Key2College Audience of One, DCM

"Probably one of the funniest, most educational DCM I’ve ever been to." -Nam Hoang*

In a week prior to the event, prepared a slideshow (the theme for this year was super mario), learned that my partner had many interest similarities with me, and did a lot of practicing in order to prepare speaking up to the high school audience on Sunday...

... which comprised of one person, Amy Chin, from MCHS.

At least we can say it's successful but there was 100% positive feedback about the workshops, if you factor her post on tumblr.

Fun Fact: Music playing at the title slide (before the presentation starts) - Avicii - Super Mario World Levels (SNES Version)

Crabfeed and Nom Noms

We're not the ones handling the crabs, we're the ones serving the guests. It's us four*... and 70 or so Key Clubbers. In an attempt to acquire the 50 hours or so for the MRP Bronze for DCON (it's the only thing left I could go for when being on E-board fails) I went through all four hours of this event.

I based the post name off of the next day's Facebook Event, Laser Tag Social and Nom Noms.

Pacific Circle K Car Smash

We're smashing cars and all of that for a good cause - as a fundraiser.

General Information: This is NOT smashing someone else's car (well it might've been, but this is a old car and the owner didn't want it anymore), but instead a car taken from Stockton Pick and Pull for a nominal fee.

Class of December

Like this rock, I'm in the class of December 2012, but still walk anyways in May. Gotta work hard on this MS, I need B+'s or higher on all my classes this semester - and they're grad courses too.

(Image: was taken at San Jose State University)

Back at San Jose

Overhead view of San Jose, facing south. Taken from the Mariott on the 25th floor.

I do realize that I might've missed a Service Event and LAN gaming party back at Stockton, but honestly if I was given the option to do that I would've taken it. Now that I'm over here...

It's been over two years since I last took a visit to the Tech. Original exploration of the city was rather limited in the past, but I made a more thorough effort this time around, including visiting San Jose State (the library - much more modern comp sci-related books than I would find here than in any Stockton library.

And then there was Cassandra back in those days, she used to be at SJSU, but returned back to Delta. Why, I currently do not know. Recent attempts to contact her have not been successful - I am starting to figure that even it's hard to contact former close friends. Which brings me in a loop back to a post almost two years ago.

Any Given Tuesday

This will probably be my only trip that I'm going to with Pacific ACM - I've not enough hardware requirements to get to any LAN party they put up, plus it tends to interfere with CKI a bit.

It's not a Tuesday (despite the title), it was the store that was called "Tuesday Morning". (I wonder what they sell there?) which is next to Laser Quest, our main event.

Note on the Laser Guns: Not all the sensors work on every vest, and there were many occasions where you will miss a shot when you clearly hit it. It ended up in situations where I was at close range with another opponent and blasted away at each others guns... err, unable to tag each other. (For the record, the front of the gun has a sensor that will disable you if hit.)

Testing: Blitz+ Beetle

Six weeks in the development of Top 200 leaderboards, it was quite obvious that cheaters in the leaderboard are inevitable. Some are not that easy to spot, however, such as those who slow down the game, etc.

There were a few options to counter this, however. One was adding infinite time (like survival in regular Zuma games, but difficulty is based off of time, and not by points).

Another one was to 'mod' the game somehow to continue making the game competitive and give everyone more equal footing so that games weren't entirely based on luck, but more based on skill. (Even using spirit beetles was considered luck since typical players could only use them once in a while, and you had to be really lucky with the game layout and time for a really high score.) I had a solution for this.

Introducing: The Blitz+ Beetle.

Bringing the classic blitz mode from Zuma's Revenge with a few minor tweaks, it was designed to address a few issues in mind with the time ball stuff. The only factors for your high score is a bit of luck as well as your skill.

Good luck, you have THREE minutes.

I'm planning to roll this out by March for group approval and planning to implement a separate leaderboard for using this beetle.

Features:

• No time balls, but game starts with 3:00.
• No Multiplier Limit (start with 3x)
• Fruit/multiplier spawn rate slightly increased.
• Ball Speed +50%
• 3x Crit Power (12.5% crit chance)
• Jade beetle (no spirit blast)
• Completely free (for now)
  • Probably 40k mojo to use, but gives you 9x mojo/XP than a normal game.

How to use

It's still in testing, so I'll give instructions on it as soon as I get the OK on it.\

Test Results

• The difference isn't much, but still significant at higher scores - in three minutes, best scores achieved were 13.2m on the blitz+ beetle, and 10.1m on a L80 beetle, maybe it has to do with the extra 2.5% chance to crit?