I made it into an artpack!
It’s no exaggeration to say that as a kid I always admired the guys in the artscene. I saw their work from afar, and they inspired me to dabble in ANSI myself. I didn’t produce anything memorable, and I certainly never tried anything ambitious, like a character portrait.
So I never imagined I’d have anything make it into an artpack. But 20 years later, somehow it has happened!
A screenshot from my ANSI tile map experiment. The map requires a 132×60 terminal window.
Earlier this year I described how we used Synchronet’s Javascript support plus its Frame and Sprite libraries to produce some pretty cool ANSI animation effects, including a sprite walking in front of a parallax-scrolling background.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with how to make maps.
This animated GIF shows an animated ANSI sprite walking in front of a parallax-scrolling forest background.
Every so often I’ve been experimenting with Synchronet BBS’s Javascript capabilities, as I try to figure out how to make a BBS door game with my daughter.
A mockup showing how the NBA standings might look in Sports Stats.
Last year I was studying BBS doors. This year I’ve started writing some!
I have two percolating right now:
I would not have embarked on these projects if not for the fact that Synchronet BBS supports Javascript, which I use a lot at work. The main learning curve is dealing with the console: outputting ANSI colors and characters. I’m also learning about frames and sprites and things.
I have made good progress on Sports Stats, and I hope it might become a door I can release for other sysops who might want it.
Jewel Mountain will likely remain just our private little experiment. But if somehow we manage to make something playable, then we’ll release it too.
My daughter dreams of people sending in registrations like the BBS days of yore, but I had to bring her back down to earth and tell her it’s highly unlikely.
I’ve also been more of a sysop lately, customizing the BBS. I have been created more ANSIs for different occasions: Valentine’s Day, etc. I made one of Kirk and Spock looking at the Guardian of Forever to use with the login matrix mod from Digital Distortion. Of course I make liberal use of Photoshop, then ANSIrez to convert an image to ANSI, and PabloDraw to clean and refine the ANSI.
I also have a number of BiC projects underway:
And more. But there a lot of pots on the stove. I need to get cooking!
