Improbable Island Message of the Day (MoTD)
Updated Mobile Skin available!Admin CavemanJoe – 2012-02-21 06:41:41
Hello Islanders! We've had a "Mobile Friendly" layout option for a while now, but I made it back in the days when "Mobile" meant "A two-and-a-half-inch screen and a little stick to poke it with."
Times have changed!
These days, touchscreens work by measuring electrical resistance via a clear conductor applied to the glass. This means that gloved fingers no longer work - the digitizer is calibrated to crave only human flesh, or something close enough for Government work. Dead or alive, doesn't matter, as long as it conducts voltage the same way meat does.
In the old days of 2008 we'd gather touch position data via pressure administered using a neat little tool, the "Stylus." Not as clumsy or random as a finger; an elegant pointing device for a more civilized age.
Now, on cold days we sit alone on the tube, staring at a screen and occasionally prodding it with a sausage, wondering where humanity lost its way.
So, it was time to make a new Mobile skin. Actually it was time to do it like two years ago, but, well, y'know. This new layout is optimized for the caress of your meaty fingers, bearing nice big buttons, information laid out in rows rather than columns, and easy jumping around the page.
If you've got a smartphone, tablet or some other capacitive touchscreen-based gadget, please check out our new sausage-optimized skin and let us know what you think in the Enquirer!
Have fun!
Another new Donations bar
Admin CavemanJoe – 2012-02-15 20:29:35
Hello, folks!
February is always a bad month for Improbable Island. Probably because this is when people get their credit card bills for Christmas. This year is no exception, and Emily and I (and the cat-shaped lifeforms Leo, Harley, and Stewart) are feeling the pinch.
So I've been tinkering with the Donations Bar again. We've always had a problem with our Donations Bar where it would be more advantageous to donate at some times over others, and this was illustrated perfectly at the beginning of the month. One amazingly generous player donated a hundred bucks, but he did it at a time of day that for most Islanders is in the middle of the night - so by the time the new game day came around, the bar had dropped just below the threshold for giving a Stamina bonus.
What a huge, massive bummer. I don't want someone to give me a frankly enormous sum of money and then feel bad about it! So, let's try a new system that might fix that problem.
While before we had levels in our Stamina bonuses, we now have a range. When the kitty is empty, no bonus. When there's a penny in it, there's a 1% bonus. When there's $250 in there, there's a 10% bonus - and everything between 1% and 10% is proportional. The fuller the kitty, the more Stamina you get. So now, it really doesn't matter when you donate - you'll get the same awesomeness anyway.
(although if you really want to maximise the happiness your donation generates, you might want to donate just before a new Game Day)
If everybody on the Island donated a single dollar per month, Emily and I would be able to afford our own place easily (we live with excellent housemates right now, but we want to head home to England this year). As it stands, 10% of Improbable Island players will donate $5 or more at some point throughout the life of their accounts (oddly enough, very few players donate between nothing and $4.99 - a fiver just seems good for some reason). I'm telling you this both to encourage you to put some food on my table, and just in case you're thinking of writing a game yourself. (you should! It's great fun! You've just gotta save up all your money in the summer, to tide you through the winter months...)
Thank you, everyone, for being so awesome, and have fun!
-CMJ
Did you notice?
Admin CavemanJoe – 2012-02-15 01:45:09
There's a sneaky new Shady Trading option at eBoy's Trading Station...
Hunter's Lodge restocked
Admin CavemanJoe – 2012-02-13 06:02:13
Hello everyone! The Hunter's Lodge has been restocked with Builder's Selection Boxes and suchlike. For Valentine's Day this year, why not treat your partner to a great big load of cement and wood?
Have fun!
Yayness!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2012-02-10 04:14:17
Good news, everyone!
We turned four!
At the beginning of this month, Improbable Island turned four years old!
There's a sandwich dedicated to Improbable Island!
Joey Z, whose mission to open a meatball sandwich shop I talked about in our previous MotD, was so impressed with our help that he has created a sandwich dedicated to Improbable Island - it's the Level 13 Lion! It's based around a pineapple habanero sauce whose spiciness sneaks up on you when you least expect it. And there's even a wee pasta tail sticking out of the end!
Rohit the Robot part 2 is live!
This actually went live a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't get around to announcing it yet. Check out the pub in Cyber City 404!
I kicked the cigarette habit!
It's been nearly 50 days since my last cigarette! I smoked my last ciggy just before Christmas and have not brutally murdered a single person. I would have said something before, but I didn't want to jinx it!
Right now I'm working on the next part of Rohit's story, and you can expect that within the next couple of weeks.
Have fun!
-CMJ
Help piss on McDonalds' bonfire!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2012-01-15 21:09:53
Hello Islanders! This is a very hard MoTD to write.
That's not because it's anything horrible or serious - it's because I've been training in DVORAK for the past three days and now I'm at a friend's house using a QWERTY keyboard and I've completely forgotten how to bloody type. But I've got your attention now, so!
A good friend of mine needs your help, and I know you're a generous bunch, so here's the sitch.
I've got this friend, by the name of Joe, who is a very talented cook. Whenever a party happens, you'll find him studiously engaged in the kitchen, creating cunningly-composed culinary concoctions to captivate his curious contemporaries (you can probably guess where I'm up to in the DVORAK lessons).
I speak from experience when I say that his meatball sandwiches are perfect - the state of the art, the quintessential form, the exemplary subject. When you encounter something that's been created with thought and care and love, rather than thrown together out of the cheapest possible components at a minimum of effort and watered down for the blandest tastes of a mass audience, it does the heart a world of good.
Anyway, it has long been Joe's dream - and that of his wife, Sabrina - to introduce his meatball sandwiches to the world at large. An opportunity has presented itself, the timing has come up good, and the stars are aligned for Joe to open a little restaurant - the only obstacle right now is money.
It isn't very often that you get the opportunity to make a dream come true, and it's even less often that you encounter something perfect. The chance to both realize a lifelong fantasy and introduce something perfect to the world at the same time - that's very rare.
Here's his Kickstarter project. The voice you hear at the beginning of the video is me, talking through a mouthful of meat, bread, and sweet, tangy sauce. He only needs a couple of bucks from a few thousand people, and it's not like he's begging - you get stuff for donating. Like tasty, tasty sandwiches.
Please give generously, and have fun!
-Dan
Just in case you're wondering what I'm up to right now...
Admin CavemanJoe – 2012-01-10 04:09:34
My New Years' Resolution for Improbable Island is to code less, and write more - in fact, to release one new major plot point per month for 2012. Right now I'm working on the next part of Rohit the Robot's story.
If you're a new player and you'd like to play this story immediately when it comes out, complete the two story events "Mister Stern's Museum" (see NewHome) and "Rohit the Robot" (see Cyber City 404). Neither of these story points have a minimum DK or level requirement.
Have fun!
-CMJ
EDIT: Since you'll be needing a pub in which to meet Rohit, I've put a new one in Cyber City 404. The things inside are good for Robots!
We have a FaceBook, now? What? Also, character expiration.
Admin CavemanJoe – 2011-12-29 05:27:19
You might have heard on the radio about this "FaceBook" thing that everyone's talking about. Well, I looked at FaceBook today and there are a lot of pages about Improbable Island made by our fans. I figure we may as well have an "official" page, so I've made one, and here it is.
(don't worry, we're not moving the game to FaceBook. Bloody hell, can you imagine? Yikes!)
The thing about FaceBook, though, is that it's like that weird fellow you met at that party. You know the guy - the one who stood uncomfortably close, asked a lot of personal questions, kept surreptitiously sniffing you while he thought you weren't watching, that sort of thing. And then you found out that the party you were at was in his house, and all your friends hang out in his house all the time, even though it's full of spiders and it smells vaguely of wee. So you kind of have to roll with it or never see your friends again.
There's another guy called Google Plus, and I went to a party at his place one time, and it was all very nice - top-notch stereo, delicious beers and not a single disturbing stain to be found - but it was very quiet. In fact, the whole "party" was just me and him, smiling uncomfortably at each other.
If you're rare and lucky enough to have some friends on Google Plus, we've got a page on there, too, and here it is. So you can take your pick - creepy house where all your friends hang out, or lonely house where nobody tries to smell your hair. The future is now, you guys.
I think if you click "Like" or "+1" or whatever, a number goes up. I made a text adventure game, I know all about numbers going up. It feels good when the numbers go up, for some reason. Unless they're on a Geiger counter or something.
So I've been looking around the Internet to see what people say about Improbable Island. I keep noticing that people say "Oh yeah, I played that game a bit. And then I went back a few months later for another go, and my character had expired, and it made my face all sad." On the few rare occasions when I bump into someone in real-life who's played Improbable Island, they tend to say the same thing.
I don't want to make people's faces all sad. I've done enough optimization work on the game over the last couple of years that the expiration of old characters may no longer be as necessary as it once was, but only a good test will let us know for sure. So I'm going to increase the timeout to 180 days (up from 90), give it a month or two and see what happens. If the game slows down at all, we'll drop it back down to 90.
Tonight I'm working on a guide for programming Places, that shows you how to use that extra knob thingy that's suddenly appeared. Expect it in the wee hours of tomorrow morning.
(update: it's up!)
Have fun!
-CMJ
Here's your Christmas present!
Admin CavemanJoe – 2011-12-23 22:26:00
Hello, everyone on Improbable Island.
In fact, more than hello. It's the season, why the hell not? Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Diwali ki Shubhkamnayein, Happy Pancha Ganapati, Happy Bodhi Day (okay, so I'm late to the party with some of these, and early to others, but I hope you won't hold that against me). What do you say about the Solstice... uh, merry Solstice, I guess. Come to think of that, what's the expedient and polite way to say "I hope your Bodhi Day goes really well?" Or Pancha Ganapati, for that matter? Do you say "Happy," or "Merry," or "Joyous," or what? Does the etiquette change if you do it two weeks late? Does it even matter as long as you're saying "Hey, I hope have a good time?" Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, and Generic Feelings Of Goodwill For Everyone I've Left Out, you crazy bunch.
And a very, very happy New Year.
I'm gonna level with you - this year, I'm hoping that next year goes better. For me, this year (and late last year too) has held a little bit too much death and sadness for my liking. I've seen too many friends go off into the big blue, and all of them too damned soon, and none of them in good ways.
The best way to see out a bad year is to blast the bastard out on a rocket-jet of funky good feelings. The shittier the year, the harder you've gotta party to get rid of it. I've been a gloomy sod for much of this year, and there's only so much you can let death get you down before you've gotta remember how to be glad you're alive, and with that in mind...
Our World Community Grid team has nearly gotten to seven hundred and fifty years of humanitarian research. For those not in the know - aw hell, I've typed this out a dozen times already, I'll just give you the Cliff's Notes version. It's a screensaver that cures cancer and AIDS, okay? You wanna know more than that, see the previous announcements on the Island, and check out this link: http://www.improbableisland.com/grid.html. Yeah, we're the text-adventure game that cures cancer. I said I'd give everyone some Supporter Points when we passed 750 years, and we're not quite there yet.
Well, you're getting your Supporter Points early anyway. Seven hundred and fifty years, seven hundred and fifty points, that seem fair?
Yes, everyone gets the present. Not just people on the World Community Grid team. Not just players who've been around for a while. Everyone, and that means you too.
Y'see, I'm an Evil Overlord Dictator. If I want to give away fifty grands' worth of Supporter Points to complete strangers, just because I feel like it, then damn it, I will! Otherwise what's the bloody point of being a tyrant?
(and let's face it - if you had a button you could press that would make six thousand people smile, you'd bloody well press it, wouldn't you?)
So, here's a present to say "Thank you for being a part of our world."
Next year, I'm going to stop smoking (I'm down to maybe one or two rollies a day right now), stop being a gloomy bastard, and try to release at least one quest or plot point per month (after all, the code is pretty much solid at this point). And we're gonna pass fifteen hundred years of research on World Community Grid.
I wish you every happiness the new year can bring. If you're feeling glum, my two recommendations are to read some Spider Robinson, and if your troubles aren't income-related, give some money away. If you're not feeling glum, good!
Have an excellent 2012!
-CMJ
Awful and Awesome
Admin CavemanJoe – 2011-12-20 05:17:34
This post contains awful things, awesome things and an important reminder. They're in different colours, so you can easily decide whether you're in the mood to subject yourself to stuff that is awful-but-necessary.
I don't like to get political on Improbable Island. This game isn't just my livelihood, it's my art, my passion, and my hobby. I really don't want to drag it into the thoroughly-imperfect real world by polluting it with a rally to a cause that revolves around my own egocentric opinion. This is very rare, but I'm going to talk politics for a moment, since it could conceivably impact Improbable Island's future. If you're averse to politics-talk, please skip to the green text.
I will only get political with my audience in cases of international emergency, or where the Island itself could be affected. One such event is happening tomorrow, as the American house of representatives (which is kind of like Parliament) get together to vote on whether to pass a bill called the "Stop Online Piracy Act," which people have been calling SOPA for short.
The most cursory of Internet searches will tell you that SOPA is widely considered a threat to the Internet and a Thoroughly Bad Idea.
In a nutshell, it gives copyright holders new powers to combat piracy - that is, by petitioning an ISP to prevent DNS resolution to infringing websites. ISPs (who are universally against the bill) will find they have to comply regardless of the validity of the request - due to the extremely vague wording of the bill (written by people who don't really understand how the Internet works), it is entirely possible to silence homage, quotation, reviews, tributes, and other fair-use cases (and hell, legitimate original content, why the hell not) without due process. In other words, the burden of proof is laid on the accused, while their website or resource is inaccessible.
You're probably already imagining the level of technical, commercial and political disruption that this will lead to. I bet you've already thought of at least three opportunities in which this new situation will be abused. It's not pretty, is it? That's why nearly all major Internet-based companies (along with some of the Internet's original creators themselves) are in opposition of the bill.
Now, I'm not the world's biggest fan of pirates. I don't like people who feel like they're entitled to take more than they give, although I'm honestly pretty much indifferent to the act of piracy itself (until people feel the need to brag about it all the bloody time as though they're doing the game industry a favour by not paying for anything). But what I dislike even more, what I think is far more dangerous than piracy itself, is overreaction to piracy.
I don't like copy protection. I don't like digital rights management. I don't like having to download patches, exploits, workarounds and other technical jiggerypokery from pirates to bypass the bullshit that the manufacturer included to stop pirates. I don't like thinking "I paid for this game... and it'd be a hell of a lot easier to run if I'd just downloaded the sodding thing."
If you use a machine gun to swat a mosquito, you just end up with holes in your walls and more bloody mosquitos. This bill is more like a bazooka.
If you Google it, you can find a PDF of the full text of the bill. It's important that you read it. I don't mean go and look at an infographic, or find a list of Seven Ways SOPA Will Destroy The Internet, or browse through the comments section on a blog post somewhere, or take the views of Some Bloke With A Game Featuring Budget Horse as gospel. I mean read the bill and do not trust me, because the good guys tell lies too.
To my players in the USA: Google will also tell you the phone number of your congressional representative. Being an immigrant to these United States, I don't have a congressional representative, but you probably do, and I urge you to phone them and tell them that you'll remember how they vote.
To everyone: Google will also reveal a full list of companies that support SOPA, both with words and with bribes, and... well, I'd say "think twice about giving them any more money," but I'm looking through the list and I can only see one or two that any of my players would ever knowingly support anyway. Talk about a rogue's gallery! Rupert Murdoch's publishing company. Rupert Murdoch's newspaper company. Rupert Murdoch's television company. It's pretty much a list of all the companies that the world would be better off without. It's certainly a list of companies who would have more money were the Internet never invented.
(I was very sad to see Toshiba on that list)
(and darkly amused to see Xerox, the photocopier company)
So. Please, please phone your representative, and make it very clear that you're watching them closely.
That's it. Enough of the politics. Let's move on to the awesome stuff.
I have not just one but two awesome things to tell you. The first is that we're going to be putting in some new functionality to Places this week, particularly to the programming interface. We'll have some new Contraptions and Contrivances, and a more flexible and intuitive way to arrange items and direct the logic flow. We'll also have support for "ELSE" functionality (that is, if the player is in X clan, proceed to the next row, and if not, then do THIS instead), and I'm writing a programming guide that should ease you into things nicely.
The second awesome thing is that our World Community Grid team has passed seven hundred years of life-changing humanitarian research, and when we hit 750 years (which should be in the next few weeks), I'm going to give everybody some Supporter Points for free. :) If you don't know what World Community Grid is, click on the link down in the bottom-right that says "Help cure cancer, get free Supporter Points!"
And now, the reminder - Undecorated and abandoned Places that were around before the tenth of September will be erased tomorrow. See the previous MotD for more details.
UPDATE: The old Dwellings have now been erased.
Thanks for reading all of that, and have fun!
-CMJ
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.Game Design and Code: Copyright © 2002-2005, Eric Stevens & JT Traub, © 2006-2007, Dragonprime Development Team