June 7, 2014

Last night I had an idea for a video game based on The Edge Of Tomorrow. In a way it would kind of be roguelike, because when you die, you have to start from the beginning. There will be objectives to reach, like checkpoints, but they don't become respawn points when you die. The purpose of the checkpoints would be to lock in your version of the story so far, because each new section would be randomly generated. Each time you reach a checkpoint or clear an objective, the parts of the story you have played so far would be the same, each time you die and start over. At least the first section, up to the point of your last death if you do everything the same. An example is the location of people at a certain time. So if you start the game and someone runs by you after a certain amount of time, they will always run by you at that time. If you were to get in their way and delay them, that would create a different future section because that person would no longer get to wherever they were going in the same time period. Maybe that person catches you sneaking around later on in the level, but if you delay them at the beginning of the level, you would have more time to sneak around later in the level.

Having the sections remain the same each time, as long as you do the same thing, would give you the sense that you are reliving the same day over and over. But each change alters the possibilities, so you can try new things. Maybe realizing that way back at the beginning of the game you need to do something to make something at the end of the game possible. Possibly leaving a door unlocked or leaving a gun for yourself. And with the random generation of new sections as you advance, it would create a unique gaming experience for everyone who plays it. You wouldn't necessarily be able to watch someone else's playthrough because people and vehicles and objects might be in different locations, not only based on their previous choices but also due to the random generation. An example would be if you clear a building and reach a checkpoint. The next section would start as you walked outside. The random generation might have a guard walking by or a car parked outside that you could use or any number of other things. This would also increase replayability. In a new playthrough, you could play the first section exactly the same as last time but the next section might generate in a different way, so you couldn't count on people or objects being in the same spots. I think it would make for a pretty interesting game.

Today, I did nothing. I finally embraced my urge to play video games and jumped into Borderlands 2. It has been months since I played it last. Probably over a year actually. I can't even remember. It is still a fun game, and I really enjoy the humor, but it does get a tad repetitive after awhile. Not the humor, that is always great, but the gameplay. There is a lot of just running back and forth. It is fun mindless fun for awhile but it can get old.

And that was pretty much my day. Sadly. Or not sadly. It was kind of nice to get lost in a video game for awhile. And I'm still kind of riding the wave of finally applying to grad school. I did actually research a bit more into the librarian career today, so that's a thing I forgot. I plan on doing more of that tomorrow. In a little over a week I have my interview and I am still nervous. I have a decent transcript and I feel I did a good job on my statement of objectives, but I also feel like the only thing that matters is this interview. Which is not a good way to go into it because I'll just psych myself out. I really just want the interview to happen, hopefully knock it out of the park, and find out whether or not I will be going to grad school. It is early enough that I may still be able to apply at other schools but this is the only accredited program in the state and I really don't want to pay out-of-state tuition at another school. I'm sure there are perfectly valid reasons for making out-of-state kids pay more but it seems stupid to charge double or triple for the exact same product. I know there are examples of this in the “real world”, like XM Radio charging some customers full price while offering others significantly lower rates to keep them subscribed. But it is really hard to justify one person paying so much more for their education than the person sitting next to them. So, I'm going to hope putting my eggs in this basket turns out to be the right decision. And if not, hopefully they can give me some real insight into how I can improve my chances in the future.