I couldn’t be on the show, since my family Christmas party was on the night we usually record. We’re not going to have a podcast for the next couple of weeks, since nobody wants to record a show on the eve / day of a major holiday.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #181: Rogue One, Super Mario Runner, VR”
Link (YouTube) |
I’ve never heard of this game, but it looks really interesting. Rutskarn does his Russian accent in this episode, which means this instantly wins the coveted “Best Episode of Spoiler Warning 2016” award.
The Good Robot team has been working to update and improve the game. The update is currently live on the public beta branch and will go out to all users probably in the next day or so.
I have to say, I loved coming back to Good Robot. There gets to be a point in a long-running project where you’re sick of the whole thing and just want it to be done. Than you get the post-release feedback and you start thinking about all the ways you could have made it better.
I may not like what Lucas did to the original Star Wars movies, but I can certainly understand the temptation to keep “polishing” something forever. Hopefully these are net improvements for people.
Partial list of changes:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Good Robot: Even Better Robot”
It’s late in the year 2000. While I haven’t heard the term yet, the dot-com crash has just begun. The first wave of ill-advised internet ventures are going out of business. At this point people generally seem to think of this as a mild hiccup. This is a perfectly normal part of the New Economy. Sure, a few Bad Ideas are flaming out, but that just leaves more room for our Good Ideas, right? Everything is fine.
I’m still working on making a virtual mall. After the uncomfortable meeting, I’ve been shy about challenging the design. I’ve washed my hands of the whole thing and resigned myself to spending months building this sad, doomed thing. It’s soul-crushing to put all this effort into something that’s just going to make people miserable, but I don’t know what else I can do.
I’m dreading launch day.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Crash Dot Com Part 6: The List™”
Fair warning; I did say I’d explain how to succeed in Fire and Sword. You’ve probably figured out by now how much of that means doing bad things to good people. We’ve got one or two more posts after this, then I’m moving on to another game, so if this isn’t your cup of tea I’ll catch up with you in a week or two.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Master of Firin’ Sword CH5: The Christmas Bonuses of Sin”
I’m back from visiting my daughter Rachel in Texas. If you remember, she’s usually the one to edit the Diecast for us. I’ve spent the last 5 days or so in and around the tiny town of La Mesa in west Texas where she lives. I also spent about half a day in Dallas, which is five hours away and yet somehow still in Texas. (And in fact, neither place is anywhere near the edge.)
It was good to have the whole family together again, and the trip gave me a nice break from making content.
I know that travel observations from a guy who never leaves the house is about as useful as restaurant reviews from someone who only eats pizza, but for the curious: Here are a bunch of random comments on Texas based on my brief visit…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “I Messed With Texas”
To discuss what Object Oriented Programming is, let’s discuss the problem it was designed to solve. Well, let’s get as close as we can to an explanation while keeping this readable for non-coders.
Originally, programming was procedural…
…but the problem (the argument goes) is that procedural programming (PP) can get out of hand in terms of complexity.
Let’s say we’ve got a game. We’ve got a big list of (say) space marines taking part in the simulation. Each space marine is nothing more than a block of data describing where it is, how it’s moving, what weapon it has, how many hit points it has, what team it’s on, what it’s AI is up to, what character model it’s using, if it’s dead, and so on.
Here, let’s make up a pretend data structure to hold our marine:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Object-Oriented Debate Part 2: Okay, so what is OOP?”
No, self-aware robots aren't going to turn on us, Skynet-style. Not unless we designed them to.
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?
The comments on most sites are a sewer of hate, because we're moderating with the wrong goals in mind.
Did you dislike the ending to the Mass Effect trilogy? Here's my list of where it failed logically, thematically, and tonally.
What does it mean when a program crashes, and why does it happen?
Is it real? Is PC gaming returning to its former glory? Sort of. It's complicated.
Game developer Jon Blow is making a programming language just for games. Why is he doing this, and what will it mean for game development?
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
I was trying to make fun of how Silent Hill had lost its way but I ended up making fun of fighting games. Whatever.
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