Doll Maker's Diary, Part 33: Down The Rabbit Hole

Doll Maker's Diary, Part 33: Down The Rabbit Hole

Recently, I discovered yet another one of Azalea's Dolls' Flash games. This one, called the Alice in Wonderland Dress Up Game, is inspired by (or unofficially based on) the Alice in Wonderland animated film (and by extension, Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, on which the film was based). It is notable for giving players the opportunity to create artworks reminiscent of various scenes from the film, with several backdrops available. To start things off, here are a few examples of artworks I made in this game.

Above: A fair-haired young girl in the hallway, about to explore a variety of weird and wonderful worlds. Below: Another young girl, this one raven-haired, being invited to take part in a royal parade with an equally beautiful queen.

It's obvious from the moment you start playing it that this game perfectly captures the bizarre surrealism that characterized the source material. The way you change backgrounds is a case in point: from the introduction, you have to click on the White Rabbit in the bottom right-hand corner to go to the Rabbit Hole. This is where you'll find the dress-up menu, where you can select from a wide variety of tops, skirts, shoes, and even hand-held items such as books and knives, among other things. And at each screen, you can go back to the previous one by clicking on Dinah, the cat.

Abov: The title screen of the Alice in Wonderland Dress Up Game. Below: The rabbit hole is where you can design your doll. You can open the designer by clicking on the desk lamp in the center of the scene.

From the "dress-up" screen you can click on the rabbit again to go to the next scene, which shows three doors. The first door from the left opens to reveal a sign that reads "KEEP OUT"; clicking it again will close that door and allow you to click on the door in the center of the scene. This reveals a message that initially reads: "Her Majesty has not invited you. You may keep your head." (If you have already visited the scene depicting the Queen of Hearts, the message changes to "Come at once, our dear guest! Or we shall schedule your execution.") Clicking on that door will close it again and cause a glass table to appear with a potion labeled "Drink Me". Now click on the potion, and a key will appear alongside it; click on it to allow yourself to venture into the next scene by clicking on the rightmost passageway.

The scene depicting your doll in a garden filled with talking flowers (above) is as bizarre as it gets - even more so than the one depicting the Mad Hatter at the tea party (below), where you have the option (not shown here) of giving him a hat from which tea comes out.

Speaking of the next scene, this one is where the source material's surrealism becomes readily apparent for the first time. It depicts the talking caterpillar sitting lazily atop a mushroom in a garden filled with talking flowers. There's nothing to do here, however, except save the current scene as a JPG file, click on the cat to go back, or click on the rabbit to go to the next scene - which depicts a tea party with the Mad Hatter. You can customize his appearance and attire here, and when you're done, you may go to the next scene after this one, which depicts your doll standing somewhere in the dark forest that is Tulgey Wood.

In Tulgey Wood, the Cheshire Cat will appear and disappear a few times, before the White Rabbit appears. You can either click on the sign marked "Rabbit Hole" to return to the dress-up menu, or click on the Rabbit to make the Queen of Hearts' castle appear. Once it shows up, you can click on the castle to go to the penultimate scene, where you can customize the Queen's appearance. From here, click on the White Rabbit again to go to the final scene, which shows the Queen quivering with fear as an oversized White Rabbit makes his way along a floating path with a checkerboard pattern on it. Click anywhere in this final scene to return to the title screen.

Above: It's easy to get lost in Tulgey Wood... but it's easier to find a way out, as the White Rabbit proves. Below: The escape from Alice's adventure (which in the source material is revealed to be a dream) is every bit as surreal as the worlds she just visited.

Thus ends our brief tour of the Alice in Wonderland Dress Up Game. In the next post in this series, I shall take a look at yet another one of the many games offered by Azalea's Dolls - one that is simply out of this world.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 81: Regeneration

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 81: Regeneration

The recent announcement of the return of the Generations challenge for the latest UE4 release has me feeling excited. I didn't enter the original Generations tournament held two years ago, but last year brought another, completely unforeseen reason why I chose not to do so: an update to the 4.21 release of Automation changed so much about the game and its content that many cars made before the update now either behave very differently or have become unusable, rendering them unrepresentative of the latest build, and hence non-canonical. Moreover, a single car on its own is seldom representative of a manufacturer's entire lineup at any given time, with very few exceptions, and I welcome this change.

This brings us to a new, important rule put in place by the host for the relaunch of Generations: instead of smaller and/or specialist manufacturers, entrants must now submit a mainstream, full-line manufacturer to represent themselves in the tournament. With that in mind, there will now be five categories, compared to three in the original contest. They are as follows:

• Small cars: Mostly compacts and subcompacts, as well as economy cars and small coupes.
• Intermediate cars: Generally mid-sized family and executive cars, including station wagons.
• Large cars: Full-sized or larger family and executive cars.
• Light trucks: SUVs, pickup trucks and vans - basically anything with a utility focus.
• Performance cars: Includes pony and muscle cars, as well as sports cars and other high-performance models.

In addition, the first three of these categories may expand to include SUVs from 1993 onwards (at which point larger SUVs will be classified as light trucks), and there will be a reliability ranking for each round, with an overall winner in each category at the end of the game.

As of now, I am expressing strong interest in joining this rebooted contest with a completely new, lore-filled brand, made specifically for this competition - stay tuned for any further announcements.

Update (February 19, 2020): After due consideration, I have chosen to enter the rebooted Generations tournament with a completely new company created specifically for this purpose - the Hampton Motor Group. Based in Warwick, England, according to lore, it commenced car production in 1948, but didn't enter the American market until 1956, which is the year in which the first round of the new Generations will be set.

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 80: Two Birds with One Stone

Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 80: Two Birds with One Stone

Recently, I decided to do what I had never done before: enter the same Automation car (specifically, the HAM HC6 - a rear-drive, full-sized, four-door sedan introduced for the 1993 model year) in two different forum competitions. This was easier said than done, because there were significant differences between their requirements. I did, however, manage to create variants tailored specifically to each one - and much to my surprise, I did not come up empty-handed in either. Here's how they went.

For CSR 118, in which the client was looking for a used car made between 1985 and 2005 for use as an affordable daily driver, I entered the more upmarket 3.0 trim, with its fully premium interior and sound system. The model range as a whole was built on a sound platform, with advanced features such as fully independent suspension (double wishbones up front with a multi-link rear end), 4-wheel disc brakes with ABS, and variable intake and exhaust valve timing all standard across the range.

The original version of the HAM HC6 as submitted in CSR 118, with the larger 3.0-litre engine and premium interior.

For the sixth round of His Highness Demands (a series of contests about the fictional communist monarchy of Semyonovia, in which the topic varied with each round), I detuned and de-bored the engine while also downgrading to a standard interior and sound system to stay under the post-tax approximate budget of $28,000, thereby creating the entry-level 2.5 trim. However, among the many things the cars had in common, two of them stood out: an advanced safety suite and compatibility with 91 RON regular unleaded petrol, since both of these features were mandatory for HHD6.

The entry-level version of the HAM HC6 as submitted in HHD8, with a detuned 2.5-litre engine and standard interior.

The result was much better than expected. I feared that its more sophisticated underpinnings would be its undoing; however, both variants had a comfortable ride, with decent road manners. Only its average reliability held it back in CSR 118, where it received an honorable mention but never troubled the top three. It was a different story in HHD6, though; the entry-level HC6 finished third overall by being a surprisingly well-rounded package, with great reliability and build quality allied to low servicing costs.

What did I learn from this experience? First, it is possible to submit the same car in multiple challenges. Second, if you wish to do so, it may be necessary to create and submit multiple trims for that purpose due to differing eligibility criteria. Third, some trims of a particular car are better suited to a particular set of requirements than others.

Thus ends my look back on that time when I made a car that outperformed my conservative expectations - not in one forum competition, but two. Until the next major competition rolls around, see you next time!

The Bugs, Glitches and Exploits of Infinite Space Revisited: The Kawangi Trap - To Cheese or Not to Cheese?

The Bugs, Glitches and Exploits of Infinite Space Revisited: The Kawangi Trap - To Cheese or Not to Cheese?

Earlier in my sub-series of blog posts, I explained some of the bugs and glitches found in Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars, as well as some handy exploits that can help you give you all the money you want (or need) to upgrade your existing ships or trade them in for new ones. Recently, however, I discovered an extreme example of how to exploit one of the game's bugs for loads of cash. For this one, you will need, at the very least, a capital ship with lots of firepower and strong shielding to exploit this particular bug. In addition to this, you may want to fit some advanced equipment such as a cloaking device, powerful thrusters, a high-end targeting computer (such as the Sardion Optimizer) and an onboard repair mechanism (such as the Multibot Repair Drone) to make your task easier.

The version of the scenario I encountered also requires a very specific set of circumstances with regards to map generation: the random map generator must yield a sector map in which the quest required to win the game is to destroy a Kawangi Dreadnought before it annihilates the entire Glory system. In addition to this, the Limited Vacuum Collapser (whose discovery will trigger the quest) must also be initially placed at the same star system that the Kawangi will visit first on their route to Glory. With this in mind, once you have a ship that can take down a Kawangi Dreadnought in direct combat without too much hassle, get to that system, stay there, and obliterate the Dreadnought the moment it arrives.

You'll need a perfectly executed strategy to blow up a Kawangi Dreadnought; one such method is taking a very heavily armed and shielded ship (preferably with a Nova Cannon, or lots of Multi-Missile Launchers) into battle, fitting a cloaking device, and lurking in the Dreadnought's blind spot, only decloaking to fire, and then cloaking again to avoid detection. Repeat the procedure until the Dreadnought is destroyed - you will earn a solid 5000 credits for doing so. Since the LVC was initially spawned at the Kawangi's first destination, destroying the Dreadnought will instantly trigger the bug, causing the quest to begin again. Make repairs to your fleet if necessary, then repeat the procedure as many times as you wish until you are satisfied with your earnings.

When you wish to end the Kawangi menace for good, activate the LVC, set the timer so that you can escape but the Kawangi can't, and get to a system outside the blast radius. When the LVC detonates, the Kawangi will be engulfed, and more importantly, the system in which you first found it will also disappear from the map. Without the ability to visit that system, you will never risk a Kawangi incursion for the rest of the game - but you won't need to do so, given that you will have plenty of cash to spare by then.

This is exactly what happened in a recent play session, where I repeatedly sent a Terran Corvette into battle against the Kawangi. It was armed with a Nova Cannon (the best weapon to use against Kawangi Dreadnoughts, bar none) and a Proton Blaster, but I took the precaution of fitting it with a cloaking device and Quantum Corkscrew thrusters for a devastating mix of stealth and speed, as well as a Hyperfoam Injector to repair damage more quickly.

When I acquired the LVC, I waited for the Kawangi to arrive, and when they finally came, I used the same "cloak, hide, wait, decloak, open fire, repeat" strategy which I had found to be incredibly effective not just against Kawangi dreadnoughts, but also other kinds of hostile formations. I repeated this procedure after destroying each dreadnought, until I felt satisfied enough with the amount of cash I had obtained.

Above, from top: I triggered the infinite Kawangi bug by picking up the LVC at the same star system in which the Kawangi would make their first visit, then ambushed their ships repeatedly to earn lots of points and cash, before detonating an LVC to annihilate that system and the Kawangi once and for all.

At that point, I activated the LVC, ordered my fleet to get out of its blast radius, and waited for the device to detonate. When it did, the Kawangi were gone for good, as was the system in which the LVC had been detonated. By the end of the game, after upgrading my fleet still further, I had obtained 61849 points and the rank of Planetary Ambassador - and this was on the lowest possible difficulty setting. Can you imagine how many more points I could have scored if I had used the highest difficulty setting available?

This was my flagship's loadout by the end of the game. Please note that it was equipped with a Proton Matrix Shield for the battles against the Kawangi; it was only after they were gone for good that I traded up to a Meson Lattice Shield.

Being promoted to Planetary Ambassador seems like a decent reward for saving the galaxy several times over, don't you think? 

That's quite an impressive fleet, but even so, my flagship was powerful enough to be a flotilla unto itself by the end of the game.

So what have we learned from this example? First and foremost, under a very rare set of circumstances, it is possible to abuse the only bug that can be potentially beneficial to a Sea of Stars player - and get away with it. Secondly, although I have previously mentioned this next hint (and the one after that), it's worth repeating: you'll need a lot of advanced weaponry and equipment to have any chance of destroying a Kawangi Dreadnought in direct combat, and even then, top-notch strategy and tactics are a must if you actually want to win such a difficult battle. Last but not least, difficulty settings (as determined by AI fleet strength and nebular density) will significantly affect your final score.

I must also mention that the infinite Kawangi bug has not yet been patched out as of this writing, and I don't think it will anytime soon. So if you wind up playing on a map where it can be triggered, you might want to seriously think about exploiting it - after you've built up your fleet strength first. It's a cheesy way to rack up a high score, but it works very well, and since nobody complains about it (or wants to), you might as well exploit the bug anyway.