People emailed us a bunch of questions, so we talked for a long time until they were all answered.
Link (YouTube) |
Show notes:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #315: Mailbag Clearinghouse”
BD-1 and Cal are on the tutorial planet Bogano. There’s some sort of ruin / temple in the distance, and Cal figures that’s where he’s supposed to go. We get the rest of our tutorials out of the way, fight some local wildlife, and do some extremely gentle puzzles.
These levels are interesting. While the traversal system is very much in the lineage of Prince of Persia / Uncharted / Tomb Raider, this game sets itself apart with its sheer verticality and complexity. The Tomb Raider games usually feature a linear path through an environment. They might branch a bit for cul-de-sacs with secrets, and sometimes you’ll climb up or down, but the main path can usually be visualized in a straightforward manner.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Jedi Fallen Order Part 5: Crazy Cordova”
The trailer for the upcoming Gotham Knights dropped last week. It leads off with a video of Bruce Wayne saying, “If you’re watching this, I’m dead.” As of this writing, there are about 11,000 comments on that video and the vast majority of them are some variation of, “Yeah suuure he is. I’ll believe it when we see the body.”
But while I’m sure everyone is correct and the most profitable superhero of all time is still alive, I think it’s safe to say that the Batman I loved – The ARKHAM Batman – is super-dead.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Gotham Knights: Batman is Dead”
My plan was to do as many mailbag questions as possible, but then Paul asked about my programmingAnd he only did so because I put it in the topic list. and I spent half of this episode talking about coding, gamedev, and Blender.
Also, I should warn you that I was running on half-brainpower because I am once again giving up caffeine. I was a bit of a stumble-brain during the show. Please pretend you noticed so I don’t have to worry that I’m actually this stupid all the time.
Link (YouTube) |
Once the bad guys have killed Prauf and blind luckDid I say “blind luck”? My mistake. I meant “The Force”. saved Cal from picking a fight he can’t possibly win, we end up in an Uncharted-style set-piece chase sequence. Cal has to make his way to the front of a speeding train while a fighter ship flies by and pounds the train with blaster fire. Inside the train he’s got stormtroopers shooting at himThis is the lightsaber vs. trooper combat tutorial. and on the outside he has to contend with the ever-changing geography of this train as it gradually disintegrates from the attack. Eventually we wind up with cars hanging the wrong way off the track, forcing Cal to continually improvise. There’s also another ship in the area, flying close and trying to help him, but he doesn’t know who they are or how they fit into this chaos.
The whole thing is really impressive. I imagine scenes like this are where a lot of those lavish EA dollars got spent.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Jedi Fallen Order Part 4: Buddy Droid One”
So Epic Games is in the news again. This time they’ve picked a fight with Apple and Google. That’s fine. Both companies are very worthy targets, but I don’t have much else to say about the lawsuit itself. This story is evolving by the day, and I make videos much too slowly to keep up with fast-paced stories like this.
The interesting thing is Epic’s Nineteen-Eighty Fortnite campaign, which tries to rally users to their cause. They even have the #FreeFortnite hashtag, but it’s not about making Fortnite free for us, it’s about making the Apple store free to use for Fortnite.
This is not the first time the company has tried to frame simple corporate business tactics as something brave or heroic.
I don’t know Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and even though I disagree with him on many things, I don’t have anything personally against him. But whether he intends it or not, the way he carries himself on social media makes it feel like he thinks he’s the hero because other people are worse. It actually reminds me of Jack from the Borderlands series:
Jack will do something self-serving and deeply frustrating to people and then assume he’s the hero because some of his foes are bad actors, and then he acts like everyone should worship his “heroics”.
Link (YouTube) |
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Epic is Not the Hero”
Well, this is mildly terrifying. This will either be the last year of my life that I spend under 50, or the last year of my life. I’m not excited by either prospect.
In the younger days of this site I had lots of stories about my personal life. These days it feels like all of my personal anecdotes are health-related.
“Man, I’m having a great day! My knees hurt less than usual, I nearly got a full night of sleep, my blood pressure is down from “life-threatening” to “a serious problem”, and I’m gaining weight slower than I was yesterday. I figure if I watch my meds and eat only salads, I can probably survive to the end of the week!”
I’m kidding, I’m kidding.
I never have days that good anymore.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Ding 49!”
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2012.
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
The product of fandom run unchecked, this novel began as a short story and grew into something of a cult hit.
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2015.
There are two major schools of thought about how you should write software. Here's what they are and why people argue about it.
An attempt to make a good looking cityscape with nothing but simple tricks and a few rectangles of light.
A videogame that judges its audience, criticizes its genre, and hates its premise. How did this thing get made?
I teach myself music composition by imitating the style of various videogame soundtracks. How did it turn out? Listen for yourself.
A long-form analysis on one of the greatest horror games ever made.
Some advice to game developers on how to stop ruining good stories with bad cutscenes.
T w e n t y S i d e d
