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Douglas Adams and Michael Jackson | Farbs.org

I got sick of carrying Civilian #14 to Station #147 (run by Civilian #2), so I decided to start naming things. I had hoped to generate names algorithmically, but after a couple of hours I realized I didnt want to populate the world with people named Tiniett, Ter, and Evirlis. Instead I figured I’d just build combinations of common first and last names, with name and distribution data drawn from the US census. I used 1960s baby names since these people would be in their 20s-30s at the time of the game’s setting (currently 1990). I plonked the name recombinator into a test harness and churned out a hundred results, among which I found the names of a brilliant science fiction author and a recently deceased popstar. Whoops.

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7 Comments » for Douglas Adams and Michael Jackson
  1. Alehkhs says:

    Now for the decision: the random face-generator of Elite II: Frontier, or the low-grade “com-videos” of Frontier: First Encounters…?

    When can we expect to start working as space cabbies?

  2. Farbs says:

    Luckily the passenger reflection is so damned blurry I can probably do a cheap face gen from photographs.

    Current ETA is December – I have a lot more I want to do with this.

  3. Vaconcovat says:

    Ooh, we get to see our passengers?

    Tell me, do we get more than one at a time and to they pay?

  4. Quintilian says:

    *Loves Douglas Adams*

    For all I care you can also bring along the name of the Paranoid Android; Marvin! *Favourite*

  5. Laremere says:

    “Whoops”?

    I would more readily say “Woot”

    At any rate it shows it’s generating realistic names.

  6. Captain Darkshadow says:

    Cool, how are you going to name the stations though?

  7. Vaconcovat says:

    wait, wait, wait. This game is set in the 90’s?