I'm sorry to hear that you're sick! Feel better soon.

"Oh, and it contained an elegant and simple proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, but now I can't quite remember it."

*raspberry*

Hugs,

Cory


P. S. -- I've made a silly little four-minute movie. Check it out at http://movies.lionhead.com/movie/42467 You can find the details in my most recent LJ post.

Thanks. Working on it. Although I meant to be in bed a long time ago.

Checked out the movie. How do you compose them? Are there pre-set actions you can have the characters do? I confess that that sort of thing, once in a great while, gives me the slightest twinge of regret that I don't have a Windows machine. But it passes. :-) It seems like a nifty game! How does the gameplay work — is it like The Sims in that it’s about parlaying fixed resources into maximum advantage?

And on another topic, maybe dinner soon? It’s been a while since we had a chance to catch up.

Although I meant to be in bed a long time ago.

*laugh* Why does this not surprise me? Please, dear boy, get some sleep. You know how to sleep, don't you; just pucker up and ... wait, that's something else. :-)

Checked out the movie. How do you compose them? Are there pre-set actions you can have the characters do? I confess that that sort of thing, once in a great while, gives me the slightest twinge of regret that I don't have a Windows machine. But it passes. :-) It seems like a nifty game! How does the gameplay work — is it like The Sims in that it’s about parlaying fixed resources into maximum advantage?

Part of the game is sort of like one of the tycoon games (or, as you say, like The Sims Make Movies), where one manages a movie studio and tries to build it up to being a big success. But part of it is a freeform mode where one can write, cast, and do voice overs for one's own movies. Of course, these are very SHORT movies -- the ones that are posted to the game's online website vary from 2 to 7 minutes, but it's still a very cool little toy.

The game gives you a bunch of different sets and costumes. As you guessed, each set has a number of possible scenes associated with it. To make a movie, one creates an actor or actress and chooses costumes for them. One figures out which scenes one wishes to use and in which order. Then you order the actors to film the scenes, and they go off and do it. Afterwards, you can add voice overs that you record yourself. Presto, one movie. The challenge is in figuring out how to tell a story with the limited number of pre-set actions available and how to make it flow relatively smoothly, given that, for example, "enter the room" is a possible action, but "cross the room" is not.

The movie I came up with is not all that good, but I think it's mildly charming in its own goofy way. Such creativity as I have tends to be verbal, not visual, but doing something new and different was fun. And the great thing about it is that I haven't been able to do more than the bare minimum of anything in my life for over a year. So spending one whole day making a goofy four-minute movie, just because I wanted to, is a major achievement in my recovery from depression, even if it isn't a major achievement in movie-making. :-)

Norman has a machine that has Linux on a big partition and Windows on a small partition, so that he can play games. I thought I'd heard vaguely that there was some sort of Windows emulator for the Mac that would enable those who had godly machines to play the devil's games?

Dinner soon sounds great. Send me some e-mail when you get better, and we can set up a time and a place to meet. And I still need to see your new place!

Hugs and get well wishes,

Cory

Send me photos, please?