Still working on Cartovore 2. Many changes abound. However, the noose is tightening around the more flagrant bugs. Of course, every time I have the thing running nice, I have to go and change some huge aspect of the game that puts the whole thing out of whack again. It's a disease I have, I suppose. I had it running quite well today. Then I changed it so that you pay for cards when they come into play rather than at the beginning of the turn. I was really asking for it when I did that.

But it seems to have been OK--apparently I caught all the details as to what that change would affect. The only thing it did was expose a bug in the rules file that I otherwise would have missed.

I think I may have finally gotten the redirects working...or at least sort...
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Stupid Cartovore. Every time I fix something, two other things that were previously fine stop working. A minute ago it was actually to the point that *weapon cards* weren't working. They just sat there.

Weapon cards are not complicated. They show up, they do damage, they go away. But no, they were just sitting there.

It's fixed now, but DAMN. Half the day has been fixing stuff that used to work.

The other half was building the Blood Fane starter deck.

Upon looking at the Blood Fane leaders (Gizaga, Shiacanda and a new one who's surprise I won't spoil) I realized that the other leaders needed a serious cranking up. (Well, besides Lilly Snowfeather. She's fucking sick.) So I'm buffing their abilities, or trying to...the...
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Shells is now officially the longest story I have ever written. At 137 pages (single-spaced, 10-pt. font, no less), it is, in fact, TWICE as long as the next longest story I have written, which ended around 65 pages. Hell, the single longest THING I've ever written was 121.

I had no idea it was getting this big.

Oh, and the action is going to be heating up. My plans for the next few chapters are delicious. Pun intended? You decide. Let's just say our heroes won't have the luxury of a cushy demon city filled with treacherous succubi and demonettes for much longer.

As for my other baby, Cartovore 2: Yes, I'm still working diligently on it. The commissions I've been doing have set me back for time, but that's merely slowed me down, not...
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Well, that was a scary 40-50 hours. Computer wouldn't boot up, giving hard drive errors. EVAHL. Granted, being the paranoid, pessimistic sort of guy that I am, I had backed up everything a month ago, so my key stuff would have been protected...but it would have wreaked havoc with my mp3 collection, not to mention reversing all the new stuff I've done with Cartovore 2.

But it's all fixed now. Yay!

The quest was long and frought with peril, clearly written for nerds of level 5 and above. But as with all challenging and well-written quests, it came with a cool quest reward--the Ultimate Boot Disk, which gives +5 to all attempts to rescuscitate a dead computer.

It also requires a computer skill of 10 just to use it, but I think mine is like in...
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Still working on Cartovore 2. It's the official project until it gets done, though I am still tinkering with possible avenues for VRPG 2.

I've changed around a bunch of stuff in Cartovore 2...I revised the resource system, adding gold as a resource and changing it so that resources don't stack (you need to spend them each turn or they're gone). The main source of resources is characters; if a character is from your clan/tribe/whatever, you gain 1 gold from them per turn. In addition, most characters generate at least 1 heart, monster, or mana point. Thus, if you play a bunch of mage characters, you can play a lot more spells too.

There's things I like about it and things I don't like. I'm still testing it out.

I've just about finished up...
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It's a miraculous thing to me that my main production problem is often a lack of creativity. Making so many bloody Cartovore 2 characters, I run out of steam for writing all of their bios, quotes, and all of that crap...and I used to think my creativity was limitless. Turns out I just mistook writer's block for laziness.

It also turns out that "Cloud on My Tongue" by Tori Amos is an awesome song, which is another thing I did not realize before. Even if I have no idea what she's talking about. That girl can write some funky lyrics. As far as I can tell, half of them are about masturbation.

End of tangent.

Today I actually found myself considering dropping the clans, tribes, chords etc. from Cartovore entirely and simply making it so there...
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It's funny how everything can be falling apart and coming together at the same time.

My car screws itself, but events conspire just so that I don't blow up my engine or actually get stuck anywhere. It means I can't go to school tomorrow, but hey, it means I don't have to go to school tomorrow. The only class I'll miss has open-book tests anyway.

I find that my career paths are all very problematic, but the low-paying job I have is stable and painless, and the more difficult and profitable ones I can develop at my own pace, provided I don't bail out. I'm having money problems now that will go away soon, but only barely--just enough that I can keep doing what I'm comfortable with for a potentially indefinite period of time, but not in luxury by any means. ...
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So, um, yeah. Apparently I have a blog, at least for the next few minutes.

I was talking to Kaoru and he got me thinking about how inspiration can drive one to great heights, only to leave one stranded there with no recollection of how you planned to get down.

Creativity is a harsh mistress.

I've found I tend to get exactly as far as my plans went. If my plans for something were very detailed, I'll get as far as those details, then sit around with a dumb look on my face, wondering what the hell I'm supposed to do now. I'll realize I never really planned on how I was going to make the bosses, or structure the maps, or end the story.

Yes, even I get writer's block.

Though in my case it's more like...
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