Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Monday May 13, 2013

Filed under: Personal 79 comments

Next PostThe Twelve-Year Mistake Part 2: The Coder 

A disclaimer: This story is a bit of a downer in parts. I’m going to be talking about personal problems. I am NOT telling this story to try and generate pity or shake donations out of people. Remember that the stuff I’m talking about here happened years ago. I’m offering this account because other people might find it useful, instructive, or entertaining. We’re doing fine these days. Don’t worry. It’s cool.

Having said that, let’s jump back in time…

Boston

The offices where I worked in 2000. Swiped from Google Earth.

It’s midway through the year 2000. I’m 28 years old. Heather and I have been married three years. Rachel turns two this year. Our daughter Esther was just born. I’m about to make a large mistake. It will be eight years before I’ll grasp just how serious an error it is and it will take a good twelve years in total for the whole thing to play out. There are a lot of causes of the mistake. Even the causes have causes, which themselves have little tributaries of error and dysfunction. It’s complex enough that I’ll never be able to point to a single moment and say, “Here, this is where it all went wrong.”

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Twelve-Year Mistake Part 1: Boston”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 My Biggest FanPrevious Post

Next PostThe Twelve-Year Mistake Part 2: The Coder 

79 comments

Deadlight

By Shamus Posted Sunday May 12, 2013

Filed under: Game Reviews 69 comments

 Kerbal Space Program: Something DifferentPrevious Post

Next PostStarcraft 2: Story Time 

I said in the podcast that Deadlight felt like the old Prince of Persia. I meant that in both the positive and the negative sense. It’s got some wonderful, simple mechanics that lend themselves to interesting puzzles and rewarding play, but it’s also got some irritating design decisions that undermine that fun and turn puzzles into a teeth-grinding chore.

I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but this is yet another game I feel like I should love, but can’t.

The gist of the game is that it’s the zombie apocalypse, you’re a middle-aged guy with a hobo beard, and you’re looking for your family. The game is really a 2D platformer, although the scenes themselves have visual depth. You can see shadows (which are zombies, because apparently the new rule is that every game has to come up with a completely new replacement word for “zombie”) in the background, and sometimes they’ll lurch into the foreground and become involved with the 2D plane you’re trying to traverse.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Deadlight”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Kerbal Space Program: Something DifferentPrevious Post

Next PostStarcraft 2: Story Time 

69 comments

Diecast #12: Trolling Pirates, No Football for Wii, and Mailbag

By Shamus Posted Tuesday May 7, 2013

Filed under: Diecast 228 comments

 Diecast #11: Don't Starve, Thief Troubles, EA Layoffs, and Kotick's MillionsPrevious Post

Next PostDiecast #13: Star Wars Exclusive, Diablo III Integer Overflow 

This week we carefully adjusted the schedule to allow for a mailbag segment. And then we squandered all of it talking about a game we haven’t played on a console most of us don’t own in a genre we don’t care about.

Download MP3 File
Download Ogg Vorbis File

00:45 What’s everyone playing?

Rutskarn is playing Brà¼tal Legend and reading REAMDE.Josh is playing Stardrive.

Chris is playing Theme Hospital and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

Shamus is playing Brà¼tal Legend and Deadlight.

26:00 DRM via irony.

The creator of Game Developer Tycoon uploaded a version of his game to the torrents where you can’t win because people always pirate your games.I mentioned an Escapist article where someone confessed they used to pirate games and never play them, but I can’t find the dang thing. If anyone remembers it, please put the link in the comments. It was a really interesting article and rang really true for me, since I knew people who did this sort of thing for years.

39:00 Madden football not coming to the Wii U this year.

57:00 Mailbag

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Diecast #11: Don't Starve, Thief Troubles, EA Layoffs, and Kotick's MillionsPrevious Post

Next PostDiecast #13: Star Wars Exclusive, Diablo III Integer Overflow 

228 comments

Experienced Points: Reviving The Classics

By Shamus Posted Tuesday May 7, 2013

Filed under: Column 97 comments

 Experienced Points: Lucasarts Games that Deserve Another ShotPrevious Post

Next PostExperienced Points: Violent Videogames are Awesome 

Last week I answered the question, “What Lucasarts games would you like to revive?” This week I ask, “Uh, what exactly do you mean by ‘revive’?” This entire conversation has also made me aware of just how flexible the term “classic” is. Like some people – young people I’m sure – think of games from 2004 as “old”. Man, I’ve still got some 2004 games on my “play soon” list.

Of course, this entire conversation is now irrelevant because it’s been announced that EA now has a franchise-wide exclusive lock on all things Star Wars. The only way we’re getting a new X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter game is if we get an Army of Two knockoff starring a couple of dudebros named XWing and TieFighter.

I’m not bitter*, I’m just saying it’s true.

* This is a lie. I am totally bitter about this.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Experienced Points: Lucasarts Games that Deserve Another ShotPrevious Post

Next PostExperienced Points: Violent Videogames are Awesome 

97 comments

The Bug is, There is no Bug

By Shamus Posted Monday May 6, 2013

Filed under: Programming 80 comments

 Coding Style Part 4Previous Post

Next PostStarcraft 2: Rush Analysis 

I’ve mentioned before that I used to make comics using a program I wrote myself. I wrote Comic Press back in 2007 or so, back when I still worked at Activeworlds. When I left the company, I left behind the nice professional version of Developer Studio 6 that came with the job. That was my programming environment of choice, and I have to admit that it was an admirable piece of software. How many other commercial software products are still working fine twelve years later? Not many, I’d wager. Well, maybe server-side. But the turnover rate is usually pretty high for stuff used by individuals. Doubly so for stuff from Microsoft.

I switched over to using Visual Studio Express 2010, which is actually twelve years newer, but missing some key features. (The two programs are of the same product line and lineage. Microsoft just re-branded Developer Studio to Visual Studio at some point.) So I went from using a very old but feature-rich toolset to a modern but stripped-down version. The key feature I lost was the ability to use resource files. In the world of Microsoft, resource files are containers for dialog interfaces, menus, and window layouts. You design a dialog box in a nice little drag-and-drop interface, and then use it in your program. Visual Studio Express (the “express” edition is the stripped-down version for freeloaders like me) can’t use resource files. The result was that I could no longer compile Comic Press.

If I ever wanted to make any changes to Comic Press, I’d have to strip out all the resource file usage and painstakingly re-create the dialogs in code. That’s a lot of hassle, so I never bothered. The existing version of Comic Press did everything I needed it to, so I just backed up the source code and forgot all about it.

Then I moved to Windows 7, and Comic Press broke.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Bug is, There is no Bug”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Coding Style Part 4Previous Post

Next PostStarcraft 2: Rush Analysis 

80 comments

Starcraft 2: Moonglade vs. Knight Light

By Shamus Posted Saturday May 4, 2013

Filed under: Video Games 112 comments

 Deus Ex SpeedrunPrevious Post

Next PostHow I Came to own Starcraft 2 

I don’t pay a lot of attention to the Starcraft 2 scene, but once in a while the mood takes me and I watch a couple of pro-league games. Here is one from late last year that’s probably the best Starcraft game I’ve ever watched. I just discovered it this afternoon and I thought I’d share. Maybe you need to be familiar with the scene to appreciate just how crazy this game is, but the players spend about half an hour in a state where it feels like the game could end at any second.

The full match is just short of an hour, and the whole battle seemed to be balanced on the edge of a knife until the very end. This is pretty unusual when your typical league game is about 15 or 20 minutes, and the winner is often clear the the audience after just 10.

Link (YouTube)

For reference:

The pink-haired guy is Knight Light. (Or Knightlight, knightlite, Knightlife, or whatever. In-game he’s just “Knight”, but the commenters call him Knightlight.) He’s down in the lower right corner playing the red Terran.

The guy in the red hoodie is Moonblade. (Or Moonglade? I dunno. What the game says in the chat doesn’t match what it says at the top or what the announcers say.) He’s in the upper left, playing blue Zerg.

And here is part 2:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Starcraft 2: Moonglade vs. Knight Light”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Deus Ex SpeedrunPrevious Post

Next PostHow I Came to own Starcraft 2 

112 comments

Surgeon Simulator 2013: Josh’s Medschool Exam

By Shamus Posted Thursday May 2, 2013

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 130 comments

 Dishonored EP21: The Fight at the EndPrevious Post

Next PostBioshock EP1: Andrew Ryan's Pipe Dream 

Link (YouTube)

One interesting controversy about this game was that apparently some people were upset over the name. They saw “Surgeon Simulator 2013″ and expected it to be, you know, a simulation. It’s like calling the 80’s classic Rampage, “Sim City”. The game began as a goof – a flash based web game where the name of the game was part of the joke. But when you’re looking at a game in the context of a store, your assumptions change and a lot of people don’t expect the titale of a game to be ironic, hyperbolic, or absurdist.

It wasn’t a big controversy or anything. It was more like a few unhappy comments. But I thought the confusion as a result of a change in context was interesting.

Back in the very early 90’s I did play a real surgeon simulation. I don’t remember the name, but I do remember it was HARD. Your first surgery is an appendectomy, and the game expected you to be able to locate and extract the appendix without carving up the patient like a Christmas ham. I failed on my first three tries because I was just a few inches off, and after cutting and fiddling around for a long time I’d finally get in there and find out I didn’t have the right angle to extract the appendix. (Cutting a second incision would immediately end the operation with a message that another doctor was taking over.)

So now we have two games that feature point-and-click surgery. That makes it a genre!

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Dishonored EP21: The Fight at the EndPrevious Post

Next PostBioshock EP1: Andrew Ryan's Pipe Dream 

130 comments

OLDER POSTS



From The Archives:

Boston

What Does a Robot Want?

Object-Disoriented Programming

Self-Balancing Gameplay

Do It Again, Stupid

Crysis 2

Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis

The Witch Watch

Bowlercoaster

Deus Ex and The Treachery of Labels

Good Robot Dev Blog