Hello to Josh Foreman and to my many CTF friends around the world and beyond! I just passed the year 80 mark, and I can prove it by the fact that I have no idea how to do anything in discord or on a forum, but I can write a blog, so that decided me.
I don’t have a four-year-old around to guide me in these matters, only my fellow octagenarians, and none of us knows anything about cell phones, nor do we have one.
Claude told me he’d run into you in a thing called “discord”. I looked it up and still don’t understand it, but I figured that he could contact you somehow and tell you this open letter is here.
I also calculate that the more exposure blankos block parties get, the better, and I’m here to help, as I am able!
I have a horrifically simple level that I went ahead and published in its early raw stage, so there it is on blankos block party, as you suggested in one of your many helpful videos on the subject, even if incomplete, and it is.
I surely do not want that on the carousel until it’s ready for prime-time.
I posted it only so that my students could view it, maybe during a morning class, maybe all at once, thus possibly testing your lag-time slightly.
If I hadn’t planned on having the whole class come into the thing all at the same time, it would have been a 12 player limit, as you suggested.
Anyhow, if you can give me a red flag that returns to its placement spot after a capture, a blue flag that does the same, a red flag return goal, a blue flag return goal, and a programmable scoreboard, (the TEAM respawn points are optional) in which the maker of the map has the option of setting the number of CAPS before RESET, then I can give you several dozen of my most popular “Capture the Flag” levels that I’ll have my students recreate from my own goddgames files, plus a whole lot of publicity and promotion among our CTF circle, which is very large, and should be — we’ve been doing online CTF games, making and playing them, for almost 30 years.
You can use the same basic setup for soccer, badminton and other kick or carry games, all of which I’ve made and can direct my students to remake in the blankos engine.
I’m able to program in several different engines and editors, gathered over more than 40 years producing electronic “text only” video games, a whole slew of AD&D board games, and more than 300 3D videogames produced on our own Godd™ Games Engine.
We’re all DM oriented, with fair-gaming and niceness in mind. Our reputation in this area goes back several decades, as any of the old-timers will tell you.
Grace is part of the game, especially remembering that ALL the players on BOTH teams are actually partners in making the game.
Cooperative games like Capture the Flag are our specialty, requiring increased attention, communication and compassion.
Yes, compassion. Every character in a video world has its own life, and programmers who don’t realize that can cause a lot of needless pain. My avatars appreciate their lives in quantum. That universe is real. It exists somewhere. Not all universes matter.
That’s a little Higgs humor, there.
I had a great run with “Sunset” in Team Fortress I, and XxaxX and I played with and against the top players of the Early Years in online gaming, back in the ’90s, that was, if I recollect rightly.
Sunset is a bit complex for the blankos block party as it is, and would take some toning down into the camouflage colors to make it look like the original.
I’d LOVE to make our first Two Forts layout on the blankos format — it could be great, and nobody needs or wants the snipers!
The earliest Quake CTF levels had only one class, the soldier. We could do that again, by limiting the weapons to one type.
Heck, at 80, I’m still writing games and playing the heck out of ’em, too. Haven’t lost my reaction time yet, and I can still rocket jump like a pro, and can pretty much handle any of the runs offered on blankos block party, now that I’ve reconfigured my controls to let me use my mouse to run and shoot and jump with, and my SPACE bar to run backwards.
Of course, for editing, that goes all wacky, but as long as you don’t reassign the TAB button from where it is to where you might like it to be, you’ll be all right.
What I mean is, get to a class and find out how to do it really right. Keep in mind that there are a bunch of controllers being used, and all kinds of controllers have to work on the same game, something you wouldn’t ordinarily see.
It’s hard to program with the idea that something major will change before you can fix it.
I’ve had MILLIONS of downloads of my games, and even more PLAYS of my games and inclusion of my games into many packs of games, particularly “Paparazi” and “Exploding Lips”, both of which found a home on thousands of “free games” disks that circulated back in the early days of video gaming, back when most video gaming took place in arcades.
We were the first to come out with a dragon CTF game, in 1997 — the hero is the dragon, who fights against the Evil Knights of Arthur, who come to despoil her beautiful lair and take away her favorite virgin.
Dragons have it rough.
There’s nothing guarantees success like success, and I have some Capture the Flag successes behind me, so I’m ready now to re-write some of my best-known CTF and TF levels to suit the blankos format, and NONE of my games involves blood & guts, and in fact, some CTF levels have no weapons at all — it’s like two-hand touch football to run these, but some folks love ’em.
Anyhow, I have hundreds of CTF levels, but some of them achieved more popularity than others, and only one of my TF-1 levels came even close to XxaxX’s original TF1 ARENA.
It was modeled after a Roman private arena, the kind you’d have in your Roman villa on the Rubicon, of course — with the thoughtful addition of a barbecue pit in each respawn.
Oh, and Josh, please allow me to create and place my own blankos and accessories up for sale in my little CTF games. This would greatly improve your chances — take Second Life in-game marketplace as an example, and we do have the marketing skills to get those into the public eye.
My plan is to make newsworthy items and levels.
You can and should get some part of the profit. Nobody minds the company taking something off the top, it’s totally expected.
What this gives you is a group of independent artists and producers and marketeers of product and games. I’d gladly make my own blankos NFT doll avatar and accessory items, but I don’t know if that’d be helpful.
My interest? At 80, it’s hardly the money, and as for fame, I’ve had my 15 minutes many times over, and never took notice.
It’s all about community — and playing fair, not upsetting the board and throwing the game pieces when you lose, or crowing like an idiot when you win. Just play the game, be fair, be kind, be nice, be fun to play with, and you’ll never lack for teammates, and remember, the folks on the other team will soon be on your team.
Oh, that’s the other thing I didn’t specifically ask for, which is team balance, but it’s worth noting that if more than 2 people quit a team, some sort of team balance has to operate, to switch a player from the larger team to accommodate within a unit of 1.
I’d like a chance to develop some weapons and skins as well, but that’s later, when I have more time and an opportunity to see what’s already in place.
A bomb-launcher is always fun. A decorated bomb-launcher is even more fun. And how about a REVERSE BOMB device that assembles things from their blown-up piles of ashes?
Oh, one more thing — screenshots. How do you take ’em? If you want folks to talk about the game, you need to make it easy to put screenshots on social media, and “how to” and “gameplay” videos on youtube and other video outlets.
Wait, what? People having fun with other people? Like, yeah, man. It’s not how you feel, it’s how you look.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby