Where Rube comes from...

As I mentioned on my blog, I am a “savant simulation designer”. I don't necessarily say that in a bragging kind of way, it comes with as many of not more negatives than it does positives. I am not just a “game designer”, and am literally obsessed with artificially simulating reality and I have been since I was 7 years old. There is a lot more about this on my blog.

I've always believed that Steve Cole is also a “savant simulation designer”. SVC saw something in Avalon Hill's games, and the “Ruler & String” military simulations played by real-world military men for centuries, that nobody else could see. Those were not “geeky military guys that played with toy soldiers”, they were serious military officers learning from serious military simulations, and Steve Cole took a quantum leap forward from where those types of simulations had slowly evolved too until he came along. His resulted in his “Impulse Chart”, a far more sophisticated way of simulating time than had ever existed before.

Then I came along, and even wound up connecting with SVC and becoming one of his advisers. Just as Steve had done with the Ruler & String and Avalon Hill games, I saw something in his form of simulating time and reality that nobody else could see. Not even Steve Cole. And that is what I call “Rube”.

Rube is not entirely alien too you, because Rube is a part of nature. Your “Game Loop” is “Rube-like”, it is “a moment of time containing reality”. You have to have it, it must exist. You need to measure time in any simulation even if all that amounts too is Candyland-like “I go then you go” turns. You don't use it for much, because as far as I know I am still the only person who sees this even among other world class SFB experts, but it is there. You are using a tiny sliver of Rube already, but then so is nature, so you had too be using it in one way or another.

Rube slowly evolved over a period of centuries, and then reached a sort of critical mass that allowed first SVC, and then me, to make two quantum leaps forward in relatively rapid succession. Rube is a simulation of time combined with reality that may, or may not, have a lot to teach about the true nature of both time and reality within the real world. Even if it does not actually have any realtion to how time and reality function in the real world, it is still the “Holy Grail of simulation design” that leads to things like The Matrix, a holodeck, and cyberspace.

It really will be a shame if Rube dies with me, but that is what is going to happen if I never get to make any of my games. Anyway, this is where Rube comes from, and I just thought this would be appropriate to post in this thread.

Scoutning Ninja, I realize that I would not be "God" in making my own games unless I founded my own company.  That was no different in the board game industry.  In fact, the PDU is partly designed around that notion.  The first three games are very "durable" in being able to deal with "interferance" of that kind.  It is not until Territories (which is a prequel that doesn't have to be made first) and Mission that it gets too the point that the others involved with making them would need to usually trust my judgment or they will "ruin" the game, especially Mission.  But Mission would be the fifth game, and if we had made it too the fifth game that trust would have been established.  The first three are intentionally simple games that can be "folded, bent, and mutilated" by others over-ruling my decisions and still come out fine in the end.  It is not until the later games, especially the starship simulator Mission, that are "fragile" and would be easily ruined by people who don't understand them imposing uninformed decisions upon them.  But if I have made it too the fifth game, I've always assumed I would have established the faith with those paying for it to trust me on, in Mission's case, aspects of space combat that they simply don't understand.

Also, ASL and SFB are not "overly complicated" as computer games, only as board games.  And you translate them into being computer games conceptually, not literally.  I have long said that "game designers are inherently incompatible with the computer game industry", so you aren't telling me anything new there.  I am trying to do exactly as you are suggesting already with Space Hockey... that doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

Chaos, Maze Wars was not really an FPS.  It was more like Wizardry.  Magic Maze was a true real-time FPS game, just a very primitive one.  And I have "produced" almost 700 pages on my blog here, and that is just a sampling from my PDU files.  I am a game designer, not a programmer.  You claim to use us, but you don't, and don't even consider our work to have actually done anything at all.  Thanks for demonstrating that.

Nypryn, very cool.  Haven't seen that since 1988 or so.  I never realized it had eventually been released comercially.  Yes, that is Magic Maze from the conventions of the mid-1980's.

55 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:

Chaos, Maze Wars was not really an FPS.  It was more like Wizardry.  Magic Maze was a true real-time FPS game, just a very primitive one.

More reductionist nonsense. Maze Wars was a "very primitive" FPS. Just admit you're wrong.

56 minutes ago, Kavik Kang said:

And I have "produced" almost 700 pages on my blog here,

Work != results. You've produced 700 pages which are worth exactly ... what? 

1 hour ago, Kavik Kang said:

I am a game designer, not a programmer. 

So? Aren't you the guy who believes in the single creator? Notch did it. So did Jonathan Blow, David Braben, Phil Fish... do I need to go on?

Learn to program.. it's not that hard to develop a prototype. Or pay someone to program it for you. If you're truly the genius you claim to be... put your money where your mouth is. Mortgage your house, sell a kidney, start a meth empire, but build something.

I've got to say, I have rarely seen such defeatist attitude from a person. It actually makes me angry. Nowdays the tools that developers have in their disposal are numerous and quite efficient, especially for making quick prototypes. If I had a design idea that I was sure was revolutionary, and assuming I didn't have enough funds to hire a programmer, I would invest 6months-1year to learn some programming myself, even if I absolutely hated it, whip out a working prototype in Unity that showcased the amazing abilities of my design, blow everyone away, and watch the $$$ come from Kickstarter in order to make the real thing. Then come back here and rub it in our ignorant, amateur faces. Yet here you are, for years on end, shouting at nobody in particular, harping on and on about how you don't get the proper respect, as if that matters in any way.

Go. Build. Your. Thing.

i have to ask, what is Rube? Sound like lube. Is there a link to it or something? It sounds over-hyped, and we all know where hype leads. No mans sky? (I actually enjoyed no mans sky for a couple hours when it first came out, but there were a lot of unhappy people that had high expectations) 

Also whats with the "you people" stuff Kavik? are you not part of the human race like everyone else here? I'm actually curious if you think your from a country nobody else here is from, or if there's something else that separates you from us. Is it possible your failures have something to do with your attitude towards others? I get a not so faint feeling when reading your posts, that you might actually think your godlike, and every human on earth is too dumb to realize how jaw-dropping amazing you are

9 hours ago, ChaosEngine said:

start a meth empire

This just gave me an image of Kavik Kang starring in a new version of Breaking Bad...

Chaos, I have never actually played Maze Wars. Just seen screen images, which look like Wizardry. It was made in the mid-1970's, so I have always assumed that it was also stepping through turns like Wizardry and not actually running in real time. Even if it was stepping through turns, I would understand you saying it was a “primitive FPS”. But I was talking about the first, that I know of, to run in real time.

I have actually produced about 2,000 pages, not 700, and it's worth... 14 games. Again, you demonstrate that the people in your industry do not consider game and simulation design to be a valid job description. Thank you for proving that yet again for me.

Actually, I've always known that I can't be a “single creator” with computer games. I could do that with board games, but not computer games. I am trying to do what you are saying right now with Space Hockey, that is not going anywhere. Space Hockey is the fourth time I have tried to start my own company to make games, founding companies is not what I do. To say the least. I am medically/physically incapable of being the person to manage a company, too, so even if I succeed in doing that someone else would need to take the reigns fairly quickly.
If I was still in my twenties I might try to become a programmer, but now I don't have enough time left on this earth to do it that way. I never tried that path before because you people absolutely insisted that you hired game designers and that wasn't necessary. You were lying. Obviously, if I had the money to fund it myself I would have done that decades ago.

Scouting Ninja,

Conceptually, there is a lot more to your “Game Loop” than you could possibly imagine. I have actually explained a lot more about Rube than I should have, but realized early on that I could do that without revealing too much about it since nobody was having any idea what I was talking about. There is no “obvious flaw” in Rube, it functions perfectly. The different versions of it used in my games are very “board game primitive” specifically because computers are not yet ready for Rube. Computers are still a long way away from being able to handle a full blown “Ultimate Infinity Rube” that would be the basis of things like The Matrix, a holodeck, or a self-programming computer with omnipresent communication. But even “board game primitive” versions of Rube are very powerful, and result in amazing games

How should you know it's a shame? Well... if you don't consider your industry being responsible for erasing 300 years of knowledge of simulation design and turning into lost knowledge that isn't ever coming back, then I guess it wouldn't be a shame. If you don't consider the foundational knowledge requried to create The Matrix and a holodeck being lost due to the arrogance of those in your industry to be a shame, then I guess it wouldn't be. Otherwise, yes, the completion of the work of the entire history of game and simulation design up until you people came along... losing that would defintely be a shame, and entirely your fault. It certainly won't be from a lack of me trying to get through your thick skulls, that's for sure.

And it is still true that all simulations must simulate time one way or another. Time must exist. That will never chance. All simulations must simulate time in some way, even if that is just “I go then you go”.

I really can't believe that there is not a single person in this entire industry who is competent enough to hire the top person in the field of simulation design today. The person who arrived at the final answer to three centuries of simulation design. There is not one person in this business competent enough to recognize who and what that are looking at even after having had the history of it explained too them over and over again? You people really are even more clueless than I even I had been giving you credit for.