T w e n t y S i d e d
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “#43 The Gift that Keeps on Giving”
#43 The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Spider-Man Part 22: Exposition Central
Let’s back up a bit and talk about a scene that takes place at the height of the city-wide crisis, before Spider-Man defeats Electro, Vulture, Scorpion, and Rhino. We get a moment where Spider-Man shows up to a burning building to save Miles and Aunt may. One thing leads to another, and MJ and Miles end up saving Spider-Man. Then our three heroes gather on the roof to process what’s going on in the city. It’s a great scene that allows MJ and Spider-Man to reconcile and gives some character development to Miles. This is the first time we’ve had all three of our hero characters togetherTechnically they all attended the Osborn rally, but they hadn’t been introduced at that point. and now we get to see them bond and make plans.
It’s also a bit of a funny scene because Spider-Man and MJ have to pretend to be casual acquaintances instead of an ex-couple. Miles is charming, eager, and a little star-struck.
Spider-Man thanks MJ for saving his life, and she turns it around by pointing out how often he’s saved hers. It’s pretty clear that this bugs her. Yes, maybe Spider-Man is a touch overprotective, but maybe she’s a little overly defensive about it and maybe this partnership would work better if they both relaxed a little. I know I keep saying this, but I really like this new take on the characters and I find this dynamic so much more interesting than the original version of the relationship between down-on-his-luck Peter Parker and his wealthy glamorous supermodel actress wife.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Spider-Man Part 22: Exposition Central”
Procgen Flag-Ship
You may have noticed that the same vessel has been showing up a lot in the past few articles. This isn’t because I’m lazy. Well, no, that’s not true. It isn’t entirely because I’m lazy. It’s also because I spent months developing this particular vessel some years backThe Fall of 2012, and it would be a waste to not use it to demonstrate some of the principles I’m talking about, and improve the design, all at the same time!
I’ve been calling it the “Tramp Destroyer” because, hmm, where to start.
Visual Inspiration
I saw a piece of barkfrom a pine tree, I think lying on the ground and thought to myself “that looks an awful lot like a spaceship.”I never properly captured the layers. I’ll have to try again some time
So I picked it up and took it home and did some sketches.
There! No more starfields! You happy Jeff?
Well, not “sketches”. Just the one sketch. Look, I was eager to get started 3-d modeling! So that’s what I did. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Procgen Flag-Ship”
Diecast #266: Psychological Manipulation in Mobile Games, Picard, Cloud Storage
Here is an hour of two people talking about various things. I’m led to believe these sorts of recordings are popular and useful.
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #266: Psychological Manipulation in Mobile Games, Picard, Cloud Storage”
42: The Next Best Thing
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “42: The Next Best Thing”
Baldur’s Gate III: Partying Like It’s 1998
I will now present to you an extremely abridged history of PC role-playing games:
Once upon a time, there was tabletop role playing, and it’s most famous example, Dungeons and Dragons. The hobby grew out of the tabletop wargaming hobby. In these early days, there was no conventional wisdom yet about what a tabletop RPG should be, and the genre took off into a dozen different disparate directions. Some faded away, while others became mini-traditions of their own.
In such an environment, trying to guess what a critical mass of potential customers actually want is partly an exercise in guesswork, and partly an exercise in trial and error. TSR (it’s publisher) put D&D through a refinement process, resulting in several different versions of the game. I won’t go into this in too much detail, partly because I don’t really know it. But the first “edition wars” sprung up over these different versions of tabletop roleplaying’s flagship franchaise.
When you're rolling your stats, this is the screen you'll see for a split second before you hit 'reroll' again one too many times.
Looking back now, I see this as an iterative process. TSR (or later, Wizards of the Coast) would put out a new version, wait for the community’s opinion to coalesce enough that you can locate a center, then start working on the next version. This process, while not exactly democratic, was at least democracy-adjacent. The community and the developers worked together as well as they could manage to collectively wrangle into the light what exactly it was we all wanted this thing of ours to be.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Baldur’s Gate III: Partying Like It’s 1998”
#41 The Forces of Stuff I Found in my Desk
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “#41 The Forces of Stuff I Found in my Desk”
From The Archives:
The Biggest Game Ever
How did this niche racing game make a gameworld so massive, and why is that a big deal?
Fixing Match 3
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
Was it a Hack?
A big chunk of the internet went down in October of 2016. What happened? Was it a hack?
Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
I'm not surprised a fighting game has an absurd story. I just can't figure out why they bothered with the story at all.
Stolen Pixels
A screencap comic that poked fun at videogames and the industry. The comic has ended, but there's plenty of archives for you to binge on.
Denuvo and the "Death" of Piracy
Denuvo videogame DRM didn't actually kill piracy, but it did stop it for several months. Here's what we learned from that.
DM of the Rings
Both a celebration and an evisceration of tabletop roleplaying games, by twisting the Lord of the Rings films into a D&D game.
Gamers Aren’t Toxic
This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.
Spec Ops: The Line
A videogame that judges its audience, criticizes its genre, and hates its premise. How did this thing get made?
The Best of 2019
I called 2019 "The Year of corporate Dystopia". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.