Naked Paul Toast’s Insights

In the YoYoGames Competition 4 Glog entry, Sandy Duncan, YYGs CEO, responded:

Comp03 results should be out soon. Can’t give an exact date as MarkO is away till next week and he won’t let us do anything unless he has a vote !! Problem we’re facing is there are a LOT more good games submitted than in previous competitions. Normally by now we would have a shortlist of 10. At the moment it’s still close to 30 !

I expect the following three entries to be shortlisted. At worst make honourable mention in the Competition 3 winner announcements, and probably take home some or all of the prize money.

Drop in the Bucket by KC LC.
Lost Snowmen by RedSystem.
Byteality Tower Defence by Erik Leppen.

What are my predictions based on?
(more…)

Earlier, I wrote about Conspiracy theorists and the Downraters. Today we’re going to look at a conspiracy theorist and demonstrate that his claims are manufactured, and could not have happened as he alleged it happened.

[EDIT] Links to GMC topic and YoYogames page intentionally removed, see comment for explanation.

The topic started out as a rant about how the game has been on the top page and then because of a downrater dropped into oblivion. The thing is, it absolutely could not have happened like he said it happened. It’s not feasible mathematically, it’s not feasible time wise, and it’s not feasible that a game that has gotten absolutely zero attention, suddenly got huge negative attention, and then all of a sudden get so much positive attention.

It just doesn’t work.

But I just watched it get continually downrated from a 4.0 to a 3.7 (about 20+ votes) within a matter of seconds

The topic states that he just happened to be on YoYoGames and just happened to witness a downrater downrate his game in a matter of seconds. He said it happened 20+ times, later in the topic claimed 25 to 30 times.
(more…)

Conspiracy theories (and theorists), the world is absolutely full of them.

JFK assassination, 9/11, moon landing hoax, are probably the most notorious modern day conspiracy theories. They have a lot in common, like most conspiracy theories, they fail Occam’s Razor, they’re not falsifiable, they’re not support by industry experts, they defy logic, they demand too many people stay silent.

They just don’t make sense.
(more…)

Often on the GMC, people create topics, wanting to know the best way to automatically update the client for their online game.

It’s a tricky problem. An executable, updating itself is problematic, because while the executable is running, it can’t be overwritten. Suggestions are always cumbersome, awkward and problematic. Typically involving the client downloading the executable, then running another executable, which deletes the original executable, renames the new executable and then runs the freshly updated executable.

Variants of this technique, suggest creating a pause to ensure the original executable has completed before it is deleted, sometimes batch files are involved.
(more…)

We all have reputations. I know on the GMC, I certainly have one. Through personal correspondence, responses to my posts, and the occasional comments, I can say with absolute certainty; with some I have an excellent reputation, with others, obnoxious and arrogant, with many an absolute pain in the ass.

The point is; the reputation I’ve garnered, positive and negative, for the most part, is absolutely deserved. The reputation we’ve all garnered, positive and negative, for the most part, is absolutely deserved.

But this topic isn’t about me, it’s about reputations. Specifically, the reputation that one particular member is quickly gaining, one that he probably isn’t aware of, and one that one day he mostly will wish he didn’t have. But, it is one that he deserves. He’s earned it.
(more…)

Where’s the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth shattering kaboom!

I’ve been busy with a Game Maker project. For the first time, in a long time, I’m somewhat excited about it. I’m proud of a couple components, the User Interface (UI), and a flood-fill type thing. Hopefully by writing about it, I’ll have the motivation to finish it and publish it.

UIs seem to be a glaring Achilles’ Heel in many Game Maker created games. So often, what might be a good game, is often ruined because of ugly, awkward, non-intuitive UIs. It seems people spend a great deal of time with the game play, or graphics or other components, without an equal amount of time on how the player interacts with the game. The end result is a frustrating experience. At least for me anyway.
(more…)

You know it doesn’t exactly scream credibility, when you host and judge a contest, on a domain named bart-teunis.eu, and one of the entrant’s name is Bart Teunis.

Yes, I know, I should have dropped the Open Letter thing. And Yes, I probably shouldn’t have created my Open Letter. I definitely shouldn’t be further promoting the insanity further, with this entry.

But hey, at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, isn’t it always about the hits?

A Response was created by the original letter writer. My eyes were immediately drawn to the statement:

I must also commend Benjamin Poole for his response to the letter. Not only did he address it in an unbiased fashion.

What? You’ve got to be kidding.
(more…)

An open letter to Connor AKA Dr. Watz0n.

Hi Connor (AKA Dr. Watz0n),

You’re an idiot.

Hugs,
NakedPaulToast

Open Letter
GMC Post
GameMakerBlog reaction

Just discovered SoulScroll, a blog with a lot of Game Maker content.

Created by SoulRed12, AKA gmXpert2000 on the GMC, I was impressed by his SoulHow tutorials and essays. Easy to read, good background information, examples with GML and actions. A good place for the beginner to intermediate.

I’ll link a few, judge for yourself.

• SoulHow to deal with errors
• SoulHow to actually do stuff with GML: Part 1
• SoulHow to actually do stuff with GML: Part 2
• SoulHow to make two health bars

There’s a lot more.

Definitely worth a Blog-roll.