Adrift: The Game

    What follows is the unofficial description of the game called Adrift:
This game is scripted (both by programming and story line) by Nathaniel Weissinger, and it is a 2D platformer (with, hopefully, 3D cutscenes). Everything that is described will be my dream of a full, immersive game filled with everything I had planned initially for it. Quite a lot of the elements described will not be in the official release (if it ever gets that far).

Gameplay:
    The interesting thing about the gameplay is that it doesn't need a story line to be addicting to play. I would know- I created 4 weapons, and one type of enemy copied multiple times in random places on a random map. And it is amazing. 60 FPS, runs like a dream, and it just makes me feel happy. Anyways, back to the point. This game was meant to be a mix between Terraria/Minecraft blocks, Skyrim/Doctor Who depth (story line-wise), and a completely unique gameplay structure built around shooting, minor puzzle solving (like quick, landscape-made puzzles, similar to Sonic or Mario), and ultimate destruction. And I should mention, there will be HUNDREDS of weapons in the game. I have 4 mostly completed- fireballs, a machine gun, a water gun, and a laser.

    Let's get to the ultimate destruction portion of it. As the character progresses through the game, he'll gain new weapons. I have them classified into 6 categories: Guns, Bow/Arrows, Staffs, Wands, Swords, and Specialist Weapons. Two of each are paired into higher heirarchies: Gun/Bow is Ranged, Staff/Wand is Magic, and Sword/Specialist is Physical (mostly). Some Specialist weapons are Ranged. Specific weapons can have the ability to be infused with magic, such as (my favorite example), a Chain Whip. This is a Specialist weapon, and it can be infused with, let's just say, Pure Energy. This will cause explosions every single time it contacts an enemy.

    Oh, and by the way, I have 15 types of magic. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. 4 of them could technically not be counted, and one of them is a magical power that you get regardless of whether you even use a staff/wand. Here's the list (not in any conspicuous order):

Fire- Normal fire, burning effects, fireballs, etc, can burn trees and enemies

Plasma- Heat-seeking, super hot, goes through multiple enemies

Pure Energy- Light-based explosion attacks

Lightning- Electric pulses which paralyzes enemies, kill them, cause super combos, and has a very wide range.

Shadow- Portals, black holes, anti-energy, dissolving properties, shadows, disappearances, can be used to get to hard-to-reach places

Water- normal water, suffocation effects, waves, etc.

Ice- raining ice shards, icicle blades, freezing pools of water to become walkable

Earth- allows fast movement across the ground, creates ledges to reach hard-to-reach places, controls plants, trees, dirt, rocks, lava, and similar substances, rock walls, floating rock attacks, all both defensive and offensive

Wind- tornadoes, hurricanes, blows enemies away, gives greater jumping abilities/flying abilities to the character, greater agility, slicing tornado-spinning attacks, etc.

Crystaline- defensive, few offensive moves, very hard, powerful, can be molded into any shape

Spirit- summon the spirits the character defeats through the course of the game, using the runes

Soul- summon mystical creatures, such as dragons, unicorns, large snakes, the armies of the undead, such as zombies, skeletons, undead creatures, etc.

Psychic- Tactical usage to use the Force, choke enemies, force them out of the way, or click on enemies to line enemies up, and use something else, such as plasma, to kill 5 enemies at once.

Sonic- Almost a default power. Double tap the movement keys to cause a sonic boom, running very fast

Chaos-  Life force energy. Limited amount- can be used for teleportation, time stopping, and creating super combos at incredible speeds.

   So, there you have it. No more questions about magic. Now onto staffs and wands. Basically, staffs are a lot cooler, since they make you look like a boss. But besides that, they fire magic slower, but more powerfully. As you would expect, wands shoot magic faster, but weaker. There. Done.

    Specialist weapons are my favorite, because if you have a Chain Whip, and you are jumping and doing a somersault, the chain flies around you in a circle. It will be awesome, if I learn how to make it happen. Other weapons include throwing knives, ball and chain, and... yeah... a lot cooler stuff that I don't want to spoil.

    Swords. I looked up every single type of classified sword on the Internet, so if you think I don't have a sword, I bet I do.

    Guns- I really need more for this. It's really hard to get general classifications of certain guns, because I could be accidentally copying off of Star Wars for all I know. Or Call of Duty. Or Medal of Honor. Or Battlefield. I really don't know, so I haven't touched this area much.

    Bow/Arrows, I've just made general classifications of size, wood, and types. Crossbows are included. I haven't done too much in this area either.

    More updates will come- I really want to talk about the story. It's really amazing. I talked to many of my Doctor Who-loving friends about how to create the best story line possible for a game slightly revolving around time travel. That's all I'm saying for this update, but stay tuned in for more updates within the month, and you'll be truly amazed at what has been going on inside my head for the past year. It's SOOOO COOOL. Seriously. Next update, I'll definitely talk about it. Thanks for reading, you awesome person! Make sure you comment about any improvements I should make! This will be a real game!

Adrift

Heyooo peoples! I guess it's time to talk about my unfinished project- my video game I have been creating for the past two years. I'm creating this game using pure Java; nothing but text and images. From the picture below, you're probably thinking, "That looks wonderful for a prototype! You did a great job!" or something like that. But in actuality, the only thing I created art-wise was that black-and-white character, that blue box half filled with green next to the character, and that fireball. Everything else was made by a good friend of mine, Jared Newman. I could show you my previous prototype, back when it was the... I think 8th re-write... Basically I had a plain blue background with a black outline. The terrain was also blue boxes with black outlines, and the enemies... were pathetic.

This update below is the 18th re-write... I think... and I'm starting on my 19th. "But WHY, Nathaniel? Why would you re-write your code again? It looks fine!" Actually, it's not about looks, but about gameplay. What I want to do is make my game so I can press a button and it can go from full-screen mode to a windowed screen. Unfortunately, my interface is set up in such a way that I can't do that, so I have to alter a lot of my base coding. Which takes too long to bear. I'm taking a break on this project because of schoolwork, homework, extracirriculars, and life, all of which gets in the way of my extremely nerdy programming life.

Anyways, if you want to know syntactically why my game isn't working, read the 2 paragraphs below. If you don't know Java, you could read it anyways and try to make sense of my terminology.

So, basically, the class that I wanted to place my game into is called a JFrame. It's just like anything used in the Windows operating system. When you open a folder, that window that pops up is set up with a JFrame. What I have for my game is a Window, which is a JFrame, but without the minimize button, maximizing, exit button, or the ability to be moved around or resized. All it does is display the graphical interface in the exact position in which I set it to, and in this case, it's set to get any individual computer' screen width and height.

Continuing on with the problem, apparently I can't just have a Window be placed within a JFrame. How Java works is you can place objects within a JFrame, as long as it isn't a superclass. And guess what a Window object is? You guessed it: a superclass. I can't place a thing JFrame is copying within itself- it just doesn't work. The way I get the graphics displayed onto the screen is very specific to the Window object, so I can't just copy code to make it work in with a JFrame. I have to re-write it. Just to get a stupid feature that's very necessary for my game to function the way I want it to. What a pain...

So, that's my shpiel. If you just skipped to this part, instead of reading the previous paragraphs, I'll summarize it: Simple feature doesn't work, but to make it work takes a lot of time and effort. Which I don't have. So, I'm not working on it now. Anyways, I'll have another update soon, describing all the things going into my game, and how super epicly awesome and amazing it's going to be! I'll give you a few words that describe it:

Time Travel!

ALL The Weapons!

Lots of people dying!

Maaaaaagic!

Epic story line!

Abundant lore and exploration!

Randomly generated maps!

And it all begins with you!

I put a TON of thought into making this game. I want it to be super fun to play. So I made it that way. Whenever I start up this prototype and start playing it, it puts a large smile on my face. The main reason why, is because I have 4 weapons that work almost completely perfectly: a gun, a water gun, a staff shooting fireballs, and a laser! The enemies don't even move or have AI, but they have a working animation loop. When you move around the mouse, the screen moves with the mouse. And the best part?

60 FPS.

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

Unfortunately, it only runs at 60 frames per second on my computer. Slower computers run it at an average 20 fps. So sad. I'm working on it. Actually, I'm not. But I'll talk about it more next update. Comment what you think, no matter if you're reading this a few seconds from when I publish this, or in ten years from when I published this update!Thanks for reading, you awesome person!

Free Candy Day

All right peoples, the time has come! For us to reclaim our homeland! Just kidding- that's December 13th. The current event that will be taking place in 5 days is... you guessed it... HALLOWEEN! Or Hallow's Eve. Or Free Candy Day. I refer it it as National Free Candy Day, so don't be caught too off guard when I make numerous references to a day that doesn't actually exist. Moving on, I just want to spend a little time recognizing how awesome this one holiday of the year is, and why people (yes- even adults) should participate in it. Now, to begin my rant... muahahaha...

1. It's FREE Candy Day!!!!

Seriously. There's one day a year when you go to other people's houses and they freely give out their possessions. And by possessions, I mean delicious goodness. Who wouldn't want that?

2. Cosplaying, LARPing, dressing up... Whatever you might call it.

I'm used to cosplaying, so I'm going to use that term. Basically, the people who participate in Halloween can make their own costumes, or order them online, or pick them up at the store on the day before just to find that stores don't even sell good Halloween costumes anyways. The way I see it, people can spend a long time making a costume, and they should be allowed to wear it at least twice a year. The other time for any comic-con or anime convention in the local vicinity. And usually, other people do a wonderful job! Like, they do it so well, that you just want their autograph because of how awesome they look. I've seen adults to it at anime conventions, and they look amazing in their specially outfitted masterful works of art. Moving on.

3. Scaring teenagers

I don't care what you say. The best feeling in the world is the screams of teenagers. Personally, I like scaring the teenage guys a little more (just a tiny bit more), since they are tough to scare. And when they scream... oh man... it's the best. You just feel like you've accomplished something big in life.

For the past 3 years, I have been helping set up a haunted house at one of my friend's house, you know, going through the garage, and going out the side door through the backyard... fun stuff. Two years ago I sat motionless behind a table, where atop sat the magical bowl of candy. It was the best. I can hear their screams now... [reminiscent thoughts initiated]... Anyways, last year, I was Slenderman, and I just snuck up behind them when their back was turned. That was actually the year the game Slender came out. Surprisingly, not many people were scared my me. That's all going to change this year [when the fire nation attacked]. *cough*. This year, I'm going to be impersonating Dampe! Who knows the Legend of Zelda series? Anybody? Any one? No? Dampe is the grave-keeper, and he's a hunchback who always carries around a shovel and a lantern. That's what I'll be doing! I'll be stomping on this pedal next to a coffin that makes thumping noises against the wood of the coffin, like it's coming from the coffin! Oh well, enough of that rant. NEXT.

4. Hanging out with friends

This is by far the best. Nobody wants to go house to house by themselves. Then eat their candy in a dark corner all alone and cry. People want to spend a night walking around the neighborhood, collecting people's sugary pieces of amazingness. Gotta catch 'em all!

That's my shpiel. Yes, I spelled shpiel wrong. Get used to it. I make up words. I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite holidays. What's your favorite holiday? Or what additional things do/don't you like about Halloween? Comment below! And thanks for reading, you awesome person!

That's What People DO!

Roses are red

Violets are blue

I made you this valentine

'Cause

This actor was perfect for Moriarty in Sherlock. Also Benedict does a great job.

ARP Time! (Awesomely Random Picture)

What UnderAchievers Read

What I wish my life would be like, but one that I shall never obtain. So sad. Hope you all are having a great sedentary summer vacation. Or not, for those of you with jobs, and productive stuff to do.

How It Should Have Ended

I just want to take this time to tell people about How It Should Have Ended videos. Basically, they are animated shorts, looking for plot holes in culturally popular movies, and making a video of the entire movie within 3 to 5 minutes. Or they show multiple plot holes, and exploit them in order. I'm making it seem a lot more boring than they really are- here's the link:

http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/videos?bcpid=51434042001&bclid=41247345001&bctid=2546591366001

Anyways, my favorite part about these videos, is every time the movie is about a super hero, they sit down with Superman and Batman and talk about how Superman has "every super power combined", and why Batman would just be awesome. Because he's Batman. Some are very well done, such as How Man of Steel Should Have Ended. Instead of thinking of a plan to fight General Zod in 24 hours, he defeats him in exactly 31 minutes. Without any property damage. Seriously, these videos are, like, my life, right here. Thanks for reading, you awesome person!

Quotes:

-Leonardo Di Caprio:     "ARE YOU INSANE?!"
-Batman:                        "I'm Batman."
-Iron Man:                       "Well, I did, because, I'm awesome. So... in your face."
-Batman:                        "I said, it's because, I'm Batman."
-Superman:                    "I will... freeze-breath your face off."
-Batman:                        "No you won't."
-Batman:                        "Why does everyone have a problem with this? It's because, I'm Batman."
-Inception Crew:            "LIMBOOO! How low can you go! How low can you go!"
-Superman:                   "THIS PLACE SERVES FOOD?!"
-Hulk:                             "Mmmm... schawarma.... "

The Legend of Korra

So I was watching the Legend of Korra a few days ago, and by watching, I mean a marathon of the entire first season (and by the way, they totally got their title idea from The Legend of Zelda). I have to say, it was really well done. Of course, I'm a semi-old schooler, and I like the original series the best, but it really is interesting how they integrated magic in with modern (that's debatable), everyday life. Anyways, I was talking with my friends, and asked the question- if you had any element from the series (Earth, Fire, Water, Air), which one would you choose? Comment below, but the way I see it, it goes in a hierarchy like this: Air is the worst, Fire second worst, Water third worst, and Earth the best out of them all. But WHY, you might ask? Oh, Water is the best, because the planet is 2/3's water! Or Air HAS to be the best, since everyone can't survive a second without air! Maybe, you say, even Fire MUST be the best, since it's so destructive and awesome! Well, here's EXACTLY why Earth is the best.

First, all humans live on earth, not in the water. Of course, if you count Blood-Bending, that's cheating. MOVING ON. Second, you can drive a car, since it's made of metal, WITHOUT PAYING FOR GAS!!! YEAH! Like, that's the best, right there. Thirdly- you want to kill someone? Tap your feet, and rocks will crush your enemy within a millisecond. But Nathaniel, taking someone's air away from them can kill them! Yeah, in like 30 seconds. But Blood-Bending! Shut up. Doesn't count. MOVING ON. With Earth, you can make yourself a golem of iron, and basically be indestructible. Do a few Iron Man punches, and you can do anything. But, with Earth-Bending, you can't fly! Um, yeah, you can. Earth benders can lift rocks into the sky, so why can't they ride on top of them? NEXT. I'm not going to go into why Fire and Air are worse than Earth. Try attacking a rock (a non-flammable rock, that is) with fire or air. They will just swish right past it. Water... meh. It could freeze the rock. I'm not done describing why Earth is better- don't get too mad. With Earth-Bending, people have to learn to stand firm like a rock, and be very powerful. An Earth-Bender would most likely get through a large wall of ice, don't you agree?

One thing I am not assuming with these powers is that the benders can control them at a microscopic level. If they could, everyone would be equal. Fire-Benders can light every single molecule in your body on fire simultaneously, killing anyone instantly. Blood-Bending, need I say more? Air- suffocate them, then blast them into the air. The fall would kill them. And then Earth. Earth technically takes up 98% of the Periodic Table, depending on how you look at it. Depends on which molecules Earth-Benders can control. Let's just say Carbon (since diamonds and coal can be considered Earth)(And yes, coal is carbon, and in Avatar: the Last Airbender, there is an episode where they bend coal). As humans, we are carbon-based life forms. Basically, Earth-Bending IS human-bending, on a molecular level.

This proves why Earth is, like, the awesomest thing EVER. Comment below, tell me your thoughts, or anything I missed in this minor debate. Thanks for reading, you awesome person!