T w e n t y S i d e d
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster LIX: Disorder of the Stick”
DM of the Rings Remaster LIX: Disorder of the Stick
Oops, Hospital
Hey all, I wanted to put up a quick notice post. No Sims 4 Overthinking today. Bay’s been admitted the hospital for difficulty breathing. They’re alright, and more serious health concerns have been eliminated, we’re just wanting their oxygen to be steady before they come home.
I’m confident they’ll be feeling better and getting discharged in the next couple of days, hopefully with some tools and medication to help us better manage their asthma day-to-day.
Wednesday Action Log 2-14-24
Happy Valentines Day. This week I have been playing The Ship: Murder Party. It was a Source Engine, murder-each-other, multiplayer game from 2006. Each player is given someone to kill, while knowing that they themselves are also being hunted. With each murder, players are rewarded with sums of cash. You change clothes to keep your hunter off your trail, and gather weapons which have different values if used. The more a weapon in used in the round, the less valuable it is to kill with. It was also one of the games in the early 2000’s which experimented with needing to eat, drink, sleep, shower, pee, and poop, for some reason. Another strange choice was to have two entirely different releases, one single player and one multiplayer.
All things considered, I’m still enjoying it. A lot of the choices made wouldn’t be made today, but it was also a bit ahead of it’s time. Party games didn’t truly get bigger till the 2010’s, and I wonder how it would have been received now, in the age of Among Us, Fall Guys, Lethal Company, ect.
It’s a shame there doesn’t seem to be dedicated servers anymore.
What are you guys playing?
Crossroads and Random Collisions
The two 1933 King Kong movies introduced, or at least emphasized, a key concept for a new genre of movie: the GIANT monster. But despite his size, Kong very definitely fit into the type of monster movie that had been a staple of early FX movies practically from the beginning of the technology. Quite possibly the first thing filmmakers thought of when contemplating “what ELSE can we make movies of?” was dinosaurs. The idea that giant fossilized bones belonged to ancient giant reptiles had only been proposed around 1842, fifty years prior to the invention of “moving pictures.” But as thrilling as these early fantastical depictions of dinosaurs were, the humans that encountered them were awed more by the discovery than the threat to life and limb. Dinosaurs could be killed or driven off with guns and spears. Likewise, Kong was defeated by machine guns (I mean, you can argue it was technically the *fall* that killed him, but you get it.) So at least on the surface of the story, Kong was just another animal to be overcome. It wasn’t until the years following World War Two that an elevating influence was added to the giant monster formula, creating a new threat.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Crossroads and Random Collisions”
DM of the Rings Remaster LVIII: It is a Silly Place
Jaquandor once said this about quoting Monty Python at a Renaissance Festival, although this applies just as well to playing D&D:
[…] So it’s with nothing but love and heartfelt concern that I inform you that walking around shouting quotes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail like “I’m bein’ repressed!” and “Ni!” is the Renaissance Festival equivalent of shouting “Freebird!” at a rock concert. Don’t do this, folks. Wandering through a Renaissance Festival with your friends, pretending to debate the airspeed of an unladen swallow, is just shooting fish in a barrel. Don’t do it.Having said that, just try to get through this part of the movie without thinking about it. I swear the old woman in panel six is just about to say, “There’s some lovely filth over here.”
This really is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings Remaster LVIII: It is a Silly Place”
Sims 4 Overthinking: Love’s Labor’s Lost (Farmhouse Sink)
The overhead light is the first victim this week. They had been going to replace it since the very beginning of the project, but as the space has gotten notably nicer, the need has intensified.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sims 4 Overthinking: Love’s Labor’s Lost (Farmhouse Sink)”
Wednesday Action Log 2-7-24
This week I’ve only played Lethal Company and Roblox. I intended to play a new game this week but as of writing this I have done nothing new.
What are you guys playing?
From The Archives:
Chainmail Bikini
A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
Raytracing
Raytracing is coming. Slowly. Eventually. What is it and what will it mean for game development?
The Opportunity Crunch
No, brutal, soul-sucking, marriage-destroying crunch mode in game development isn't a privilege or an opportunity. It's idiocy.
The Biggest Game Ever
Just how big IS No Man's Sky? What if you made a map of all of its landmass? How big would it be?
Bowlercoaster
Two minutes of fun at the expense of a badly-run theme park.
The Witch Watch
My first REAL published book, about a guy who comes back from the dead due to a misunderstanding.
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Quakecon Keynote 2013 Annotated
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
Object-Oriented Debate
There are two major schools of thought about how you should write software. Here's what they are and why people argue about it.
Programming Vexations
Here is a 13 part series where I talk about programming games, programming languages, and programming problems.