T w e n t y S i d e d
From The Archives:
The Gameplay is the Story
Some advice to game developers on how to stop ruining good stories with bad cutscenes.
Revisiting a Dead Engine
I wanted to take the file format of a late 90s shooter and read it in modern-day Unity. This is the result.
Zenimax vs. Facebook
This series explores the troubled history of VR and the strange lawsuit between Zenimax publishing and Facebook.
What is Vulkan?
There's a new graphics API in town. What does that mean, and why do we need it?
Silver Sable Sucks
This version of Silver Sable is poorly designed, horribly written, and placed in the game for all the wrong reasons.
Oh wow, that strip is how I discovered Shamus’ blog, I think. The last panel got posted to TvTropes.
I followed a link to the uncertainty lich from a different webcomic (I forget which one).
FWIW, I think this is one of the panels where the framing device of the roleplaying game kind of breaks down, and this is clearly Shamus taking a swipe at the movie itself.
Because otherwise… I mean, what is this even representing at the “players sitting around a table” level? Is the DM giving a long description of the orc army encircling them with Aragorn’s player occasionally interrupting with “wait for it”s? That doesn’t really fit their behavior.
It’s a fair point. This has always come off as riffing on the jokes about how “Aragorn” is bad at strategy and being a leader. If it was “in game” commentary I would think there would be constant narration about how the orc forces just keep growing, surrounding the party, etc.
Fair point.
I kind of chalk this up to the movie in general feeling very rushed towards the end. I get that they didn’t want to make a 4th movie, and the third was already approaching butt-pain lengths even in the comfiest cinema seats.
But given how long it took Frodo and Sam to get TO Mordor, the speed in which the movie rushes them through it (without even any visually implied time passing like camp scenes or montages) feels weirdly fast. Like Aragorn just tilted the entire country to make the orc soup flow to one side, and then the halflings power-stumble to Mount Doom inside of one battle’s worth of time.
I love the movies, but I wish almost everything between the Corsairs and Sauron exploding had been given more breathing space.
Anyway, I need to plan time for another rewatch…
“Excellent. We can now attack in any direction!”
A target rich environment.