Blaugust 22/31: Siege of Silvium - Part 2

This is my 22nd post for Blaugust 2015.

Where did today go? How can that possibly be the time? I had so much more that I needed to get done today, but here I am writing a blog post! What happens to my priorities during Blaugust every year?

There's a video uploading at the moment. It's not going to be ready by the time I leave for the engagement party that our Trello page says is of emergency importance. It seems Trello is running my life now. Since I'm probably not going to be home before midnight, I'm going to stick this one up now and just hope that everything works, or at least that if it doesn't that you guys will forgive me for my recalcitrance.

Things didn't go completely to plan with the recording of the video, but at least this way the feature film is only 25 minutes instead of the hour that the original one was going to be. I also had to crush a bunch of commentary into about half the time, so I hope that everything makes sense and that I didn't miss anything important. 

I gotta go, but when the video uploads, I hope that you enjoy it.

Retribution

A day out is great, terrible Jackie Chan movies and all, but it doesn't help me get blog content, guys! So, I guess my project for this week is finishing up my set of Blaugust Wesnoth videos. I've kind of enjoyed making these things, but as I've pretty much exhausted any content that I could possibly provide I guess that it's time that the youtube channel went into hibernation unless I get really organised and throw together something for Raptember.

Anyway, if you've got a spare eighty minutes, you can watch me try (and fail, a couple of times) to finish the final level of Tale of Vaniyera. With that behind me, it's time to do something constructive for the day before calling it a night.

A good last day of Blaugust to you all. Tomorrow I'll be reviewing the month that was and looking to the future. I hope to see you then.

Lazy Days (Are Sundays)

I guess the home-straight-of-blaugust blues are really getting to me, but I can't bring myself to talk about Doctor Who or religion tonight. Not for want of trying, it's just that some days are games for video-games and ignoring both the real world and the timey-wimey world (I am excite) and just playing games. Escapism is something I need sometimes, and tonight, when the weight of the world is really getting me down, is one of those times.

I have a long and rambling post on a topic that I've been working through this week, but I'm not really ready to show the world just yet (you know it's half baked, if even I, self-proclaimed king of cop-outs, won't share). So I'm afraid that yet again, my friends, you get a Wesnoth video.

In this attempt, I try and fail to show people how easy it is to win a level of my Orbivm campaign by getting all my guys slaughtered, an important life lesson, but not really conducive to showing off my video-game prowess. So, this is how not to do it, and I'll be back later in the week to show you how it's really supposed to be done.

The Imperial Era Lives

So, today is kind of a big day for me, because I finally got rid of enough bugs and made enough changes that I've been able to release the next version of the Imperial Era, and have it actually work. This change has been in the works for...almost two years, and in that time I've redone some of the changes more than half-a-dozen times as I've struggled with version control, data loss and the general incompetence of the coder, not to mention changing my mind on what I want to do a number of times too.

This means that if you're running the latest development version of Battle for Wesnoth, you can download both the Imperial Era and the campaign that I've been exhibiting in my videos this month Tale of Vaniyera, from the 1.12 add-ons server, and have a play for yourself. (The other campaigns will pop up eventually when I've killed off all their gamebreaking bugs).

As well as fixing a multitude of bugs, I've also made a number of balance changes (though it's still FAR from fair) and most exciting of all, I've added the first new art for the era since 2008! Thanks to willing artists amorphous and freeforestify, I present the new Orcish Paegnarius and Bestiarius, in both sprite and portrait form. I can almost scrape by coding the simple stuff, since WML is an easy language, but drawing the pretties is always going to be beyond me.

A bit later today, if the video ever finishes uploading, I'll also post my next ToV video here too, coming to you from the lofty heights of Wesnoth 1.11.16...so shiny! I just can't be sure that I'll get it done in time, so I'll post this early to make sure that we don't have any more....incidents.

Pulling a Sickie

Sometimes things don't quite go to way you want. Today is just one of those days, I'm going to spend it sleeping and feeling sorry for myself and not thinking about blogging or all the things I have to do in my actual grown-up life. So, I guess you guys get some Wesnoth videos to follow-on from the ones from last week instead of actual content.

Still having fun making these videos, but I'm about halfway through the campaign at this point, so I'm going to need to do something else as well if I'm going to keep using Wesnoth videos as fallbacks for lazy days. Maybe I'll try and do a bit more of a general introduction of Wesnoth. Let me know if you've got any ideas.

It Sneaks Up On You

So, since I have Parliament House to myself this afternoon and am still having fun with this gaming thing, I've gone ahead and recorded another session of Imperial Era Battle for Wesnoth. This one follows on from yesterday's post, so if you've seen that and are interested in seeing what comes next, fell free to check it out.

Since in theory I planned for my weekend posts to have something of a religious nature, I'll now take a leaf out of the book of many preachers I've known over the years and draw some very long bows in order to connect scripture and gaming, then run with that theme for a little while. The video is a straight let's play, but the text from this point is likely to get all Christiany,  so this is your final chance to go talk about the mechanics of grapplers in fighter games if you're going to find the idea of me preaching at you too offensive.

I had a couple of ideas for what I wanted to talk about today, but settled on the obvious one given that instead of posting what I was vaguely planning to do today I've been playing video games. Let's say it together...Idolatry. A fancy pants way of saying 'getting your priorities all stuffed up'. Biblically, the most obvious examples are back in Exodus (Ex. 32 for those of your playing along at home) after the Israelites have been delivered from slavery, they set up camp at Mount Sinai, Moses heads up the hill to meet with the big guy, and immediately by the time he's come back down, despite everything that they've just seen and experienced, they've set up a complicated gold-smithing rig, melted their remaining possessions to make a golden idol, and are worshipping that instead. Talk about fickle. I mean, dude.

They do this over and over again, substituting foreign religions or their own made up ones dozens, hundreds of times, and I know what that's like. The Israelites knew acutely what their God had done for them, knew that he demanded their loyalty, but still went running to the shinies whenever things got difficult. I know the habits that I should be propagating if I'm going to be the kind of person that I want to be. And maybe it should be easier for me that for my non-religious friends because I have a set of guidelines handed down on how I'm supposed to do it. But I don't do those things because that would cut down on my crucial sleeping, gaming and reading times.

It's easy to stuff up your priorities, but as a practicing Christian I'm very fortunate that I go along to church most weeks and along with some tasty bread and wine, and the fellowship of good people, I get regular reminders and time to think about where I should be, where I am, and what's gone wrong. Even if I completely neglect my own personal discipline in favour of playing Wesnoth, which has been known to happen on occasion, I have a fall-back. Still, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because you have a fall back you don't need to spend time trying to get it right the first time, a trap I fall into with my spiritual life just as much as I do when I'm attempting to organise a video-games convention.

I know some of my non-Christian friends would be jumping up and down right now, saying, "But Ted, you're still a good guy, you just believe in this crackpot god that has unrealistic standards and is trying to guilt you into being a boring copy of your great-father. Why bother?" But the fact of the matter is no matter how real you might believe my version of the Christian God to be, I can't escape the apparent fact that when I'm practising my religion that I'm more attuned to the saviour that changed my life. I'm more understanding, less selfish, I feel stronger, and happier, and more capable, and I think every now and then I even take a good shot at wisdom. And I'd happily trade the person that I am most days for a person with those attributes. It's not about being a 'good Christian', it's about being a better version of myself, and I think that's a goal that everyone can aspire to.

I could go on, but those who get it don't need it, and those who don't get it are undoubtedly waiting for me to get to the point, so here it is. If I can find time to blog every day, if I can find time to read every day, I can can find time to play, record, and upload Wesnoth videos, even at the horrendous speeds of Australian internet connections, then I have the time, and I should use the time to take the tools I've been given, be they spiritual, or philosophical, or anything else, to try to become the better version of myself that I know that I can be.

My Christian teaching tells me that there's a better, more prefect version of everyone out there waiting to be found, and that there always will be no matter how hard we strive, since we were made as copies of a perfect creator. It's not pessimistic at all, it's honest. I know myself well enough to know that I'm not perfect and to have my doubts about other people too. I guess the argument falls down if you believe that you're already the best possible version of yourself, but if you don't, then work out what direction 'best' is for you, and try attaining it every once in a while.

For me, my best is found in my religion, in immersing myself in the bible, in prayer, and in conversations with godly people. In striving to meet the example of my saviour. And I see it often and acutely at the oddest moments, and live for those moments when I know I'm on the right path. For you? I don't presume to know, but I'd like to take this time to encourage you to find out if you don't know, and if you do, the practice your 'religion', whatever it is, for a bit too, and leave the idols alone for a little bit.

Which reminds me, I've got something I need to do now. Tune in tomorrow for something a little more light-hearted.

Leaflocker Goes 'New Media'

I got into blogging about 10 years after the cool kids stopped doing it, so YouTube has been going long enough and well enough now that it's about time I joined up for something else than re-runs of British quiz shows.

I'd planned to post a bit about the experience of maintaining a mod for Battle for Wesnoth, something I've been privileged to do for the last five years or so. Sadly, writer's block has set in early this August, and I couldn't write something today to save my life, so I made a gameplay video instead. Another cop out, but if I get a bit better at this YouTube thing, I can foresee some further use for it down the track.

The quality is terrible, I know, so if you have ideas on a way to do this better, I'd be very willing to take suggestions.

If low-quality videos of turn-based strategy games aren't your thing, you could head over to Michael's blog and watch his higher-resolution efforts to play Dark Souls. If games in general aren't your thing, why there's lots of other fare out there. Notably, Ale made some pretty drawings, and Mason wrote about Batman fanart.