Other Fun

I've recently been working on some game related projects. First, there's the RPG engine I've started which I call Stallion. I've received just about no interested about this from anyone so I havn't been paying it much attention. Now and then I get the desire to hack on an RPG and none of the available codebases for graphical RPGs interest me as much as the ones for textual RPGs. So why not hack on a textual RPG? Because it's just so dry without players to consider, and with players to consider you've just gotta be so dedicated.

Then there's my other project. I've always been a fan of Bullfrog's Syndicate. My fan page gets a lot of hits (probably because I give out copies of the game on it). If you've never played Syndicate you probably won't understand the attraction. You'll also think we're all crazy for fooling around with DosBox or old hardware to get the game to actually run and never consider doing the like yourself. As such, you may never experience the game, which I consider a tragedy. That's where FreeSynd comes in. A visitor to my website recommended I take a look at it. The goal of the project is to make a reimplementation of the game using the original game data, and later create new missions/graphics/etc from it. I guess that means one day you will get a chance to play the game. Of course, this begs the question of why you would want to.. all I can suggest is that you or your kids might like to experience the games my generation played when we were young, much like I enjoy playing Pac Man or Space Invaders. If we have to rely on DosBox or old hardware that just might not be possible.

In about 14 hours I get on a plane for 13 hours. I then get to sit around in an airport for another 5 hours and then get on another plane for 6 hours. My entertainment on this trip will consist of a copy of The Confusion by Neal Stephenson and a junky Sony VIAO laptop with 192mb of RAM. Assuming I have access to a power socket (I'm flying in cattle class) I expect to spend more time working on FreeSynd than reading Stephenson but, ya know, flying is such a funny thing, maybe I'll just nag the cabin staff.

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