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Author Topic: Help finding a simple random-interval "alert" app or program?  (Read 1215 times)

Offline FramFramson

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 10681
  • But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back
Okay, I'm looking for a rather weird widget/app to use to guide some game stuff for a game run off my computer (yes, yes, I know, not tabletop...) and I dunno if anyone has any suggestions or ideas?

Basically, I need random natural disasters to occur in a game. I can do everything myself by just rolling dice and using a table for the who/how/why/where stuff, but because I'm playing I can't just decide "Okay, let's have a disaster now!" whenever I feel like it. I can't pre-roll an interval because I'd still have to look at the result and know when it's coming. and I don't want to be constantly rolling long-shot chances, so those are out too.

What I need is a program I can run off my PC concurrent with the game stuff, which will just sound a brief alarm or some clearly audible noise (since other stuff - reference spreadsheets, game software, etc. - will fill the screen), which I can then use as a prompt to go use the table to figure out the what/where/who stuff. The random interval should be anywhere from maybe 20 minutes to maybe 50 hours. I'll probably want to tweak it a bit if it's too frequent/infrequent... game works in pseudo real-time (unless paused for me to run stuff, etc.) and time scale is roughly 15:1 game:real life and I want to trigger events which range in potential interval from a day to a couple months.

Any ideas?


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Offline Elbows

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 9451
Re: Help finding a simple random-interval "alert" app or program?
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2016, 12:07:21 PM »
Could you actually use a weather app to do this?  Ie. pick a location (or several if you want to increase the frequency) and find a way to get genuine weather alarms?  When the weather alarm goes off you generate your event?  It would be ideal if you could locate a handful of places with volatile weather systems --- when they have a flood warning or a tornado warning it would generate an alarm to your phone/computer and you could use that?

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Offline Jerekin

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 45
Re: Help finding a simple random-interval "alert" app or program?
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2016, 12:09:57 PM »
I'd say use a random number generator like http://www.zufallsgenerator.net/. t

Enter the minutes you want to play / max Intervall time. Then roll for the first event, then for the second, etc.. Write down your seed and then use an egg timer on a smartphone. There you set the countdowns and name them accordingly. If your lucky you can even use special event sounds for each alarm. You just have to download a fitting background noise for example a ravaging fire as mp3 from Youtube with a tool like http://convert2mp3.net/ and let it "ring" as long as you want.

If you have no smartphone, there would be alarm apps for pc as well I think, just google.

If you want something "hidden" full auto. I'd say program.

Maybe check these links out: https://www.google.de/search?q=rpg+random+event+generatoe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=BbxzV9TZOqqK8Qf1vJS4Cw#q=rpg+random+event+generator

« Last Edit: June 29, 2016, 12:31:06 PM by Jerekin »

Offline FramFramson

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 10681
  • But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back
Re: Help finding a simple random-interval "alert" app or program?
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2016, 06:15:51 PM »
I want to stress that I don't want to roll the event or set an egg timer or do anything else myself whereby I would know the event is coming, because I am participating. The timing of event generation needs to be out of my hands to be both fair and interesting.

The weather app is actually a really interesting idea, but I think that would be too unreliable and certainly I can't tweak that if it's too frequent/infrequent.

Maybe check these links out: https://www.google.de/search?q=rpg+random+event+generatoe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=BbxzV9TZOqqK8Qf1vJS4Cw#q=rpg+random+event+generator

So I clicked on the first link in there, some page called Troll Mystic, and it seemed like an innocuous RPG random event generator, not what I'm looking for but I clicked it to have a look. The first go generated some generic events like "Robbery" "beggar" "Building condemned", etc. The second time I got "genital crushing".  :o

Other specifically RPG-oriented sites don't seem to have anything based in real-time. What I need is something like this phone app: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/random-timer/9nblggh0jw0h, which is perfect EXCEPT it's only for Windows phones (haha), wwhich I do not have and need something that can run on my PC and not my phone.

Problem is that adding 'PC' to search strings for programs like this gives a whole bunch of links to idiots who're getting random alarms on their computer because said computer is infected with malware or viruses, as well as a few links to sites that *seem* to have something like this, but which do not uh... "appear trustworthy" shall we say.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2016, 06:36:11 PM by FramFramson »

Offline FramFramson

  • Elder God
  • Posts: 10681
  • But maybe everything that dies, someday comes back
Re: Help finding a simple random-interval "alert" app or program?
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2016, 08:43:40 PM »
A friend suggested this: http://www.fungie.info/bell/#, which should do perfectly!

I guess this is sorted then.  :D

Offline Jerekin

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 45
Re: Help finding a simple random-interval "alert" app or program?
« Reply #5 on: July 01, 2016, 04:42:49 PM »
Well, after reading your post a second time. It makes all sense, my bad. I should try to read (and post) properly... ... and improve my english as well.

I could swear that I found a customizable program under those google keywords though.

Whatever, glad that you found a good solution that fast that works for you.

Just one thing. What's this game about. I was kinda fast off the track assuming your talking about an rpg.

Cheers,

Jere

 

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