Sometimes I’m not in the mood to work on one of the main projects, or just have a little idea that needs to be taken way too far. Following are the results of some of those projects. Sometimes these ideas make their way into our games, sometimes they turn into games of their own. Either way, I just hope they’re seen as more than a waste of time.
Generations
Take Conway’s Game of Life, make it 3D, but only use the third dimension to represent time. This is Generations. It provides a brand new way of looking at cellular automata, as generally a “top-down” 2D view only provides a snapshot of one point in time. The 3D view provided by Generations gives a better idea of how complex structures grow, evolve, and interact.
You can see other videos, screenshots, and examples at the Generations website.
PHPMud
PHPMud is an attempt to recreate an oldschool MUD experience in a modern browser. Right now the content is a little thin and there’s no real advancement, but it’s something I work on occasionally. The enemies don’t attack back, you get skills based solely on level, and the stats system is a little buggy. Bug me about this one and I’ll probably put some time into it.
Music
I make quite a bit of music, in a variety of styles from electronica to orchestral to ambient.
SynthCrap Vol. 1
This is a mostly electronic album consisting of about a year’s work. It’s a bit rough around the edges but I consider it to be my first “complete” album in terms of production and composition.
“Caverns of Mars” from “SynthCrap Vol. 1″
album5
album5 is a “project” which I completed in the span of a few hours. Let’s just say it turned out about as well as you’d think an album made in a couple hours would.
UnSynth
UnSynth is my first for-sale album, originally slated to be released mid-July, 2009, but probably will be pushed back to the fall. You can listen to some previews at http://music.xerol.org/unsynth/
Tags: blog, generations, music, phpmud