Just a Game is now available !…

The science-fiction novel “Just a Game” is now available.

The e-book is already available on several platforms. Here’s a page with the direct links : https://books2read.com/u/box8xL . It should be available everywhere within a few days.

Please note that, since I reside in China, it seems I cannot publish e-books on Amazon and Google Play. I’m still looking into Amazon right now, but from what I understood, I won’t be able to publish it on there.

I haven’t made it available on US-only platforms. (However, it is not geo-restricted).

The printed book should be available in a matter of days. It should be available everywhere, even Amazon.

I’ve posted the first chapter of the novel here : https://melina-j.me/just-a-game-chapter-1-v3/ . I’ve updated it today with the final corrected version.

So yeah… ^_^

Just a game, chapter 1, corrected…

Here is the corrected version of chapter 1 of Just a Game.

Edited on 27 March 2025 with the final corrected chapter.

 

CHAPTER 1

Oceane was sitting by the lake, beneath the shade of a large willow tree. When she was younger, it was her favourite spot to gather her thoughts or just admire the view and relax. Being here was helping her dive back into her memories. Those simple times now seemed so distant. Before… Before it all started. Long before the Great Nap happened. When will they all wake up? The city was silent and deserted now. Asleep…

She was recalling that one evening, when she was seventeen. During dinner, she asked her dad about his job. He dodged all her questions, as usual. Every time she asked, he merely gave vague answers, claiming it was not interesting. The most he ever said was that his job consisted of monitoring, making sure there was no downtime, debugging, and doing all kinds of boring tasks.

Oceane’s dad was a programmer. He worked for both simulations. He always assumed that when Oceane asked about his job, she meant the hangout simulation, and that, like virtually everybody who had asked him before, she believed he was having a lot of fun at work. Moreover, many young people dreamed of becoming a simulation idol, and that was what they had in mind when asking about working at the hangout simulation. His job, however, was less about glitz and glamour and more about code and debugging.

The hangout simulation was a virtual world where people from the four corners of the universe could spend time together and enjoy all kinds of activities, like ice skating, skydiving, or attending digital concerts, and even play out a virtual life. It was fun. Oceane had been connecting since she was fourteen and had made some friends there. She also had a cute boyfriend whom her parents didn’t know about.

“It’s not for real,” the boyfriend often said. “It’s just a game, a simulation. It’s not real life.”

Oceane wasn’t happy about this. To her, it was real. She was young and didn’t know any better.

What was really piquing her imagination and interest, though, was the other thing her dad was coding for: the historical simulation. People weren’t allowed to play with that one. It was for historical and archiving purposes. Oceane couldn’t understand why it wasn’t open to the public or why this type of knowledge wasn’t shared with everyone. Her dad would simply answer that he didn’t know and that he wasn’t the one to decide.

She figured this topic wasn’t welcome either. She had been scolded once for questioning what seemed to be a paradoxical statement about some historical events and people. She couldn’t understand why the teacher had reacted that way, but it taught her to keep things to herself or search online. She would also save her questions for when she visited her grandparents. Where they lived, things were more laid-back, and people weren’t scolded for merely trying to understand. It wasn’t just a different planet; it was really a different world.

Oceane didn’t like history. She dreaded those “lessons about wars and dates to memorise.” She made it clear every time her parents wanted her to watch a history program: “It’s always the same! They fight and kill everybody for questionable reasons. War is bad; we get it. It’s so boring.”

On the contrary, she was fond of anthropology and had already decided it would be her field of study at university. Anthropology is different from history; it’s about the people, the tangible reality of their daily routines, their beliefs, and how they celebrated life in general. She was deeply fascinated by extinct civilisations and their cultures. That’s why she was so curious about the historical simulation. She often imagined all the things she could do with it, how it would allow her to virtually recreate life as it was in these ancient societies. It would definitely be the best way to experiment and further her studies. She already had a specific project in mind, for which she had secretly been learning how to code. Little did her dad know about this.

“What about the historical simulation? What do you do there?” Oceane asked her dad.

“I’m not usually onsite, but I regularly go for code maintenance. It’s all automated; I only need to make sure everything runs smoothly. Unless there’s an issue. In that case, we’re expected to show up immediately when we’re called in. The server administrator, he doesn’t mess around.”

“But what if it stops working for an hour? It’s not like the hangout simulation; no one is inside it. Why does it matter?”

“Because it would create bugs and inaccuracies. The simulation calculates and interprets data. Any system downtime can cause errors that would render the whole calculation void. The purpose of the historical simulation is to understand how things got to this point and to ensure these bad things will never happen again. Nuclear wars… It will take thousands of years for the radiation to no longer pose a health risk and for these planets to become habitable again. Yet they wouldn’t stop, until they completely extincted other populations and themselves.”

“I was thinking…” Oceane said, “for my graduation paper… I would like it to be about the historical simulation.”

“The historical simulation? Are you sure?” he replied, surprised.

“Yes. It would be great if you could take me to visit…”

He looked bothered.

“Well, I don’t think I can bring you with me to work, but they frequently organise tours. I’ll ask when the next one is scheduled. You should be allowed to join.”

“That would be perfect!” she exclaimed, overjoyed.

***

Oceane was tormented by all these memories. She often wondered how things would have been if she had never gone to the historical simulation. Yet, she had no regrets. Love… and the people she met there. It was all worth it.

The Great Nap happened much later, decades after the chaos she had created and the events that followed. It would have happened either way. All because of that evil man. He was more evil than his dad ever was.

 

 

Merry Christmas !…

Wishing everybody a merry Christmas !

I know how you all love the Aywutyr, so to celebrate today, here’s episode 6 of the Aywutyr (from 2020).  :-)  Animation is made to be watched, not just kept on some storage device. Even though there will not be a season 2 per se, the Aywutyr will definitely pop up from time to time in the future…

 

Resonance…

 

I’ve recorded in French, as it was originally not meant to be a vlog, but since everybody is as curious as I am now, I’m posting it. I’m basically explaining that the cranes are definitely part of the resonance I can hear from my flat, in addition with the excavator which is at the opposite side (my building is more or less in the middle).

The last part of the video is what I could hear from the opposite side (at ground level) of the cranes, more or less at equal distance. (That is to say, distance from my building to the cranes = distance from the cranes to where I was this afternoon, but behind it). It’s the same noise, but in high tones, while I hear deep tones in my flat. It’s really confusing.

The noise has been gradually fading away for the past few days. The start of the week was something, though. It was really unbearable and made my ears have this very strong vibrating sensation. I can still hear it, but it’s less dramatic now. It’s still making this annoying vibration in my ears from time to time.

The fact it’s fading is even more confusing. Part of the resonance was definitely the excavator, along with the trucks, which I can also hear as a normal noise when they leave and come back. But it really seems that the main noise was the cranes, which are moved to different spots, I guess, but remain around the building, in a fixed place. The buildings look finished, they’re putting the tiles and windows now. They’ve been building it for a year and a half, and apart from a few times last year, I didn’t hear that resonance at all. That’s really odd.

I feel like we’d need the Jamy guy (from French tv) to explain like we’re 5, because it’s such a mind blowing phenomenon. I can hear clearly both the trucks and excavators and the cranes, but when I open the window, most of the time, there’s no noise at all. It’s also not very noticeable day time, seems to stop around 17h, but becomes very loud around 22h-23h (and happens all night long). It’s odd as they seem to be doing the same things around the clock. Some nights when I open the window, I can hear the high pitch noise, but other nights, I only hear the resonance.

I’m really confused right now, as I looked out my window and the cranes lights are off. There is no way they’re working in the dark. But the noise is back, just like everyday for the past week and it started around 22h tonight. Is that just the excavator ? Is it something else ? Did I miss something ? Are the cranes making more noise when they’re idle and off ? How ? I kind of want to know (and to stop too tbh). This is just so weird.

 

 

Published
Categorized as Videos

By the lake…

 

Edit : I’ve edited the video; I removed the sound (the airplane noise). I want this video to reflect the quietness by the lake…

video url

https://vlogeur.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/vlogs-2024/by-the-lake-v2.mp4

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It’s the dog that I brought with me to the lake, not my laptop. I have been proofreading “Just a game” in the recent weeks, though. The first 2/3 of the novel is good to go. Well, allegedly, since it always seems there’s something to improve. I don’t think it will be published before the end of the year; I need to finish proofreading it, and also make an art cover, which I’ve started to draw, but is not finished yet. For legal reasons, it won’t be a picture of this lake here. I didn’t feel like attempting to draw a willow tree in Blender, even though particle system should be lighter on my cpu and gpu than whatever I did last time with the flowers that broke my old computer, so I opted for something else…

I’ve rewritten a few chapters (21 and 32). The overall story remains the same, but some smaller storylines are different. I’ve clarified some things and changed some details. There will be 49 chapters as I’ve decided to break chapter 36 into 2 chapters, which I’ve reworded a lot.

I’ll try to make more videos and not completely disappear.

I did stumble on “a bit” of propylene glycol recently and had to take a short break, but I’m feeling better now. Thank you all for your concern.

Published
Categorized as Videos

Maybe later…

Note that there’s a tiny spoiler in this video (towards the end), if you haven’t read the novels yet, you might want to skip it.

The sound gets better after 1mn.

 

Well, in my preview, the video player is responsive and vertical. But in the blog post, it’s not. Maybe it’s because I’ve tweaked the code ? I’ll look into this, at some point. On computer, you can watch the video full screen if you find the player too small. Here’s the direct video url. On phones, it plays vertically, although not full screen (my video is 16:9 anyway), but if you tap on full screen, it’ll switch to horizontal.

video url

https://vlogeur.oss-eu-central-1.aliyuncs.com/vlogs-2024/ai-and-stuff.mp4

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Published
Categorized as Videos

Adding and removing…

I’ve posted a few videos on my Tiktok page : https://tiktok.com/@realmelinaj . The videos are also watchable on computers and you don’t need an account. Random videos will be uploaded from times to times.

I’ve already replaced the debian package of the Cymellia Calculator with the corrected one. It was just a matter of name of the software in the title bar, nothing else has been changed. You can download it from the Cymellia website : http://cymellia.me/blog .

 

I might make the novels “Just a game” and “A bottle in the ocean” available on e-book platforms (such as Amazon) in the near future, if possible. Since it will be available on e-book platforms, I will remove the novels from my blog. I’ll let you finish reading or re-reading. I’ll remove them in 3 weeks. Let’s say October 12th.

I’m going to start the process of improving the grammar very soon. It takes a lot of time. The story will remain the same, but I’m trying to improve the grammar. For example, I am not really happy about the wording in the last chapter of “Just a game”, I struggled to put it into words the way I wanted, and I still think it could be described better.

 

If I don’t post anything for a while, it would be because I’m busy doing things. ^_^