Mother is a terrible influence. I ask for diet help and she gets me hooked on Zork...
So I've been playing Zork recently, and just like the last two times I tried getting hooked on it, I've never really gotten past exploring the little house. This is because, I have a terrible memory, and anytime I DO go further, I lose track of which direction I need to go and whatnot. This inevitably leads me to try making a map of some sort, but even though I TRY using paper and pencil to do it, I get disgusted with how the map requires me to erase and redraw significant parts, and how large even the smallest section has to be. Case in point, if you follow a grid system, the inside of the little house is bigger than the outside... Maybe they've been talking to a certain doctor I could mention. THIS inevitably leads me to search for a flowchart program that does what I need, and THAT is what I'm going to rant about today.
You see, I never get very far in Zork because I can NEVER find a flowchart system that works adequately. This is infuriating, because I know EXACTLY what I need it to do, and relative to all these complex and confusing flowchart programs I've found, it's ridiculously SIMPLE, intuitive and potentially BETTER than what they offer. That said, for the first time, I've found something adequate. It is by no means perfect, but Gliffy.com is a nifty little, in browser flowchart program that offers enough versatility to do most of what I want. Now, there are parts of my concept that it lacks, but you can't have everything... unless you make it.
That brings me to my second topic. I'd like to try making a flowchart program. I've already found a framework for Xcode for vector drawing, and I figure this'd be useful, but as with every actually USEFUL project that I'd like to tackle, I have no idea where to begin and no resources beyond myself. That and I really should finish my other Xcode project before beginning a new one, and there's all the OTHER projects I've got going right now. Honestly, I can't complain, because as irritating as it is to have all these ideas and no ability to learn the skills I need to implement them, I AM making a good deal of progress on quite a few of them.
Oh, and to end things, I'd like to say that I've done a few searches for interactive fiction mappers, and come up with quite a few results... for PC. The only one I've found for Mac is a... we'll call it nifty, MUD mapper done in Java. The problem with this one is, it's based on a grid pattern, which very doesn't work at all in any way for Zork. So if anybody has better ideas, I'd love to hear them.
OH and one more thing. Yesterday I got all my homework finished. Today I checked my system and it told me that. Furthermore, I trusted it. This is progress.
So I've been playing Zork recently, and just like the last two times I tried getting hooked on it, I've never really gotten past exploring the little house. This is because, I have a terrible memory, and anytime I DO go further, I lose track of which direction I need to go and whatnot. This inevitably leads me to try making a map of some sort, but even though I TRY using paper and pencil to do it, I get disgusted with how the map requires me to erase and redraw significant parts, and how large even the smallest section has to be. Case in point, if you follow a grid system, the inside of the little house is bigger than the outside... Maybe they've been talking to a certain doctor I could mention. THIS inevitably leads me to search for a flowchart program that does what I need, and THAT is what I'm going to rant about today.
You see, I never get very far in Zork because I can NEVER find a flowchart system that works adequately. This is infuriating, because I know EXACTLY what I need it to do, and relative to all these complex and confusing flowchart programs I've found, it's ridiculously SIMPLE, intuitive and potentially BETTER than what they offer. That said, for the first time, I've found something adequate. It is by no means perfect, but Gliffy.com is a nifty little, in browser flowchart program that offers enough versatility to do most of what I want. Now, there are parts of my concept that it lacks, but you can't have everything... unless you make it.
That brings me to my second topic. I'd like to try making a flowchart program. I've already found a framework for Xcode for vector drawing, and I figure this'd be useful, but as with every actually USEFUL project that I'd like to tackle, I have no idea where to begin and no resources beyond myself. That and I really should finish my other Xcode project before beginning a new one, and there's all the OTHER projects I've got going right now. Honestly, I can't complain, because as irritating as it is to have all these ideas and no ability to learn the skills I need to implement them, I AM making a good deal of progress on quite a few of them.
Oh, and to end things, I'd like to say that I've done a few searches for interactive fiction mappers, and come up with quite a few results... for PC. The only one I've found for Mac is a... we'll call it nifty, MUD mapper done in Java. The problem with this one is, it's based on a grid pattern, which very doesn't work at all in any way for Zork. So if anybody has better ideas, I'd love to hear them.
OH and one more thing. Yesterday I got all my homework finished. Today I checked my system and it told me that. Furthermore, I trusted it. This is progress.
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