yayo's blog ( ^^)ù

ok. Abstract of the current situation:
my PYG ("progetto yayo-giapponario", =yayo-japanary project) is temporarily suspended since some weeks now for lack of working software tools. Nothing to worry about anyway. I just need to write a fast code to manage the kanji dictionary files. Being PHP the only programing language that I know (sorta), I'm forced to learn a new one (php is ok for websites, but about data management a three-toed sloths is faster).
After some days spent searching for info I decided to try with the "common lisp" (the other choice was forth, but lisp seems to be closer to php, and this will probably help me a lot). Lisp seems to be powerful, versatile and easy enough from my php-point of view (I'll know for sure only when I'll have played with it bit more). It can also be used for interpreted scripts as well as to compile executable files.
I admit I got some troubles finding an implementation of the language. There are many on the net, but a half of them are commercial and come in a demo version with reduced functionality, and only a few of the others are mature/stable versions. And nether commercial nor free considers people like me with an old computer/OS and with a crappy connection: all the implementation are elephants 8mb atleast big. In dialup with an average speed of 4,5Kb/sec (just because I use pc during the night, otherwise it'd be 3,5! :P) it takes round 45 minutes to download the archive. And once I get it, if it doesn't works with my OS or something, I have to restart from scratch. A friend on IRC sent me a scheme (=another lisp dialect) interpreter which is around 35Kb. How comes that common lisp requires at least 8mb? boh..
Anyway I finally found clisp which has anything I need. Well, having known that readline version of the executable doesn't work on my win98 --yes, I still use win98! why? is it a problem? :P-- I would have avoided to download it twice, but at least now also the developers know it! I'm sorry for having bothered them, but if they write on the sourceforge page that it's a mature/stable software working on all windows versions starting from win98, how can I know that on win98 readline doesn't work?! >xP). The interpreter without readline sucks but it works and it's enough (do I have other choices? >:P).

Sadly I'm also busy doing some other things, and this will delay PYG even more. :/ Anyway I finally managed to get a working kanji-dictionary page even without html tables, using all the power(aaahahahah! *cough*) of CSS(ucks).. (I know, I said I was resigned about this, but it was a personal question between me and the stylesheet: my PC must ALWAYS do what I want, not the opposite! :P)
And anyway there's not so more left to do to have the dictionary working, so once the map extractor software will be ready to manage the base dictionary file (knjidic2.xml), I'll be probably ready (for site upload).

Another reason for the delay is that this thursday I'm going to hospital for a little sorgery thing. Nothing to worry about (...they say. sadly I'm used to suffer and faint even for a blood exam.. I know, I'll die suffering the pain of hell.. sigh.. x' | ). I'll be knockout for a week at least..

Last note: why the heck the italian postal service keeps wasting time and resources selling stuff that I can buy in other places, instead of provide an affordable postal service? They're now also a mobile phone service provider with sim and all. It's not bad, ok, but it's a month yet I'm waiting a parcel from another country! And I got confirmation from their postal offices, that it leaved that country the 6th of november.. Where's my parcel? WHEREEES IT?!? Take care of my parcel instead of wasting time selling books and stuff, damnmn!! uff.. >x'/

y.

Yay! \o/
We were waiting since January!

Toady has finally released the new version of "Slaves to Armok: God of Blood, chapter II: Dwarf Fortress", commonly known as Dwarf Fortress (DF for friends. :P) [3].
When the link got posted on the IRC channel for the 1st time, people went mad: pratically a mass histery (still up, but it'll require time to get back to normality, but at least the author can no longer say that people don't talk of DF on the channel: that's the only one topic now! hehe.. :P).

The released version is the 0.27.169.32a which adds many new features to the game.
The world creation seems to be faster (with the previous version it strangely tooks around 2 hours to me to get one done. Ages! Now I got it done in around 10-15 minutes...).
The game area selection is almost totally different: it's possible to browse over many useful info about the map (cliffs, height level, nearest civilizations.. ) and it's also possible to decide the size of the game area. The preparation phase isn't so different instead, but still with news (some new interestings jobs added to the list).
The game area is way different now: it's in 3D! You still play with a 2D map, but you can move up and down over around 30 levels (depends on the area): 15 upside + 15 downside. well, if it was a mess before, try guess now! xD
Obviously ramps and stairs are now available, along with pumps to move water on the higher levels. It's also possible to build grates and a lot of other new things. And most of all it's now possible to rebuild walls and floors (only if you have the required stones, of course)!
Also the map structure is now more realistic: it is no longer the fixed sequence left-to-right (outside, underground river, chasm, magma river..) and also searching for stones while digging down requires to go over a couple of levels before to find something.
The noble system is totally new, and also the farming system is new and more easy.

But I'm not going to risk to say something wrong making a full review of the game. Many things still needs to get discovered by the players, and also the wiki site [2] needs to be updated (the old wiki is archived yet, and a new one is ready and growing up quickly). Moreover being this a major release which adds many improvements, it'll probably have also some bugs that will needs to be fixed with some minor releases on the next days/months. (And there is also the adventure mode that I don't know enough...) So I stop here, leaving people to discovers the news by themselves!

However, this is still one of the most interesting games you can find on the net (and surely the most complete alpha of a game I ever seen!) It's the perfect proof that it's possible to enjoy a game even without the latest 7trillionofpoligons graphic card. : P
Suggested to everyone.

The game is freely downloadable from the bay12games website [1], and with a donation you can support the author!! :)

Have fun!

y.