Game Idea 3498

Seems like when I start slowing down on programming one of my game ideas, I start getting an influx of new ideas. I try to resist starting yet another project, but eventually convince myself that this is the one I'm going to finish, which of course never happens.

However, there does seem to be a theme that can categorize all of my ideas: something new and never done before, or pushes the limits. This might be part of my problem as I've never truly 'finished' a game project I've came up with. Thus, I'm not completely familiar with all the aspects of game making.

Even when I set out to make a simple game or a clone of a game, I wind up trying to do something new and never done before (atleast not to my knowledge). This is probably also where I get stuck and start to slow down and loose interest in the project.

Right now I can't think of a good name for the idea I have. For now I've deemed it Game 3498 which I may or may not later discuss here or in another post (depends if I get motivated to start working on it instead). I just chose some random numbers as if I had serialized all my ideas (I haven't came up with 3500 ideas.... yet)

I might as well try to catalog these ideas if for no other reason to keep them from circulating in my brain. I don't think I'm going to apply any kind of format in describing these games so they are going to be rather varied in detail.

Py-berspace
This was inspired by the game Decker (should be available at www.sourceforge.net) where you play as a hacker completing mischievous contracts to gain money and fame. It's set in a futuristic world where hackers do a matrix-like plug in to the servers and events play out in this virtual world. Different rooms representing the CPU, data stores, and I/O ports. You can try to stealth around avoiding detection and queries from bots, or you can attack and take on the defenses of the server.

The idea for Pyberspace was essentially the same but I was going to expand on the gameplay. In decker there would just be 2-3 contracts available at a time which may or may not be at places you have been. Every time you connected to the 'matrix' the level would be generated randomly, progressively getting larger / longer the farther in the game. The downside was once you accepted a contract you couldn't take on others until you completed that one or it expired. There didn't seem to be any consistent world or results/rewards for extra efforts.

I decided to take a stab at graph theory and try to create a mock Internet with backbone servers and ISPs, etc. using them as nodes. On top of that I was going to simulate traffic loads on the connection so that taking certain paths down would strain other paths, and that commandeering machines would effectively increase you bandwidth. This was the other part of the game as I've read the recent trend in black hat hacking is to install little clients, pseudo-viruses if you will. The article I read compared them to terrorist sleeper cells. The client would sit idly and listen in on an IRC channel for commands to be issued on. When a command is received it would hijack the connection (usually these are used for distributed denial of service [DDoS] attacks). The unfortunate target is pummeled by thousands if not millions of requests all from different machines, thus they can't just ban a few IP addresses. Further more the machines doing the attacks are actual legitimate clients who are unaware of the action and probably unaffected by the action.

I was going to use this as part of the game play, you slowly take over machines to build an army of 'zombies' as they are called. You can use these zombies to help you attack the larger and more lucrative targets while protecting your identity. Perhaps when you get hit or loose a 'life' it translates to loosing these zombies (which you can perhaps later reacquire).

I named it Pyberspace as I was trying to code it in Python using Pygame. I think I got stuck mainly on trying to get some kind of an interface and on coming up with a decent and fast graphing system for modeling an Internet of sorts.

I might write more on my current idea later. Right now I think I'm going to get working on it some more.

The Great Video Game debate

So as I was coming home today I had the radio on a Christian station, specifically it was Dr. Dobson's Focus on the Family. Today's broadcast caught my eye (or my ear I suppose). It was on the issue of violent video games. Of course the only game mentioned was Grand Theft Auto, though at least one or two of the 'experts' say they aren't completely anti-gaming.



Now I'll admit, I've played GTA, I liked it, it was a great game, but in a disturbing manner. They make it sound that you are encouraged to do these horrific acts, which I suppose is somewhat true. However there are consequences for killing cops and pedestrians. It's not like the entire object of the game is to do this, though I have found myself doing things just to get cops chasing me. Something about running from the cops and driving crazy is entertaining. I think for the most part because it's something I'd never do, and I know I could never 'get away' with it.



So yes, if all games were like GTA, I could see their point, but I suppose they are speaking of violent games like GTA. One of the 'experts' was a stay at home mom, wife of a former vice-president of Focus on the Family talks about the addictiveness of video games and how they eventually put a 'ban' on it in their house. Now she admits she'll let her kids play games at their friends house telling them to make sure it's something she would approve of (yeah... right).

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's human curiosity to want or know about what we can't have. Putting such a 'ban' or limit does nothing but to fuel this. Once they are outside of their parents' grasp, they are going to go dive head-first into this stuff. This is my theory, kinda adapted from Hupe. I think of it like you can't stop a child from burning him/herself by explaining its bad, or it's hot. They aren't going to stop until they actually experience what 'hot' is or what 'burn' means. Now yes early in development it's not be a good thing for an infant to get a burn on the hand.

Probably what has set me off the most is some of the 'claims' these people have. Several of them citing research saying that it releases dopamine, kinda like amphetamines. They then use this as a bridge to assert that video gaming is addictive and dangerous like drugs. Now I couldn't get the actual research article they were discussing as it requires a subscription to a journal, but I did follow their link to Discovery Channel's review. This was the only reference to a source outside of this Focus on the Family network that I could find on this claim. (yet plenty of claims of what research has found or concluded do not appear to cite any sources)

Reading that link on Discovery Channel's site, if anything convinced me that this research could say anything conclusive about video game use other than a dopamine release. Little neurological fact here, dopamine is used for lots of things as stated in that article, including motor control and pleasure. So what this study found was that people get pleasure from playing video games, just like people get pleasure from shooting up amphetamines, from having sexual intercourse, from having pain removed, from laughing.

From that article (the only non-internal source I have found):

This isn't to say that video games are "special" activities capable of altering neurotransmitter levels in the brain. It is entirely possible that other behaviours (e.g. playing cards) could produce similar results. But this is easier said than demonstrated.

I guess I just hate this 'close mindedness' on issues and then saying 'research shows' this or that, when it really doesn't or they don't give the source of this research.



Alright, I'm done ranting for now.

Microsoft goes to Hollywood

So I recently read up on the latest 'features' Windows Vista has to offer. Appearantly the guys at Microsoft have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep 'Premium Content' secure. Basically the content owners (read: Hollywood, RIAA, MPAA, etc) will be very strict as to what it will allow it to be transmitted over/to.

Basically the content owners can decide if a platform is secure enough, this sounds reasonable but if a platform is not secure it will basically be rendered useless. Let me give an example. Most computers use VGA outputs or if its relatively new, the faster DVI outputs. Because niether of these have encryption in their transmission lines they aren't secure. From a Microsoft white paper:

a regular DVI monitor will either get slightly fuzzy or go black, with a polite message explaining that it doesn’t meet security requirements

and VGA

many content owners are requiring that [VGA] resolution be constricted when certain types of premium content are being played. Eventually they may require that analog VGA outputs be turned off completely

So in order to view the sacred content, consumers will have to shell out money for new protocols and outputs or else get a blurry screen or a 'polite message'. This doesn't stop at video it goes on to audio as well.

The restrictions on manufacturers are enormous as well, which means the price will be jacked up to compensate (or features removed to compensate). There is this Hardware Functionality Scan (HFS) that will be used. Basically to try and get a fingerprint of the hardware like a video card. But of course it couldn't be a static message as that could be too easily hacked. From the same White Paper:

For purposes of authentication, the device driver can ask complex questions of the hardware and then check the answers... The HFS test vectors must to be devised such that each manufacturer’s chip will return a different answer in some subtle way.
[...]
The questions asked by the driver software must result in answers that are difficult for anything other than valid hardware to produce. Two mechanisms can be used for this:

• The calculation of the answer in hardware must be so complex that it would be impractical for anyone to emulate the hardware necessary to calculate the answer.
  - Or -
  
• The internal workings of the graphics chip must be kept secret, such that a hacker building an emulator could not find out the required information
  

In practice, using a combination of complexity and secrecy is likely to be the best option. When secrets are involved, the HFS code in the vendor-supplied driver should be obfuscated to prevent it being reverse engineered, although there is no absolute requirement to do obfuscation.

Not only must the internal workings be (unnecessarily) complex, but it must be kept a secret. So developing on this model would consist of:

Engineer: Ok, I got this graphics card thats really simple and runs fast too. It can play all kinds of formats. Also it will be really easy to use this design for future developments because the design is simple and elegant. Also bugs and mistakes that we might/will make will be easy to debug and track.

Content Owner Executive: It's too simple and will be hacked too easily. Make it complex so no one can emulate it.

Engineer:Argh

[Months Later]

Engineer: Ok, Graphics card is complex in its working, I don't fully understand how it works. Runs a bit slower now, and it some times stutters, but we can't figure out why.

Content Owner Executive: Ok, now I need you to make the driver test that it is talking to the right chip

Engineer:ok.... no problem....

Content Owner Executive: Don't make it just a simple response. It has to perform a random complex calculation that the answer would be unique to the device, and the driver has to make sure its the right response.

Engineer:So I have to make a program that does the same thing as the card? But I thought I made it complex so that it wouldn't be easy to make a program do the same thing....

Another blog goes on about how Hollywood will have a say in any new security measures along with other problems.

This is all the tip of the iceburg. There is even rediculously unecessary encryption being done by the processor and the graphics card. Yes, the graphics card has to decrypt information, which encryption/decryption is not an easy process (or else its useless) and consumes time and resources. Along with these 'tilt' bits that are just gold for hackers.

Everyone (including myself) is up in arms about this. It is obvious Microsoft wants this 'Premium Content' as they release a patch for a hack for one of thier PayToDownload services in just three days after the 'flaw' was published. Compare that to viruses, worms, and other malicious issues that get "Patched On Tuesdays" and must wait for a batch of other updates. Also amusing is that the patch was circumvented quickly with a new version of the utility.

At first I thought well maybe it was just an easy fix and decided to put it up when they could. But then I realized that they went against their normal operations, they went out of their way to make sure that this gets fixed and fast. They didn't wait to slap the update with next Tuesdays batch. They did it immeadiatly.

Of course there are the fear mongerers around like the first page I linked. They think that all the hardware is going to skyrocket in price and everyone, even non-Windows users will be shelling out the dollars.


Here's what I think will happen:
Legitimate owners will have a choice of upgrading their computer system expensively, or just using a consumer electronics device like a DVD player to view the stuff.

Hardware manufactures will probably go 2 routes or a combination.
1) Stick with Hollywood and make extremely expensive video cards just so they can play the next blockbuster film, hoping that many users will want to view/acquire them on PCs. In order to compensate for the requirements either the price will jump, or other functionality like 3D applications will have to be stripped to give more power to the card.

2) Ignore Hollywood and continue to do what they have always done, hoping that users WON'T base buying the cards on if it can play the protected content, but rather on how well the card performs for its cost.

Then of course there will be the people that will download the content for free, never giving a penny to the makers, because the copies they give have restrictions or requires more hardware than necessary to view them.

Most likely more legitimate users will go to the 'dark side' when they purchase some content and then have to upgrade their player, and then find out that they have to upgrade their display or else live with crappy images. When during the whole time the kid next door can get you a version that doesn't care what player or display it is on. You can even take it to another computer and play it.

Basically I see it that anyone that tries to follow these restrictions will get nipped in the butt. The only way they will work is if the vast majority follow them. Newsflash, the vast majority aren't doing this, and aren't going to start. Hardware manufacturers, even the big ones that start making boards compliant with these specs will probably have a huge drop in sales, while any manufacturers that continue making cards normally will soak up all the customers.

I suppose if all future Hollywood movies or content is ONLY available on the new mediums with the security like HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Even then there will be insiders who will leak unprotected copies, and hackers to bypass the restrictions. They could possibly circumvent with lawsuits and counter-measures like putting up fake downloads of the content.

Of course such a swift change would outrage consumers when their new DvD players won't play anything new. (A lot are just switching from VHS to DVD).

By and large, I doubt we will notice much other than a rise in piracy and a decline of sales in Hollywood, who will undoubtly attribute to piracy and either continue to try and tighten their grip or finally discover the futility of it, and actually reap the benefits of using technology.

Either way, I think that we will see the end of this tyranny in either a transformation of existing large companies or new rival ones stomping them down.

Frankly even if the same movie was available for free on the web, it takes time to download, getting it to a better display is already enough of a hassle. Going to the store and picking up a copy for $9 and popping it in the tray is much easier. In fact a lot of times if I like a movie enough I will buy it. I have 'The Matrix' on my computer, but of course I own it as well. If I didn't own it, I would probably still buy it, even if I didn't watch it on the disk, even if I never watched the movie again.

I would buy it because we all like to have 'things' from the original source. We buy the little trinkets and memorabilia at huge markups when we really like who/what/where it came from. But if we see the same thing at the treasureshop for under a dollar, or even free, that particular one doesn't mean much even if we get it. It has been tainted by being in some stranger's hands, and we haven't had to give much up to get it. It's common everyday quality (even if its in pristine condition) simply because you know it changed hands. If we like what it represents we will pay a reasonable price to own an official copy.



Argh I really should proofread this but I have things to do, so I apologize for spelling/grammarical/technical mistakes.