Attended a Handrolled Sushi class today. Turns out that making handrolled sushi isn't as hard as I thought. You just need the right ingredients and a little instruction to get it done. So here's my own personal crash course while its still fresh in my mind...
1- Preparing Japanese Rice
For each full cup of rice, add 1.25 cup of water. Cook in a rice cooker with optional seaweed for extra flavouring.
2- Preparing Sushi Rice
Once rice is cooked, take some out and put it in a basin. Add Sushi-Rice-Powder (smells like vinegar) and mix with a cutting motion. Be careful not to clump the rice togather so that the powder is mixed evenly. Add more powder if needed.
3- Preparing Japanese Eggrolls
First, break 2 eggs into a bowl. Add some fish granules for flavouring. Some prefer to add japanese soy sauce. Add pepper and sugar. Beat the egg evenly but not to violently to reduce bubbles. Next, sieve the egg mixture to remove the bubbles that form due to the mixing. Heat up a rectangular shaped pan and put in a tablespoon of oil. Use a sponge/tissue paper to distribute the oil evenly on the pan and absorb access oil. Pour in just about enough egg mixture to fill a thin layer on the pan. Start rolling the egg as soon as its cooked (which is about 2 seconds). You might notice that the first layer of the eggroll is very thin, thats why you need to keep adding layers and layers of egg to make it as thick as you want. You can add layers by moving the just-rolled eggroll to the far end of the pan and repeat the whole process again.
4- Preparing Sushi Ingredients
Sushi ingredients that are easy to prepare like japanese cucumber and eel are prepared pretty much the same way as the eggroll for sushi that is. Just slice them into thin long slices. Certain ingredients like crabsticks (kanikama) are very easy to prepare to be made a sushi ingredient (you just need to slice them in half at most).
5- Putting togather a Handrolled Sushi
Besides having your sushi rice and some ingredients, you will also need seaweed squares (doh!). First, lay down a bamboo sheet. Then put a seaweed square on it with the rough side up. Dip your fingers with vinegar before putting the (sticky without vinegar) sushi rice on the seaweed square. Put an even layer of sushi rice on 3/4 of the seaweed square, leaving a 1/4 space at the far end. Arrange the rice in a way so that the part closest to you has a thinner layer of rice then the far end of the rice away from you. Try not to compress the rice too much while doing this. Also, try to fill the horizontal edges of the roll with a little more rice so that you don't waste the ends of the roll (you will notice this when you start cutting the sushi roll).
Once you're ready, you can now arrange the ingredients on the sushi rice. Arrange the ingredients in an horizontal line at the middle of the seaweed square. Do not be greedy and put too many ingredients or else the rice won't be able to hold it all in. Some common ingredients put in handrolled sushi are crabstick(kanikama), eel (unagi), eggroll, goard slices, cucumber and fish-eggs (sakura powder).
6- Rolling the Sushi
Now comes the hardest part of the whole process. Carefully roll the sushi starting from your side (the side with the thinnest layer of rice) outwards. Roll the sushi tight, but not too tight. You just need to make sure the rice and the ingredients are held in place. Use your fingers to keep the ingredients in the middle of the sushi roll. If all goes well a regular sushi roll should be about as wide as the space between your thumb and your index finger when you make an 'ok' sign. If you like you can try rolling a square or even a triangle, but most people just end up with a circular sushi roll.
7- Cutting the Sushi Roll
Once the roll is ready, you can now cut it . To ease cutting, first cut the roll in half in the middle. Then cut the sushi roll at approximately the width of your thumb (a little less of an inch). When cutting, make sure your knife is wet (preferably with fresh water). Everytime you cut, clean and wet the knife again before cutting the next slice.
8- Serving the Sushi Roll
The finishing touch of a sushi would be some japanese soy sauce, and maybe a pince of wasabi (for those who like it of course). Serve as soon as possible.
Well, thats an easy to follow 8-step crash course on handrolled sushi making for you. We also learned about how to make those Japanese Rice Cake things, and thats just pretty much putting rice in your salted hand, adding some mayo chicken inside, cover it with more rice, and shaping the rice cake with your hands, and finally putting on a strip of seaweed.
All in all the class was pretty enjoyable, with the instructor speaking in Japanese all the way and a translator trying his best to translate. Plus, there was a healthy amount of ingredients passed around and I'm very satisfied with what I've learned despite standing around for 2 hours straight.
On the Blanktris front, I fixed a line-clearing bug where there was sorta an infinite loop in the line-clearing if the user keeps the drop button pressed (Thanks Trickflip from Unlinked!).
Latest Blanktris version: Beta 1.6 (still in development)
Monday, November 28, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
A Thought on RPG Character Development
In one of my wandering thoughts I thought about the general definition of 'classes' in a role-playing game. Theres always the 'Holy Trinity' of stereotyped classes, in this case the Tank, the Healer, and the Nuker. All other classes seem to always revolve around those 3, at least for combat purposes. Crafters are generally separated from the combat classes for some reason or another. One thing lead to another and I started to think about how the best class system for an RPG would be. Some RPGs (including MMORPGs) have as little as 4 classes to start with but branches out as their gain levels, some are fixed to a few classes, some have ALOT of fixed classes, while some gives the player the ability to combine multiple classes (multi-class so to speak). All RPGS have the 'Holy Trinity', no doubt about it. Most other classes are extensions of the Holy Trinity with some different abilities most of the time based on a theme (Paladins, Shadow Priests, Battlemage classes come to mind). Some, however, break the mold with different concepts, like Illusionist(Mezzers) classes that hinder instead of damage, Rogue/Assassin classes that has stealth/thievery abilities, Witches/Warlocks that deals with summoning helpers/minions, etc. Really. the possibilities are quite endless once you start thinking about it.
The thing is, you can think of any dream class you want, but the real challenge comes in the balancing of these classes. The more classes you have, the more work in balancing them. Once again this by itself is a topic all by its own. Some balance classes by making any class capable of defeating any other class (very rare), and most balance them by making a RTS-type decision, Counters: eg. Fighter > Mage > Archer > Fighter. It's just a matter of giving certain classes offensive/defensive abilities of varying magnitudes against certain other classes. Sure it works, but kinda boring in my opinion, not to mention its all too easy to unwillingly create an 'uber-class' that seems 'stronger' than all others. There must be other ways to do this.
Balance aside, theres also another facet of classes, class progression (which often equals to character progression). From Skill-Based systems (Ultima Online Skill Points) to Hierarchy-Based systems (Lineage 2 Job Levels) to Tier-Based systems (WoW Talents) to Statistic-Based systems (Dungeons and Dragons or Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats) to Traditional LevelPoints-Based systems (DoAC classes), they all have their own pros and cons. I thought about how some systems, for example Lineage 2, uses a realistic modeling of how a character would 'grow' from a simple 'novice adventurer' growing into whatever profession he/she wishes to a step at a time. One instance would be Novice -> Fighter -> Mercenary -> Assassin -> Shadow Master. This hierarchial system is quite linear, where a Fighter (job 1) cannot revert back to a Novice (job 0) and is fixed in his fighter branch although he can choose to be either a Mercenary(Job2) or a Page(Job 2). I thought of a similar system but instead of only advancing in one branch, the adventurer can invest into other branches at the same time, similar to a skill-based setup. In this case, it is entirely possible to be (according to the example above) both a Mercenary and a Page at the same time. Balancing them would be a major headache, but it would prove to be a much more rewarding character/class progression system.
Misc skills like crafting skills can also be fitted into such a system with minimal effort. It would also help make each character quite unique in terms of abilities, something that I'm sure each RPG player would find very welcome. To soothe the transition between this kind of skill-based system and the old tradition class system, and to help players recognise each other's abilities, some kind of class-like title would be assigned to each character based on his character experiences.
In reference from certain MMORPGs in development, I thought of a kind of inheritence system where any subsequent character a player makes (aka alternate character) will have some kind of influence from the player's previous character. To make this point clearer, let me illustrate. The player first enters a game without any existing characters. In the game his character will essentially start with nothing, being something like a total newcomer to the land. This character will be free to do anything he wishes to advance his skills. If the player wants to make a new character, and if he chooses to inherit this new character from his previous character, this new character will have 'free experience' so to speak according to how developed his ancestor is. This would help reduce the 'grind' players experience in one form or another when making an alternate character in an MMORPG.
The thing is, you can think of any dream class you want, but the real challenge comes in the balancing of these classes. The more classes you have, the more work in balancing them. Once again this by itself is a topic all by its own. Some balance classes by making any class capable of defeating any other class (very rare), and most balance them by making a RTS-type decision, Counters: eg. Fighter > Mage > Archer > Fighter. It's just a matter of giving certain classes offensive/defensive abilities of varying magnitudes against certain other classes. Sure it works, but kinda boring in my opinion, not to mention its all too easy to unwillingly create an 'uber-class' that seems 'stronger' than all others. There must be other ways to do this.
Balance aside, theres also another facet of classes, class progression (which often equals to character progression). From Skill-Based systems (Ultima Online Skill Points) to Hierarchy-Based systems (Lineage 2 Job Levels) to Tier-Based systems (WoW Talents) to Statistic-Based systems (Dungeons and Dragons or Fallout's S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats) to Traditional LevelPoints-Based systems (DoAC classes), they all have their own pros and cons. I thought about how some systems, for example Lineage 2, uses a realistic modeling of how a character would 'grow' from a simple 'novice adventurer' growing into whatever profession he/she wishes to a step at a time. One instance would be Novice -> Fighter -> Mercenary -> Assassin -> Shadow Master. This hierarchial system is quite linear, where a Fighter (job 1) cannot revert back to a Novice (job 0) and is fixed in his fighter branch although he can choose to be either a Mercenary(Job2) or a Page(Job 2). I thought of a similar system but instead of only advancing in one branch, the adventurer can invest into other branches at the same time, similar to a skill-based setup. In this case, it is entirely possible to be (according to the example above) both a Mercenary and a Page at the same time. Balancing them would be a major headache, but it would prove to be a much more rewarding character/class progression system.
Misc skills like crafting skills can also be fitted into such a system with minimal effort. It would also help make each character quite unique in terms of abilities, something that I'm sure each RPG player would find very welcome. To soothe the transition between this kind of skill-based system and the old tradition class system, and to help players recognise each other's abilities, some kind of class-like title would be assigned to each character based on his character experiences.
In reference from certain MMORPGs in development, I thought of a kind of inheritence system where any subsequent character a player makes (aka alternate character) will have some kind of influence from the player's previous character. To make this point clearer, let me illustrate. The player first enters a game without any existing characters. In the game his character will essentially start with nothing, being something like a total newcomer to the land. This character will be free to do anything he wishes to advance his skills. If the player wants to make a new character, and if he chooses to inherit this new character from his previous character, this new character will have 'free experience' so to speak according to how developed his ancestor is. This would help reduce the 'grind' players experience in one form or another when making an alternate character in an MMORPG.
Blanktris Uploaded AT LAST
Yep you heard right, finally got the thing uploaded. Check it out here. Feel free to give me feedback on it. It's not a final release version as I plan to put in a few more features of my own.
Yesterday me and my housemate Alvin continued our Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks Ko-op game and progressed another 25% of the game. It was truly a blast. We lost our first battle with Scorpian and decided to save and continue later. The Goro fatality was particularly entertaining :).
Read the next post for something I thought about for the last few days. Most of these ideas are sketchy at most, but I am already in the progress of archiving and developing them. Hopefully when the time comes I can implement my ideas in a real RPG of some sort in the near future..
Yesterday me and my housemate Alvin continued our Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks Ko-op game and progressed another 25% of the game. It was truly a blast. We lost our first battle with Scorpian and decided to save and continue later. The Goro fatality was particularly entertaining :).
Read the next post for something I thought about for the last few days. Most of these ideas are sketchy at most, but I am already in the progress of archiving and developing them. Hopefully when the time comes I can implement my ideas in a real RPG of some sort in the near future..
Friday, November 25, 2005
Delays and more delays
You know, these few days I ain't doing anything particular productive because I'm just waiting for savefile.com's upload system to be available so that I can upload Blanktris. I can't seem to focus on doing anything else for some reason. Hmm..
I'm hoping to get my desktop PC back within the next week, so at least I'm looking forward to playing NFS:MW and tinkering with the FEAR sdk. I guess meanwhile I'll just play some games and chill out for abit.
I'm hoping to get my desktop PC back within the next week, so at least I'm looking forward to playing NFS:MW and tinkering with the FEAR sdk. I guess meanwhile I'll just play some games and chill out for abit.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Argh.
Savefile.com still hasn't had their servers ready for uploads yet, so no Blanktris today. :( Heres hoping I can upload and share the files by tomorrow....
So far I have seen and read through some 3D character modeling tutorials but I've yet to really get my hands dirty doing one yet. Thats probably because I have been abit under the weather this couple of days which I hope will get better by tomorrow.
Spent most of the day asleep hoping to sleep off the sickness, not sure it works though...
So far I have seen and read through some 3D character modeling tutorials but I've yet to really get my hands dirty doing one yet. Thats probably because I have been abit under the weather this couple of days which I hope will get better by tomorrow.
Spent most of the day asleep hoping to sleep off the sickness, not sure it works though...
Monday, November 21, 2005
The Turning Point
Well, well, well. While today went about as usual, with classes and all, the main highlight of the day is the nighttime gathering of sorts of students majoring in Games Design. Apparently large part of it is about students needing to take matters in their own hands and start to learn game design and game development in general by themselves and not rely too much on university syllabus. Admirable goal, but definately one that was passively drilled into our minds when we first started the whole course.
Still, I'm glad its out in the open, and we'll just have to wait and see whether it has any effect. Big ideas were proposed today, and some of them probably won't see the light of day despite how much good it will do, mostly due to the lack of motivation of the people capable of making it happen.
As for me, I felt that this moment is as opportune as any to kick start my productive streak. Since completing Blanktris yesterday (No, I haven't found a place to host it yet, but don't worry it will be around this week.), I am more confident that I can do this thing people call Games Design without being utterly clueless on how to start. As something fresh to learn and do instead of another programming exercise, I'm now going into 3D game character (<1000 poly) modeling with MilkShape3D. After that its probably back on adding features on Blanktris or starting a new project.
And on a final note, I'm now spyware free. :)
Still, I'm glad its out in the open, and we'll just have to wait and see whether it has any effect. Big ideas were proposed today, and some of them probably won't see the light of day despite how much good it will do, mostly due to the lack of motivation of the people capable of making it happen.
As for me, I felt that this moment is as opportune as any to kick start my productive streak. Since completing Blanktris yesterday (No, I haven't found a place to host it yet, but don't worry it will be around this week.), I am more confident that I can do this thing people call Games Design without being utterly clueless on how to start. As something fresh to learn and do instead of another programming exercise, I'm now going into 3D game character (<1000 poly) modeling with MilkShape3D. After that its probably back on adding features on Blanktris or starting a new project.
And on a final note, I'm now spyware free. :)
Blanktris is DONE!
Phew finally got it done and fully functional after 3 weeks of hard work. Now I just need to find somewhere I can host it...
Today's blog update is late because I had to clean up my laptop from a spyware that managed to infiltrate my system. And theres one pop-up thing that just refuses to die. Even now I get these annoying pop-ups every 5 minutes or so. Spybot and Adaware tried their best but it seems they can't clean it. My only hope now rests on Norton Antivirus. Gonna do a full scan later when I go for class.
I hate spyware.
Today's blog update is late because I had to clean up my laptop from a spyware that managed to infiltrate my system. And theres one pop-up thing that just refuses to die. Even now I get these annoying pop-ups every 5 minutes or so. Spybot and Adaware tried their best but it seems they can't clean it. My only hope now rests on Norton Antivirus. Gonna do a full scan later when I go for class.
I hate spyware.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Just.. another... day...
Yup, in another day, Blanktris should be done and ready for public consumption. It doesn't bring much in term of innovative gameplay features or whatsuch aside from being Tetris, but I plan to bring about Blanktris 2 later with some radical features I thought up that would hopefully enhance the tetris experience.
In other fronts, the proposal for my final year project for the university faculty has been handed up, and theres a very good chance that it will be accepted as we (me and my teammate Vincent) had already discussed our idea (a Symbian OS game engine for mobile devices) with a trusted lecturer and she has already gave us the go-ahead.
In Guild Wars, I finally got my Necromancer to Droknar's Forge but went broke trying to buy Droknar's Forge Armor. Even the combined wealth from my other characters (Monk and Ranger) wasn't enough. This is probably due to my Necro buying every skill he came across, elite or otherwise. Gah. Skills are too expensive. Now I'll just have to earn some money through my Monk and Ranger to finance my Necro...
My PC (which broke down about a week ago) is still Missing In Action, and I hope to get it back soon from my Dad after he fixes it up soon. I really want to try out The Movies, Earth 2160 and Need For Speed Most Wanted as well as Path of Neo. Its just too bad my laptop doesn't have the power to run the latest games. :(
Ok, its time for me to hop onto Guild Wars for some money making. Ciaoz.
In other fronts, the proposal for my final year project for the university faculty has been handed up, and theres a very good chance that it will be accepted as we (me and my teammate Vincent) had already discussed our idea (a Symbian OS game engine for mobile devices) with a trusted lecturer and she has already gave us the go-ahead.
In Guild Wars, I finally got my Necromancer to Droknar's Forge but went broke trying to buy Droknar's Forge Armor. Even the combined wealth from my other characters (Monk and Ranger) wasn't enough. This is probably due to my Necro buying every skill he came across, elite or otherwise. Gah. Skills are too expensive. Now I'll just have to earn some money through my Monk and Ranger to finance my Necro...
My PC (which broke down about a week ago) is still Missing In Action, and I hope to get it back soon from my Dad after he fixes it up soon. I really want to try out The Movies, Earth 2160 and Need For Speed Most Wanted as well as Path of Neo. Its just too bad my laptop doesn't have the power to run the latest games. :(
Ok, its time for me to hop onto Guild Wars for some money making. Ciaoz.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Caffeine Deficiency
Felt mighty tired today, so I couldn't bring myself to do any work on Blanktris. :(
Things should pick up again once I get a good nights rest today.
Things should pick up again once I get a good nights rest today.
Friday, November 18, 2005
Almost done...
Blanktris looks so much better now that I've finally added some background and button graphics to the game. Now whats left are some sound effects and full screen options. Then I can concentrate on some special extra features I have in mind for the game. Personally, I can't wait till its done. :)
Since I spent most of my time today sleeping and working on Blanktris, there really isn't much to tell except the one offline message I received from a friend through Yahoo Messenger about a petition to raise law penalties for animal cruelty. Basicly its a petition to push the Malaysian Government to raise penalties by law for animal cruelty sentences. Here's the link for those interested to sign it. I did.
Now for some Shadow of the Collosus for relaxation after a hard day's work. Peace out.
Since I spent most of my time today sleeping and working on Blanktris, there really isn't much to tell except the one offline message I received from a friend through Yahoo Messenger about a petition to raise law penalties for animal cruelty. Basicly its a petition to push the Malaysian Government to raise penalties by law for animal cruelty sentences. Here's the link for those interested to sign it. I did.
Now for some Shadow of the Collosus for relaxation after a hard day's work. Peace out.
Thursday, November 17, 2005
Just Arrived
I forgot to include the link to my old blog in my first post, so here it is.
For those who aren't aware, I am working on a Tetris clone using PopCap's Games Framework in C++. I will be logging my progress in the blog in addition to my other activities daily.
I already logged what I wanted to log in the last post of my old blog, so if you want to read it up, feel free to go there.
For those who aren't aware, I am working on a Tetris clone using PopCap's Games Framework in C++. I will be logging my progress in the blog in addition to my other activities daily.
I already logged what I wanted to log in the last post of my old blog, so if you want to read it up, feel free to go there.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
- The world forgetting, by the world forgot;
- Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
- Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.
- - Eloisa to Abelard, Alexander Pope
Now I suppose you'll be wondering why I would name my blog this, its simply because I liked the film alot and the quote from Alexander Pope's poem was very inspirational to me.
To start off the first post of the blog, let me introduce myself. I am Jason Low Jian Ji from Malaysia but you can call me by my Internet handle, Blanko. I am currently a final year Games Design student at Multimedia University Cyberjaya Malaysia. I'm a 21 year old Chinese Malaysian and I have been living in Malaysia all my life.
I am an avid gamer, playing all types of PC and PlayStation 2 games including experimental games like Katamari Damacy and Shadow of the Colossus. I also sometimes play basketball, read fantasy books, listen to music, watch a movie or try to produce a game in my free time when I'm not playing Guild Wars or Battlefield 2 online or attending classes at my university.
This blog is created so that I have a premise to express my rantings about my life and the stuff that I care about, including Technology, Gameplaying, Game Design and the Games Industry in general.
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