finished cyclops

Written by Clive Clussel. I loose all my interest in the novle after I find out that it was about cold war between the russians and americans. How americans are deadly heroes and communists are villains from hell. The novel means that if communists will have ruled the world, the world would have been a jail with the leaders jailers.
Isn't it true for Iraq now?

Age of AOE (PART I )

In the Beginning

tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin

I don't know how to write music, otherwise I would have really written down the entire music of the first part of AOE. It is this music, which makes the unbreakable bond between me and AOE (Age of Empire).

AOE is the only Microsoft product (and Zoo Tycoon) I still like after gaining knowledge about open source projects. It is a strategy game, where the user has to build his own town, defend it from enemy and then grab the enemy's town. There are different winning conditions the user can choose from. Player can kill the king of the enemy, or kill all the people, or build a wonder, etc. For a single player there are different scenarios. The scenarios are created so that player can take any role he/she wish. The player can be only attacking or defensive. Scenarios are a very good start for single player. Then there are the different situations in which player can play straight away battles with either computer or with other humans.

I started playing AOE when I was in third year of BE. One of the chip magazine cd had come with this game, along with zoo tycoon. First I took the learning scenario. I liked it. So I started playing the battle game. In my first game, I start building houses, fields, mining gold, building different buildings and gaining resources. Everything was peaceful, when suddenly from nowhere Romans attacked and started killing people and destroying buildings. I haven't prepared for defense, and I was defending with villagers. My villagers were attacking with knives on the long swordsmen. I loose that game very badly. This is my first AOE battle game.

Then slowly and steadily I learned about different weapons and units. I build docks, towers, walls. I created war boats and other fighting units. After some games, I found out the tactics for defending the base. Meanwhile, I also gain knowledge about different research and ages. Which building produces what units, which research to be done for making these units strong, which are essential buildings, how to gain more wood, more food, there was so much to learn in the game.

And then in one game, before enemy attacks me I attacked them. This was the start of attacking strategy. My first attack was very weak. The opponent was prepared next age weapons, and a solid defense, which I could not stand. The map was such that I can only attack through water. And both the opponents were having many towers at the sea shores, and lot of war boats. Then I started attacking from more than one end. While the opponents defense was battling with one end, I attacked form other end. This was a successful strategy. The problem again was when I am in battle with one opponent, another will attack my base. That means my defense should also be strong.

Then finally in some game, I finished both opponents, and finish that map. The second map was more difficult. Here you have to destroy the wonder of one of the enemy to win the game. This enemy was very strong in defense. But you can only attack this enemy, when you get rid of other civilization, which is strong in attack, and will continuously attack on you. So first you have to defeat this enemy, take all its resources and then attack on the wonder. I thought a lot about how to defeat the attacking enemy and played a lot games without having success. Finally I found out a hole in this enemy's land. I was failing because I was attacking though water. If I could attack through ground then I would surely win, as the enemy is wasting all its resources on water attack. I also found out a hiding treasure, in the enemy's land.

With this strategy I started a new game. I defended my base from the continuous attack and at the same time, I started building a base on the enemy's land. There was jungle between my base and enemy base. I had to break entire jungle, and attack on the enemy. As my new base was very safe, I started developing weapons here itself. Once I got a small entry in the enemy's base and whooaa! As I have imagined the land defense was very weak. It must have cost me utmost an elephant, to take control of this enemy base. Once enemy was busy in land battle, I also attacked from sea and the enemy was totally helpless. It was so simple at the "hardest level".

So with this strategy, I finished this map too, by destroying the wonder of the other enemy. I can't tell how much glad I was when those words "You have destroy the wonder" came on screen. This was end of first version of AOE.

Somebody who has read this blog till this point, must be wondering that I was playing the game day-night. Yes, that’s true. This was that one year of my life, when I did nothing, other than playing videogames and watching TV.

Somewhere at this point, while I was on the finish of AOE I, I got AOE II Age of Kings, again from one of the Chip magazine cd. I started playing the game after finishing AOE I. There was only one map, with two enemies. It didn't take much time for me to finish this game.

This is the end of first part. The second part begins at IIT. For that keep watching chamanchindi.

Me and Videogames

I was always fascinated about videogames(and novels, and movies, and girls, and fantacies, and ...). I still remember the day, when I visited one of my relative, who was my senior in VJTI, to get her old books. There her brother first show me brian lara cricket and one of the DOS car race game. I was so amazed that everyday I dreamt about playing these games on computer. I would have given everything to play those videogames.
Somewhere in second sem I got a computer, and a cd with 100 games in it. Along with these there were standard package of games cricket, dave, and wolf 3d. I almost used all of my time at home to play these games. Din, raat, subah, shyam only video games. Wolf-3d was a very dangerous game. After playing for some time you feel like vomitting, but still I used to continue. FInally some day I either got bored of these games or I finished all the levels.
BY that time, most of my friends owned computer. Two main resources of exchanging games was Vishal Manjrekar and Arjun Pednekar. Arjun gave me boxing and some car racing. That car racing was a cool game. You can create your own circuit and play the game. You can have icy road, dirt road, bridges, water, and many other things. Boxing too was a good game, especially its cheating function. When judges are not looking, you can use some keys to kick in the groin of the opposition. It was Arjun who first show me the chip magazine CD of May, which was including Roadrash.
The next revoulution of my gaming experience was the game Blood, and one cow-boy type game given by Vishal. At the same time I came across Hexen-II. All these three was first person shooting games. All having very good graphics, good story line, and good amount of puzzles. In Blood, there was one level, where you are inside a running train. It was too awesome. In Blood and Hexen II, there was also underwater situations. If you stay in underwater for more time, your health reduces. It is at this point of time, I have decided to become game developer.
Then there was some games I came across like, Roadrash, FiFA, Delta Force, Virtual Cop, Zoo tycoon. Zoo Tycoon and AOE was there in one cd. I played zoo tycoon a lot times with different strategies. As usual first time, I lost all my money and gone into debt. But then I learnt the tactics and very soon started gaining a large profits. In and all it was a very good game, and I still play it.
The full mode game playing comes in picture when I was in IIT. Here one can get full games free. The first game I play was WOlfestein second part. A god game. I was involved so much that, at night I was not able to sleep. Those images from games used to come in front of my eyes, as soon as I closed my eyes. It was really one of the best game I have played till. First you have to fight with ghosts, then with robots, and then with combined force. The game also had a very good and breath-taking stoty line and good graphics. Ankur show me this game and also he show me how to play first person shooting games.
Other game I played in IIT was Medal of Honour. With very good graphics and real life situation strategies, this game will make sure that the user wont leave the seat untill the current level is finished. I played this game on my own PC. Rodney and Harsha used to play with me, giving me instructions. They too played the game. And when they stuck somewhere I had to take control of the situation and bring them out of the trouble. But it will have been very hard to clear the game without help of these two.
The next game was commander. Rodney introduced me to this game. We used to play this game for hours together, thinkig about how to kill every soldier and what will be the strategy to accomplish the mission. But slowly the game becomes tougher, and after some levels we loose the interest.
The real advantage I gain in IIT is playing online games. Till now I was totally unaware of playing with other human. It opens the door of heaven of game for me. The games that we used to play online in LAN besides AOE was quake, unreal tournament, ptank and some car srashing game. Quake and UT are normal shotting game. In UT there were also some special scenarios for team game. Ptank and car crashing was played by very few. Currently I remmeber only Rodney with whome I have played these games. I dont remember playing these games more often. AOE overshadowed these games.
After leaving IIT, I didn't get much time for playing game. Laptop is not at all good platform for playing videogames. The only game I stick to is cricket 2002. In that only batting is possible at hard level, bowling and fielding wont give you any pleasure at all. This is the only game I play on laptop now.

Now I am planning buying a desktop, and then once more my gaming days will be back.

Academic Life

The cool summary about my academic life, and especially about how I stand up in the students around. In summary, I was a great looser in the start, but won the battle at the end.

In the school, till 4th std my rank was about 7 or 8 something. I am not sure. In the 5th and 6th I was at top in my class. Not combining, but in B class. After 7th, when both class got combined in one class, I was thrown to 4th position, with Vikas, Shubhangi, Sujit and sometimes Kiran, Sachin ahead of me. But suddenly in SSC I stood 3rd in school with 89%. That was great achievement for me. The first two students were there in mumbai Merritt list. Actually our batch was a lot smarter. Now when I think about it, I realize that, the school was never of our quality. So much of politics within the teachers, that they never concentrate on good teaching. It was Balawalli brother and sister, that see the spark in us, and helped us in getting this much of success.

So there I was stood third in school, feeling proud, and got admission in Ruparel college, in computer science stream. Father was consistent about my pursuing for biology too, but I never like drawing those figures, and shut that door at that time. (Later I feel sorry about my decision, when found that the stream got more females than males.)

After the admission in college, I found my real ranking. Everyone there was way over smarter than me. I feel alone for almost first 6 months, till I met the students of my level in the class, who used to sit at the other corner. The rest of the peoples were from english medium, and very very smart (some from Delhi board, who already knew many things that we hear for first time). No comparison with them. Even in my 11th I failed in computer science subject, and my PCM % were 60 to 65. No doubt I was in shock. But then, in 12th when I joined the Tiwari classes, in the vacation, I found that scoring above 85% is not that difficult. By the time we have also mastered the programming skill, and was not afraid of computer course either.

The result of 12th std was marvelous, with 94 in PCM. I don't know my ranking in the class, but why should I be bothering about that? After, at the time of engineering admission I found my rank in first 10% of overall students. (Actually 94 was not that great in the class of high level student.)

Then the things become worse in first two years of engineering. I never get first class. In the second semester I fail in two subjects, which got cleared in reevaluation. Third semester was nightmare. I failed in 4 subjects out of 6. At that time I never thought I will be able to complete the engineering. I have started thinking about other options.

This is the first time in my life, I have seriously worried about my life. I have started doing calculations of which subjects from 4th sem I can drop. There was only 9 days difference between the end of third sem and start of 4th sem. I have already joined two classes for 4th sem, and then again I joined two more crash courses. The subjects of 4th sem were not that difficult to study. Somehow I managed clearing all the 10 subjects in one shot. All the other students in the class were joyous after the result of 4th sem, as everybody scored a lot. I just managed 57%, not even a first class. But that was understandable as I have cleared all the 10 subjects.

The last two years of degree was peaceful. Though in 5th sem I got grace of 6 marks, in these four semesters I manage to get jsut 60.00%. Many people who were at my level, failed to get first class overall, but I manage.

First class in degree was a very high achievement for me, considering my miserable failures at the start. Also I was happy as I do not have to struggle much for campus job. I got the job in first company Amdocs.

Next one year, was not so bad, not so good. Not bad because there was no pressure of study or work. I spend whole time watching TV, playing game, surfing net. Not so good because I was not doing anything. I gave 2 or 3 interviews, but with no luck. Then I prepare for Gate and appear for it. I never put any hope on the GATE exam. Meanwhile I join the Maya course, and decided that I will be doing my carrier in the animation. I did this course for about 6 months.

Then the GATE results came, and I have scored much more than expected. I apply to IIT Bombay and whoom, got admission. For first two weeks I continue my Maya course, but then there was no hope of doing the things together, and I left Maya course.

It is after coming to IIT I realize that I have altogether came at wrong place. No doubt I was in the last five student of the class. This I can say as I got job very late. This job thing was also very frustrated. In IIT I did enjoy my life to my best, but as per as academic is consult I don't want to remember any of the course in IIT. The two projects I (Shikav, and final project) was horrible. The real miracle was final project. I never thought I will clear at first attempt, but miracles do happen.