Text Based Building

I've mentioned building before, and I also mentioned how it's kind of tough to write about. It's hard to talk about, too. Every time someone asks me what I've been doing lately, it's a choice between "basically nothing," or attempting to explain this building process to them.

I'm going to try to shed a little more light on it today and what exactly I'm talking about.

If this is your first time hearing about this and you aren't already bored, I initially wrote a post to explain exactly what Cleft of Dimensions is, and then I briefly and inadequately explained what building is in a different post. If you already know what a MUD is, it's that.

Pascal the Builder

Featuring once again, that weird text based game, Cleft of Dimensions.

I was "hired" as a builder, which is a low tier staff member who creates new areas. I say "hired" because I definitely am not being paid.

Staff members are called immortals, which is slightly fitting as they actually can't be killed, at least under normal circumstances.

I have been a very busy beaver, and I built an area in the game based off of Animal Crossing.

I meant to post about this sooner, and maybe do some updates regularly because of it, but frankly there isn't that much to say about the actual process. I've been entirely engrossed in this for almost two weeks, now. It's really been my main focus, but even the higher ups are impressed with how quickly I put it together.

Text Based Blog Post

I will write about that DnD session like I promised. Today is not the day I do that, however.

Today I'm playing Cleft of Dimensions, again.

yeah this one

I never really get tired of CoD (which obviously doesn't stand for Call of Duty in this context), but I just end up playing something else and forgetting about it for awhile. Then I go back to it and play it until something else comes up.

A Dark Room

Sometimes great games come in unassuming, text based, browser windows. A Dark Room, also a game for iOS, is a text based, somewhat role playing, idle game that begins with nothing more than... a dark room.

It was released on browser in 2013, and became available in the app store in 2014. There is also a prequel, which was released after the first game like some kind of Star Wars, but it's not available on the web.

Before I played the game, I had no more knowledge of it than the general idea that I would be creating some kind of small town and it was quite the roller coaster ride. Be aware that everything past this paragraph will reveal parts of the story! The fact that I would be worried about spoiling the plot of a text based idle game should be a pretty good indication that it gets pretty interesting. If you're already intrigued, go ahead and ignore the rest of this post (or, you know, come back later if you'd like to read the words that I typed).

Graphics and You

Giving a game a bad review or saying that a game is bad because of its graphics is an easy way to get laughed at by a lot of gamers.

the enlightened opinions of random internet users

Graphics matter - but not the way some people tend to think. It's not important how stellar the graphics are, it's not important if the graphics look "real", but rather the way the graphics fit into the atmosphere and the environment matters.

Minecraft has made hundreds of million of dollars with very low quality graphics, and no one has stopped playing the classics due to the higher quality graphics available in more recent games. Don't get me wrong, you can judge graphics all you'd like, and stellar graphics really do enhance a game's experience, but here's the thing:

Gameplay and graphics are mutually exclusive.

Grandpa Multi-User Dungeon

Before there were MMOs, there were MUDs. An older guildmate of mine actually told me that MMOs were originally referred to as "graphical MUDs". . .

Now I don't know how true that is, but MUDs are text based games where you explore vast and mysterious worlds, but just, like, with words.

they're very intense

There are a lot of them, but I've been playing one in particular that's very well made and maintained, Cleft of Dimensions.