is up on Kickstarter and reached its goal in only 24 hours. It is now many times above its goal.

They have already sent prototypes to reviewers for new reviews, for example:

Follow Invedars and progress about the game on Facebook.

Improving Island Shaping For Map Generation

One of my goals for 2019 is to improve my existing pages. This week I improved the island map section of my noise-based map generation page.

Island map generation: you figure it out

I had offered lots of options: additive vs multiplicative, Euclidean vs Manhattan distance, and three mysterious parameters named a, b, c. It was simple for me to offer lots of options. The problem with lots of options is that there's a large "possibility space" to explore. You may or may not find something you like.

Based on feedback from readers, I decided to rewrite this section. I stepped back and thought about why we're adding and multiplying. What is the goal? How does it work?

1. Push the edges of the map down into water. I need to decrease elevations near the edges.
2. Push the middle of the map up onto land. I need to increase elevations near the middle.

The main idea is to start with noise-based elevation and reshape it into what we want. The noise-based elevation fits into a box , and we reshape the box into something like . The contents of the box, whatever terrain had been generated, will get pushed up and down when the box is changed.

I rewrote the entire section of the page to explain this idea, and I ended up removing the interactive diagram.

Island map generation: explain the main ideas

Related: Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work says that experts can use the interactive exploration to navigate the possibility space because they have already built up the intuition to know where to go. Novices on the other hand learn better with guidance.

Teach Yourself VISUALLY iPhone 11, 11Pro, And 11 Pro Max, 5Th Edition - All IT eBooks COM

Teach Yourself VISUALLY iPhone 11, 11Pro, and 11 Pro Max, 5th Edition

People Behind The Meeples - Episode 206: Charley Cross

Welcome to People Behind the Meeples, a series of interviews with indie game designers.  Here you'll find out more than you ever wanted to know about the people who make the best games that you may or may not have heard of before.  If you'd like to be featured, head over to http://gjjgames.blogspot.com/p/game-designer-interview-questionnaire.html and fill out the questionnaire! You can find all the interviews here: People Behind the Meeples. Support me on Patreon!

---

Name:	Charley Cross
Email:	charleycross@arboartsllc.com
Location:	Springfield, IL
Day Job:	Work at an elementary school part time, carpenter part time, game designer full time.
Designing:	Over ten years!
Facebook:	Arbo Arts LLC
YouTube:	R'Bow
Other:	Not yet.
Find my games at:	Just direct right now.

Today's Interview is with:

Charley Cross
Interviewed on: 8/16/2019

This week we get to meet Charley Cross, a designer from Springfield, Illinois who likes to make casual, family style card games. You can currently buy a copy of R'Bow, a light color matching, card shedding game with similarities to classics like Uno and Skip-Bo from Arbo Arts, LLC. He's also working on a game called QUEUE and others! Read on to learn more about Charley and his other projects.

Some Basics
Tell me a bit about yourself.

How long have you been designing tabletop games?
Over ten years!

Why did you start designing tabletop games?
I realized that I have a talent for creating really good family style games.

What game or games are you currently working on?
R'Bow, Queue, and several others not yet ready to discuss.

Have you designed any games that have been published?
R'Bow

What is your day job?
Work at an elementary school part time, carpenter part time, game designer full time.

Your Gaming Tastes
My readers would like to know more about you as a gamer.

Where do you prefer to play games?
Home, Parties

Who do you normally game with?
Friends and family

If you were to invite a few friends together for game night tonight, what games would you play?
They really like Queue. R'Bow, and sometimes Spades.

And what snacks would you eat?
Chips, Dip, Hummus

Do you like to have music playing while you play games? If so, what kind?
Not really, like the conversation.

What's your favorite FLGS?
Titan, Springfield, IL

What is your current favorite game? Least favorite that you still enjoy? Worst game you ever played?
Favorite QUEUE. Least but enjoy, Trivial Pursuit. Worst: Old Commodore Game: Docking a Space Shuttle.

What is your favorite game mechanic? How about your least favorite?
Favorite is shedding or collecting. Least is wagering.

What's your favorite game that you just can't ever seem to get to the table?
A lot of people do not want to play Monopoly, but they rarely play it by the actual rules, so it goes on forever. I understand, but if you play it by the exact rules it is a real challenge and doesn't usually take that long.

What styles of games do you play?
I like to play Card Games

Do you design different styles of games than what you play?
I like to design Board Games, Card Games, Other Games?

OK, here's a pretty polarizing game. Do you like and play Cards Against Humanity?
No

You as a Designer
OK, now the bit that sets you apart from the typical gamer. Let's find out about you as a game designer.

When you design games, do you come up with a theme first and build the mechanics around that? Or do you come up with mechanics and then add a theme? Or something else?
My games are all modifications of a specific theme.

Have you ever entered or won a game design competition?
no

Do you have a current favorite game designer or idol?
no

Where or when or how do you get your inspiration or come up with your best ideas?
I start with a basic structure and keep adding and subtracting options.

How do you go about playtesting your games?
Family and friends.

Do you like to work alone or as part of a team? Co-designers, artists, etc.?
Alone mostly, and with my husband.

What do you feel is your biggest challenge as a game designer?
I have already conquered several. The biggest one now is exposure.

If you could design a game within any IP, what would it be?
One of the family favorites like UNO, Rook, Phase 10 etc.

What do you wish someone had told you a long time ago about designing games?
Cover all your bases before you spend any money.

What advice would you like to share about designing games?
Seek advice, be self critical, and believe in your project.

Would you like to tell my readers what games you're working on and how far along they are?
Published games, I have: R'Bow Have a few thousand, will sell these to see how well people like them.
Games that will soon be published are: Queue: Will hopefully publish this year or early next year
I'm planning to crowdfund: Hope to approach Kickstarter as soon as I build more of an online presence.
Games I feel are in the final development and tweaking stage are: We are ready to go.
Games that I'm playtesting are: We are ready to go.

Are you a member of any Facebook or other design groups? (Game Maker's Lab, Card and Board Game Developers Guild, etc.)
no.

And the oddly personal, but harmless stuff…
OK, enough of the game stuff, let's find out what really makes you tick! These are the questions that I'm sure are on everyone's minds!

Star Trek or Star Wars? Coke or Pepsi? VHS or Betamax?
Star Trek, No High Fructose Corn Syrup!!! VHS

What hobbies do you have besides tabletop games?
carpentry, music, opera, theatre, cooking, gardening.

What is something you learned in the last week?
My adult daughter is dating someone.

Favorite type of music? Books? Movies?
blues, motown, mozart, books, sci fi and historical fiction, action

What was the last book you read?
Les Miserables

Do you play any musical instruments?
no

Tell us something about yourself that you think might surprise people.
I have lived in over thirty places.

Tell us about something crazy that you once did.
rope swing on cliff above creek, couldn't reach it from the ground so I jumped off the cliff (low one) to catch the rope in mid air. I missed.

Biggest accident that turned out awesome?
Speeded up my car and used a driveway as a ramp to avoid a collision and landed straddling a ditch, saving myself and my coworker.

Who is your idol?
Bernie Sanders

What would you do if you had a time machine?
Break it into very small bits before I destroyed the world with it.

Are you an extrovert or introvert?
extrovert

If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?
I am actually Superman.

Have any pets?
Not in a long time.

When the next asteroid hits Earth, causing the Yellowstone caldera to explode, California to fall into the ocean, the sea levels to rise, and the next ice age to set in, what current games or other pastimes do you think (or hope) will survive into the next era of human civilization? What do you hope is underneath that asteroid to be wiped out of the human consciousness forever?
QUEUE. Racism just has to go.

If you'd like to send a shout out to anyone, anyone at all, here's your chance (I can't guarantee they'll read this though):
Everybody. Play QUEUE. It really is the best card game since someone took a game played with two decks of playing cards, dressed it up, and became the most successful game since King's Reverse.

Just a Bit More
Thanks for answering all my crazy questions! Is there anything else you'd like to tell my readers?

Email me, I will answer.

---

Thank you for reading this People Behind the Meeples indie game designer interview! You can find all the interviews here: People Behind the Meeples and if you'd like to be featured yourself, you can fill out the questionnaire here: http://gjjgames.blogspot.com/p/game-designer-interview-questionnaire.html

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DE: Dark Eldar List Building Advice

Alright boys, school's in session again!

Warning: Long-ass post ahead.  Get ready to read, or not, up to you.

Alright everyone, this is the long-awaited guide for how to build Kabal and Cult lists with the new book.  This is my personal advice for building lists and I know the book is still super young, but please bear with me.  I have over a decade of competitive Dark Eldar play and have been doing this game for a long time.  I've played through the bi-polar 3rd edition book, enjoyed the awesomeness that was Phil Kelly's 5th, to the god damn terrible flavorless books of 6th and 7th.  Now I'm back after playing extensively with the 8th Ed. Index and now the time has finally come:  The 8th Ed. Codex is here.  What can I say?  I've been enjoying the hell out of the book so far.  Of course, there are some misses just like every other book, but there are also a few things that are absolutely great.  I want to tell you what those great things are.

Brainstorming is one thing, but having played 5 games already, I'm feeling damn good with what we have now compared to the garbage we had before.  For the most part, I can only speak from my experience so far using Kabals, pure Kabals, and minor using Cults.  The last game that I had was using some minor Wych support again (dual Raiders), but there's also some opportunity over the weekend to bring in my Eldar for some more rigorous games.  This Dark Eldar pain train has no brakes and I don't see myself stopping any time soon.  I'm back and excited for the first time in a long time.

Without further bullshit, let's get down to it.  This is how I think we should design a successful list.  Keep in mind again, I'm primarily a Kabal player but I dabble heavily in Cults.  Check my old school 5th Ed. articles if you don't believe me!

All in all, there are 6 key steps:

1. Define theme and list goals
2. Build a unit bucket to accomplish those goals
3. Build a skeleton list
4. Balance your list's firepower
5. Perform a firepower analysis
6. Min-max your list and adjust

Here is my recipe for success:

The FIRST thing you should do is come up with a theme and set yourself up with some list goals.  Do you enjoy shooting a lot and heavy firepower from range?  Do you like more melee and assault units?  Do you like a lot of resilience and having great attrition and durability?  Check out this earlier post of mine for ideas for how to pick a theme.  If you come to this blog a lot, it's probably because you like shooting shit to death and assaulting once in a while.

Also part of this exercise is to come up with list goals.  These goals are what you aim to accomplish with your army that is similar, but more specific than your theme.  If you chose speed and firepower for example, what units would you take to get this done?  What Obsessions are you going to focus on?  What are some of your must-have and must-includes?  Sometimes, these must-haves don't have to be completely competitive in nature.  People have pet units all the time, as in units that are not really competitive but they take them in every game because their girlfriend painted it for them, or maybe they like the fluff, or whatever else.  These are just some of your own personal must-takes.

I'll provide you with my example for list goals:

• Must be "pure" Kabal
• Must have Cunning and Agents of Vect
• Must have amazing Alpha and follow-up (1-2 punch)

Side note - Aesthetics are important:
Remember this above all else:  Build the army you enjoy aesthetically (this includes theme).  I can't stress this enough.  I've taught GW Academy for years and one of the first things I teach to anyone jumping into the hobby is to pick the army you enjoy visually and thematically.  You will be building these units, painting these units, listhammering with these units, and playing with these units for a long time.  You will bond much faster with the army if it's the same one you wanted from the get-go.  You invest a lot into this hobby and quite honestly, money is the last thing I think about.  It's the time and energy that really stands out, and that is what will drive your need to improve your game.

Still with me?  Good.

The SECOND thing I suggest you guys do is to build a competitive unit bucket.  No, seriously, get out a piece of paper and write down all the units that have the most impact on your game.  It doesn't matter what it is, but it should look something like this:

Archon, Blaster = 89
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
5x Trueborn, 4x Blasters = 123
Venom = 65
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Razorwing, 2x Dinsintegrators  = 135
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125
...etc

These units should have their costs laid out according to the bare minimum for what you will never leave home without.  Everything else is considered EXTRA points and therefore LUXURY.  You only add points when you have your skeleton list in place.  You don't build a house with all the bells and whistles first.  You must lay the foundation with what you know for sure works and go from there.  I will always, especially to new players, recommend they write their unit costs and abilities on pen and paper over something like BattleScribe.  BS is great and I'm not a dinosaur:  I only advocate the pen and paper route because it helps build familiarity and knowledge with your units so you're not reliant on your applications.  Think about it like driving to a new place to work:  Do it enough times and it will stick; the same could be said about unit stats and point costs.  Yes, I wrote all those above off the top of my head.

Side-note: Warriors, 5 or 10?
Always take 10 unless you need the cargo space in a Command Raider (space for your HQs), intend on taking Venoms, or you don't have enough points.  Obviously, if you take a Venom you're kinda forced into a 5-man getup, but otherwise always take 10 because it unlocks the heavy weapon choice.  The only time I would not recommend taking the heavy weapon is if you need a Battalion happen with 1 more Troop choice for example.  Since you can fit 2 5-man units into a single Raider, you can spend the points to pile into the same transport.

Die, filthy Mon-keigh.

The THIRD thing you should do is build a skeleton list.  What I mean by this is to put down the list that will make your list work at a bare minimum.  For starters, I will always recommend following a Battalion layout because our Troops are actually good, and we'll want to have Archons in our list for those sick 6" bubble re-rolls.

The one thing to keep in mind here is redundancy.  You want to make sure that you're not taking 1-ofs everywhere unless you're experimenting or going for a very specific goal with a very specific combo.  Only when you can't make something redundant due to points restrictions do you hold back.  This is why most competitive lists tend to look spammy, but this truly is the most effective way to build lists that are durable and threatening.  Single targets are easy to isolate in terms of targets and you want to increase your threat level by giving your opponent a larger array of dangerous targets.  The more you make them think of the game, the higher your chance of winning.  This is because the more things there are to think about, the higher the chances they will make a mistake and therefore, make a poor decision that will benefit you.

A sample skeleton Battalion:

HQ:
Archon, Blaster = 89
Archon, Blaster = 89

TROOP:
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

There you have it.  This is all I'm going to take to reach Battalion requirements so you can unlock that sick +3 additional CP.  You want CP to be a factor in your game, but it should not be a requirement.  You should not enter list building with a mindset that you're going to shoot for 9 or 12 CP or something like that.  You run the risk of taking a lot of ineffective units that do not jive with your theme and/or doesn't provide your army with the kick that it needs to be effective.  How do we determine what's effective and what's not?  Well, for one, look at what other people take and write about (such as this blog) and above all, experiment yourself in your local meta.  I don't know what's best for your friends or enemies, but I can sure tell you what I personally find to be great.  If we want to put some data behind this, we'll have to do a firepower analysis, which I'll talk about in a bit.

Side note - Raider vs. Venom:
There's a lot of discussions about which one is the better choice.  Frankly, this depends a lot on your meta first and foremost, but it also depends on whether or not you need the cargo space.  With the new book, the Raider got a massive points drop so it's more comparable to the Venom (who also got a points drop).  If you do some quick addition, a 5x Warrior squad with a Blaster in a Venom is 112 points vs. 132 from a Raider with a Dark Lance carrying the same units.  The only big difference there is not durability, it's actually about the armament and purpose.  The Dark Lance is an anti-tank weapon whereas the Venom is better at killing infantry.  However, a Raider has the ability to take Splinter Racks and Disintegrators as well so I would say that it's generally more flexible.  Keep in mind that unlike the Raider, the Venom does not degrade in potency once it takes damage.

Slayin' ain't ez.  For Dark Eldar, it is.

Now that you have a skeleton list established, the FOURTH thing I would do is to balance your firepower.  What do I mean by this?  I mean you should always build for balanced lists.  Don't go too heavy in any one direction (anti-tank vs. anti-infantry), try and balance it out so you can fight a multitude of different foes.  I like to think of this balance as the PUG-ready list.  This meaning that you can show up at any local game store and throw down the gauntlet for who wants to take a beating at 2K points.  You should then feel confident that no matter what the other dude puts on the table, you should feel like you have a decent chance to win if you're playing right.  I'm not even going to talk about potential mismatches where you show up and want to play with like a 7/10 power level list and the other dude has 9 bubble-wrapped Ravagers or some other shit next to his Adepticon Tryhard trophy.  No, we want to build lists that are nice and balanced against similar-minded opponents.  That's where the true challenge of the game is at.

So what does this list expansion look like?  Something like this:

2000 // 8 CP
Black Heart Battalion +3 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94

TROOP:
7x Warriors, Blaster = 59
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
144

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
199

+++

Black Heart Spearhead +1 CP

HQ:
Archon, Blaster, PGL = 92

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125
Ravager, 3x Dinsintegrators = 125

+++

Black Heart Air Wing +1 CP

FLYER:
Razorwing, 2x Dinsintegrators = 135
Razorwing, 2x Dinsintegrators = 135
Razorwing, 2x Dinsintegrators = 135

What I did here was:  Look at my skeleton list and build on what was missing.  I calculated the points there and added in competitive units from my unit bucket that covers my list's weaknesses.  I wanted to add more killing power through ranged attacks so I added Ravagers and Razorwings.  I'm on a Dissie kick right now because of their killing potential (and I recommend them too!), but I also caution that we should balance that around with some Dark Lances.  Lances are better against heavier targets, but you can always supplement that shooting with a high volume number of Dissies.  Again, this is a meta call:  If your meta is saturated with IG Tank spammers running dirt-cheap Brigades, show up with a list with 20+ Dark Lances and feel no pity.  You shouldn't anyway!

Add the core elements from the unit bucket first before adding on anything else!  All the PGLs, Agonizers, and even extra 2 Warriors that started from a unit of 5 in a Command Raider is LUXURY.  It is not part of what you consider a core part of army construction and should be purchased only when you have spare points.  A mistake that I see people do after so many years in the hobby is going upgrade heavy on a single unit.  DO NOT do this!  Buy everything barebones for it to be fully functional (as in, does it fulfill the role you bought it for), then add on the upgrades only after you've done this with everything else in your list.

Pro-tip: Always buy PGLs on your BS2+ Archons and Succubus first.  All you need is for them to hit and you're golden.  Why not hit with the best chance you have?

Side note: Dissies vs. Dark Lances:
I like data and mathhammer for determining which targets you will frequently encounter and which weapons you should take to deal with them.  Generally, the Dissies are much better now for the cost than they were before, but you will still need Dark Lances to punch through that T7/T8 and to deliver those killing blows with burst damage (6 on a D6 for example).  Check out the calculator that I linked to analyze what targets saturate your meta and prepare for it accordingly.

Take no prisoners.

The FIFTH thing I do at this point is to double-check my math and weigh in your firepower.  You do this by performing a firepower analysis of what you have on the alpha with respect to the range band.  You do this by listing out all your weapons (including ranges if you want), their Strength/AP/Damage if you don't know them by heart, and the BS that they're shot with.  You don't need to write absolutely everything, you only need to write what you think is the most relevant.  It should look something like this:

Firepower:
15 Disintegrators at BS3+
9 Dark Lances at BS3+
9 Blasters at BS3+
3 Blasters at BS2+
3 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+
41 Splinter Rifles at BS3+

For me, I've been playing this damn army enough to know all the stats of these by heart, but if you want to get more elaborate you should follow my formula above.  Write out all the stats, on paper (it will help you remember) with how many, from what range, at what BS, and what their stats are.  This will also help you during deployment so you know what you can realistically dish out from your total THREAT range, which for shooty armies, is your move + your weapon's range.  Don't forget that most of our shit is open-top and our guys inside should factor into that equation as well.

This exercise right here is also a damage/gear check.  Just like a raid boss in an MMORPG, you should have something that tells you if you're putting out enough damage for the points.  If you're at 2K points and not within half of what I'm throwing out here, you know that you're at a huge disadvantage if I'm going first (Alpha).  This can also tell you if you're CP whoring and your list is actually "ineffective" at putting down shots down range.  From all the games I've played in 8th, I can tell you that the damage and lethality of the game is a lot higher than it was in the previous editions.  Everything tends to die really quick and there's a much larger emphasis on getting those potential backbreaking blows in the first couple of turns.  This is why the firepower analysis with respect to range bands is important:  You need to know what you can do on your first turn from as far away as you can (because you're wearing T-shirts flying around in paper planes), and what you can do as a follow-up strike when you get near your opponents.

The example here is that by looking at the firepower analysis above, I know that:
I can open at 36" range (14"+36" for 50" threat from my vehicles, with my Razorwings being pretty much unlimited range) with 9 Dark Lances at BS3+ if no one moved, less if I moved due to -1 to Hit for guys inside moving vehicles, 15 Dissies, 3 Razorwing missiles.  I know that if I move all my Raiders up into max range, and my opponent also moves up, potentially next round I can bring 12 additional Blasters into play in addition to X amount of Splinter shots.

This right here is how you should think about playing out your game.  I'm not saying go full rainman on your opponent and trip out midgame, I'm saying that you should be aware of all your weapons ranges so you can better prepare for the next turn and maximize your damage potential.

Pro-tip:  If you're up against a list with higher "alpha damage" than you, it's best to deploy defensively and seek shelter and line of sight blockers.  Alpha damage is someone's killing potential in that first volley of the game.  You want to be highly aware as a Dark Eldar player if you're at a disadvantage here.  You literally afford to eat shit like the other races.  Likewise, you should also be aware when you have the firepower advantage.  This means you can afford to be more aggressive (for that 1-2 punch) if you're the one with the alpha advantage.

Cult of Strife is just.. beauty and pain incarnate.

The SIXTH AND FINAL thing I do now is:  Count up the CPs AFTER the army is complete and see what more I can squeeze out of them.  This is the min-maxing portion and where I spend 70% of my list construction time.  This is because a lot of this comes from experience building lists as a primary aspect of my hobby, but also because a lot of this comes from post-battle reports where I sit back and think really hard about what changes I want to make.

For example, I ran a very similar list during my first game with the new book and that's with a Venom.  However, after playtesting, I found the Venom to be kinda lonely and didn't really serve too much of a service except for the Blaster guy inside.  I thought this through and came to the conclusion that I would rather have another Archon to unlock a Spearhead Detachment to bring my total CP up to 8 from 7, at a cost of a few Poison shots for sure, but I gain a better BS2+ Blaster, another PGL, and another 6" bubble.  The costs were very similar: 112 vs. 92, so the 20 extra points for me was even more worthwhile because I gained a CP at a net "loss" of a few Poison shots.  This is also when I go back and tweak those "luxury" upgrades to different units or replace them with things I feel works better against my opponents.

Welp, I think that's it.  Just keep in mind that this is not meant to be a definitive guide to the Dark Eldar book in the new edition, but it was more like a brain-dump of how I go about building lists that so far, has been working great for me.  Of course, feel free to let me know what you guys think, and I welcome you all to learning the game with me in the next couple of weeks!