T w e n t y S i d e d
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And now we bring you the greatest Spoiler Warning episode of all time. We’re sorry.
The Witch Watch: Release Date
We finally have a tentative release date for my upcoming novel. It should go on sale on Friday, March 2nd. We’re just waiting on the arrival of the proof copies. If those are good, we can throw the switch and you can finally get your hands on this thing.
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I will say it’s murderously difficult to come up with blurbs that aren’t spoilers. I mean, what constitutes a spoiler? That the droids are carrying secret plans? That Luke ends up with the droids? That Obi-Wan knew Luke’s father? That the secret plans are for the Death Star? That Vader and Obi-Wan duel? If you’re cutting a trailer, how much do you give away? You need to explain what the story is about without giving away any details. The blurb above is nominally a spoiler for the first section of the book. (The book is divided into six sections. Is that a spoiler? Is it a spoiler that “six sections” itself could be a spoiler? Am I over thinking this?)
To answer the basic questions I’ve been getting in email:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Witch Watch: Release Date”
RAGE: Not Enraging Enough
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It’s pretty common for games to use the “the bad guy shows up at the end of the tutorial to murder your family / village”, and I’m usually very critical of it. It’s a brute-force approach to the problem of making the player care about the villain. It’s a cheap and easy tool for writers who aren’t deft enough to wield the more subtle tools of world-building and characterization. I might not know how to make a victim NPC that you will care about or relate to, but I bet I can provoke some sort of response from you if I make the NPC victim YOUR MOTHER!
RAGE does not have this problem. RAGE has the opposite problem. RAGE never bothers to make us care about the bad guys at all. The bad guys in this case are called “The Authority” and they are opposed by “The Resistance”. Now, RAGE (You know what? I’m done typing the name of this game in all caps. Correct or not, it’s just too shouty.) takes place on a wasteland Earth after an asteroid apocalypse. The world is smashed and most people aren’t even literate. It’s completely valid to have simplistic names for your factions like this, provided they’re suitably interesting. But the agendas of these two sides are just as generic and shallow as their names.
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Continue reading ⟩⟩ “RAGE: Not Enraging Enough”
An Evening of Failure and Stupidity
Last Thursday I was griefed by many, many stupid people. I don’t want to spoil the ending too much, but the short version is that by morning I’d re-installed Windows. And one of the griefers was me.
The setup for this story: A few months ago, I got a virus. Not bad, nothing dangerous. When it was over I was pretty sure I had it all, but “pretty sure” wasn’t good enough. I needed to be able to trust this machine again, so I re-installed Windows. I put the new install on the D: drive and left the C: drive alone. This was also an experiment: How much stuff from C: will I miss or need in the long run? (The answer: Almost nothing. The only thing I ever bothered to recover from C: was my Minecraft saves. All of my programming, writing, and video projects are either saved on other drives or online.) And so our story begins…
It’s Thursday night. I’m looking at my C: drive and thinking that it’s probably about time to format that sucker and reclaim the wasted space. I mean, it’s been moths and I’ve never needed any of it. I boot off the D: drive now, so it should be safe to just nuke C: and use it for… I dunno. I don’t even have a plan for it. I’ve got a pretty good system where I keep the operating system on one drive, my work on another, and games on a third drive. I don’t have a plan for C:, but I might as well clean up that old mess, right?
I right-click on C: and hit “format”…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “An Evening of Failure and Stupidity”
Deus Ex Human Revolution EP22: It’s a Small, Small World
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And a late, extra long, fourth episode of the week for you guys. Enjoy.
Deus Ex Human Revolution EP21: Nice Hat
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Rutskarn does make a pretty good point about all of the internet culture references in this game. They’re less ham-fisted than similar attempts in other games to give a nod to the supposed “internet demographic” were, but they still feel a little artificial, don’t they?
Reset Button: Megatextures
Once in a blue moon I do one of these Reset Button analysis videos. Today is one of those blue moons.
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After posting this video, I’ve gotten a few comments on YouTube and Twitter. Here are my answers to common questions regarding the video:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Reset Button: Megatextures”
From The Archives:
Shamus Plays LOTRO
As someone who loves Tolkein lore and despises silly MMO quests, this game left me deeply conflicted.
I Was Wrong About Borderlands 3
I really thought one thing, but then something else. There's a bunch more to it, but you'll have to read the article.
Self-Balancing Gameplay
There's a wonderful way to balance difficulty in RPGs, and designers try to prevent it. For some reason.
Skylines of the Future
Cities: Skylines is bound to have a sequel sooner or later. Where can this series go next, and what changes would I like to see?
Crash Dot Com
Back in 1999, I rode the dot-com bubble. Got rich. Worked hard. Went crazy. Turned poor. It was fun.
Borderlands Series
A look at the main Borderlands games. What works, what doesn't, and where the series can go from here.
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
Good Robot Dev Blog
An ongoing series where I work on making a 2D action game from scratch.
What Does a Robot Want?
No, self-aware robots aren't going to turn on us, Skynet-style. Not unless we designed them to.
Grand Theft Auto Retrospective
This series began as a cheap little 2D overhead game and grew into the most profitable entertainment product ever made. I have a love / hate relationship with the series.