^agreed on the hearts. if you could find some way to squeeze health into the sidebar instead of taking up a whole section like that, it would be helpful.

as for room placement, just lay out all the normal rooms first, placing each room at random on another, with greater weight given to rooms with fewer connections, and then place the boss, item, and secret rooms afterwards at randomly chosen places that work. you can always do checks to prevent there being too many crossroads etc as well, if you want.

cool!
did you use gimp? i just got a tablet a few days ago and have been trying to figure out the best way to flood fill areas with colour, because using the pen tool leaves a soft transition that's not good for filling (the pen ends up blending into whatever colour was the background before and then immediately jumping to the desired colour) and sticking it on a layer behind is messy and tedious.

and here are a few more!

yes, i know paul's story. it's said that he murdered christians up until when he was met on the road to damascus by the image of jesus, scolded ("whatever you have done against them has been done against me as well"), struck blind. he then repented, had his eyesight restored via ananias, and set off to convert all the gentiles. the next several years are a group of exciting adventures, hanging out with his buddy luke the doctor and protege titus, visiting towns and speaking out against idols, being thrown into prison and released via earthquake, escaping from a town in a wicker basket, shouting at peter about having people circumcised, writing half of the new testament in the form of letters to church plants all around the mediterranean, etc. eventually, he got it in his head that he had to go convert the emperor, nero, so he set off on a journey,was shipwrecked on the island of malta, was bitten by a poisonous snake and did not die, arrived in rome, was placed under house arrest for several years (during which time he wrote more letters), and then was killed.

paul also made up (or at least propogated) a good deal of doctrine that jesus did not (in the gospels, at least). things like "being saved by faith alone" (jesus preaches a message of good works. "you must take up your cross and follow me.", "give up your riches and your pride, or you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven", "if something is keeping you from following me and doing as i do, cut it off and throw it away, for it is better to go to heaven without that thing than to be thrown into hell with it", etc).

oh, by the way, the only times that the word "hell" is used in the gospels is in reference to being sent there when doing something bad (Matthew 5:22, Matthew 5:29, Matthew 10:28, Matthew 18:9, Matthew 23:15, Matthew 23:33, Mark 9:43 and following, Luke 12:5. it never once says what "hell" actually is.

as for jesus saying he would return before all his disciples had died, see Matthew 16:28. jesus is talking to his disciples and telling them how they should act in his absence and then tells them, explicitely, that he will be back to initiate his kingdom before the last of them is dead.

this is all from the standard, protestant-approved version of the bible, of course, because i don't have any others with me and don't know any of the other flavours (catholic version, which includes macabees etcetera). in reference to that, there were a myriad of different gospels, "first hand accounts", and doctrines introduced in the early days of the church, and it wasn't until The Ecumenical Councils (particularly the First Council of Nicea) that the church officially decided upon what was to be truth and what thrown out as heresy, in the process introducing quite a bit of new doctrine that had been invented since those early books had been written.

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When you consider the amount of time and other resources spent on religion and how it directly (and indirectly) influences the lives of billions of people through its influence on political ideology, then yes I say it's very important to decide whether He exists or not. (Although I guess it's more important to decide whether the holy scripts are true or not)

there is actually a fairly strong argument for the existence of religion being a positive influence on the world. yes, you can say whatever you like about crusades etc, but the primary driving factor behind those is always humans desiring for power or being bigotted against others, with their religions being used as a convenient excuse to continue acting that way. they would act out against their fellow humans regardless. yes, it may be true that it exacerbates it in some situations, but it's also true that religion is a calming, comforting influence in the lives of billions. studies have consistently shown that people who are able to convince themselves of the validity of some religion that offers a promise of an "ultimate purpose" for their lives are, on average, happier people than those who cannot.

how would it be a waste of your time to study the book that you believe holds the world's ultimate truths?

as for myself, it was studying the bible that led me to stop believing in it. i started out reading it believing exactly as you do, but, the more i read, the more obvious it seemed that it was not a contiguous whole but rather a big jumble of contradictory writings from hundreds of different authors. the jesus portrayed in the gospels is completely unlike the jesus described by his self-proclaimed disciple, paul. similarly, the world described in the old testament (complete with the Hades like She'ol etcetera) is completely unlike the one described by jesus, which, in turn is completely unlike the one described by paul, which, in turn, is completely unlike the one described by the catholic church and so on. there are little things all throughout as well, like jesus claiming that he would return before the last of his 12 disciples had died, that just don't work.

hehe, that would be pretty fun, actually, though i doubt it would ever work out. the problem is that it costs quite a bit; we'd have to have a fund-raising of some sort in advance rather than going out and ordering a bunch.

withg is already pretty heavily-laden. i don't think it would be a good idea to have it serving up several thousands of images constantly

yeah, we have a post limit to avoid people spamming things. you need to have at least 20 posts before you can add an attachment. i can't access mega with flash from my current location, but hopefully someone else can come along and attach it for you =)

also, it's nice to see people picking up and improving old things.