Dude… Netflix thinks I'm gay
It's been a quiet weekend. I really don't remember what happened to Saturday, except that Firinel climbed a ladder when I was asleep and cleaned the gutters (amazing person that zie is). This morning, Riordon and I went to St Gabriel's (Fin stayed home with a migraine zie's had for several days, which is just as well since today the organist was joined by a trumpeter). This evening we watched A Family Affair which (despite the dreadful reviews) is actually pretty funny, and actually made me laugh out loud several times, which is a rarity in a film. I enjoyed it; I don't know whether any of you would, but I did. We were going to watch Mango Kiss, but it was scratched. (Dude… Netflix thinks I'm gay. I wonder why.)
Oh, my rosary broke and Firinel found it and cleverly fixed it so it's as good as new. Zie lives up to zir name.
(reflection through Fin's eyes)
Avalot nargery: Everyone who makes more than one adventure game realises they need an engine. Since Avalot was the second Avvy game, I was moving towards an engine-based design called "Avalanche" (it's possible to link up rooms in complex ways, define objects, and so on, all in the data) and the really large part that's really missing is any sort of procedural language. The third game, Avaroid, would have been entirely Avalanche-based, and we'd have provided an editor so people could make their own games.
Anyway, Flight of the Amazon Queen (an adventure game for the ScummVM engine) has been released as freeware and is now in Ubuntu. Riordon was having a whale of a time this evening playing it. Looking at it made me think that if I ever port Avalot to run on modern systems I'll have to build an engine, and I wondered whether ScummVM or AGI or something would do. (AGI is the engine that the original Avvy was a clone of.) Well, ScummVM discourage new games, and even though some people make new AGI games, I'm thinking that if I ever do remake Avalot, it should be as part of a generalised GNOME-ish 2D graphical adventure engine. I think I'd write it in Python. It could be fun.
Alternatively, it's too late at night and I need to get to bed. That could also be true. :) I'm wary of trying to produce some Great Work of my own. It's fun when it's something small, but I tend to end up going off and try to build something huge on my own, and miss the fun of sharing in team projects. So especially over the last few months, I've been trying to focus on helping out even in the small ways on larger projects, especially Metacity. I want to carry on doing this. I like hacking away on big projects, too, but I'd prefer that they were part of a team project; I'm not sure where to find such things, though. Reading through HACKING files is maybe a good place to start.
Now I know I'm tired. I'm just rambling. I'll go to bed before I start telling you about the time Russia signed a peace treaty with the small English border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.