DayZ, day 2

Totally different experience today. It was daylight. I found a survivor in a few minutes. We worked together to kill zombies and grab loot off dead survivors. (We didn't kill them!)

After taking-down about seven zombies, I ran out of ammo and had to seek safety on top of a pipe, after climbing a ladder. I lost contact with my buddy. I heard shooting and looked up. Off in the distance, there he was again, taking-down zombies from the top of a tower. They went for him, climbing up the tower. Everything went quiet for a couple of minutes. I couldn't move, still too many zombies to try to risk a run for it. But then my new found friend was back again, in a different spot, drawing the zombies away from me. "Run for it!" he cried.

Why did he care? I was useless. Injured, unarmed, stranded in the middle of a zombie ocean. Yet he helped me anyway.

I ran. I got to a higher place. I was safe for now. I read on the server messages that Cal was dead. I was dismayed. How could I have lasted longer than he did? He had all the gear and the knowledge. I was alone again.

A few minutes later I dropped from a platform. My legs were broken. The zombies feasted on my entrails.

Pictures:

Partner in zombie killing

Site-seeing

The zombies

Safe-zone

Zombies climbing

Death

DayZ

To play DayZ I had to buy Arma 2. After, I followed the installation video-guide on the DayZ download page without a hitch. For mod of a game still in alpha, it was easy to setup.

I started-up DayZ, joined a US server (the Aus and NZ servers were full) and was ready to go.

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It was night time. Real night time. No moon. I could hear the waves crashing on the beach and see stars in the sky. I heard ominous music. That was it. It looked like this:

Hmm... What was I to do? I tried waiting for daytime (that's what you do in Minecraft.) It didn't work. After about a minute it was as dark as ever.

I looked in the menu options to find the key to turn-on my torch. There didn't seem to be a key for that. I looked in my kit. I had ten flares. I threw one. I went from no light to so much light that I was clearly a sitting duck. Having read about zombies and bandits, I was concerned. I tried pressing all the keys on the keyboard to find the key that would turn-on my torch. I didn't find the key for "torch." Hmm... That's unusual.

I picked up the flare. I dropped the flare. I picked up the flare. Was I suppose to walk around with a flare in my hand like a complete chump? There didn't seem to be any other option. I couldn't see a thing without a flare.

Off I went, knowing full well that I'd be dead in about thirty seconds time. I crossed a railway line. I found  a derelict building. See Exhibit B, Derelict Building:

I dropped the flare and went inside the house so I could find a bunch of great stuff I could use. Like a torch. The building was empty. The flare went out.

I threw a flare and picked it up to carry with me. I walked away from the building. The terrain changed from flat to a hill slope. I walked up the hill. The flare went out. "Okay," I thought. "I can deal with this. I'll just walk in the dark. I'll be fine."

I walked in the dark. I saw a building. It was the same building as Exhibit B. Unknowingly, I had double-backed on myself.

Perplexion set in. I couldn't walk in the dark. I didn't want to walk with a flare. What was I to do?

I stumbled back to the railway-line. See Exhibit C, Railway-line:

"Okay," I thought. "I'll walk along the railway line." At least I could still see that in the pitch black. After about a minute, I saw a flare! (It wasn't mine!)

I ran to the other flare. I was really excited. I had been wandering around for about 20 minutes with basically nothing happening. Finally, there were people! I was going to say "hello." Sure, they might kill me, but at least I wouldn't die alone.

I was so close. Then I heard a horrible sound. Oh my God, zombies! It was freaking scary. I didn't know where they were but I knew they were close. I fumbled for my pistol. This was going to be nasty. A zombie charged up on me. I fired away. It went down. Then another came up. I missed and it swiped at me. A few more shots though and it went down and all went quiet.

I decided to crouch-down and move slowly towards the flare. That way no-one would hear me. I'd be like a ninja. After all, there might have been more zombies out there and I was still a long way from the flare. I needed to be careful, the second zombie was almost the death of me.

But crouching is slow. After a minute I still felt like I was a million miles away. I decided to make a dash for it. Surely those two zombies were the last. And if not, I could make it to the light before they caught me. I would be like a cheetah.

I was not like a cheetah. I was a wounded and imprudent sucker. Two more zombies heard me and came for me. This time I was too slow. They knocked me prone and started to feast on my entrails. But it wasn't the zombies that really killed me. What really killed me was my impatience and a fool's hope.

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My first play of DayZ was confusing, short and ultimately tragic. The only goal I'd had - to reach the flare - was never realised. But I'll be back and I'll have a torch.

2012, the year of the computer game

There are a few good computer games that have come out over the last year, with a bunch more to come. My favourites so far are:

Legend of Grimrock

Such a tight old-school role-playing game. Every component of this game has been thought about. The puzzles, the monsters the characters, the items. There is never enough food. You're always just about to run out of health potions. Monsters are always one step away from killing your characters. You're almost completely lost and confused by the puzzles.

The most freaky moment thus far has been when I was adjusting my character's inventory and an ogre came charging out of the murky black. That was the first time I'd seen an ogre. My party was dead ten seconds later.

There is one aspect to the game that at first seemed tedious. You have to click on a combination of icons every time you want to cast a spell. I eventually realised that this is a way of making the combat more tense. You're trying to remember the combinations and click the icons before you get smashed by something like the guy below.

Unity of Command

As gratifying as Legend of Grimrock has been, every moment of my time with Unity of Command has been better. Thus far, it appears to be a perfectly crafted strategy game. You have to look for weak points in the battle line where you break through with tanks and mechanised infantry to either charge through to an objective or surround the enemy. Supply lines have been implemented so simply but so effectively. It's devastating to see the lines cut by a lone enemy unit.

Unity of Command is like chess where you can beat the computer and feel like such a bad-arse as you do it.

Turn 3. The Russian line has been broken.
Russian units have been cut off from their supply.

Turn 4. German tanks charge through to take the scenario objectives.
German infantry deal with the remaining Russian troops that have been overrun.

DayZ

I played this for the first time a moment ago. Wow. It's something pretty special. I'll write up my feelings about the game in the next post. In short, it's a terrifying game. I have no idea if I like it just yet, but I'll definitely play it more.

DayZ at night. The house is lite by one of my flares.

Games still to come

Two sequels to one of my favourite games are being released this year. They are Xenonauts and X-Com. They look like they're going to be very good.

2012 is shaping up to have very different games to the malaise of mediocre to dreadful games that have been around for long time now. Now all I need is Elite 4 (never going to happen) or a new X-Wing game to come out and I'll be set.

Diablo 3

I'm playing Diablo 3 multi-player this evening. It is the first time I've played a Diablo game multi-player. I have fond memories of the original Diablo game from 1997. I played it for hours, though never got close to finishing it. I never played Diablo 2.

I've played Diablo 3 single-player this week. I find it utterly perplexing. There are some astonishing design decisions. They seem so poor and obvious that I realise they can be nothing but deliberate. These are:

• Gold is something you need to pick-up, rather than being instantly added to your inventory. Why oh why?
• There are really special magic items need to be identified before they can be used. This takes a right-click and about 10 seconds. WHAT is the function of this mechanic?! I am completely baffled by this.
• The story seems neither good nor bad but completely antithetical to the sort of game that Diablo 3 attempts to be. In multi-player, especially, I can't see how the story could do anything but get in the way.
• Health orbs drop at such a rate that they are frustratingly difficult to avoid as they work instantly and don't do anything if you're already at full-health. It's as though I'm being punished for not being very good at evading a good thing (that I might have wanted to come back to later).
• Every attack is a special attack. I was completely thrown by this. How do I make a normal attack? You don't. It probably didn't help that I started with a Monk and therefore assumed that he wouldn't be using any weapons at all.
• Aside from the big fat men that explode snakes, none of the monsters have been particularly interesting. I was expecting a lot of funky variations. Maybe they come later. Maybe.

Add to this list issues with lag and DRM. Yet, Diablo 3 isn't a terrible game. I'm not sure that it is fun, but it's compelling enough.

Almost all of the issues and weirdness can be blamed on D&D. Designers need to get beyond D&D. Game rules for RPGs are basically arbitrary. You can come up with whatever you want. D&D had a whole bunch of really dumb stuff that was baffling when played around a table and completely useless when played on a computer. RPGs, computer or otherwise, need to get away from D&D almost completely.

Windows Phone 7 apps

I've had my Windows Phone for over a month. (I went from the Lumia 710 to 800 as my 710 was faulty. The 800 is better in every way.) Here's a list of apps that I'm using.

Wordament: Boggle where you compete against everyone else playing the game at the same time. Really well implemented and completely addictive. Having that "you vs the Internet" is an excellent feature. I can play in Spanish now too. Genial. Free

NextGen Reader: Superb RSS reader. Best I've used on any device. $2.50

AU Weather Pro: Australia only, but best weather app I've used on either WP7 or iOS. I love the customisable live tiles! I have current temperature plus 2 day forecast on one side, and radar on the other side. $3

Call Credit: It tracks your call and data use. Works really well. Free

YouTube Download: Download any YouTube video so you can replay it whenever you want. $1

Skype: Finally out of beta. It works but it's a bit naff. Needs integrating with the OS. Needs to sort by online/offline. Needs to run in the background. Disappointing. Free

Nokia Drive: Occasionally gives the wrong advice, but generally very good. Free

Amazon Kindle: Works fine. Free

Facebook: A bit slow and a bit redundant (Facebook is basically already part of the OS). Free

Flickr: Works fine. I wish this was fully integrated into the Pictures app of the OS. Free

Office: Only time I've used this is when I needed to read my brother's Word document that he sent to me. It was all formatted really well, including images. Free

iStunt 2: Fun little game. Free (for trial version)

Skydrive: Like Dropbox but way more space. Free

Comments on Windows Phone

I bought a Nokia Lumia 710 yesterday, my first smart-phone. I've tried the iPhone quite a bit and have an iPad. I've had a play with some Android phones. Somehow Microsoft have managed to make the best mobile OS out there.

I've completely changed the default layout to be entirely people centric rather than app or service centric. It makes people with iPhones look like geeks. This came from Microsoft! Inconceivable!

Things I like:

• Metro UI. It's taking over the whole Microsoft design world. It's superb. It looks good and easy to use. Someone really needs to apply it to computer games (I'm not talking about GUI in games, but the games themselves. Imagine a FPS in a Metro style!)
• Unobstrusive. I don't like how iOS interrupts my activity with irrelevant messages.
• Linking to all my accounts was simple. Way easier than setting up my Google mail account on the iPad, for example.
• Very responsive. It loads apps very quickly. It doesn't have the clunk of iOS (and it's not even multi-core yet).
• It's a social OS. My phone revolves around people rather than mediums (calls, SMS, email), services (Facebook, LinkedIn) or apps (pictures, music, etc.)
• The base apps are really good. E.g., Nokia Drive, Office, Xbox games.
• The back button is really useful.

Things I don't like:

• Animation on the people tiles. These tiles should not change unless I have a new message. I know who the person is by their picture, I don't need the OS to switch between their picture and their name. Bad user experience Microsoft! (But it's the only poor decision I've seen thus far.)
• The link between a person and their e-mails doesn't work correctly. On a person's profile it will say I've received emails from them. When I click to see the list it lists all emails, not the emails coming solely from them. Surely this isn't an uncommon use case! Weird.
• I'm not convinced that the screen-size is large enough to use the keyboard effectively. I feel like I'm getting more typing errors than I'd expect. This could be an OS issue, screen issue, general issue with smart-phones or a me issue.
• Needs Skype integration. (Microsoft, you might not have noticed that you own Skype!)
• Needs Google+ integration. I know few use it, but most of my geeky friends do.
• The search button uses Bing. (Useless)

I'm glad I bought a Windows Phone over an iPhone or an Android phone. The integration is great. I really dislike the app hell (too many apps all over the place!) I get with Apple. The design is much better too. I still shudder when I bring up Notes on the iPad. Ick! But WP is still playing catch-up with Google and Apple. I want the future Apollo features today. Just imagine what people will be able to do with app to app communication.

Computer Reversi, Part 1.5: The Thor database (Othello tournament files)

As part of my research into Reversi, I looked for an archive of games. The only substantial one I found is called the Thor Database. It's an archive of Othello games by French archivers. They have archived are over 100,000 games. You can download the game databases here.

My initial motivation for finding an archive was to have a easy way to unit test my code to ensure it implemented the Reversi rules correctly. If the game engine could play through 100,000 games and calculate the final score, that's a good indication that the rules have been implemented correctly. An archive can also be used for book openings. I have another idea for the archive too, which I will hopefully reveal soon.

My Reversi source code has a Thor project with a bunch of methods and classes for extracting the data for whatever nefarious needs you may have. I don't think there is any code in C# on the net for this, so maybe one day it'll be helpful for someone. Maybe. (Probably not.)

The file format documentation is challenging to understand because it is written in French. I have translated (thanks to Nuz and google translate) the core elements of the document in the section below. The aspects I found challenging were:

• Interpreting the meaning of the black player's score (I needed to calculate the score as the final check to ensure my rules were working)
• Interpreting the way they recorded the individual plays
• Converting elements of a byte-array to a 16-bit integer. (The data are stored as little-endian. One way: BitConverter.ToInt16(new [] { thorArray[i], thorArray[i + 1] }, 0).)

To calculate the Black Score:

• Get sum of black pieces and the sum of white pieces;
• Whoever has the most pieces wins;
• The winner adds to the sum the number of empty squares;

E.g., Black has 44 pieces, White has 8 pieces; Black's score is 56. Or, Black has 13 pieces, White has 35; Black's score is 13. In the case of a draw, Black's score is 32 (as the empty squares are shared between Black and White, 32 is the only possible score for a draw). I still haven't figured out what it means for Black's score when the game ends before neither player can play a piece. The score seems inconsistent. This only occurs in 406 of 107,473 games. (Not a big deal.)

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The data, such as Word and Longint, are stored in Intel format, ie the lowest byte first. There is a game file for every year. Games are stored in any order, but normally grouped by tournament.

Database header fields
All files in the database Wthor have a header of 16 bytes, followed by a number of game records all having the same size. The header consists of the following fields:

• Century file was created
• Year file was created
• Month file was created
• Date file was created
• Number of records N1
• Number of records N2
• Year of game
• Parameter P1: size game board
• P2 parameter: type of games
• Parameter P3: depth
• X1 (reserved)

Game fields

• Tournament Number
• Number of Black player
• Number of White player
• Number of black pieces (true score)
• Theoretical score
• Move list 

The plays are stored in chronological order. Row number (1-8) and column (A-H) can be derived from the following operation: column + (10 * row). E.g., a1 = 11, h1 = 18, a8 = 81, h8 = 88.

Tournament file

Each record (26 bytes) is an array of characters terminated by a binary zero. The effective length is 25 characters. There is a 16 byte header for this file. 

Player file

Each record (20 bytes) is an array of characters terminated by a binary zero. The effective length is 19 characters. There is a 16 byte header for this file.