Dangerous Dave

Life, the Universe, and Everything

Monday, February 22, 2010 11:59:22 PM

Over the past few weeks, I have been busy working 50 hour 7 day weeks, studying, organising a passport and other details for my trip to Malaysia in April, and working on a couple of new games.

Malaysia

In April my family, some extended family, and I will be taking a trip to Malaysia to visit some relatives. I'm afraid I know very little about Malaysia. I know there's a Malaysian takeaway shop near where I live, though I've never eaten there. I know where Malaysia is on a map, though I've never been there. I know 1 Malaysian Ringgit is equal to about 40 New Zealand cents, though I don't yet have any ringgits. And I know that everyone keeps money behind their licence when driving in Malaysia so when the police ask to see it they pull out the money and the licence and hand it to the cop, who hands back the licence and goes on his way. Besides those things, I know nothing of Malaysia so I am quite looking forward to it.

Covert Cooper 2

After the limited success of Covert Cooper, I have decided to create a sequel. Although it is a sequel, it bears little resemblance to the original game. This is a (hopefully non-linear) adventure game, where you are stuck in a box in the middle of a strange land. You must escape before your captors catch you. You roll around in your box, exploring the area, and (presumably) eventually escape. The current game has two bosses, 26 rooms (out of a planned 90-100), conveyor belts, cranes, lava, a grappling hook, dna cloning devices (AKA save points) as well as robot and non-robot guards that cause you to lose the game if they see you. You must sneak around, moving only when guards have their backs turned, exploring the area weaponless. I would show you a screen shot, but it looks like a default grey background with blue squares and a black square. Quite boring to look at, more fun to play. I hope to get a public demo out sometime in the next month. If you want to see the game now, PM me at the GMC. All I ask in return is a little feedback.

<TBA>

This so far titleless game is a direct copy of the Japanese game Hashiwokakero. I started making this after watching my girlfriend play the game, and I thought it would be a fun game to make (although I remember hating playing it a few years back, I think I may give it another go). So far it has been interesting to make, although I've only spent half an hour or so on it. The one problem I foresee is level creation. I would love to be able to randomly generate levels, but I don't know how I would do that short of creating an auto solver and generating random numbers until one can be solved. I will have to have a think about it. The intention is to add this game to the slowly growing collection of games on Pointed (if you have a points based game you think could work well on Pointed, I'd love to hear from you

).

And finally, I'm still waiting on receiving my Debit card (Over here we have 3 main types of cards. The most popular is an EFTPOS card, which are used instead of cash. No one under the age of 60 carries cash, EFTPOS is just so much easier. The there's credit cards, where you spend someone else's money and pay it back. Unlike EFTPOS cards, you can use a credit card to make purchases on the internet. And the third type of card is the debit card. You get to make internet purchases using your own money, but you have to pay a monthly fee (of a dollar or two) to the credit card company (Visa/Mastercard/whatever). I've applied for a debit card but it hasn't arrived yet. I may go and chase it up today. GM8, here I come. And maybe a domain name or 5, and a paid host. Any suggestions? I want to host 4 or 5 domains under one hosting account).

This post is a bit haphazard but hopefully you followed it ok.

-Dave

The Right Turn RuleMuch Ado About Nothing

Comments

DesertDweller # Wednesday, February 24, 2010 3:54:46 PM

Ooh, Malaysia. Sounds exciting. I too have never been there...but I could find the country too. However, my mom is from Guam, which I know is within the vicinity. Sometimes people think me and my siblings are from that area...half true but still funny.

Projects sound good. Looking forward, all that, etc...skipping the same ol' statements.

I've never heard of an EFTPOS card. I personally don't carry any cash on me but that's simply to minimize spending.

I'm gonna be applying for a credit card soon; one of these special for students that's basically limited in every aspect to make sure you don't go bankrupt in a month, but hey, at least I'll be able to make online purchases on my own then.

Paid hosting? Hm...I've heard so much about so many I honestly don't know who to recommend anymore. I would say don't go with the incredibly popular ones like GoDaddy. (I'm not sure if you can even use GoDaddy in NZ; I think so but I'm not positive) Why 5 domain names/?

Dangerous DaveDangerous_Dave # Thursday, February 25, 2010 10:03:38 AM

Originally posted by DesertDweller:

However, my mom is from Guam, which I know is within the vicinity.

Well, within the vicinity in the same way that New Zealand is within the vicinity

(although I guess it's only half the distance to travel there). But it's not like Guam is actually any closer to Malaysia than most of the pacific islands

Originally posted by DesertDweller:

I've never heard of an EFTPOS card. I personally don't carry any cash on me but that's simply to minimize spending.

Imagine carrying all of your money around in your pocket, without the possibility of getting mugged. It's awesome.

And you can set up separate bank accounts so only one or two can be accessed from the card, and make it not possible to access a savings account so you don't spend it all. Most banks over here issue one card that doubles as a credit card and an EFTPOS card, and if you fit into certain categories (such as under 18 or a student) there is usually no fees at all associated with an EFTPOS card, unlike a credit card that charges the store 3% of each transaction. In fact, most McDonald's over here don't take credit cards.

Now for a history lesson

. I can't be bothered looking this up to see if it's right, but when I was in school (maybe economics class?) we learnt about the history. Back then technology wasn't as reliable as it is now (*cough*by the way, an entirely new cellphone network built by alcatel for one of NZ's biggest telecommunications companies has failed miserably, going for hours and even days without the phones working. It's still an ongoing problem*cough*) but they wanted to test a new technology, a cashless payment. Now they could have introduced it in the US, but what happens if it catches on, gets really widespread and then one day the whole system crashes? It could literally destroy the worlds economy (this is the late 80's. Yes, it's that old. Since I was old enough to know what money was, I have had an EFTPOS card). New Zealand was chosen instead. It's got a large enough population and economy to give the system a real test, but if our economy crashed because of before mentioned happenings then it would do no real damage to the rest of the world. It caught on like wild fire.

If you drive as far away from civilisation as you can (in NZ), and find the tiniest (retail) business you can, they may not accept credit, they may not even accept cheque, but they will accept EFTPOS. I have never been to a country where such an awesome system (awesome because unlike credit, it is a joint agreement between banks, therefore no middleman, therefor no fees paid to a middleman) is so widespread. Even in Australia, two hours flight away, shops accepting EFTPOS are hard to come by. Everyone still carries cash. It's crazy how far behind NZ the rest of the world is

Originally posted by DesertDweller:

I'm gonna be applying for a credit card soon; one of these special for students that's basically limited in every aspect to make sure you don't go bankrupt in a month, but hey, at least I'll be able to make online purchases on my own then.

I consider myself quite responsible with money (now, 5 years ago it was a different story). As soon as I signed up for the debit card I thought I really should have signed up for a credit card. That way at least I am building myself a credit record. But I've already spent the first $100 off my debit card (or rather $70 US).

Originally posted by DesertDweller:

Paid hosting? Hm...I've heard so much about so many I honestly don't know who to recommend anymore. I would say don't go with the incredibly popular ones like GoDaddy. (I'm not sure if you can even use GoDaddy in NZ; I think so but I'm not positive) Why 5 domain names/?

I've decided to go with NearlyFreeSpeech.net. It was recommended to me after my little twitter request, and it looks good. You prepay a set amount, and only pay for what you use. The money then comes out of the amount you prepaid until you are running out, then they send you an email asking you to top up again. Apparently it's cheapest for low bandwidth sites, rather than high bandwidth, but that suits me fine. THey also do domain registration for $8.50 or so, the cheapest I've seen, and it's all set up to work with the host since they're the same people. It's been good so far, though I think they use a different PHP or MySQL version than I'm used to because my pages were suddenly full or errors. Tell me, do you know how I can sent a cookie request (as in request to set the cookie) and a redirect (header("location: www.example.com")) in the same header? It worked with both before, now it doesn't. It's late here so I'm gonna play with it tomorrow to see if I can get it working.

Oh and 5 domain names is just a start. I have a lot of sites

. I may even get my blog it's own site, or have a home page/portfolio/blog thing. Now, what would I call that domain... dangerousdave.com is already taken

.

Edit: I really would not blame you if you just skimmed through this reply

Anonymous # Friday, March 5, 2010 12:04:58 AM

Desert Dog writes: They don't have EFTPOS in america!? How do you guys live! Btw, have fun in malaysia, D_D.. er, D_Dave, and make sure to blog about it when you get back.

DesertDweller # Friday, March 5, 2010 5:46:35 AM

Originally posted by Dangerous_Dave:

I've decided to go with NearlyFreeSpeech.net

Ah. rinkuhero is a big fan of that hosting company. I've heard good things about it from other people too.

Originally posted by anonymous:

They don't have EFTPOS in america!? How do you guys live!

Well, for most people, they lug around 3 1/2 credit cards, a debit card, cash, change, in a big fat wallet that sometimes gets annoying.

That's why I just don't bring money with me unless I know beforehand I'm gonna need it. Made some girls mad because I *truly* can't buy them something at school or whatnot, but it saves the money!

Yes indeed have fun in Malaysia.

Dangerous DaveDangerous_Dave # Saturday, March 6, 2010 7:44:57 AM

Originally posted by Desert Dog:

Btw, have fun in malaysia, D_D.. er, D_Dave, and make sure to blog about it when you get back.

Originally posted by DesertDweller:

Yes indeed have fun in Malaysia.

I sure will. I may even have photos, if I can find a camera

Originally posted by DesertDweller:

Ah. rinkuhero is a big fan of that hosting company. I've heard good things about it from other people too.

I like the payment style. I pay 2c a day for the use of MySQL, and $8.50ish for a year of a domain, and 1c per megabyte of storage used per month. Bandwidth is a pay as you use it thing. It's a really interesting system.

Originally posted by DesertDweller:

Made some girls mad because I *truly* can't buy them something at school or whatnot, but it saves the money!

Girls get angry because you don't buy them stuff? They don't sound like girls that deserve to be bought stuff...

So you can't think of a domain name for me huh?

DesertDweller # Sunday, March 7, 2010 6:03:58 PM

Originally posted by Dangerous_Dave: