NEWER POSTS

Good Robot: Even Better Robot

By Shamus Posted Thursday Dec 15, 2016

Filed under: Good Robot 92 comments
Good Robot Postmortem #4: PromotionPrevious Post

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”

 

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.

Good Robot Postmortem #4: PromotionPrevious Post

92 comments

 

Crash Dot Com Part 6: The List™

By Shamus Posted Thursday Dec 15, 2016

Filed under: Personal 53 comments
Crash Dot Com Part 5: It's in the CanPrevious Post
Next PostCrash Dot Com Part 7: The Source

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™”

 

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.

Crash Dot Com Part 5: It's in the CanPrevious Post
Next PostCrash Dot Com Part 7: The Source

53 comments

 

Master of Firin’ Sword CH5: The Christmas Bonuses of Sin

By Rutskarn Posted Wednesday Dec 14, 2016

Filed under: Lets Play 26 comments
Master of Firin' Sword CH4: Human ResourcelessPrevious Post
Next PostMaster of Firin’ Sword CH6: The Bitter End

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”

 

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.

Master of Firin' Sword CH4: Human ResourcelessPrevious Post
Next PostMaster of Firin’ Sword CH6: The Bitter End

26 comments

 

I Messed With Texas

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Dec 14, 2016

Filed under: Notices 179 comments
My MotherPrevious Post
Next PostMerry Christmas

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”

 

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 MotherPrevious Post
Next PostMerry Christmas

179 comments

 

Object-Oriented Debate Part 2: Okay, so what is OOP?

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Dec 13, 2016

Filed under: Programming 49 comments
Object-Oriented Debate Part 1: Many Kinds of CodingPrevious Post
Next PostObject Oriented Debate Part 3: Damned if you do...

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…

Note: This is different from the kind of “procedural” you find in No Man’s Sky or FUEL. In those games, when we say “procedural” we mean the art assets are created by the program using a set of procedures. In the field of writing code, when we say “procedural” we just mean a program is nothing more than a set of procedures to follow, one after the other. It’s the most obvious and direct way to go about writing software: You tell the computer what to do.

…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?”

 

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.

Object-Oriented Debate Part 1: Many Kinds of CodingPrevious Post
Next PostObject Oriented Debate Part 3: Damned if you do...

49 comments

 

Diecast 180: Game Design By Way of Twitter

By Josh Posted Monday Dec 12, 2016

Filed under: Diecast 68 comments
Diecast #179: The Game Awards, Mass Effect Andromeda, VRPrevious Post
Next PostDiecast #181: Rogue One, Super Mario Runner, VR



Hosts: Josh, Rutskarn, Campster. Edited by Josh.

With both Shamus and Mumbles out, Rutskarn proposed something a little different for this show: Before we started, he asked twitter for game pitches. The following podcast is our attempt to design them.

The pitches:

0:02:10 – WRPG about a prisoner trying to escape a dungeon to start an adventure–never succeeding – @justcallmenmd
0:10:40 – Lovecraft-themed Pokemon – @Barmn89
0:16:30 – Open-world crime, real-time sentences @NerbieDansers
0:28:00 – The Sim City of legislation – @ErikRadman
0:33:05 – Mass Effect from POV of Reapers – @bhleb_bhleb22
0:39:40 – Mystic Messenger via Watchdogs 2 – @MrRicce
0:44:30 – Vending machine manager- @BryceWalton
0:51:00 – Game about podcast about designing games – @BryceWalton

 

Josh Viel is the primary editor and producer of the Spoiler Warning video series. You can support the show by backing the Patreon.

Diecast #179: The Game Awards, Mass Effect Andromeda, VRPrevious Post
Next PostDiecast #181: Rogue One, Super Mario Runner, VR

68 comments

 

Hangout: Overwatch

By Josh Posted Friday Dec 9, 2016

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 18 comments
Spoiler Warning Does The Jackbox 3Previous Post
Next PostTwenty Minutes With Pre-Dynastic Egypt


Link (YouTube)

Still no Spoiler Warning this week. Instead, here’s the archive of the Overwatch PTR hangout we did a few weeks back. We played around with the new hero, Sombra, and spent a lot of time losing. And then we stopped playing Sombra and spent a lot of time losing.

 

Josh Viel is the primary editor and producer of the Spoiler Warning video series. You can support the show by backing the Patreon.

Spoiler Warning Does The Jackbox 3Previous Post
Next PostTwenty Minutes With Pre-Dynastic Egypt

18 comments

 
OLDER POSTS
From The Archives:

Joker's Last Laugh

Did you anticipate the big plot twist of Batman: Arkham City? Here's all the ways the game hid that secret from you while also rubbing your nose in it.

 

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.

 

Lost Laughs in Leisure Suit Larry

Why was this classic adventure game so funny in the 80's, and why did it stop being funny?

 

Autoblography

The story of me. If you're looking for a picture of what it was like growing up in the seventies, then this is for you.

 

Spoiler Warning

A video Let's Play series I collaborated on from 2009 to 2017.

 

Quakecon 2012 Annotated

An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.

 

What is Piracy?

It seems like a simple question, but it turns out everyone has a different idea of right and wrong in the digital world.

 

Why The Christmas Shopping Season is Worse Every Year

Everyone hates Black Friday sales. Even retailers! So why does it exist?

 

Bowlercoaster

Two minutes of fun at the expense of a badly-run theme park.

 

PC Gaming Golden Age

It's not a legend. It was real. There was a time before DLC. Before DRM. Before crappy ports. It was glorious.