Caleb’s discussions on games and game development.

Have you ever thought Tetris(R) was evil because it wouldn’t send you that straight “I” brick you needed in order to clear four rows at the same time? Well Tetris(R) probably isn’t evil, but Bastet certainly is. >:-) Bastet stands for “bastard tetris”, and is a simple ncurses-based Tetris(R) clone for Linux. Unlike normal Tetris(R), however, Bastet does not choose your next brick at random. Instead, Bastet uses a special algorithm designed to choose the worst brick possible. As you can imagine, playing Bastet can be a very frustrating experience! — http://fph.altervista.org/prog/bastet.shtml

That is the description of Federico Poloni‘s Tetris clone, Bastet. I first played Bastet over a telnet session to some person’s machine. In November of 2007 I started work porting it from its C code implementation to ActionScript 3.

I ported it for fun and because I didn’t have a Linux system handy on which to play Bastet. This version should not be viewed as a full game, as it isn’t. The controls will suck, it will give you several of the same piece in a row, it may not work at all and it definitely won’t be fun. 🙂

I have recovered the source code and made some changes to it. The controls should work a little bit better and it now tells you your score. Also, the debug text is removed.

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I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for scrolling space shooters. One of my favorites is Tyrian. I know I’m not alone in exclaiming how good this game is. Heck, any game that allows you to fly around in a “Super Carrot” while shooting hot dog projectiles is a winner in my book. I enjoy them so much that I decided to make one of my own.

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When I was in kindergarten I drew a landscape picture with crayons. My mother took one look at it and knew something was wrong with me. I had drawn the sky purple and the grass brown and the tree green. Apparently that wasn’t quite reflective of the real world.

When I was about 12 I learned that my dream of being a fighter pilot wasn’t within my reach. I was, however, lucky enough to get to do that in October of 2008. I can’t make a career of it, but I can do other things that I love. One of those things is making games.

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Exactly one year ago I got a once-in-a-lifetime chance to fly an F-16. This is what I wrote after I woke up and recovered.

Today I logged my first 1.4 hours of Viper time. Lt. Col. Kevin “Coconut” Grove was the pilot on my first F-16 flight. We started off by doing a full afterburner vertical ascent to 10,000 feet. This pulled about 3.2Gs. The strangest thing about sitting in the cockpit of this aircraft while it is flying is the lack of engine noise. The vertical takeoff was completely silent.

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Friday, October 10th, 2008. was the last day that I had to wear my uniform. I enlisted February 11, 2003. My last as active duty is November 19, 2008. I will be in the Individual Ready Reserves until February 10, 2011 completing my 8 year commitment. I shouldn’t actually have to do anything, unless something bad pops up and they have an immediate need for a programmer, for some reason.

I had a good run. I was assigned to Detachment 1 Air Combat Command Training Support Squadron at Luke AFB, AZ. I worked there as a Simulation Engineer. I got the chance to go TDY to several states and to work on several cool projects.

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