Newsletter

This is my contribution to the family newsletter:

I have had a busy but happy year. When it began, I was in the second semester of my junior year. Some of the classes I took were interesting, but all were challenging, with some beyond my ability to really keep afloat. At the start of the semester, I wrote a comedy skit about aliens, and directed it as part of a show called Evening of Scenes. It was a lot of work, but well worth it. Later in the semester, I accepted the position of Lighting Designer for a student rendition of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral going up in the Lydia Mendelssohn. For a week, I had no time to do my homework, but despite the stress, it was also well worth it. I took great pleasure in what I did.

For the summer, I took an internship with Amazon.com. They flew me out to Seattle, set me up in a downtown apartment, and paid me handsomely. Amazon.com is a nice place to work, and I also fell in with a very pleasant circle of friends, made forays in indoor rock climbing, and visited several sites of natural beauty. Amazon made me an offer of full-time employment in October, which I have accepted. I will be moving out to Seattle again in June, this time with no set plans for moving away. I am looking forward to it; even seeing my map of Seattle makes me happy.

Meanwhile in my penultimate semester at the University, I took a game development class. Thanks to it, I spent many long hours in the lab, but the results were worthwhile. I made a game called Potionworks which combined the best elements, (or perhaps the worst), of Tetris and Pipedream, for those who have heard of those games. After that, I made a fully textual adventure game, built around the story of a young farmer trying to marry a princess of the Faery. For a final project, my group made a strategy game we called Earthdust, which the Professor was very impressed with. If you want to take a look, it and all the other final projects by my class are available online.

You can also read the whole newsletter, if you're curious about the rest of my family.

Airplane Funny

Just encountered a very funny rendition of an airplane's safety instructions. I actually laughed; even amusing emails only occasionally do that to me. Enjoy!

Get Games!

All right, so if you have a PC (unlike me), and its fairly modern or well-equipped, you may just be able to play the snazzy games I made in my games class. However, you will almost certainly need to download some DLLs first.

Download Earthdust, which I made with two other people, (see the credits in the game). It is a strategy game in an asteroid belt. Play against another player and command your fleet to victory. There is a practice arena that you can muck around in on your own, but actual play requires two networked computers.

Download PotionWorks, my first project in the games class. It is most simply described as a cross between Tetris and Pipedream. Some tips:
1. Put pipe ends against each other to make them stick. You don't need to build up from the bottom.
2. In general, potion flows like water under only a little pressure, and it is affected by gravity; if it can go straight down, it won't bother to go left or right, and if it can go left or right, it won't bother to go up.

Merry Christmas!

It's Christmas! [Imagine me saying something deep here.] Enjoy the celebration, and may it bring you closer to God and your loved ones.

The BBC has posted an interesting article reminding the world of Christ's forgiving power. Though I doubt this matches the intention of the editorial board, still, I pray that some people might come closer to Christ and Christianity through this article. May old wounds receive some healing, may at least some misconceptions be righted, and may the image of a forgiving God shine hope into the hearts of those weighed down with guilt.

Spiderman 2

I was at my friend Leif's house this evening, and we watched Spiderman 2 together. I'd never seen it before. In one part, Peter decides to give up on being Spiderman, because it is making his life very difficult. In the following scenes, we see him in his new role. In the most memorable of these, he walks by an alley and hears a man calling for help. Two men are beating him, asking him to hand over money. Peter knows that he could save the man, and to his credit he does hesitate, but in the end he just walks away.

All of this made me think of a few things. As a Christian, God has called me to do certain things, to help people in a variety of ways. I am often lazy about this, or do not pay enough attention to see what I'm supposed to do. It reminds me of a song by According to John which includes this: "people are dying and it doesn't bother me... Oh it really bothers me that it doesn't bother me anymore." The song has a more international focus; it is about seeing news reports of horrors in other parts of the world. I think it applies here, too, though. I see people who are having trouble making their lives work. I see people who are doomed to Hell. And I go on hunting up fun projects, working on my schoolwork with dedication, and occasionally trying to help people.

One of the lessons in the film, (though not the only one), is that with great power comes great responsibility. Some might think it rather unlikely that I have any great power, but it really doesn't matter how special or amazing my abilities are. God has enabled me to help people in some ways, and I have a mission to help the people He wants me to help using the gifts he has given me.

Back Home for Break

I moved back to my parent's house today. My father was extremely helpful; he took all of my stuff to the car while I went through the checklist for closing up my dorm room. Now, I've set up my computer in my room, unpacked all my stuff, and watched some web-comics. It'll be nice not having unpacking as an ongoing task; I brought less home, and I've made an effort to unpack it all before going to bed.

Now that I'm back, I get a daily choice. Whether to work on some amazing or entertaining project, or whether to act as though I had nothing better to do than to read for hours on end. Such a hard choice. :-)

Oh, and I need to start Christmas shopping. Christmas is in three days.

Soon, I plan to make Potionworks and Earthdust available from my blog. Then you can see what happens when you take a game development class. :-)

Automotive Tip

From a GCFL funny about automotive gifts:

"17. Microsoft Windows Eliminator. If your car or truck
begins to run poorly, (long time to start, frequent crashes,
etc.), it's computer, (ecm, ecu, black box, etc.), may have
become infected with this nasty computer virus. This product
will safely remove the virus. $199"

The price is higher than most of the other offerings in the funny.

Computer Game Showcase

I have been spending a lot of time working on a game called Earthdust with a couple of other people for my comptuer game class. It is an RTS that takes place in an asteroid belt. The asteroids don't pose any threat to your space ships; instead, you can build on them, then see your buildings float off to other parts of the map. Earthdust will be playable by two people over a network. I'm hoping that all of my Michigan friends will be able to come. :-) For you folks in Seattle and other places, just use those handy teleportation devices; it'll be a lot of fun. ;-)

COMPUTER GAME SHOWCASE

EECS 494

Saturday December 17, 2005
7:30 - 9:00 pm
1401 Duderstadt Center
North Campus
University of Michigan

Come see the future of computer games.

EECS 494 is a class on game design and development taken by computer science
seniors at the University of Michigan. At the Showcase we will have the best
final projects for you to play.

Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Activision have donated over 20 real
computer games. These games will be given to the developers of the best
games (as voted on by the attendees), and many of them will be given away to
attendees as door prizes based on random drawings.

Directions to the Duderstadt Center:
Directions
Parking is available in a lot northwest of the Duderstadt Center off of
Murfin Ave.

Directions to the 1401 Duderstadt (UM3D LAB-Modeling Lab):
Map of the Duderstadt Center

For more information about this course, please visit our web page:
Class Web Page