Update!

Sorry for the absence of a post last week! I almost forgot this week as well, I was so excited to see snow.

The tool I'd mentioned from last week is almost done. It's a separate program that will let me spawn a ton of instances without having to manually write them out in code. It will write the resultant JSON to a folder, and then the main game will use a separate API that will let it interpret and generate stuff based on that JSON. I have the program named 'XMLeditor' at the moment. Should probably change it to 'JSONeditor' or just 'Spawner.'

Anyways, I also started a mock-up dummy of a conversation thingy. Um, it's an AIR app so you'd have to run an installer. I'll try and convert it into a regular Flash app so I can embed it later.
Link: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4072122/toShare/ImageWars.air

I also had a brainwave about a mechanic I'd like to implement, as well as a better idea of the context of the game's story. I was reading about the difficulties that doctors have had communicating with those affected by Ebola in communities in Africa. I thought that the implementation of two distinct groups would help simulate the barriers of clear communication that persist amongst different peoples, and the ways that the wisdom and insights of different peoples can prove beneficial to each other when the pathways towards understanding are opened. I am thinking of taking a note from my last blogpost and doing a group of animal-peoples and also vegetable-peoples. That should be fun. I'm excited about delving into concept art and worldbuilding for all that.

There was also another mechanic that I am interested in implementing, though I feel it may also pull the focus of the game away from the main one of diplomacy and tolerance I am trying to illustrate. Currently I am attending church, something that I had wanted to sworn off after the intolerance and outright malice I'd observed within church culture. When one meets another that identifies as Christian, there are certain assumptions that come attached with that label, one of those being a highly conservative stance and a set view of what actions are acceptable or not. It is a label that is quite ironically the most intolerant that I can think of. Nevertheless this characteristic intolerance also meant that I felt uncomfortable expressing the fact that I do in fact believe in a higher power amongst my more 'deviant' friends, and I found myself wishing to express and examine those beliefs in an environment conducive towards it as well.

At any rate, from my decision to reenter the church-o-sphere again I experience two markedly different cultures as well. And I find that there are certain actions and relations between a person and an object/other person that float about within each sphere and define what is acceptable or normal in a culture. In the case of some of the African villages, a deceased person's relative handling the still-highly-infectious relative is something that is considered highly moral, something that must be done. Not doing it distresses the village. In the case of the church breaking one of the person-object or person-person actions the Bible calls taboo will distress the church community out and have them reject a person. Much loving, yeah. In the case of my more liberal friends a person making a racist slur is a taboo action. A person standing up against a bigot a lauded action. There are specific actions that become part of a community's unwritten 'inner Bible' and from which spawns a rich and interesting culture.

I feel this action dichotomy would help focus the game, and would also draw out a tenant of diplomacy that I think is essential to this value's realization; that of understanding the other person's point of view. By understanding where the other person is coming from, you can at the very least judge if the person is worth the time and energy to debate with. With enough understanding a means of breaking down presumptions so deeply embedded in the other person's understanding of the world becomes available, and it can even be possible to show in that other person's language the limits and flaws of the most fundamental building blocks of what they believe and know. Like in the case of the Ebola-struck villages a means of placating and offering peace to those of another culture can be given and the original mission to save lives resuscitated. There are variations of beliefs within each culture so I think having animals vs vegetables would be interesting.

I will try and post more timely from now on, and I am going to finish that Spawner program this week! I'll be indulging in a bit of world-building and concept art, and I hope to have a lot of colorful fun things to show next week!