Code

Code

Monday, July 13, 2015

Excision Walkthrough

I take things too seriously sometimes. As far as I'm aware, I've always been like that. When I was a kid, I knew, deep down, that walkthroughs were bad. Maybe they weren't quite morally wrong, but they were certainly pushing it. You can probably ask my brother how I felt about walkthroughs. He was often on the receiving end of my scorn when he used a website to figure out a particularly difficult puzzle. "That's not the way you're SUPPOSED to do it!" Children can be so vicious. Little did I know I would eventually be publishing my own walkthrough.

Hopefully I have done my fair share of maturing. Games, I realize almost two decades later than everyone else, are intended to be fun by definition. If utilizing a guide makes the game more entertaining for you, then by all means, use it. Enjoy the little things in life the way you like them, not the way that you're "supposed" to, or the way that others tell you you should. It's better to learn these things late than never, right?

I've had a tremendous amount of fun putting this game together. That being said, I am still taking things very seriously, and have also viewed this as a learning experience. I've never tried to market anything before. To put it lightly, I failed terribly. Most of the code that I wrote for this game is rather different than the style of code I write for work. Anyone with any web development experience would have a few things to say about my email script.

"Whatever. This is my first time, and my next one will be better." Tell yourself that and go try something new. Learn something difficult.

Needless to say, the following link contains spoilers. It also contains a pretty awesome story. While I fully encourage the use of this document, only use it if you know that's what you want to do.

[This link has been temporarily removed]

Until next time,
Cheers!

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Excision Winner Announcement

Congratulations to Ankur Sundara for being the first person to complete Excision! For his dedication and problem-solving abilities, he's won the first place price of $50! Ankur, a New Hampshire resident, is a rising senior in high school. Ankur had this to say about the game: "Excision was an awesome competition! It was a fun mix of knowledge of biology, computer security, and programming skills. My prior participation in hacking/programming competitions definitely helped me out a lot. Some of the challenges had me stumped for a while, but they all had pretty elegant solutions. I hope to see a bigger, better sequel to this competition in the future!" I want to thank everyone who participated in the game or even gave it a glance. Also, for those of you who still want to play, there's an awesome second place price: a sense of adventure and the feeling of a job well done! Until next time!