Link (YouTube) |
The scenes with David are really hard for me to watch. This stuff with unjust, overbearing, sanctimonious adults in positions of power is a little too real for me. I’m kinda glad I skipped this game now. I give the game full marks for being emotionally affecting, but these aren’t really emotions I care to feel.
I am no longer the sole regular contributor to this site, so I really ought to discuss things with my blogging roommates before I make any sweeping changes. But I didn’t. I guess I figured it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Changing the site theme is always controversial. I don’t think I’ve ever made a change that didn’t get at least some push-back. But this is a big one, and I expect we’ll have a bit of a shake-out period.
For those of you reading this site from the future, this is what the site looked like yesterday, and this is what it looked like after the switch.
Important changes…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “New Site Theme”
Link (YouTube) |
We already gave our answers in the show, but I’m curious what everyone else thinks: This game featured fewer puzzles in the later chapters. Do you think this is due to general corner-cutting, or was it a deliberate response to the player base?
Is clumsily knocking things over supposed to be a major theme in this game? In this episode alone Max broke the snowglobe, dropped the pictures into the oil, and dropped that gizmo behind the washer. Also, there was the anecdote about knocking over the wine bottle.
Batman descends into Old Gotham to look for Ra’s Al Ghul. Well, I guess this is Old Old Gotham, since Arkham City itself is already built from Old Gotham. The city is a bit young to have this many archaeological layers, but comic book gonna comic book.
There’s some puzzles and travel and combat and other tomfoolery. At the end Batman is barely holding it together. The toxins are catching up with him.
Batman was dosed with Titan formula at the end of the last game and came out unscathed. Joker has endured this stuff in his blood for months and only now is it really getting to him. Batman got a diluted dose via Joker’s blood a few hours ago and already he’s in worse shape than Joker.
There’s actually an explanation for why the toxin seems to be so inconsistent. The explanation is, “It’s a videogame based on a comic book.”
The Joker Toxin has been wearing him down over the past hour or so. The game even lowers Batman’s max health. I’m glad his weakness is reflected in gameplay and not confined to cutscenes. Also, this is a good way to gently increase the difficulty without needing to introduce new foes. Remember that this is a game where it’s possible to get through an entire fight without taking a scratch. The game is just being a little less forgiving about how many mistakes you can make in a fight.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Arkham City Part 13: Old Old Gotham”
Link (YouTube) |
I think our different reactions to Warren are kind of interesting. Chris and I both feel like Warren represents some earlier, terrible version of ourselves. Chris feels sorry for Warren, but I get mad / frustrated at him. To be clear, when I joke about bullying him I’m not saying I’d actually enjoy hurting him. It’s more that he’s sort of this embodiment of a lot of embarassing moments in my life and I’d love to destroy those moments. It’s not that I want to kick Warren’s ass, but I would like to kick the ass of what he represents.
Being middle aged sucks in terms of health and comfort, but it really is nice to not go through life burning some new humiliation into my memory every week or so.
No one ever said it was a soft life in this nan’s Caribbean(!). This isn’t London, where you can converse safely in the street without fear of splicing through a cheese shop. This is a crucible where the truly ragged and desperate lose their health, their sanity, and sometimes their lives to build great fortunes. So when it comes time for mainland aristocrat to drop by and collect said fortunes, it pays to be wary of the local hazards, like wild pigs and coconut crabs and the mobs of righteous poor who want to beat the piss out of them.
As someone quite recently indentured, I understand the socioeconomic arguments for giving all those shot-silk custard-sucking bastards a kicking. Unfortunately, I’m too broke to join in. So I’m playing the other side of the market.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Nan o’ War CH8: Yohojimbo”
Pseudoku is not going well. Part of the problem is that I’m busy with other stuff and I’m only working on this for a few hours a week. The more serious problem is that I’m still having strange compatibility problems that have no business cropping up in a project so simple. I’d be upset about this, but it’s not really hurting me right now. The project is stalled on the other end – the business end. I couldn’t possibly explain the whole stupid story here, but the short version is:
The problem isn’t that you can’t solve this. The problem is that there are a hundred apparent solutions. (Different banks. Different forms. Pay someone to do this for us.) Finding the one solution that will waste the least time and money is the problem.
Part of the confusion is that it’s really hard to parse some of these forms. Usually you can tell when you’ve got the wrong form. If you’re a single person and you’re filling out a form that asks about your spouse and children, then you can be reasonably confident you’re barking up the wrong tree and you need a different form. But in our case ALL of the forms feel wrong. Everything related to doing business was designed in the middle of the last century, where opening a business means you plan to do business locally. Everyone assumes I want to sell pancakes on main street. There’s no concept of a “one-man international business”. Sometimes it’s not possible to truthfully and accurately fill out a form because it asks questions that don’t make sense.
Imagine you’re opening a furniture store, but the business form has a REQUIRED field that wants to know the license plate numbers of the cars you’ll be using to deliver the pizzas. That’s the level of incoherent stupidity we’re dealing with right now.
In any event, the technology problems in Pseudoku don’t matter because the project is stalled by bureaucracy.
I got a cheap ($90) minimalist Win7 box for testing Pseudoku. It’s an HP with integrated graphics. It’s got a virgin install of Win7 and no additional funny business. Let’s put Pseudoku on it and see how it runs…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Pseudoku: Texture Atlas”
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
My first REAL published book, about a guy who comes back from the dead due to a misunderstanding.
An ongoing series where I work on making a 2D action game from scratch.
Everyone hates Black Friday sales. Even retailers! So why does it exist?
A look at the main Borderlands games. What works, what doesn't, and where the series can go from here.
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.
It seems like a simple question, but it turns out everyone has a different idea of right and wrong in the digital world.
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?
As someone who loves Tolkein lore and despises silly MMO quests, this game left me deeply conflicted.
Sometimes software is engineered. Sometimes it grows organically. And sometimes it's thrown together seemingly at random over two decades.
T w e n t y S i d e d
