JoshuaGrams

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JoshuaGrams

I think Stardew Valley/Harvest Moon style "farming" mechanics are far too binary and feel like a factory rather than a farm or garden. I also think that watering is a poor choice of stand-in for all the repetitive farm maintenance tasks. So here are some specific suggestions for extending those mechanics in (relatively) easy ways to make the system feel more organic.

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JoshuaGrams

Things That Might Be Off-putting

• It feels like Phoenix uses the asterisk much more than Plover, at least for beginner/common stuff. So if this puts you off...For me it has mostly been fine, but things like *PBG for "-nk" where you have to "reach over" the -FR have given me some trouble. Especially when paired with right-hand vowels: I had to drill *EUPBG ("-ink") relentlessly before it started feeling comfortable. It helped a lot to think of it as "-ing" with a reach for the star, instead of prioritizing the star and letting that pull my hand out of place/shape.
• There is something to be said for Plover's mature dictionary. The Phoenix dictionary is fairly good-sized, but it's still a starter dictionary. I've added more words than I did with Plover.
• It's human-curated, so while most of the inconsistencies are due to the quirks of the English language, I have definitely found several definitions that were wrong or missing.
• It uses prefixes and suffixes much more than Plover, so many c

JoshuaGrams

To download and run this script in a single command, cut and paste this in Terminal:

curl https://gist.githubusercontent.com/JoshuaGrams/845eb0e0cd8e8fb42668028792b37ce7/raw/f7de596a50eff8734483c560560ef441a9f26c33/tweego.sh | bash

JoshuaGrams

This is sort of a blend between Ted Morin's excellent cross platform movement dictionary and codepoke's single stroke commands dictionary.

I've been using it intermittently for a couple weeks and I'm happy with it. I'm still slow because I haven't practiced it and don't actually use it much, but I've found it easy to remember what the strokes are, and most of the modifier combos are pretty comfortable for me.

It uses STK to indicate a navigation command on the right, and then P/W/H/R are Super, Control, Alt, and Shift, respectively. You can use these by themselves to press and release the bare modifier (e.g. Super to open the Windows menu, Alt to toggle application menus).

This is mirrored on the right by -LGT, and P/B/F/R are Super/Control/Alt/Shift. Combine this with a fingerspelt letter for key combos. I did not define these alone: they

JoshuaGrams

To unlock level 18, type ADUMBRATE at the title or the level select. (means make a faint image of, sketch; it's the window title and the letters on the title screen).

The other two are hinted at in the image but they're so badly drawn I would never have gotten them without searching the data files.

To unlock level 19, type DNA (yeah, I guess those are supposed to be DNA molecules).

To unlock level 20, type PETRICHOR (the earthy scent produced when rain hits dry soil. Yeah, he's smelling it, not singing or casting a spell or whatever else you might have thought it was).

JoshuaGrams

-- Skill Progression
--
-- Deterministic - each skill has XP which counts up.
--
-- Each level costs x% more than the previous one.
--
-- You learn the same amount whether you pass or fail a skill
-- check.
--
-- Learning is curved based on skill vs. difficulty.  The

JoshuaGrams

Character Progression

What kind of stats do you have?

• Resources - Acquire and spend them like currency.

• Personality trait - some actions just check the stat, while narratively significant decisions change it.

JoshuaGrams

(function() {
	'use strict';

	function IndentedLexer(lexer) {
		this.lexer = lexer;
		this.indents = [''];
		this.tokens = [];
		this.nextBlankIsIndent = true;
	}

JoshuaGrams

Thoughts on Narrative Structure and Tools

My local gamedev group is having a meeting tomorrow, on the subject of narrative structure and design in games. I thought I'd collect some thoughts and links here beforehand. I'm a programmer, not a writer, so I'm sure I'm missing stuff and probably misinterpreting other things. Take this with a large grain of salt.

Parser vs. Choice

Historically there has always been a big distinction between parser-based and choice-based IF. Parser IF allows you to type