Taplets!

I'm building a game!

I think it's called Taplets, but there might be some other claims to that name already (here, same folks again here, and different folks here (is that a 90s MacBook on the table?)) ... 

Why do I want to build a game?

Because making a game is really, really hard.  It's an irresistible challenge.  The more impossible, the more attractive I find it.

So, I've started with something which seems simple.  The gameplay involves pressing buttons.  The mechanic is in the timing.

Each button on screen expires in a certain amount of time.  You have to deal with the button before its time runs out, or game over.  The catch is that each button's time is determined by the player.  When you tap a button the time it took you to do so becomes the expiration time for the next button.  The remaining time is added to your 'bank' which provides a time reserve in case you miss a button before it expires.  So, if you tap a button quickly, you can bank a lot of time to use later.  But, the next button will expire very quickly.  If you wait, the next button will have a leisurely expiration time but you'll bank very little time to use later.  Miss a button entirely and time from you bank is used until you tap the button or the bank is empty.  Of course, there are different kinds of buttons that behave in different ways, and things get complex once more than one button is on screen at the same time.

That's about it.  I want to see the whole development process, start to finish, to understand just what goes into building something even as simple as this.  What really interests me is how this initial mechanic will develop, what possibilities lie hidden within it which will only become apparent once you start to play.  If I get something playable, and I've learned something along the way, I'll consider the project a success.

Judging by my progress so far, I suspect development will be slow, as I've got a few other things to occupy my time, but every now and then I dust this off and do a little more work on it.

When I get a playable demo, of course, I'll share it.

Ta Da!

Right now, I've got a button.  Let's see what it does.

Cathedrals, one slice at a time

Back in 2009 I created a series of models and animations showing a 'typical' medieval English parish church 'growing up' from the seventh century through the fifteenth century.  While this was a fun distillation of three centuries of architectural history and archaeological scholarship, as well as my own research, it was also intended as a resource for the English Parish Church Through the Centuries DVD-ROM produced by the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture (CnC, for short).

A 'typical' English parish church as it may have appeared in the early sixteenth century.  From The English Parish Church Through the Centuries, Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture.  Source: A Masinton

You can see one of the final animations here.

Fastforward four years and I'm at it again, this time for the followup DVD-ROM from CnC, Cathedrals and Monasteries.  This time, it's an architectural style guide, illustrating medieval church architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation - at cathedral scale.  Rather than following one 'typical' cathedral through the centuries, the idea here is to provide an interactive field guide to individual architectural components, illustrating the key features that will allow you, the interested cathedral-goer, to put a name to 'that fiddly bit up high' and, to broadly understand how old it might be and what it's doing there in the first place.

To do this, I'm taking a leaf from Viollet-le-Duc's book and building one bay of four different cathedrals, one from each of the main periods of medieval church architecture in England, in a kind of 'cutaway'.  You'll be able to take this for a spin, select individual components for closer examination, see common variations on the theme from examples in the wild, and go in-depth with text by noted architectural historian Jon Cannon.

Over the next few weeks I'll post a series of updates to this work-in-progress (WIP) as I develop these pieces.  For now, I'll leave you with a previews of a bay of a Romanesque cathedral based on Durham, and a Decorated Gothic bay based on Exeter.  Enjoy!

Romanesque c1070-1180, based on Durham Cathedral choir (geometry complete but texturing has a ways to go).  Source: A Masinton

Decorated Gothic (c1280-1350), based on Exeter Cathedral nave (geometry nearly complete, no texturing). Source: A Masinton