Stuart Hacking

O.K. So, this is kind of a followup to a previous post I did about how I like to setup Nethack on my Mac. However, more recently, some of the patches I had used stopped working on later versions of Mac OS (10.5 and 10.6). So I spent a bit of time looking into this today and I got some positive results. (update: I think the problem I had with Menucolor compiling was that it didn’t like the regexp method – I changed this to simply use the wildcard matching.)

Nethack with Status Colors and Menu Colors

Unfortunately, because the two patches I’m applying have resulting conflicts- it meant manually applying the patches to the source code in some cases (also: I’m lazy). I, therefore, don’t have an elegant method of actually applying the two patches that I can pass on. What I am doing instead is providing two things: The complete refined archive of the patched Nethack source which should be ready-to-compile on OS 10.6; And also the .diff file produced from a vanilla copy of the source and my own patched version. I will also provide my new updated nethackrc file. (ok… 3 things )

Here’s some details about the setup this provides:

1. The Status Colors patch is applied. This is a configurable patch allowing you to color code status effects – hunger, blindness, HP, Gold, AC, etc. It’s very, very cool!
2. Menucolors patch applied. This is a configurable patch that let’s you apply colors to popup menus. e.g. inventory items can be red for cursed, green for blessed, etc. Again, this patch is very neat!
3. The initial configuration for getting Nethack to build on mac has been taken care of.

So Here are the links to get everything up and running. I should say at this point that this stuff works on my machine and YMMV. If something is broken and you want my to take a look at it just leave a comment of send an email – I’ll try to fix it if I have time. You may also want to dig through the changes in the patch.

1. nethack-3.4.3-patched.zip
2. nh343-_menustatus_orig.diff
3. .nethackrc

I hope this is useful for someone who wants a nice shiny setup of Nethack on Snow Leopard.

Programming fun, Gaming, mac, nethack, Programming, Software

Out of curiosity, I download America’s Army for Mac ealier. Having just completed the Basic training and M.O.U.T. exercise I would like to reflect on some of my favourite lessons so far:

1. Use of cover: You may not discharge your weapon outside the active room.  Soldier, your mission is to charge screaming into the center of the room unloading single rounds from your weapon. Now go an be an American Hero!
2. Flash Grenades: Flash grenades can be used to temporarily blind your foe, buying you an additional couple of seconds to clear the room.  However, it takes about 4 seconds to switch between grenades and firearm, so keep your finger on the trigger and prepare to open fire! (Why not send flash grenades in before entering the room? see poimt 1)
3. Identification: In order to minimise friendly or civilian casualties, it is vital to quickly identify your enemy. Tip: They’re wearing balaclavas and bandannas. Son, the U.S. Army has always prided itself on telling the difference between friend and enemy!

Self fun, Gaming, Heroism, Software

There is now an update to this post.

This is a quick tutorial post for anyone requiring convenient pre-configured Nethack Files. Nethack comes from a tradition of Hack’n'slash adventure games known as Roguelikes. They are similar to text based adventures in that, originally, grapics were rendered using ASCII characters. This is still a popular way to play the games. This is the end of the similarity, though, as the gameplay is more like that of Dungeons & Dragons or other Role Playing Games.

Personally, I enjoy using ASCII graphics because I think it makes the games more readable, imaginative and because nicely rendered fonts just look better than tiny 16×16 tiles. (How can a mighty dragon be crammed into a small 16×16 bitmap?)

Nethack in Terminal.app

So, here are some things I have done to pretty up Nethack a bit for OS X. Many other people, I’m sure, use a similar setup, and many others probably differ. For added convenience I’ll include my configuration files for download.

1. Build Nethack from source. There is a good tutorial for this on the Nethack Wiki
2. Apply the following Source Code patches: hpmon, Menucolors and rebuild. (They provide groovy abilities like menu highlighting for easy reading)
3. Download a copy of my .nethackrc to configure- this already has decent settings for Menucolors and well as some traditional options: (keybindings, graphics mode, etc). You can get the file here: nethackrc (save it into your home directory as .nethackrc)
4. Make a custom Terminal.app config ad export it. I use Monaco 18pt font, no-blink cursor, autorun /usr/games/nethack. You can grab a copy of this file here: nethack

Gaming, Self fun, Gaming, mac, nethack, RPG

I just went over and picked up On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness Vol. 2 (The new Penny Arcade adventure) from Greenhouse Games. So far I’ve only watched the opening cutscene but it looks like it’s gonna be both awesome and hilarious.

These guys are delivering serious fun for only $14.95!

Gaming, Self, Software fun, Gaming, webcomics

I was reading through the usual assortment of RSS feeds and webcomics when I stumbled across this story on Giant in the Playground Games.

To summarize – insofar as Rich Burlew has summarized:

To honour the passing of Gary Gygax earlier this year, participants at Gen-con (A notable gaming convention) raised money to donate to charity- the charity was chosen as Gary had been a keen donator in the past.  The charity was Christian Children’s Fund.

The story goes on to tell that CCF refused the donations offered by Gen-con on the basis that Funding was partly raised by the sale of Dungeons & Dragons based material, which was tainted by evil…

Okay, that last part seems a little extreme and perhaps the idea was simply that in the eyes of some the material might be easily misunderstood or associated to evil.  Nevertheless, this is how things seem to have transpired.

Firstly, I’d like to state that I’m an avid gamer and see no problem with playing Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer or any number of Computer games that are built on Fantasy or Science Fiction themes.  I think the important point to bear in mind is that it is fiction and there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism.

What concerns me about the article is how, in one fell swoop, this organisation seems to have reinforced an old negative stereotype on Christians:  We are judgmental, holier-then-thou, close-minded and hopelessly outdated.  I’m no theologian, so I don’t wish to start filling this blog with biblical references and fire-and-brimstone,  I just wanted to point out that the apparent stance of CCF does not reflect the viewpoint of the majority of Christians.

Another debate has arisen from this event- the validity of CCFs stance to refuse donations which they see as ‘tainted’ (as described by the secondary sources… but for this argument let’s suppose it was true).

To refuse a gift based on the source is, in my opinion, counter-productive.  Much better to take this tainted gift and purify it by putting it to Holy use.  Doesn’t this present an altogether more positive image, while benefitting the children at the same time?

In closing I have received a response to an email I sent to CCF (while typing this post- so please take the preceding musings as hypothetical rather than concrete).  which is posted below this paragraph.  It clarifies the decision by CCF which appears to be more of a misunderstanding – I hope therefore that no ill will remains as a result of this episode.

There appears to be a misunderstanding which I would like to correct. When Gen Con contacted CCF about its auction, we were pleased to accept donations. However, we couldn’t lend our name for publication because our policies have specific criteria for endorsements. We were unaware that this had caused any problem or concern for Gen Con until we began receiving emails. This decision was in no way intended to be a reflection on Mr. Gygax, gaming enthusiasts or the game Dungeon and Dragons. We have the utmost respect for the gaming community and were touched by the generosity expressed through your auction. We were disappointed that we were not the recipients of the donation but we were pleased that another worthy organization benefited.

Gaming, Self charity, Christianity, Gaming, News, religion