Paint Community - Round 1

[Rkolter]

Something from Kolters land must've somehow wafted onto mine, because the bat that was hanging from the tree has become giant, and radioactive. The water in the pond has all seeped through the ground, and is now in the cave. The land between the cave and the house is becoming rather unstable due to both the enormous gopher holes, and the weight of the house.

Letter arrives for Kat:

Dear Mrs. Kat North,

It is with profound sorrow that I hear of your troubles with the Giant Radioactive Bat (Giganticus Flying-rodenticus Radioactivicus). It's a rare, but natural creature occasionally spotted in these parts, and in no way related to any activities on the natural, beautiful Kolter landscape.

We strongly suggest feeding it plantlife, as this creature may become accustomed to eating meat. Also, it still prefers a dark place to roost, and if you do not want it in the attic, we suggest you expand your property line and build a shed for it.

Good luck with your bat,

rkolter

*edit*
Here is a cop to check out Kolter's land

Letter to the local police:

We will be throughly delighted to meet with Investigator Elroy of the local police district. At <strike>Kolter Munitions and Radiologicals</strike> Kolter Forested All Natural Wildlife Corporation, we strive to seamlessly blend the works of man with the natural world around us. We will be expecting your officer on Sunday and will be delighted to <strike>use him as a host</strike> host him, here at our headquarters.

rkolter

(Still no update from me tonight except these two letters - the rest of the Kolter compound seems quiet... almost... serene.

Will handle my first changes to Cat42's land, and the investigator, along with other things... when I get back to a reliable system on Sunday. )

[Garneta]

Letter to Kat

[Nanda]

Here I am checking out my fancy new digs. The first thing I did was re-paint and connect the two properties - now I just need some furniture for my new place, and for that, I thought I'd see what KKB has for sale. And speaking of for sale, I've finished assembling my dinosaur, and am going to sell it to the museum. Also, my tree is now growing apples, and I'm currently canning apples and making fresh apple pies, which are on sale for 1 point. Next I'm going to see how difficult keeping bees is, and maybe sell some honey. My birds have migrated, but I released Linkara's bird and it decided to hang around in the old nesting area. His cat, meanwhile, likes the couch in my study.

[Stinkywigfiddle]

UPDATED

Kat North: +4 Points for your update.

Nanda: +7 Points for your update.

And you will get 6 points more for giving the dinosaur skeleton to the museum.

And I updated.


I have a pool table now. Anyone want to come play pool?
And there seems to be someone tied up in my closet...

[Linkara]

Happy to see you're keeping the bird and kitty, Nanda! ^^

[Nanda]

That kitty's sweet, but a terror, I tell you. And I think she's pregnant...

[Aeridus]

And there seems to be someone tied up in my closet...

Richard Simmons?

[RemusShepherd]

You know, if automated, this game could become very big. Both in popularity and number of players...

[Rkolter]

Purchased: Spent the 5 points allocated to Lot #5 (previously Cat42's) to expand the left side to Jtorch's border. This leaves me with 0 points on this lot.

Purchased: Since KKB hasn't responded in a long while, I am going to buy up the rest of the land to the left of lot #8, reaching KKB's border. This cost me 2 points. I had 5 (6 shown, plus 4 for the update, minus 5 for Cat42's land=5) That leaves me with three points for this lot.

The two images below are the same lots, with expansions and point reductions taken into account.

[Stinkywigfiddle]

You know, if automated, this game could become very big. Both in popularity and number of players...

I'd thought of that and it would be great.
But I have no idea how it could be done.

[Aeridus]

You know, if automated, this game could become very big. Both in popularity and number of players...

I'd thought of that and it would be great.
But I have no idea how it could be done.

Easy. Give a password for each person's individual picture, and set up the images in wiki format. The mod (you) would still have to give permission for adding land to what they can edit, but the mod wouldn't have to worry as much about uploading images and such. Point values could be stored electronically rather than right on the image, but of course you would still have to edit the values yourself or have the people editing it change the value, with the ubermod able to correct the value if it is off.

I'm a CS major, I'll see if I can figure out how to set up a wiki in that way. It should be fun.

Edit: Actually, you might not need a wiki for something this simple. Just give each player (and a text file for the score) their own directory and only give users directory access. Not sure how many individual users are allowed on your server though.

[Faub]

I've been thinking about that one too actually. A perl or PHP page could handle editing the image, splitting it up and remembering who bought what when. Updates could happen in real time then.

I suppose it would be possible to compare the previous and current images and allocate points based on the number of pixels changed, but that would leave it open to somebody gaining tons of points by drawing random pixels all over the page or filling with a different color each update.

I probably won't have any time to work on this (I hardly get a chance to post to the forums as it is), but I'll post my ideas if someone wants to pick it up later.

1. Config file: this contains the values that define how the world is built.
   
   • Land width: (number of pixels wide to make the entire world)
     
   • Land height: (number of pixels high to make the entire world)
     
   • Initial slice width: (number of pixels wide to make
     
   • Starting points: (number of points users start with)
     
   • Allow adding new lots: Y/N (new users generate new land)
     
2. User file: this contains the information relevant to the user.
   
   • user name
     
   • password?
     
   • points
     
   • lots: <start> <width> <start> <width> ....
     
3. Retrieve Lot: the user requests graphic of his/her lot. Based on the user file, the original land is chopped up and an image of the user's lot is generated and displayed in the browser to be saved.
4. Submit Lot: the user uploads a file to the server. The server opens the file, tests whether the lot is the correct size and copies the new pixels over the old ones. Points would be automatically subtracted based on the number of pixels bought.
5. Purchase land: This is where it gets tricky because people have been purchasing lots that aren't necessarily connected. The server can enforce connected lots or allow multiple, disassociated lots that users must manage individually. There could also be a cooperate feature that allows two users to submit together (ala Kisa and CJ or Blackaby and Zwuh). The hardest part here would be visually selecting the new lot or group of pixels to buy in the browser. This could be done nicely with some javascript, but it would be a pain to write.
6. Register user: Adds a user to the list, provides initial points and allows the user to select an empty lot to occupy. If no empty lots exist, new lots may be added to either end. Part of this is Purchase Land. The other part is making a new row in the user file.
7. Log of letters home and past updates: backups backups backups. Of course, this could get space hungry fast. Of course, the forum works just as well as anything for that.
8. Scoring: computers are dumb. The only thing you could seriously use for scoring would be numbers of pixels changed. A more complex scoring mechanism would require some serious image processing and pattern recognition software. (Where is it? What is it? etc.)
9. Admin screen: very useful, but this would be a pain to write.
   
   • View submitted changes before they are posted.
     
   • Allocate points to new submissions.
     
   • Accept or reject the new submissions.
     
   • Edit or delete letters home.
     

[Stinkywigfiddle]

This all seems terribly complicated to me.

For now I just want to buy land 6.1 and some extra land beside it.

Kolter: I didn't mean to give you the 5 points that was on Cat42's land.
But rather than taking the points away from you, I'll just let Nanda keep the 10 Points that was on Linkara's land.

[Nanda]

I'd like lot 10 for 15 points, please!

[Mon Ami]

Spiralling upward from the land of imagination and fueled by dreams. The earth rumbles in the small plot, busting forth with a thick inky depth that lakes out and spears upward from the earth. Mingling with the depths of the lake that had spilled downward it then bubbles and coils in places as if warped and fitted to its surroundings. Long beams of black jut out from its edge as it loops foreward and attaches at the spire base. Finally crowning the top is a room with silk draps pulled foreward to shelter the residence of the odd structure.

Trees burst up from the two tarences, blooming with brillant colour and flurishing outward to grace the two surfaces. A small face peaks out of the curtain, having drawn it back so that two twitching cat ears can be seen with a oval face peeking out from behind the heavy fabric.

Finally, a place to call my own, thought the creature.

[Stinkywigfiddle]

Finally got around to doodling this little sucker

That is freakin' awesome. I think you made up for taking so long

[Mon Ami]

Thank you ^__^

[Nanda]

Well, since last we spoke, Linkara's cat had a litter of kittens under the stairs, and I finally got that mail-order bee keep. We're making so much honey now that we've opened up a little pie shop on the other end of town. I hired Ugly Girl to run the place, while I stay home and pick the apples, make the pies, and collect the honey. And just in case the pie business falls flat, we've got a little side-project in the works...(Well, I had to do SOMETHING with all those guns Linkara left behind!)

[Rkolter]

Note: Sorry about the points Stinky - I saw you hadn't removed them in the update, and hadn't corrected Linkara when he said he wanted to donate both his points and land to Nanda, so figured the 5 points came with the territory. S'ok. Now I have Nanda as a neighbor. I hope she likes plant-birds.

My friend, if you'll forgive my harried writing, I have much to tell. I received a gift of land from some guy named Cat42, who mistakenly put my name into his will instead of his nephew. I sent over a CGSC logo, just so the claim is official. The court system didn't take to that too fondly, and although they ruled in my favor, they sent an officer of the law to visit my lair - you may see him in the photo.

I'm distracting him while my robot flies off to investigate the new land... a couple of those plant-birds in the photo are following it - an impressive feat!

That old dock had just collapsed - the underwater creepers have gone wild - they've taken over most of the lake, and are starting to rise above it - worse, they seem to have clogged the toxic pipe. At least they're eating the run-off. The open air leaves have thin metal veins in them - maybe they got something from that old robot of mine.

The two plant-birds that landed have started growing into plants - one has become similar to the parent plant except it's fruiting purple seeds like the creepers do. The other I'm not sure what to make of - it's got a deep tap root but so far, few leaves.

The rocket launcher is ready to go - I've had to idle the planned launch because of this officer. He'll PAY for that. I shut down the eBomb plant.

Oh, we got some pirahana in the lake! A school of them has been swimming around. Do regular pirahana have glowing red eyes? It's probably a fluke.

I've got to go deal with the police.

rkolter

[ChibiJess]

Alright - I've bought what looks to be the last 17 pixels left between me and the border. So I guess that's 4 points off.



Dear Diary:

It's been a few days since I last wrote an update. The rains did indeed help the vine continue growing. It even bloomed, a nice bright pink flower. It's grown another two feet atleast since I last wrote. I wonder if it will start interacting with the vines from my house pod. Speaking of - I've got a second floor forming from the top. Not big enough to fit anything in - but it looks like the start of a nice loft.

Oh! And how could I forget? The balcony that had started to form finished off - and was almost immediately claimed by the most wonderous of creatures! There are Dragons in this land! It seems a mating pair make their home on this land - and don't mind me being here. And they just had a clutch! The mother doesn't show much maternal instinct towards them, having only left them with a large crow for a first meal. I believe I will sell the clutch, since they seem to make wonderful pets. Very friendly little things in a rainbow of colors. Unfortunately, it seems one egg did not hatch. I think I will sell it to the new museum.

I finished the lower room and set up a torch so the little dragonettes aren't left in the dark. I also set up a desk for handling adoption applications for the dragon babies.

Until Next Time,
Jess

So - I will be donating an un-hatched dragon egg to the museum. I also have baby dragons available for adoption - PM me or leave a message and I'll draw one up for you. I think the cost will be 3-5 points - depending on the interest in them