It Is A Mystery…

It’s 2008.  Why the heck doesn’t my computer know what I’m probably going to be doing when I download a file?  My computer should be able to learn that I transcode video files with English hardsubs to MP4 and put them in my iTunes share, or that PDFs that I read may tend to be related to research and should be saved…  So why doesn’t it?

So I’ve returned after some time at MIT where I was getting a bearing on where I’m going next with my part in the TAMI project, and I’ve come out with a few goals:

• Finish tinkering and profiling the current TAAC setup.  This has already resulted in some interesting results, namely, that the planned OpenID setup is really slow.  To be fair, I’ve also only tested it with one physical setup, so I need to test a couple other servers, and so on. Unfortunately, it seems that the number of round-trips needed to get the FOAF file, get the OpenID identifier, and then establish a shared secret with the OpenID provider takes way too long. We can cache some of this (especially the former two), and can even avoid it all with a cookie established at the end of the first authentication, but the first sign-on takes entirely too long to process on this VPS.
• Examine other authentication methods.  Since the key right now is shortening the time needed to authenticate against one’s FOAF URI, there are several other methods out there that may cut out the authentication issues, including RDFAuth and Toby Inkster’s FOAF+SSL.  The former has less round-trips (as there isn’t the cost of setting up the SSL connection), but the latter doesn’t require the maintenance of a PKI, and can be done with self-signed certs.  I hope to be talking with Toby and Henry Story, among others, to see what’s been done with FOAF+SSL, and to see how we can work that authentication method in.
• Get a better idea how the reasoner engines work for the AIR reasoner. Seeing as my understanding is not terribly good at their reasoning methods, I’m going to be trying my hand at reimplementing a Rete system, a TREAT system, and a backwards chainer…  In Erlang (or at least do such for a Rete).  Why Erlang?  I think it will give me a good idea about not only how the system’s productions are called (as a network of alpha and beta nodes is rather nicely done in a functional framework), but it will give me a better understanding of the problems with trying to make a Rete concurrent (and why TREAT is ostensibly better at concurrency).  With Erlang’s BUILT-IN concurrency and light-weight threads, rather than a lock-based concurrent framework like in the Python we’re currently using, there’s no additional cost to making the functions concurrent if I take the time to do it in Erlang.  Luckily for me, I’ve worked with the Mozart Programming System in my programming languages class, and Erlang isn’t too different from that…  Plus, it’s another programming paradigm/language under my belt.
• Implement cwm built-ins into the AIR reasoner.  Yosi and I have already discussed some of the issues with doing so, so it’s just a matter of my understanding the code that’s standing in the way of my adding such.  Thus the reason for the above, and studying the existing code.

I suppose it’s about time for me to announce a status report of what I’m up to lately…

First: I’ve picked up my Pixonomy project again, and while I’ve JUST put it on hold again, I’ve progressed the library with a refactoring and I just need to do some cross-platform hacking (to get it to compile nicely on OS X as a universal binary), and implement a couple of search functions to actually get it to a state where I can actually start programming client software in GTK+ or wxWidgets (I haven’t decided which) to demo the library.

Second: I’m currently taking a break from Pixonomy to work on a nifty font for OpenTTD.  Since I noted that they finally implemented TrueType support and Unicode support in 0.5.0 (which I’d tried to implement before, but never really got around to), I figured I’d try my hand at something fun.  After I get all the lower case characters done preliminarily, I’ll start adjusting the bounds and kerning by testing in game…

Third: Been watching some of the subs for this season, and I think Allison & Lillia does seem to have some promise, but we’ll see where it goes.  Zettai Karen Children, though, is not so much up my alley.  We’ll see where the other series I want to check out go (namely, Library War)…  There’s a few others that might be good, too.

My final year of Genericon as Chief of Operations is over.  Kinda surprising that I’ve been such for three years!  Oh well, I think my replacement will do a good job.  I did my best to train him, but even so, I’ll probably end up as auxiliary help for Genericon XXII if grad school doesn’t interfere, just to make his and the new chair’s lives easier.

There were a couple of fun things we had, but I think Scott’s Horrible Video Game panel was one of the coolest things I got to do all con.  I recorded it on my camera, and even though it’s crappy quality, I’m gonna see if I can’t stitch together a Youtube post featuring it in the next week or so.  Standard work for a lot of the rest of the con, but even so, it was pretty fun.

It’s been fun, but it’s time for the new-old-guard to start moving on…  And time for me to actually get to work on the work that needs to be done for this semester.

P.S. djpretzel, Liontamer, and zircon were all awesome guests.  I didn’t see the others as much, but I think this years’ guests were all great and courteous guests and generally cool to hang out with!  Even though…  I kinda stayed in the ops room for half the con again.

Here are a couple AURA rating icons I came up with to use with the system. Combinations could probably work similarly, and I could shrink it or make a dark matte if you like…

RED:

ORANGE:

YELLOW:

GREEN:

BLUE:

INDIGO:

PURPLE/VIOLET:

BLACK:

The writing is just as good as when Futurama was cancelled.  Much better than Family Guy when it came back.  I need to go back and actually buy the other DVDs…

The following is my TODO list for the next week or so:

• Finish the one outstanding lab for Physics research (Tomorrow and Monday)
• Check on stuff to be done for CS research
• Contact the first three volunteers for Genericon I’ve gotten wind of.
• Get the video game submission forms up (by Friday)
• Finish the DB Systems homework (by Monday)
• Tinker more with SemWeb class project
• Get a photo to the person who needed it for some RPI website thing
• Contact the Union Sysadmin to get the RSFA the privileges it needs to run MySQL for the library
• Check again with all previous requests for panels and volunteering that I never got a response from
• Check on postering SUNY Albany and getting over to check Union (and possibly Siena) for Genericon
• Meet with TA helping with Physics research
• Check data quality from Physics research
• Figure out about Austin flight in January, ‘hack-a-thon’ also, and anything else Jim might have gleaned that would be useful to me at ISWC.
• Actually make time to read RDFPeers and cwm papers (on the plane tomorrow?)
• Write paper due for HCI on Thursday
• Read some for History class
• Fix first draft of grad school application personal statement
• Finish application process for grad schools to the point where requests for recommendations go out (by Wednesday)
• Contact University of Toronto to find out a bit more about the application process for US students.
• Do just a tad more research to find out exactly what SemWeb/KR stuff is going on at the colleges I picked so I can tailor my personal statement.
• Find out if I can get another opinion on the personal statement for grad school applications
• Get paperwork in for Independent Study next semester
• Fix minor issues with Panel (removeslashes) and Registration (fix date) pages.
• LOW: Actually watch the rest of Lucky Star and/or Pale Cocoon
• LOW: Actually get some more purple coin stars in Galaxy

I’ve got a lot to do, but I’m doing alright I think…  At least I got my very first draft of a personal statement done for grad school applications, and the DB systems homework is nearly done (or at least functional.  Not fast.) Oh, and I just installed Leopard on my laptop.  Desktop comes when I get back to school.  Also, I purchased a 49-key keyboard (the piano kind) :) 

I’ve already given a bit of thought on Galaxy after having taken a couple of days break from the purple coin quest. For my review, read on… (Thanks to Nina for letting me use her Coin and AURA rating systems)

The first thing that I noticed when I started up your save file is the ever-present opening cut scene. Excellently rendered, I think we’re finally seeing the first generation of games really taking advantage of the “Hollywood” chipset that the Wii provides. I haven’t played Metroid Prime 3, so I can’t say how it compares to the previous installments in the series and if it really leveraged the graphics chip, but Galaxy definitely shows a marked improvement over Twilight Princess, which really was just a late-stage Gamecube game with Wii functionality tacked on. Granted, the graphics are not exactly PS3 or even 360 quality, but I consider myself very much a casual gamer, so the graphics don’t matter as much.

Once the cutscene ends and I finally got a chance to really use the controls, I found them relatively easy to use. The nunchuck easily uses the Z button and analog stick like the previous Mario games, and A works to jump as normal. All the Mario 64 jumps are back, from the backflip and the U-Turn jump to the triple jump and the wall jump. FLUDD is no longer around to annoy the user by talking or being needed to make certain moves. The new functions, like the B trigger used to sling star bits, are useful, but certainly not necessary if you have a second player…

The first stage really begins to show the true fun to be had in Galaxy. The small worlds and interesting use of gravity permeates the game. It might be the most annoying aspect to some (and indeed, the controls are far from perfect on the edges of planets, when I ended up running in circles because of the way it handles movement) but to me and many others, the gravity is what makes the game truly different from the previous games.

Not all of the courses involve jumping from miniature world to miniature world. Some involve stages more like previous games, in which there is minimal world hopping, and one primary stage. These are reasonably fun, though the linear nature of the stars (you can only aim for one at a time, unlike the previous installments of 3D Mario, in which you could generally get one of several stars/shine sprites at any one time). Thus, Galaxy is a bit more like a mixture of the 3D ‘open’ idea and the 2D single-stage concept to a reasonably good end, though I personally wish that at least some of the stages had been a bit more ‘exploration’-based.

The overworld has its own charm. It’s not exactly as large as Peach’s Castle or Pianta Square(?), but I personally liked the background music much better for this game than elsewhere, and late in the game, you can get the best power-up in the game to be used almost exclusively to navigate the overworld.

The story has often been criticised as weaker than other Mario games, which is certainly true, but I believe that the story doesn’t really matter because of the raw strength of the gameplay. I mean, look at Mario 64. Many critique the lack of plot in Galaxy, but 64 has significantly less. Both have the minimal basis of “Princess writes letter, inviting Mario to the Castle. Bowser Arrives and kidnaps Peach, and Mario must rescue stars to defeat Bowser.” But at least Galaxy adds a sort of justification for Bowser’s nefarious activities and a backdrop behind Peach’s invitation to Mario, unlike in 64. Thus, I think the people arguing about plot have little support for their claims. Few, if any, Mario games have had significant plot (save the RPG, Paper Mario, and Superstar Saga series), and I don’t see any reason why they should start now. That being said, I am a bit surprised at the subtle less childish aspects of the game, including the first reference to death in a Nintendo-produced Mario game (if oblique). Bowser is almost (but not quite) made into a character deserving of pity or even praise in some regards if you pay close enough attention, which just continues to add depth to his character…

As to other elements of the game, I have to say that the game does deliver on difficulty, and those claiming that the game is too easy haven’t really delved to defeat the game fully. You can defeat Bowser with 60 stars, true, but those first 60 are easy, as described. They generally give you a taste of the levels but don’t make it difficult. Instead, it is the comet idea that really introduces challenge to the game. Most people have criticized the comet paradigm as a cheezy tacked-on feature to the game, and to some extent, this is true, as there is usually nothing that you haven’t previously done that is done in a comet run. Nevertheless, the comet stars are some of the most challenging aspects of the game (and don’t even get me started on the purple comets. I, and many others have a distinct hatred of the Toy Time Galaxy’s purple coin star, and it’s easy to see where the difficulty ramps up). Most of the time, people will likely lose their lives on the ‘extra’ stars, rather than on the basic stars. With 15 levels with 3 stars a piece, you can easily rack up 45 stars without playing through a single comet run, and only 15 would be needed to get to the 60 mark. These 15 can be filled almost entirely by the 5 Bowser bosses, and the approximately 10 other stars in the single-star levels, thus making it almost possible to beat the game without touching a single comet or the sometimes-more-challenging Hungry Luma stars (I am a bit surprised that the early Hungry Luma stars were more ‘difficult’ than the later ones, though the Trial Galaxies really illustrate some very nice galaxies to ‘play’ with rather than just play through).

In any case, the comets actually should add the challenges that the true gamers seek (the purple coins being the most annoying of them all, being alternately grinding or frustratingly difficult due to the miss-one-and-start-all-over aspect of many of these stars). There is no reason to believe, in my opinion, that Galaxy is any easier than 64 or Sunshine was. Oh, and it has the best 120 star bonus in any of the three games.

In any case, there’s only a few other circumstantial features I found notable: Powerups, Music, and Coop Play.

Powerups: By and large, the powerups were reasonably well thought out. The fire and ice flowers were awesome touches (Wall jumping off waterfalls is awesome), and Bee Mario is about as good as anticipated. Boo Mario was a bit of a let down, being in only three stars and poorly designed (Even Bee Mario was used for more than that). Likewise, Spring Mario is often thought of as the most irritating powerup (and I agree with this opinion). Unlike the more interesting powerups like the Flowers, Spring Mario is actually permanent, more like Bee and Boo Mario, and has the extremely annoying feature of being unable to actually stop moving (and for that matter, being a bit difficult to control, requiring timing to succeed at high-jumps). Every stage in which his use was mandated was rather annoying, and I felt the powerup was more of a punishment than a reward… I just wish there was less of that and more of the best powerup in the game. Pity it’s only used on one stage and the overworld.

As for music, I must say I definitely think it has a very solid mix. It’s not entirely orchestrated (far from it) which is a shame, but both the orchestrated and unorchestrated pieces are relatively solid and excellent (as long as you’re not suffering through 15 minutes of finding purple coins. Then they actually border on irritating). I loved the overworld waltz (especially in its complete form after you unlock Bowser, complete with counterpoint and other classical niceties) and the other new themes are also solid and well composed. I also enjoyed the lovely remixes of previous Mario themes, which were especially well-suited to the levels they were on, and almost like a small reward for old Mario players (I loved including the Super Mario 3 Battleship theme in the opening, and immediately knew which levels were going to be frustratingly fun when I heard the Super Mario 3 ‘Moving Level’ theme. It’s actually rather interesting how this game, which I compare to SMB3, is the first game to remix its music…)

Lastly, coop play. I do have to admit that it is a bit weak, and does make the game incredibly easier. I was lucky to have someone to play with who didn’t mind being the second player, but I could easily see that it’s not nearly as fun as being Mario. I kinda wish it had been a bit more solid and interesting than just collecting star bits and stunning enemies, but this is EXTREMELY helpful in many levels just the same.

In conclusion, I (and I suspect many others) would easily call Galaxy THE game of the year (though I suppose the love for Portal and to a lesser extent the fanboys who refuse to even give Galaxy a chance by supporting Halo 3 might give Galaxy a run for its money. It certainly helps, though, that Galaxy is the first game in quite a while that has actually driven me to beat it because of how fun it is, rather than just for old-time’s sake. I don’t think a game has entertained me this much since Zelda 64.), and overall, Galaxy easily plays the Super Mario Brothers 3 to Super Mario 64’s Super Mario Brothers 1. Where 64 pioneered 3D platformers in many ways and set up the Mario franchise as it is today, Galaxy really serves as the apex (thus far) of the 3D Platformer paradigm that 64 pioneered. Sunshine, in my opinion, was weaker than 64, but at least it wasn’t a Doki Doki Panic.

Finally, I suppose, my ratings:

AURA Rating: Green (Excellent example of a platformer with lots of mass appeal, but not necessarily for the new gamer thanks to some of its quirky controls and the prerequisite of understanding how 3D platformers work)
Coin Score: Copper to Silver (You’ll only get about 12 hours if you just go for 60 stars. I got to 105 stars after about 24 hours, and 120 is probably about 30 hours (those purple coin stars are a bitch…). If you get to that stage though, you’ll probably stick with it to the bitter end, which is almost certainly twice that much, at about 60 hours, if not a bit more just having fun with some of the levels. It’s all pretty fun, so the comparative ‘lack of hours’ in completion, a paltry 25 or so, is likely going to be forgotten, but the grinding of the purple coin levels may drag your value down if you’re a completist and not the grinding type.)

So apparently Nintendo actually made Galaxy suck.  That’s right, I got 104 stars, beat Bowser to get the last, and then, as expected, out came ‘collect the 100 purple coins.’  Of course, having first collected purple coins in the process of unlocking the best powerup in the game, I figured that these purple coin stars would have said powerup, or at least be challenging and fun, but instead, it becomes a monotonous grindfest.

So yes, while purple coins may seem deceivingly fun or challenging, given the return to the Gateway Galaxy, both me and my friend who has been helping me have both actually griped about these stars, and that’s definitely not a good sign.  My friend, who had previously been rather enthusiastic about obtaining Galaxy and playing on his own has now had his interest severely diminished thanks to these last stars, and he can’t even seriously help either, because he can’t collect the stars, and there’s not that many enemies to help with.  And of course watching someone be irritated at the game isn’t terribly fun either.

Thus far, I’ve gotten:

• Good Egg: Quick, at least.
• Honeyhive: Monotonous and boring as hell.
• Beach Bowl: Again, monotonous and boring.

Battlerock is even more annoying as has to be done perfectly the first time (Hello moving platform!) Don’t talk to the Gearmo at the end or you lose a life!

It’s definitely problematic that these stars take upwards of 15 minutes a piece and they’re a drag all the way (and even make you start hating the music, which otherwise was awesome!)  It’s even worse that if you screw up and die, you have to start from scratch because it’s a comet level! Getting to do all of the 105 fun stars as Luigi and then these 15 painful stars as him as well is almost not worth the trouble in my opinion…

I’d give my ratings in terms of Nina’s system, but I can’t dig those articles up right now…

“Not bad! I guess I chose the right guy to be my archenemy. At least you always put up a fight.”

P.S. 68 stars and JUST beat the Bedroom Boss.  I want to clean up the Engine Room before heading to the center of the universe.  I just like breaking the game where all 5 galaxies appear at once.  It’s rather amusing that way.