#easiest programming language to learn

[verbalbridgesllc]

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[theminecraftbee]

since we've been talking about modded minecraft in general here lately: let me say that i do think the easiest way to learn modded minecraft is one of two ways:

play a modpack with a quest system! despite me shilling vault hunters constantly, vault hunters is actually only half this; its quest system teaches you vault hunters well, but not necessarily the mods within it. luckily, quest systems are popular with modded minecraft, and many modpacks have them. in general, a good quest system doesn't start you with "okay so first you need to do (difficult automation task with many intervening steps)", it should start you with "here is a single task that isn't terribly difficult". for example, create: mekanized starts you with "automate cobblestone, automate lava, automate trees", the first two being VERY easy within the pack, and the latter being a little more difficult (since it requires building an actual contraption), but not by much. if you are being started at something less easy than "make this mod's version of a cobblestone generator", maybe try a different modpack, or go to idea two for learning modded minecraft, which is,

make your own quests! which is to say, the way i learned create, and mekanism, and thermal, and a lot of the mods within vault hunters was finding a specific thing i needed to do--for example, "i need to find a way to get a large amount of cod"--checking jei and what items i have--for example, finding that i had cod eggs available, and that the aquatic entangler can drop fish--and then researching tutorial videos or in-game documentation on how to use those things. yes, unlike the first version, this means a lot of that documentation may not be in-game. create is the gold standard, but many of modded minecraft's giants... are not create, to say the least. so you may have to look up wikis or youtube videos! however, by attempting to solve a task yourself, you will be teaching yourself the sorts of steps you need to take to solve similar tasks in the future, and it will help teach you if you actually like the gameplay of that mod or if you'd prefer not to.

modded minecraft IS VERY INTIMIDATING that's what kept me out of it for so long until vault hunters. but documentation is WAY better than it was when i was in high school and first going "what the heck are all these mods", and also the proliferation of quest systems means there's a lot more that will teach you things in granular steps. so like, if you ever ask me "where do i get started with X mod", these will normally be my suggestions!

also side note: genuinely a great place to start, like a hello world in a programming language, can be "how does this modpack help me build a cobblestone generator". not every mod can do that, mind you, but most modpacks have a weird way to do that, the cobblestone generator is probably the easiest base-level minecraft farm so everyone sort of understands how it works, and it will normally teach you a little bit about that mod's gameplay.

so yes that's my really uninformed suggestion for where to start with mods!

[larkingame]

the absolute beginners guide to twine part i

I've posted this in the tutorial channel in our decoding twine server, but I figured it might be helpful to keep on here. As someone who found learning twine incredibly daunting especially with so many things to read, often using coding language I was expected to already understand, I want make coding in twine alot simpler for beginners.

So, with this, I'm unleashing the absolute, absolute, begginers guide/series of sorts for people looking to pick up twine, but might be intimidated. Here I'm talking about the 'stuff you should already know' 🙄 you see when going into tutorials. I really hope some of this helps, and I'll be happy to answer any questions I can in the future, or at least, send you to someone else who can too.

so, with that being said, here's the absolute beginners guide to twine, part i

So, this is the most basic basic basic stuff you're going to use within sugarcube twine, that I thought would be helpful for those of us who are just learning, there are plenty of more in depth guides out there, but I wanted to keep this as simplistic as possible in a sort of explain-to-me-like-i'm-five style.

Once you've gotten twine installed and switched your format over to sugarcube -> (This is done by opening up a new project, clicking in the bottom left of your screen with your game's title, and clicking on the 'Change Story Format' Option and switching over to the latest version of Sugarcube (sugarcube2.36.1))

PASSAGES These are what hold the content of your story! They hold your main body of text and LINKS which what connect passages in your story. Think of passages as pages in your choose your own adventure novel, and links are the choices that tell you (or the program) which page to flip to. Passages have TITLES and BODIES Your Title, is you guessed it, what your passage is called. This will not show up in game, but I'd recommend naming your passages something bland incase code-divers hop in and look at your code lest they find something embarrassing in your titles. Your body, is what is in the actual passage itself, this is what shows up in game and contains links.

LINKS links are what tie ALL of twine together across the formats, and in sugarcube you can style them a series of ways, connecting one passage to the next. The easiest way to include a link looks like this: [[LINK]] This is a link that will appear as the word 'link' in-game, and will take you to the next passage entitled LINK. For this route, it's necessary to wrap your link in two sets of brackets OR [[]] These, which will actually make it function as a link. [[NEXT | LINK]] This is another approach you could take, where players will click on a link that says "NEXT" in game, but will take the player to a passage called LINK. For beginners think, left is what will appear to the player and right is the title of the passage just for you the developer.

USING VARIABLES - variables are an incredibly useful tool that can be used to keep track of things throughout your game, whether that be your character's name, whether or not the player's visited a passage, the response to a question or numerical stats.

For our purposes there are three types of variables, Boolean (true/false), Numerical, and String Variables.

The two macros that will be useful in reference to variables are: <<set>> and <<if>>

First things first, when you have your list of variables ready, you're going to want to define them first in the StoryInit Passage. This is the first passage that will run in your game, you won't see it when the game is played BUT it does get run in the background behind everything else. By setting your variables ahead of time and modifying them later it allows for a smoother run through of the game that eliminates problems further down the line. You can of course, define your variables as your game progresses in individual passages BUT you might run into trouble later down the line.

So, let's set up your variables in a mock StoryInit Passage here: :: StoryInit <<set $characterfriendship to 0>> <<set $yesornoanswer to false>> <<set $eyecolor to "null">>

SO, what this does is it sets a variable called $characterfriendship to 0 using the <<set>> macro. What this does is set my friendship points with said character to ) that can progressively grow throughout the game.

VARIABLES whatever you call them ALWAYS have to be proceeded by a dollar sign ($) for them to function in game, and you can format the <<set>> macro a number of ways. For example: <<set $characterfriendship to 0>> <<set $characterfriendship = 0>>

Both will function the same and make it so that variable will equal 0.

Now moving on, if we want to alter those numerical values further down the line in a passage we can do so in a number of ways, whether that be adding, subtracting, dividing or multiplying. For example if I want to ADD 1 point to my friendship my code would look like this. <<set $characterfriendship += 1>> OR IF WE'RE JUST ADDING ONE you could simply do this: <<set $characterfriendship ++>>

To subtract you'd do: <<set $characterfriendship -= 1>> To multiply you'd do: <<set $characterfriendship *= 1> To divide you'd do: <<set $characterfriendship /= 1> This of course can be altered to any number, just by changing that 1 to the number you'd like.

BOOLEAN VARIABLES are useful when an option has two outcomes, helpful for things like yes or no questions or passage visits. Setting those variables looks something like this:

<<set $yesornoanswer to false>> <<set $yesornoanswer to true>>

when setting the variable it is NOT necessary to add quotations around the words true or false, this will mess up your work down the line if you don't continuously use those quotes again.

STRING VARIABLES These are helpful for options with more complex outcomes, things like multiple options, names, or character customization.

<<set $eyecolor to "null">>

So far in StoryInit I've only set it to null because I haven't set it yet in-game, and by setting it to "null" it just gives me an option that isn't really an option.

SETTING VARIABLES WITH LINKS SO, moving forward, no that I have defined my variables in StoryInit, I want to change them when I'm in game.

You could do this of course, by setting them at the top of your passage in game. So looking something like this:

::passagethree <<set $eyecolor to "brown">> Her eyes were brown. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.

But another sometimes more effective way to set them with actual links! You can go about that a couple of ways.

One is with the brackets method and it'll look something like this.

[[BLUE | LINK][$eyecolor to "blue"]]

Using this method, it's important NOT to include the word set, simply skipping ahead to your variable the to and what you're defining it as.

The other method is through the <> method. This is simply another way to style your links. I like the brackets method, but it's all up to you.

<<link 'blue' 'passage-four'>><<set $eyecolor to "blue">><</link>>

The first quotation (blue) is what the player will see as the link in the passage, and the second quotation (passage-four) is what the associated passage is called. You can set the $variable within those <<link>>

[zebulontheplanet]

Hello. Hope you dont mind me asking. What do you mean by aac. After searching it seems to be a broad term. My friends and I often communicate via sign language or typing on our phones and showing the screen. Is this what you do? (I'm referring to the post about going to the doctors.)

I hope this ask is friendly. I'm enjoying learning about different non verbal and disabled communities and finding how I can be a part of them.

Plain text: “Hello. Hope you dont mind me asking. What do you mean by aac.

After searching it seems to be a broad term. My friends and I often communicate via sign language or typing on our phones and showing the screen. Is this what you do? (I'm referring to the post about going to the doctors.)

I hope this ask is friendly. I'm enjoying learning about different non verbal and disabled communities and finding how I can be a part of them.”

Hey there! It’s good that you’re learning! So, AAC is supposed to be a broad term. AAC means any communicative way besides speaking. So sign language (although this is a debated topic and not everyone sees it as AAC and I can’t speak on this issue because I’m not Deaf, but someone is free to correct me!), gestures, communication cards, boards with pictures, texting, text to speech programs on a high tech device like an iPad, symbol based programs on a high tech device like an iPad, etc are all AAC.

Personally when I talk about AAC, I usually (unless stated otherwise) mean a high tech AAC device. I currently use an iPad with a few apps on it. The most common app I use is proloquo4text.

When I was at the doctors, I used my text to speech app, proloquo4text on an iPad. I simply type what I want, and then click the play button, and it says out loud what I typed.

It’s a pretty neat app and is the most common one I use! Sometimes I just use my phone and show people what I type, especially when I’m at the pharmacy because it’s just easiest and leads to less mistakes. But yeah! I mostly use a High tech device, which is an iPad with a text to speech program.

I hope this helps! If you have anymore questions then feel free to ask! Have a lovely day!

[girliestwomaninstem]

introductory post (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠✧⁠*

Hellooo <3 I've been on Tumblr for a few years now, however, lately I have become a bit of a slacker in terms of my student and professional life and a lot of y'all have inspired me to get a studyblr + accountability blog to help keep myself in check, focused and driven

🌻 about me ♡

name: tofu

age: 23

pronouns: she/her

zodiac: ⊙ aries, ☽ scorpio, ↑ scorpio

languages I speak: english, hindi, japanese (beginner)

🌻 my favourite subjects ♡

- academic: chemistry, cybersecurity, creative writing, biology, personal finance, physics, discrete math, intro to programming (the easiest part about a cs degree yet daunting)

- non-academic: cosmetic science, psychology, literature, ancient/modern history, physics, astronomy, linguistics

I'm trying to once again pick up hobbies that I used to have as a child, such as reading, singing, gardening, cooking/baking, scrapbooking

In my free time, I love watching asian soap operas, Studio Ghibli, and sitcoms that I'd like to call my comfort shows and video essays related to all my non-academic subject interests

I'm an undergrad student currently enrolled in a computer science/fintech double major and I'm preparing either to enter the workforce or pursue a masters in either quantitative finance or bioinformatics engineering or data science (wow, the existential crisis that came with typing up that sentence). I could also talk more about my interests in the above-mentioned subject areas, or new ones as they come up. My goal is to create a routine for myself that I can actually stick to, and spend each day having learnt at least something, no matter how small. I feel like the only way to achieve that is by comparing myself to my peers (I know that is v toxic but hey it helps). Additionally I really want to learn how to drive this year, learn to crochet and keep up with new technologies, do some art journalling to take my mind off stress.

I'm so excited to meet new people on here and keep myself busy and productive! ❤️

[just-a-girl-0001]

Magic system that's based on programming:

Each spell needs a corresponding script to be used, you can't use magic without a script. And you can't use scripts without shells.

Shells are devices that interpret and utilize scripts written by the magic user. Originally, common folk had to write scripts via long and drawn out scrolls of black and white inkings. While script writers could use these scripts without shells, they took far longer to write. Furthermore, they had to be imbued into casting glass. Which would shatter upon use. This caused a lot of common folk to think of magic as a useless gimmick.

However, after the creation of shells and the practice of stuffing said shells with pre-written dictionary pages. Common folk could finally start understanding/practicing magic. Often dictionary pages were taken from libraries of well known common words, however due to the nature of shells some shell languages are more useful for certain tasks than others. Because of this, magic use overall ramped up. Even starting script schools for those who wish to alter and control aspects of the world.

Each script requires a proper syntax which corresponds to the shell's internal dictionary. While you can add pages from other dictionaries, it's seen as more cumbersome. So most script writers bring multiple shells with them. However, if you are more familiar with one type of shells syntax, there is no shame in modifying the shell.

Basilisk is a novice spell script language. Which focuses on controlling, observation, and automation. Most script writers start with this language, mostly due to the fact the school's mascot is so cute.(being two snakes with sea shells on their tails) even though it is seen as the easiest, a lot of new script writers fail to utilize it to its fullest potential. Unfortunately, a lot of experienced writers of other script languages, tend to dismiss the work of basilisk magic. The speed of the shells cast is slower, but they still work just fine for the average user.

Slash is less commonly used in comparison due to their shells being used in a majority of magical devices found within high magic environments. Often common folk see it as daunting. Going as far as to say it's the work of demons. But in reality, it is based on the old gods religion. Some who use it say they feel as if they were "Bourne again" but there is a majority of slash users that do not know of the old gods. Simply using slash as the shell that it is. Because of Slash's integration into a majority of magical devices. Users of flash can often manipulate these devices to do what they want. By inserting Slash scripts into a device's shell. The reason why most magical devices have shells built into them. Is because they often need to be modified and upgraded. While the pages that are utilized in the Shell are changed. Remnants of the original pages tend to linger. Allowing some to break open the shell, and assess the changes that occurred to it over the course of its life.

Finally sea shell is ranked amongst the hardest. These script writers often attempt to control reality and the perception of it. Those who know it tend to enjoy showing off their skills to the common folk. By making interactive books and other media like it.

But if one is truly adept, they can completely reconfigure incoming spells to be more in their favor, via Re-write injections. These scripts are shot into the shells of opposing script writers. Which then makes the script act differently from what was originally written. Sea shell users can do this because of the research they put into learning how common scripts are written. (You'd be surprised how much is simply copied from other script writers these days.) Because of this, it allows them to prey on the opposing script writer's vulnerabilities. Even so, there are Sea shell users that copy their scripts from other Sea shell users. This causes a lot of fighting within their community. Mostly from those who are more narcissistic.

The origin of the name Sea shell comes from the fact that the first shell was a seashell stuffed with scavenged papers. These papers were thought to be from an ancient underwater library. But the logistics of this don't seem to make sense. The first user of the seashell shell was recorded as an unnamed scriptwriter of old. Yet no one knows what they looked like, some suspect they were dark haired, and small in body. However, some like to believe they were a seafolk of some kind. However most of these recountings seem to be fiction rather than fact. One thing that we do have on the script writer's existence. Is the original shell that was used. Some believe that if one was to truly master the Sea shell language. The original seashell would speak to them, in the voice of the original script writer. However no one has heard their voice yet.

(I really had fun with this I hope anyone who sees this enjoys it <3)

[vexacarnivorous]

Do you know where to starts with programming? I want to learn but there’s so many types of codes and systems that I don’t know where to start.

Ultimately, it depends entirely on what you want to do with programming. Do you want to make websites? HTML, CSS & Javascript (in that order). Do you want to make games? C++, Java or Lua. I myself am learning Python (as well as HTML and CSS), which is a general-purpose language that's good for data science, machine learning and web development and is often recommended for beginners. You can learn more about different programming languages here, since it seems like you're overwhelmed because there's so many options (understandable).

HTML and Python is often said to be the easiest to learn, so if you're really stuck, you can start there. If you want to learn Python, I answered an ask recently about where you can learn it.

For any websites that I recommend you use, try The Odin Project (primarily for web development learning) - I've tried it out and I recommend it, and they focus on trying to teach you practically. Another good website is freecodecamp, which has more varied options! I also suggest you search up "coding exercises" on your search engine of choice to practice your coding knowledge, since just learning programming on Codecademy or whatever won't really hammer it in. There's heaps of sites for exercises like Exercism, Project Euler, LeetCode, etc.

If you're still not satisfied, I've also heard someone recommend this course before, but I've never tried it. I hope this helped!

[shentheauthor]

I drew out my iterator ocs from this post

Extra info below cut

Clipped Wings:

- the rains in their region are far worse than the others due to how much processing power they use

- They scratched off their own head symbol (it used to be an upside down triangle)

- they resent the ancients a LOT for abandoning them, and they despise Wishes to Understand

- They even neglect their own puppet alongside their city

- they’re almost out of water. Time is running out.

Stack of Tomes:

- knows No Significant Harassment as well as Sliver of Straw

- she’s considered an outsider in her own local group lately

- she tries her best to guide the younger iterators when she isn’t busy worrying about Sliver

- the best genetic engineer of the bunch. Gazes Upon Countless Stars goes to her for help a lot

- the closest thing Wishes to Understand has to a parent

- GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY

Gazes Upon Countless Stars:

- he’s trying to create a purposed organism to launch into space

- before the ancients fucked off, they were starting a space program in his city

- GUCS (goofy ass initials) is by far the easiest to talk to out of everyone

- his chamber is decorated with star charts

- he had an ancient friend! Her name was Distant Days of Snow, Seven Golden Wires (Snow for short).

- Snow wanted to be the first ancient to reach the stars, but she never made it

- she always supported GUCS’s idea that the Solution™️ is in outer space

- so he wants to fulfill both of their dreams

Wishes to Understand:

- they actually woke up after the ancients were gone

- something went wrong in their activation, so they were assumed to be “stillborn” for lack of a better word

- SOT was the first to discover it was actually alive

- It was never properly given a name, so they chose WTU on their own

- Wishes has a good relationship with the beings inhabiting their city and structure

- their region is also the least rainy

- as a result, there are many thriving slugcat colonies and scavenger tribes living there

- Wishes regularly trades with the scavengers, using them as eyes and ears outside of their overseers.

- scavs bring them data pearls and any other records they can find, then they’re allowed to bring the pearls back to their tribe with some extras that Wishes doesn’t have use for

- scavs also keep predators and other pests from infesting their memory arrays

- it gave their scavengers the gift of communication with iterators, and it’s learning the scav language as well

- Scavs are well on their way to become the next major civilization, in my opinion, but WTU’s accelerating the process by a lot

- admires and looks up to the other iterators

[manonamora-if]

How do you do the planning to create an interactive fiction game? I have the general idea for an interactive fiction story but I'm a complete mess when it comes to organizing and planning. Where do I even start?

Hi Anon!

I was waiting for this question to appear at some point, lol :P I spent all day on this....

Create your Interactive Fiction Game

Last February, I detailed my process when working on CRWL. You can read that post here. It is not a perfect (or even good) template to use, since it is specific to that project in particular. I also have a list of programs I am using/have used when creating my projects here!

But, yes, organisation and planning is VERY important when you want to tell a story, no matter if it is in a game or novel. But unlike a novel-like story, you need to add coding on top of it. I would say these are the two big components of IF.

Disclaimer: I am not the Voice of Knowledge when it comes to creating IF, takes this information with a grain of salt and do some research too! :)

Long post, so breaking the post. Here's a Table of Content

1- Gameplay/Visual (aka Choosing your Coding Program) 2- Planning your Story (or Why it is better to start small at first) ~ ~ A- Game Pattern ~ ~ B- From Pattern to Outline ~ ~ C- From Outline to Writing ~ ~ D- Writing Tips 3- Coding the whole thing ~ ~ A- You are stuck ~ ~ B- Test everything ~ ~ C- UI Customisation 4- Publishing and Marketing ~ ~ A- Publishing your game ~ ~ B- Regarding marketing ~ ~ C- Scheduling Updates and expectations

1- Gameplay/Visual (aka Choosing your Coding Program)

Though the story is very important (obviously), it is important to know what kind of gameplay and visual you want for your game because it will dictate what kind of program you should use:

Do you want to make a Visual Novel? Then you might want to look into programs like Ren'Py.

Are you gravitating towards parsers (player entering words/sentences to advance the story)? Inform might be what you need.

Do you just want to give players choices? Twine formats and ChoiceScript seem to be the most popular ones on Tumblr.

Note: There are waaaayyyy more programs that those four, and you may be able push the possibility of what a program can/is supposed to do with enough coding knowledge.

Even in each category, some programs will be more complicated to learn than others. For the Choice-base games for example, ChoiceScript is considered one of the easiest to code in terms of logic and formatting of code. In the same vein, the availability of tutorials/community* to help will make a huge difference in learning the program. And finally, some programs may require some knowledge of other languages (ex: HTML/CSS) for further use/customisation.

Note: While most may be in English, there may be even tutorials/communities in your language! (if you are ESL)

And finally, you may want to think about the visual aspect. Some programs/formats will allow you more customisation than other, whether it be text formatting to complete customisation of the base UI (how the page looks). For example, in Twine (SugarCube/Snowman especially) , you are only limited by your knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

P.S.: Some programs, like ChoiceScript, are not open-source.

A good way to know what kind of program you want to use is to look at tutorials online and test it yourself too.

2- Planning your Story (or Why it is better to Start small at first)

Now that you've settled on a coding program, it is time to work on a story.

If it is your first time, the best advice I can give you is to start with a small and contained stories. The learning curve can be daunting when starting, more so if the project is complicate and long. Starting short and easy won't feel too overwhelming, you will learn what works best (or doesn't work) for your creating process AND it makes it easier to learn coding in your chosen program. Starting with a full-blown RPG with extensive Combat Mechanics and hundreds of long-ass quests is not a good idea if you've just begun with the program.

You can even take advantage of Jams to test your skills/ideas or request feedback on IF Discords Communities or in the IF Forum.

But whether your story is large or small, the planning part should be very similar.

A- Game Pattern

So you have an idea for your IF, great! Now let's think about patterns, or how will the story be told. Do you have a linear story in mind leading to one important finally choice? or do you want a lot of branching with many endings? Or even a lot of choices culminating in one final event?

Knowing about pattern will help you plan the story and define important events to happen. It will also make you think of variations to take into account and what kind of action you'd need to reach a certain part of the story. Obviously, you don't have to stick to one pattern (as you work more on the story), but it helps.

I really like this blog post detailing the different patterns of CYOA games. [I used it when creating MtP]

B- From Pattern to Outline

With that general idea of how the story should pan out, we can start fleshing it out a bit more. I often use the "Funnel Technique" when I create my stories (big picture to small details), but it may work more for linear stories rather than very branching ones. It goes something like this:

Start with your general idea: genre, theme, world, time period, etc... But stay general. You don't need to go into too much details at first.

List your big events and make a timeline: what is the conflict to push the story forward? why does it happen? what does character should learn from it? what can they do to resolve it? etc...

Do the same with other smaller plots (if you have them!): every plot needs a reason for it to happen.

Combine the timelines: not only some beats will need to happen before others (especially if they are the catalyst of the next one), this will help you to know when to introduce a certain character/lore/etc...

Delimit your chapters: with your timeline, you can now break it off into smaller chapters (you can include what important action/information each chapter should have).

And here is your outline!

During this process, it is a good idea to keep note of everything you can think of: characters background/personality, important lore of your world, etc...

It is also then where you may want to think of aspects to track (relationship, choices, etc...) and give it a name.

While you don't have to research things at this stage, it may help you if you are working with a topic/setting you are not familiar with.

C- From Outline to Writing

Now that you have your outline and your timeline, you are closer to writing :D You could decide to write away, or you could plan your chapter a bit further.

I usually do the later, as it helps me think of possible places to include choices or variation for the player. [This is also where the graph comes into place] I even go a bit further and plan each passage (text screen), making notes of what the player will see (dialog, action, description...) and if there is variation to include. This last part is very much detailing work, and helps me with writing.

After all this, it's time to write!

D- Writing Tips

Here are some stuff that I do to help me not get overwhelmed when I write and help me to be organised when I code:

The "one page per screen" technique, where you add breaks between each screen/passage, can be helpful to demarcate each part of the chapter/scene you are writing. Headers or links with a table of content can also be helpful !

While it matters little at the beginning, tracking choices and consequences of those choices and important variables will help with continuity and variation. For example, if you give the player the choice to set their height, you should take this into account if the MC goes into tight spaces. Similarly, if the player chooses to confront someone, the next page should probably not have a romantic tone.

Use colour code, comments or formatting when writing to separate choices (link list or cycling options, etc...) or variation for a tracked variable (ex: tone of voice, physical change, etc...) from the rest of the text. This will help when coding.

While writing, if you get ideas to include further into the story (ex: new choice, mechanic, sub plot, etc...), write it down on a separate page and only come back to it when you are do writing the part/passage/scene/chapter. A sudden idea might seem fitting but may push you towards a dead-end.

Edit Edit Edit! 1st drafts are awesome, but it can always be improved [Cough cough, not calling myself out at all, Cough cough]. Using Grammar Checks is immensely helpful (more than one, since none will focus on the same aspect of writing). And Beta/Sensitivity readers are godsent!

3- Coding the whole thing

When your story is ready (or part of it you are ready to release), you will need to code it.

The best advice I have for this is to code your story first and make sure it works. It can be tempting to deep dive into the formatting of the page (especially if the program you chose enables you to customise it extensively). An IF can look amazing, but if it breaks everywhere, it is not going to be fun to play.

A- You are stuck

And don't worry, it happens to every one! Coding can be a difficult puzzle to solve, even with the solution right under your nose.

The most important advice I can give is to always refer to the official documentation or look for tutorials online (other may have come across the same issue before you).

If nothing helps, there are often coding communities (that focuses on the format/program you are using) where you can ask for help (Discord/Forum, etc...). Do not be afraid to ask for help!

B- Test Everything

And when you are done, test again. Testing/Playing (whether by yourself or with Beta Readers) is the only way to catch errors.

Similarly, if you want to add some custom code to your project or use a built-in functionality, but don't know if it works, the best way to find out it to try it out! Read the documentation, play with the code and test it.

C- UI Customisation

This part will be highly dependent on which program/format you are using. While CSS/HTML is the same anywhere, it's implementation can differ greatly. Be sure to check the official documentation about the matter.

If the program allows you for customisation, this can be loads to fun to edit your UI to make it look however you want. Like the previous point, this can need a lot of testing too.

If you are just starting, having the basic UI is just fine :) You can always change it down the road. But if you want to zhuzh it up, here are some elements you can consider when editing:

Colour palette fitting your story. Steer away from bright colours if your story is dark, and vice versa.

Image in the background can make text hard to read. Having a block of colour between the text and the image will make reading much easier.

Colour contrast is IMPORTANT. Readability is easy to mess with when having multiple colours, use this website.

Simple is usually better. A complicated or busy page will be distracting. Stick to simple.

Use a template. This is more of a SugarCube comment, but if a template is available (and you like the vibe), use it. It will make editing your UI easier (tag or link to the creator in your game page/post).

If you can: remember to make your project as accessible as you can (with your knowledge). Colour contrast (maybe dark/light mode), Font change (font, size, etc...), limit or toggle animated text/images, etc...

4- Publishing and Marketing

A- Publishing your game

There are many places on the internet where you can publish your IF projects. Different formats will congregate towards different websites. For example: Dashingdon hosts only ChoiceScript, Itch has anything and everything, Steam will require a fee to publish there. You can also host your projects on other platforms or your personal website (ex: Neocities allows it), though you might want to stick to places where there is an established readership. In any case, follow the selected website's instructions for publication.

If you have a working and published demo (or finished game), I'm nudging you to create a page for it on the IFDB. There, people can leave long reviews and rate your games! You can also Archive your project to preserve it. [SAY NO TO LOST HISTORY]

B - Regarding marketing,

If you are lucky, the algorithm god will pick up your game and show it to everyone. You'll get thousands of readers and hundreds of ratings. You'll always be on everyone's top page and you will go viral.

But if you are not (like most of us), you can start building a readership on social media. Tumblr had a substantial community for IF, Twitter has quite a lot of game developer, Mastodon is a thing I think?, and there are a handful of Discords and Forums dedicated to Interactive Fiction. Having a presence and be reachable is unfortunately important.

Some random points:

Announce your project before you publish it, but be close to be ready to put it online when you do so!

Do not "sell" your project on something you are not sure you can achieve (ex: game mechanic, complicated romance, etc...), just to set expectation.

Have an introductory post with a synopsis and links to the game/demo (if available) and important known aspects (genre/theme/TW). Depending on the genre, you may want to include short intro of some characters.

Make pretty pictures for your posts/game page (Canva is free-ish)

For ChoiceScript: having a CoG Forum page seem to be important for reader interaction and getting feedback.

On Tumblr: submit your project to directories like @interact-if, follow and interact with other IF authors, answer asks, do Tumblr stuff...

On Itch, consider introducing your published project in the Community section, write devlog for updates or discussion, answer comments, review other IF games...

Discord: some IF/Coding discord allows you to promote your projects there, take advantage of that.

Be upfront about your boundaries and keep them! (less marketing, more of a social media interaction thing)

C- Scheduling Updates and expectations

Unfortunately (and I say this as someone who is really bad at it), having a regular update schedule may be the best thing you can have for your project, especially if it is a long WIP. This can help keep your readers engaged with your content. If you have longer breaks between updates, writing prompts can be a nice substitute.

If regular is not possible (which is totes super fine! don't burnout on something fun), have clear communication about the state of the project. Set specific upload dates (ex: 12-Oct-22) when you are close to release it, have vague ones (ex: end of the year) when you are in the early stages. This will help with expectations and disappointment.

Do not promise more than you can do. That's pretty self-explanatory. And fix bugs you receive as soon as you can.

AND! And I can't stress this enough. IRL should always come before updating your WIP/publishing content. You should never force/push yourself to do so if you are not enjoying it. Do not be like me and hurt yourself. No amount of notes/readers is worth the hurt!

TLDR: Do not be like me, be better.

Right. I think that's it.

[revengeromance]

if you’re concerned about tumblr going down forever which it probably won’t but yk just in case I am begging you learn html learn css genuinely all you need is to take the khan academy intro to html css course and use w3schools for reference and then just fuck around on your computer it’s genuinely way simpler than you’d think and in my opinion the easiest programming language to learn

[withered-rose-unbreakable-lotus]

Could you give some advice for your language learning journey (material wise and also how you stay motivated)?

Hello! ^^ Well I'm not an expert but I will try to help. So, to get something clear about my journey, I didn't get a good start by myself.

Journey part (feel free to skip it if you wish, I just felt some context might help with motivation cause I'm a slow learner and struggled to find my pace, as well)

I started listening to Japanese music in 2012, but only found the motivation to start learning the language in 2015. I'd already heard I needed to learn hiragana and katakana first so I was discussing that with a friend, who had then suggested me a YT channel, which I unfortunately no longer follow, but basically there was a dude who taught people how to play Shogi, the Japanese chess, and just so happened to have a playlist with teaching people how to write hiragana and katakana. The reason why she suggested that guy was because she too wanted to learn obviously and found that his explanations were very good and he also wrote the actual characters during the recording so that you could copy it. Nowadays that is so easy to find though, like, I don't know if you've already learnt yours, but if you haven't, try "how to write hiragana & katakana" or sth similar. There are so many Japanese people teaching stuff on YT nowadays that will be the easiest thing to find. After that, I wanted to learn some kanji obviously and get into grammar. That's how I had learnt English too, so essentially, my thought process was trying to imitate what my English teacher had done while teaching me when I was little (In Greece we learn foreign languages in more detail in separate schools from our main ones hence why I personally went for that.) So I kept searching and found JapanesePod101 but quickly realized any free materials were limited so I kept looking and found a grammar guide which I still have and I could mail it to you if you want, but it was a bit too much, I have to warn you. I also found a list of kanji for N5 level and started copying them in a notebook. Some people learn easier by just repeating stuff out loud, personally I am the copy paste type, so I wrote for example one kanji, then covered it with another object and tried to write it from memory and then again and again. 10-15 times depending on how difficult I considered the kanji. But then came the problem of motivation. I wasn't studying as much as I wanted and I felt I needed a teacher, not only so that I studied more but also because I needed sb to tell me when I am doing sth right or wrong since I had 0 knowledge of the language. I got lucky and there was 1 Japanese woman who was teaching in my island and her prices were low so I discussed it with my family and we agreed I could give it a try. All that happened in 2018, so I kept trying by myself for 3 years without significant progress. So this woman had me sit a test to see what I knew so far and then we started having lessons in a class normally. And that's how I actually got to learn part of the language well. In 2020 it was I think, that she decided to drop teaching for JLPT and do only speaking cause she herself learnt any languages she spoke without learning grammar, or writing and yeah we had a big disagreement on that and well I left cause I wanted to learn the language as a whole. That woman could speak 4 languages but all broken and I wanted to be fluent. So then I looked around, found nth on my island, but thanks to the whole Covid situation more schools in my country had started distant learning programs so I found another school in Athens within the same year and continued with them. The lady teaching me there was more of my kind of educator so I kept learning with her until last September. The reason I stopped was for finances and also because I had learnt all the grammar I needed for N3 but lacked severely in kanji and vocab so I felt it was better to take sometime to enrich those and keep revising my grammar until this December when I hope to eventually try the test.

Advice

I will list materials in the next paragraph, I will stick to motivation and advice for this one. Unfortunately I can't be very spot on this, cause each person learns differently, but I think that if you lack motivation there are 2 ways to approach it: The romantic one and the logical one. The romantic one is finding a passion around the language to keep you going and the logical is to find an affordable teacher online.

When it comes to passion, this is what drives me in life and I don't know if I should suggest it to others, but passion has taken many people far in life, and the fact I am personally failing doesn't mean it's a bad approach xD. That's how I learnt English too. It is expected from every kid in Greece to learn it, but I was begging my parents before I even knew that was expected of me cause I absolutely loved foreign music and I wanted to understand the lyrics. I was obsessed and still am. Just the thought of being able to understand all those songs, and later, when I realized how commonly used it is, that I could explore stuff and meet people from every place in the world only added fuel to my fire. And the same thing happened with Japanese. I was soooo mad I couldn't understand what my favorites said, not every band had translated material online and I needed to know. Although, to be fair, there was more to it, it's my dream to work with these people so if I wanted to be serious with my goal, I had to learn the language and be able to communicate with them. So yeah, if you have any passion around your target language it helps. Be it arts, travelling, making friends, you name it. Only you know your own desires. However yeah, if you are dealing with mental illnesses or ADHD or several other factors that can affect your mood and learning flow, passion alone can be tough to use, hence why I too needed sth more than my romanticism to get a solid start.

As for the logical part, I think it speaks for itself. It's so much better to have sb keeping you on track and that I think is sth that worldwide approach to education is responsible for. We weren't taught many things by ourselves as children, there was always someone more knowledgable leading the way. So yeah I think it's important to have sb, either local or not who knows the language better than you, around, at first at least, so that you get a feeling of the language, if you know what I mean. Japanese is a language with completely different writing system and grammar rules than most western languages so, it's really hard expecting your brain to figure everything out by itself. Part of me thinks it's easier for Chinese people, because their writing system is similar (I could be wrong) but for a person not born around Asia, I think we all struggle, especially those of us with motivation and self-discipline, when it comes to education, issues.

So yeah, all in all I'd suggest you did both, like find sth that you know will benefit greatly from your learning the language and a teacher. However, if you are as shy as me or freaking out as much as me about how legit some online app with teachers is, I'd suggest you looked for either institutes or solo teachers in your region first, and only if you find nth, proceed with online stuff. I am in no way saying that you can't find a good teacher living somewhere else, I just personally freak out about money transactions with other countries, or if I don't know how legit the app is, fearing I will get scammed and stuff like that. Mostly irrational fears. ^^' And don't get too stressed about doing this long term. Even 1 year of studying with someone else might give you enough of a gist to continue by yourself. ^^ You will have established a routine with them, which you could then continue on your own instead of trying to make up a routine blindly.

Materials

Let's talk materials now.

If you are the book type, like me, you might benefit from a Genki book. Now you've probably heard of people tearing this book apart about how "not good" it is, but I learnt quite a lot from it and it's very beginner friendly imo. I have an archive link with both the 1st and 2nd Genki (https://archive.org/details/Genki/Genki-ElementaryJapaneseWorkbookI).

But these are just for some basic grammar and reading. You can't learn only with those. When it comes to your kanji, sure you can learn from Genki's list, but they are not very accurate to the level of the book. For example, the first Genki book has kanji I came across with my 2nd teacher in N4 class and she was shocked I knew them already xD. I was like "It was in Genki!" and she was so mad xD. She was making her own content for her lessons and using some photocopies from another beginner Japanese book I forget rn. But yeah your go-to for Kanji for N5 and N4 is "Nihongo Challenge N5-N4". For higher, I'm afraid there isn't one of the same name and you will have to turn elsewhere. (I have a pdf of that book if you want it too, feel free to send me your email address and I will send it ^^) As for vocabulary, I'd suggest "Tango 1000 Essential Vocabulary for the JLPT N5". Very good book. There was sb who had uploaded it on YT and I'd swear I had the link to it but can't find it in my bookmarks for some reason. That I have only in physical form I'm afraid and it's a bit tough to find for free somewhere, but if you find a link or choose to buy it, it's so good!

For listening, I'd suggest you started with a few simple ones like those in JP Launch (https://www.youtube.com/@JpLaunch). I haven't tried their grammar videos so I dunno how helpful those are, but their listenings are nice for a start, after you've learnt some basic vocabulary and grammar. You can search their channel for N5 listening or N4 or whichever is your level and you will get plenty of stuff. ^^ And each listening includes unknown words you might hear during the exercise so that you can jot it down and learn them. ^^ That is another big thing I'd suggest btw. Apart from a notebook for copying kanji and words however many times you need to learn them, I'd suggest you had one more, preferrably with many sections, I forget their name in English, in which you will be noting every new word you find. Cause learning vocab from lists is one thing but you might find many new words through texts you read and listening exercises. Keep track of them and learn them whenever you can. I personally have mine separated by hiragana so that if I ever find a word that looks familiar but can't remember if I've learnt it before, I can go to the hiragana it starts with and find it easier. That way I also know which words I need to revise. When you've learnt everything from these books and want to try mockup tests, straight up search JLPT N5/4/3 whatever and listening next to it on Youtube. There are many of them and, even though they are a bit simpler than the originals, they help a lot with testing what you get by ear. And they also have the solutions after each question or at the end of the video so that you know how well you did. ^^

For full mockup test papers I don't know what to suggest. I must have some in pdf still but most stuff I have are N4 if you want them.

As for where to look for teachers in case you find nth closeby, I found several on a site called italki. I eventually never contacted anyone but my first teacher had told me to search there so I bet they are legit. I remember there was a specific system with which I had to pay that I didn't like but you might not mind it.

What else.....I think I covered everything. You might find useful material in the official JLPT page too, for each level. I remember searching there before. Oh and try to write sentences. When you learn sth grammatical for example, try to write 5-10 sentences using it. You won't be able to test how well you did without a teacher but it's important to try, imo.

But yeah if you are an audio learner, do consider Japanese cinema and series as well. Anime can be fun but they usually speak slang or ways that most Japanese people don't use. Both my teachers had told me that. When you get more familiar with the language sure, try them without subs, but as your starting listening material, nope. Jrockers do tend to speak in ways you'd see in anime, and so do people in the gaming and anime fandoms too, but outside of those spaces not so many do it.

As for a dictionary for words and how to write each word: https://jisho.org/ It's super good! It has words, it has conjugations, sentence examples, little gif-style video for how you write each kanji to know with what turns you write each line, etc. Amazing site!

Aaaand finally for the speaking part, I have 0 suggestions. I too agree with people saying you need sb else to talk with to get used to it. So yeah if you can approach sb on social media, good, otherwise try Hellotalk (app) or Tandem (another app for language exchange)(haven't tried them yet but people on reddit say they are good).

ps: don't go hard on yourself if you can't study for hours on end. Just make sure you can free 30 minutes for it every day at first and with time you can get to more. I started with 20 minutes a day due to trauma, I used to study way more when I was still at school but being forced into a uni i didn't want ended up with me having hard time studying for even 10 minutes, but then slowly through learning Japanese, because I liked studying it too, it got to 20, then 30 and now I can read from 1-2 hours a day. Take it slow if you have to, just don't skip days unless you absolutely have to, cause that's how you break a routine and can be tempted to not go back to it.

-----------------------

That was too long, I apologize, but I really hope sth out of everything I mentioned helps. It's a tough language and keeping up greatly depends on sth that keeps you going back to it, I believe. If you are not naturally drawn to learning many languages for the fun of it, you need sth to hold on to it, so do look for it and hang on it for dear life. Also, I came across this video the other day, I've yet to check the list she mentions, I don't know if it's free, but she also mentions a site named Refold that has many free resources if you want to check it out. Here's the vid I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyEioinPKvk

Best of luck and I hope you find the type of resources that are more of your type asap so that you get to learning asap too! ^o^/

[verbalbridgesllc]

Learn Foreign Languages - Verbal Bridges

We, at Verbal bridges provide English, Spanish, and german language learning services that will empower you to speak and write in less time. Learn more - https://verbalbridges.com/

[titanfall-moddy]

Huge Update

XO25_reworkFor_NSP

Goal: Rework Northstar Prime Titan to sound and behave more like Mihaly and the XO25f from Ace Combat 7

Tasks

1.Change offensive ability from Cluster Rocket to Multi-Target Rocket Core.

2. Create two new skins for NSP. Draw color palett inspo from XO25 Erusian fighters from AC7.

Skin 1 will be sleek and and clean. Mostly black with white and orange accents.

Skin 2 will be more weathered and beat up

3. Fix voiceline Mod

4. Change hud look to resemble AC7 hud. Main changes will include - changes to missile lock crosshairs - changes to taget acquisition crosshairs. Square = titan/vehicles. Octagon = pilot/grunt - change color scheme to green/red depending on situation - add elevation meter, maybe even double hover height, just for fun. kinda broken but whatever.

Lessons learned so far.

T1. Changing the offensive ability is actually really easy. all you have to do is go to /scripts/weapons/wpn_name and swap "shoulder" for "dumbfire" between the two files. While simple, bear in mind that the game will crash if player has not deselected both "Enhanced Payload" - Northstar "Multi-Target Rocket Core" - Monarch

from their Titan Kit. Having either ability selected will cause a crash on Titan spawn.

T2. Getting models into blender and editing them is simple enough through either the VPK tool or Legion+, however the real trick right now is getting them back into the game files in an edited/acceptable state. T3. I learned that nearly all audio for the voiceline mod (especially the viocelines) needs to be on Channel 2, otherwise called stereo. this mean that when you're looking at your audio file in whatever program you're using, there should be two audio waves right on top of each other that are identical. You must almost make sure that there is no meta data in the file, and that it's exported at 48K hz otherwise the game will not play the sound correctly.

Another note, it does not matter what you name the audio file so long as it goes into the proper folder, although giving it a similar name does help with organization.

T4. Changing the crosshair is probably the easiest thing to do in the game files. They're always in weapon .txt files and always at the very bottom. Also, there are plenty of lists online that have all the crosshair names so you don't even have to guess which ones are which or go sleuthing through the game files. I was able to change the mutli-lock crosshair to the smart-pistol reticle easy enough but struggled in getting the target- acquisition marker to show up even though it's coded into the multi-lock file. Weird, I know.

NEXT STEPS:

T1. Figure out whether or not it will be easier to add an entirely new titan via copy/pasting asssets and changing the names, or if I should change all existing assets for the game to XO25. In my brain the latter would be the easiest as there's some background stuff I won't have to change in order for the game to still function properly. However…

T2. My guess is that the easiest way to go about changing the skins is to edit the base model titan and then replace the existing model with my own. That way the edited version is the default skin in-game. However…

T3. I do not know why the mod isn't working anymore. Changing the vpk files shouldn't have affected it at all. I must figure out what's causing the issue. I've boiled it down to three guesses. 1. It's my computer, it just doesnt like or doesn't want to cooperate. 2. There's something actually wrong with the mod, i.e. it's not using the right dependency or something 3. somehow. palpatine returned.

T4. Changing crosshairs is very easy, thankfully. Getting crosshairs to behave is somehow another task entirely since I don't fully understand the games language/structure yet. For this, I need to get a hold of the Ace Combat game files and to be honest I haven't even begun to look into that yet. Hopefully it won't be too much of a hassle to import the assest into the game since they've both been out forever. I'd also like to take this time to stop myself before I add another task onto my already full plate. However…

11/7/2023

[guzsdaily]

I'm stuck

Day 87 - Jan 31st, 12.024

Apparently, writing Nix files doesn't count as "real programming", because it's being hard to code lately.

I have been writing Nix files, with are pretty much just "fancy JSON", for more than a week, and now, coding even on JavaScript is being somewhat hard on my brain. This new project is a "subproject" of the whole productivity system, and it is just a small CLI application to transform Obsidian's Markdown, into plain [CommonMark] Markdown. And my head is fighting on trying to come with solutions to code, it is like I can imagine the concept and separate the pieces of this project to work on, and I feel like even a simple task I can't just code y'know? Even when I'm being hands-off with things like dependencies count, scalability, etc. etc. Things which normally I take care in "production code".

To be honest I even don't know if I should use JavaScript for this, I choose it because it is the easiest language to just get things done, and it seems logical to use it for content-related and/or HTML-related things. However, I kinda feel I should use Go or Rust, even if I need to learn them from scratch and have a smaller related ecosystem, I don't know if I should, knowing that it is a project that I would like to not spend a lot of time, but also the idea of learning something new in the time kinda drives me another way? I don't know, maybe I will try to use Go or Rust in this project, so it's easier to use them in my future "actual" projects.

I even don't know if I should continue using Obsidian all together now, because even if it is where I settled up most everything, even when it is the center of my productivity and note-taking routine, I kinda feel locked-in a lot more than I like, and having this Obsidian-like syntax (together with all the plugin's syntaxes), it can be kinda hard to get out of it. Yes, it is impossible to me to not be locked-in some technology, but I feel like I would prefer to have everything in plain Markdown and edit it with a Neovim config, than to have a lot of things that I can't read and use without a specif editor and previewer.

However, if I continue this, I will also never work on actual projects, you know, the ones that can give me a job. But without "The System", I can't organize and share easily said projects.

I feel stuck.

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Today's artists & creative things

Song: That Funny Feeling - by Bo Burnham

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Copyright (c) 2024-present Gustavo "Guz" L. de Mello <contact.guz013@gmail.com>

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License

[zoeythebee]

Codetober day #5

I didn't get much done day 4 so I didn't write anything.

Today I am nearing the end of the Javascript roadmap, today I spent learning async which took me a lot longer than I expected.

Wish I had more to report, but weekdays are usually kinda slow for me :/

5. What is your favorite programming language? Why?

My favorite programming language is C, because it's so fucking easy. Y'all it's so so so so so easy. Python wishes it was this easy. When I am programming in C. I am not programming in C, I am one with my computer, I simply think and the program appears.

Truth is I like C because it's fucking unreasonably fast, it's extremely simple, it's ROCK SOLID and there are a million libraries and resources and you can do anything with it. And it's what I have the most experience with, so it's the easiest for me.

[starstabberzirc]

Progress on the game jam demo:

There are dozens of ways to move a player character around the playfield, with how good they look and work in direct proportion to how complicated they are to make happen

One of the reasons shmups are the easiest genre of game to start with are that a ship with a gun only has to be programmed with “if anything touches it, you die”, whereas my wacky idea of a ship with a knife on the front—vulnerable on the ship part, dangerous to enemies on the knife part—requires hitboxes, which usually come a few dozen episodes into any tutorial series

Enemies are simpler, but I don’t want to do much work there until I figure out how to make the player character work right since they have to be programmed right as well

It’s like learning a new language where you have a very specific thing you want to say but you have to learn a whole lot of vocabulary and grammar before you can work out that one sentence