Mitchell's Botswana Blog: September 2020

Back in 2015, I had attempted to explain coordinate transforms in terms of matrices. In 2016, I started over, trying to focus on coordinate transforms without matrices. That didn't work the way I wanted either, and I wrote a blog post about that, saying that I was going to focus on game cameras. I started that, but lost motivation. The last line of that blog post is: Well, I failed. I lost motivation to work on this so I've put it on hold … again. I think I may take a long break from tutorials.

I did take a long break. I joined a game company as a consultant, mentored people making interactive articles, improved my existing pages, and also worked on lots of other things (2017, 2018). I'm reasonably happy with how things went. I've continued doing these things, but my attempts at making new tutorials have failed. Several times I tried to make a tutorial about differential heuristics for A*, but lost motivation. I tried to make a tutorial about common heuristics for A*, but lost motivation. In both those cases, I realized that it's hard to write a tutorial when I don't really understand the topic nearly as well as I thought I did. I also run into scope creep: I start with an idea but keep adding more topics to the page faster than I can actually write them.

I don't know where that leaves me. Will I ever write a comprehensive tutorial again? I don't know.

For the past few weeks I've been revisiting coordinate transforms. What am I doing differently this time? I'm keeping the scope small. Instead of all topics related to coordinate transforms, I've picked a style of game and limiting myself to the transforms that make sense for that style of game. All other topics I can tackle later.

Here's the rough outline:

Show a side scrolling game with some cool camera effects.
Introduce world coordinates vs screen coordinates.
Solve the problem of scrolling: subtract an offset.
Introduce transforms. (may need to be later)
Introduce inverse transforms, for mouse clicks. (may need to be later)
Introduce cameras. More complicated than offsets, but can do more.
Show some cool effects with cameras. (may need to be earlier)
Introduce chaining transforms.
Show some cool effects with chaining.
Demo showing all concepts together.

In parallel with implementing the interactive diagrams, I'm working on the narrative structure. The standard textbook style is to start with definitions and then give examples. I think that can be unmotivating. But it's also hard to talk about an example without knowing what the concept is. I'm still trying to figure out how to best arrange these sections. This part is often harder than implementing the diagrams.

If this page works, I can then add another style of game to introduce vertical scrolling, and then another style of game to introduce rotation or zooming. With enough examples, I think I'll understand the topic well enough to be able to write a reference that covers translate, scale, rotate, skew, etc. But even if I don't get that far, the first page can be useful on its own.

The "first page can be useful on its own" also served me well for the A* page and the hexagon page. The A* page was originally intended to be one part of a much longer series about pathfinding. The hexagon page was originally intended to be one part of a set of pages that covers all grid types. Those pages became useful on their own, and I haven't written the rest.

Written by Reiko

Adam's Journal #1: "We're finally here in Peru! I'm so excited to be able to help my dad with his project of setting up sustainable industries for the native peoples here. I wonder what kinds of animals I'll get to see while we're here? The rainforest is full of so much variety. I can't wait to get started!"

This guy's totally shady.

Adam and his father Noah have just landed in Peru, but of course we have to go through customs before we can start exploring. In the introduction, I forgot to mention that the shady surveyor's character has a couple of actual voiced lines, which is an interesting contrast to most of the other dialogue, which is only text. He says, "This place is a sewer" and, after bumping into our ride, "Watch the suit!" before brushing himself off and stalking away to the right.

When it's Adam's turn, I open the passport in his inventory and show it to the customs officer [10 points], who stamps it, waves Adam through, and then promptly puts his head down on his desk and appears to take a nap. Nobody else is waiting in the customs line, after all.

Our ride is waiting for us.

Nearby, there's a native holding a sign saying Noah and Adam Greene, so he's clearly waiting for us. I talk to him [1] and he introduces himself to us as Nicanor, from the Ecology Emergency Network, the organization that Noah is working with. He says there's a problem with the supplies, and takes out a list, while Noah goes over to check what's there. This leaves Adam at loose ends.

I look around and find two women supposedly selling fruit pops at a stand nearby, but they say they're on break and rudely shoo Adam away. I can't go into the town yet, either, because Noah will call Adam back, but there's really nothing else in the area to do. It takes me an embarrassingly long time to realize that there's an exit off the right side of the screen (where the shady surveyor disappeared earlier).

In the second area, a grungy dock, after Adam walks in, I overhear a conversation between the shady surveyor and another guy, Gonzales. The surveyor orders him to get "the stuff" loaded so they can get out of there. Then he disappears onto the ship moored at the dock. There's also an old guy fishing on another pier near where I entered, and two other guys having a hushed conversation behind some crates. I also see a run-down warehouse and a large pile of logs from the rainforest, along with a flatbed truck loaded with more logs. I can't seem to get close enough to talk to the guy fishing, even though he doesn't appear to be all that far away.

Right, "fresh off the boat" is exactly what we don't want to be.

If I walk into the area far enough, another guy appears from the same direction I came from, and accosts me, carrying a bird on his arm. He offers to sell me the bird if I give him the money I have. Adam asks how much, and the guy asks how much money he has. Adam wisely says, "I don't think I should tell you that." The guy just shrugs and says I should give him the money I have if I want to buy the bird.

I have the option to refuse, but I decide to go ahead with it, and give the man my money [5]. When the man hands over the bird, Adam immediately releases it, telling it to fly home. The man is aghast, but Adam reminds him that he sold the bird. The man shrugs and wanders off, and that seems to be the end of it. Probably I will encounter the bird at some point later, though, and it will be grateful that Adam freed it.

Who's "Mr. Slaughter"? No one I want to meet!

I then discover almost by accident that I can climb up on the crates and eavesdrop on the nearby conversation. One guy seems to be trying to recruit the other one for Cibola, the company that the shady surveyor mentioned. They mentioned someone they call "Senor Slaughter," which may well refer to the surveyor guy himself.

The nearby ship, which reads "Cibol" (Cibola) has an arm with a rope net that is periodically raised and lowered. I can make Adam walk over onto the net, which causes him to get caught in it when it's raised next. The guy loading the ship gets us out, but tells us to beat it, or we'll get sent to "Mr. Slaughter". Guess he's the one to watch out for.

Here's a way to stuff educational content onto the screen without lecturing.

I don't see anything else to do here, so I go back to the original screen. Noah calls Adam over and says he found something mailed to him. I open the package [5] and find some kind of handheld computer which Noah explains is an environmental scanner prototype. It's called an Ecorder, and Adam's supposed to test it out. Noah suggests there's something about the launch I should scan. As part of his explanation, he already scanned the nearby canoe, so I'm not sure what he means by "launch".

Picking up someone else's garbage. It won't be the last time.

I also notice another shady guy lurking by the now-abandoned fruit pop stall, but I can do nothing with him. So I return to the dock to see if there's anything I can scan there, and find a tourist taking pictures. Even though he doesn't answer when I try talking to him [1], I get a point for some reason. Then I notice that he's dropped something. I try to pick it up, but Adam says he doesn't want that garbage, and I should bag it instead. I use the recycle icon on it [5] to get rid of it.

I go into the ecorder to see what all it does. The previously-scanned item was Town Runoff, about the garbage from the town that ends up in the rivers. I also try playing the "test myself" game, which randomly shows pictures from the database along with two choices. I get most of them right even though I haven't seen any of them in the game yet, and I get a bunch of points [46] when I finish the game.

I go back and forth again, and realize I can use a plank walkway to get to the end of the little pier where the man is fishing. I talk to him [1], and he talks briefly about how he doesn't like the way the fish look, and how there used to be so many more fish in the river years ago, before all the people came.

The scanned result of the ship's leak.

Finally I realize "launch" means the ship moored at the dock. The ecorder lights up when I move it over a hole with liquid spewing out of it, and records the "River Traffic" item [10]. Looks like the ship has a fuel leak, which is also contributing to river pollution.

I knew that other guy was shady too.

When I return to see if Noah and Nicanor are ready to go to town yet, suddenly the shady guy that had been lurking nearby runs over, grabs Noah's suitcase, and runs off toward town. Uh-oh, he's a thief!

Noah decides he's going to have to go to the embassy to get a passport, so Nicanor takes him there, leaving Adam to watch the supplies. (How old is he again?) Adam is tired from the trip, so he gets into the nearby canoe and falls asleep.

Adam's not being a very good guard for the supplies...

Suddenly, things get weird. Two creatures that look like otters, who address each other as Orpheus and Morpheus, appear in the water. One chews through the rope holding the canoe, and while Adam sleeps, together they push the boat away from the dock, along the river, and into the rainforest. Apparently Adam sleeps all night, since the screen darkens and then brightens again. At one point, a monkey appears and peers at the canoe with the sleeping child, then wanders off again. Finally, Adam wakes up, and the animals begin to address him directly.

Animals seem to know that Adam will help them.

Morpheus says that the Forest Heart needs help from a human child, and he looked like a good one, so they picked him. Orpheus has a gift to give us, but he's shy and needs persuading, so Adam needs to do something to coax him out.

First I scan the screen and find the Understory, Littering, Forest Floor, Stilt Root, and River Otter items [5]. So I was right about the creatures being otters. Then I talk to Orpheus [1]. Adam apologizes for being loud, and Orpheus swims a bit closer. I talk to him again [1], and Adam reassures him that he won't hurt him or anything.

The amulet brought by the otter.

Then Orpheus swims right up to the side of the canoe and waits for me to take the necklace around his neck, which I do [5]. It's a beautifully carved amulet, which the otters inform me is Forest Heart's amulet, and Adam needs to journey to her village to find out more. The otters disappear into the water after pushing the canoe the rest of the way over to solid land.

Now what? Well, the Littering item was clearly because there's quite a lot of junk scattered around. I trash five items [5] and also find a sticky leaf to take [5].

That's all for that screen, so I move to the right and immediately encounter the monkey I saw earlier, who accuses me of cutting down trees. Adam assures him that he's by himself and hasn't done anything to the trees, and asks about those who have. The monkey calls them yellow hats and says they turned his home and food into smoke. Then he angrily stalks away. Apparently the logging operation that generated all those logs I saw earlier has done some significant damage to the forest.

As hostile as this sounds, I'm glad the monkey didn't do anything to Adam while he was sleeping.

New scanned items: Buttress, Cecropia Tree, Logging [3]. The tree that fills most of the screen is huge, with twisty roots. Nearby there's a recent campfire still leaking smoke, with a small stump and a chopped up log. The huge tree looks very climbable, but insects swarm Adam when I make an attempt. I use the sticky, sap-covered leaf on Adam [5], which causes him to rub the sap all over himself, commenting that it's stinky, so the bugs should leave him alone. Now I can have him climb the tree to another screen above.

Next time we'll find out what's up there and how that gets us closer to the Forest Heart. Adam seems very calm at having woken up in a different place than he went to sleep in, and at basically having been abducted by otters and left to his own devices deep in the rainforest with no supplies. Maybe he figures he can always get animals to help him if he needs something. It wouldn't be so easy for the rest of us.

Score: 121/1000
Scanned items: 10/82
Inventory: passport, Ecorder, Forest Heart amulet, leaf with sticky sap

Session Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I've not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!