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Word Journey – Gaming Meets Infinite Narratives

June 14, 2021

game, home for fiction, literature, programming, video games

If you enjoy word games, you’re going to like this. If you enjoy word games and you’re fascinated by the idea of a semi-randomly generated narrative that continues “forever”, you’re going to love this! Word Journey is my latest game – and program; and literary effort – that bridges these two aspects together.

The game goal of Word Journey is very simple: You are given the definition of a random word, and you must guess what the word is, gathering points and racing against the clock. But that’s not all! Every time you correctly guess the word, a sentence relevant to the word is added to the stack, generating a theoretically infinite semi-random narrative! When you run out of time (there is also a “Zen Mode”, without time constraints) you can export the text to a file.

Sounds great? I think so too 😉

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How Constant Updates Lead to Mediocrity: Apps for Scraps

May 10, 2021

Programming, Society

change, mediocrity, programming, society

We live in the time of “now, gimme, I want something new”. Everything seems to lose its value immediately – material or not. Long gone are the days of old programs or computer games where the product remained the same. And that’s great, right? Or… is it? Because when there is no need to change something, when you fix something that isn’t broken, then constant updates only lead to mediocrity.

Just ask yourself, how many times one of your Android apps updated itself and the newer iteration proved to be inferior? Perhaps you ended up with a bloated app that did the same thing, only now it took more space on your phone. If you were more unlucky, the app might have even messed up something in your workflow, which made it harder for you to use it.

As someone who has experienced this from both sides of the equation – as a user as well as programmer – I can confirm two things:

Users often want constant updates just for the sake of updating, without necessarily having any specific plan in mind.
Developers, to please their audience, offer such updates without necessarily having a clear picture of what will occur down the road.

As I said, I’ve been there myself. I’ve even made the mistake myself – thankfully only briefly, however. As I’ve mentioned in my post on why I stopped working on my Android apps, at some point I got enough of mediocrity and stupidity, and thought “fuck it, I’m done”.

But let’s take a closer look, to see how this perceived need for constant updates operates, and why it’s so insidious – both in terms of programming and in how it affects us socially.

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Interested in Story Development Software? Narrative Nods v2 Is Here!

April 19, 2021

Fiction Writing Tips, Programming, Writing

characters, narrative, plot, programming, software

Many authors, at one point or another, have used what is known as story development software. Free, paid, on Android, on PC, old, new, in some form or iteration you have likely used a program that helps you design your plot, develop your characters, and so on.

Let me guess: You “kind of” liked it, and yet something was missing. Well, that has been exactly my experience, with everything I’d ever tried, and that’s why I decided to create a piece of story development software the way I wanted it to be. Presenting Narrative Nods v2!

Although it shares the same name and basic framework with my Android app with the same name (no longer available), it’s nowhere near the same program. Not only is it much more mature, intelligent, and effective, but it’s also platform-independent. You can use it on Android or iPhone, PC or Mac (or Linux), and overall, on any device using a modern browser.

Let’s take a quick look at its features and where to find it!

*Narrative Nods v2* is a piece of story development software that helps you transform your ideas into coherent, powerful plots

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