CodexArcanum

@CodexArcanum@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DayZ creator reveals a "Kerbal Space Program killer" with kittens and challenges license owners to sue him⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m making fun of the common practice, exemplified by Bethesda, of leaving bugs in their games for the modders to fix. The joke, in this case is that Rocket Werkz is leaving an “unfinished feature” in that is a Hard Problem in physics. There isn’t a general, easy solution to the N-body problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DayZ creator reveals a "Kerbal Space Program killer" with kittens and challenges license owners to sue him⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  One reachier goal is to add an n-body physics system. […] RocketWerkz say there’s a “small chance” of RocketWerkz developing such a simulation internally - they’re currently trying to hire somebody with a PhD to apply the requisite high-density brain-magic - but it’s likely this will be left for modders to figure out.

  The next Bethesda game is just going to have a bug dependent on solving the Reimann conjecture, smh, always waiting on the modders to solve the company’s intractable math mysteries.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Former Disco Elysium devs are working on a spiritual successor at new studio Longdue, though Robert Kurvitz and Aleksander Rostov aren't involved⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Reminds me of Diablo and how in the years after the original you’d see so many clones with “from one of the people who worked on the original Diablo.” I think Torchlight, Titan Quest, and Nox all got advertised this way at one time. I mean it’s pretty common in any industry. How many movies have you seen advertised as being directed by “the creators of hit movie whatever” and its like the 3rd unit DP in charge?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨StarCraft 2 production director pitched WarCraft 4 and a Call Of Duty RTS before leaving Blizzard, claims report⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A Call of Duty RTS? Only if they brought back WC3’s Heroes, and maybe gave you a whole Company of them to manage.

  RTS’s need a massive new hit to redefine the genre. The starcraft style is stale and too slow for how most people game today. I’d kind of enjoy seeing people take another shot at where C&C4 and AoE3 were trying to go: something more tactically oriented with a greater emphasis on mobility. I think that era of RTS innovation got completely hamstrung by trying to force every game to not only have multi-player but also to be an esport and also to be a live-service endless money machine.

  You may note that games today are still being ruined by the same forces.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PC gaming fan Steven Spielberg says he "can't do controllers," prefers keyboard and mouse⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Funny, the game I most associate with him is BoomBlox on the Wii. It’s a really great game, and I guess the wiimote is kind of mouse-like, particularly in that game.

  He’s been involved in several games though, even had an office at EA for a while. Most famously, of course, is the original Medal of Honor. Arguably the success of MoH as a franchise led directly to Call of Duty and thus to the current state of gaming today.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨shapez 2 is a huge success selling over 270,000 in the first month, future plans detailed⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s so good! The purist expression of factory building: no costs, no distractions, just automation.

  It has a great concept too in the space layer. The game is played initially on a grid like any factory game. But then you can zoom out to a higher layer where you can place chunks to define the build able area and build “space belts” which essentially codifiy the main-bus style of building. (You also get space trains, which are like trains in other games.)

  I “beat” the basic campaign and hopped back over to Satisfactory since 1.0 came out, but I’ll go back to shapez when I finish there. I hope they add more complex and tricky buildings and requirements, the challenge of assembling an efficient build in shapez is just so interesting and fun.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Annapurna Interactive has "splintered into two groups, both of which are now working to pick up the pieces" says new report⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t forget their “leadership team” wanted to let everyone know that they’re hiring scabs right now. What an offer!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Eve Frontier is a survival game spin-off of Eve Online and, yup, it's full of blockchain bullshit⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What makes a block chain better than a PostgresDB for a private currency that can only be spent in their stores?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Openblack is a an attempt to recreate lost god game Black & White in a modern, open source game engine⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  B&W was a real fun game, very interesting ideas and it really tried to be different from other games in ways that did and didn’t work.

  We really take control and camera schemes for granted these days, but it took a lot of misses before we landed on the semi-standardized methods we rely on now. B&W portrayed the player as a divine hand, and you had to click and drag to literally “drag” your viewpoint around the map. You could also click on the creature to lock your hand onto it and allow you to gently move the mouse to pet it, or rapid swipe to slap it across the face!

  The creature responded amazingly well too, reacting to many stimuli in the environment, mimicking actions you take, and responding to rewards and punishments. The systems of morphing it’s character model based on how far along the “devil to saint” meter were reused heavily in Fable. MS probably has a patent on the technique, the fuckers.

  Anyway, super exciting to see fans reverse engineering it! I’m a big supporter of remaking classic games as new open source engines. I think projects like Spring (rts) and gzdoom really show how powerful and creatively productive a community that cultivates good, open, tools can be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Keep Pavel Durov LOCKED UP⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was in a commie-memes telegram chat that I think turned out to be literally Russian psy-ops. Pretty sketchy, that telegram, I’ve mostly stuck to Signal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Blasphemous dev's new Goya-fuelled stealth tactics monastery sim is basically Umberto Eco's The Great Escape⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The developers of the game Blasphemous (The Game Kitchen) are working on a new game (The Stones of Madness) which is visually inspired by the works of Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, commonly called Goya, who did a lot of paintings but is perhaps best known for his unpublished (until after his death) “Black Paintings”, the best known of which was post-humously titled “Saturn Devouring his Son.”

  The game is in the genre of tactical stealth, similar to classics like the Commandos series or the recent Shadow Tactics. The author of the piece feels that the plot and setting are reminiscent of author Umberto Eco’s work, in particular a work called “The Great Escape” which I actually can’t find so maybe it’s called something else in English. His most famous work, In the Name of the Rose, is set in an Italian monastery so maybe the author meant that one, or maybe Eco wrote a lot of abbey-based mysteries? (Eco is also well known around here for the essay Ur-Fascism, which provides the most commonly referenced definition of what fascism is.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Blasphemous dev's new Goya-fuelled stealth tactics monastery sim is basically Umberto Eco's The Great Escape⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve never been so excited for something that sounds so pretentious

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Shadows Of Doubt emerges from the wet alleyway of early access with 1.0 release next month⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve really enjoyed this game in EA but I’m curious to see what they add and where they go with it. Right now, there’s so structural flaws that to me hamper the long term repayability.

  For one, the mechanics are all a bit junky and you do run into issues with dead-ends, missing evidence, or shit like the only way into the murder apartment is locked down and the snakey air vents go everywhere but the apartment you need, and so on. Because of that, you end up relying heavily upon a few mechanics that always work. Like everyone has a box in their house with all their personal details, and workplaces always have a filing cabinet with all the employees’ records in it.

  So investigations mostly end up being lots of fingerprint scanning followed by some B&E and rifling through papers. Worse, if you stay on a smaller map for a while you can quickly build up a Crime-DB of every citizen in town which trivializes investigations.

  Amazing game from a small studio though, I really hope they give it the polish and variety it needs to be a classic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GTA 6 may "disappoint" players hoping for a technological "jump", says former Rockstar North tech director⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can’t say that the one-two punch of “we’re using just so much AI in this one!” and “lower your expectations” has inspired much confidence for GTA6 in me. Sounds to me like AAA developers hoping for another best selling media item of all time may be “dissapointed” as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Entire Humble Games Team Has Reportedly Been Laid Off⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Remember when Humble Bundle was actually a charity and not just a charity-themed storefront owned by IGN?

  Well, technically owned by IGN, a subsidiary of Ziff-Davis, formerly J2 Global, formerly Ziff-Davis. I’m sure firing what was left of the employees with any commitment to the concept of HB and folding the brand under the rest of your e-commerce verticle will have no further adverse effects on the quality or usability of HB as a service.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Streaming’s bundling obsession ignores the real problem with subscription costs⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Those paying extra for ad-free services say they are more likely to keep that service than cheaper ad-supported plans," the report says. "The act of paying more potentially increases perceived loyalty to that expense.”

  Glad to see the experts have nailed this one down again. That’s definitely it, people like paying more and will definitely stick with your buggy, ad-supported service that crashes their roku in the middle of a movie and then makes them watch the same 5 ads again to restart it, then watch them again because they fast-forwarded to the part where the app crashed. Definitely charge more for that experience, as it will inspire loyalty.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tribes 3: Rivals already in trouble as developers shift focus elsewhere⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I dunno, maybe trying to revive your multi-player shooter franchise into one of the most monopolized, overexposed genres in gaming history is kind of a high-risk move with little potential for returns. Kind of like trying to make a WoW clone while WoW was at its peak, which dozens of companies did and then all went out of business.

  Damn, it’s almost like making a game that requires a million active players at all times, when you have no name presence or existing player base to draw upon, is kind of a stupid terrible business decision.

  I’m no business or gaming genius, but I feel like I would have done something a little safer and more sustainable. Maybe use your Starseige IP to make a single-player focused mecha game? Haven’t had one of those in a while. The last one was… Armored Core 6? One of the best selling and most critically well received games of last year. Yeah, who’d want to tap into that market with a brand new mecha game to ride on the still hungering appetites of AC6 players?

  No no, Better stick to making another fortnight clone, that certainly hasn’t burned anyone (including themselves!!!) before.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Embracer will split into three companies, including Middle-earth & Friends⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Anyone starting a betting pool on how long the “indie” and A/AA components last before being scrapped for parts or folded back under the big money house? This just sounds like complicated restructuring to prepare for decommissioning or sale to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Deep Rock Galactic season 5 will add new missions, DLSS3 and a way to play past seasons⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I started the game late into season 3, managed to get basically everything in it by power-grinding the last weeks. Then kind of fell off in season 4. I didn’t find the corruption theme very interesting and didn’t much care for the new boss fight either. I’ve started getting back into DRG though, (thanks to Survivor haha) and being able to catch up on past unlocks could be a fun incentive, especially for anyone coming in new at season 5.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I also fixed a weird SteamDeck issue this week. Maybe others will run into it. My deck started going super slow, and having trouble booting. I even tried a factory reset to no avail and was getting ready to warranty it, when I thought to try one last trick.

  Apparently going into the system setup menu (hold Volume + while turning it on) and turning on long term battery storage mode, then turning it off again (by booting up with the power cord in) somehow fixes this issue. So i did that, and it worked!

  I’m mystified as to what random setting got flipped that this corrects, but I’m happy it worked.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m amazed at the strong showing for older games like Stardew (which has an update coming soon) and Isaac. I mean, they’re timeless games, just fun to see people still really into them!

  I’ve been playing the first Like a Dragon, which is as much melodramatic and zany fun as any of the Yakuza games. I was very hesitant about the turn-based battle system, but it works really well and still feels like Yakuza.

  Also been working on a second run of Grime, the metroidvania, which also had a big final update this week. It’s very fun and ranks high among MVs for me, but it’s also pretty hard and requires a nearly Seikiro-like mastery of defense timings.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wes Anderson Sets Bill Murray, Michael Cera & Benicio Del Toro For Next Feature⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Making the bold, unexpected choices I see.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Visions of Mana | Announce Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Damn, I really need to stop letting how good Legend of Mana was convince me to give Squenix more chances on this series. But… this trailer does look very fun, kind if mix of the Tales series combat with Mana themes!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Im a fan as well, their videos are excellent and they often do trips with other cavers, so you can find other small channels through them if people want more “cave content.”

  What trips me out is towards the end of each video where they’ll be like, “Alright, Brad is heading back so I’m going to wrap up too. We’ve been in the cave for 12 hours, probably a good time to head up.” 8+ hours of squeezing through cold, dark passages sounds like actual nightmares I’ve had!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨STOB⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  STOB! Corroborate in Lisbon! Ice is back with a fresh Cinnabon

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I love to watch caving videos: much better for someone younger and foolhardier than me to actually do the climbing and clambering with their gopros. I’ll continue to enjoy things like air, vast open spaces, and vicarious experiences.

  People take a lot of safety precautions now, reasonably, but every once in a while the cavers on YT will do something just stupid and it baffles me. “The water’s ice cold and up to my nostrils, but I really want to see where this tunnel goes! Going to turn my lamp and camera off for now to save battery, see you in a few hours!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  YouTuber HBomberguy just released a video on plagiarism. Another well known YouTube video about that caving incident was wholesale stolen from an article about it (but I don’t think it was either of your articles.) Must be the “vaguely related to caving” time of the year!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wretched souls⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Cover that potatoe salad with some gumbo, then we’ll talk! 😋

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are there circles of melted snow on this icy pond?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Aliums 👽

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Christopher Nolan Calls Zack Snyder’s ‘Watchmen’ a Film ‘Ahead of Its Time’: It Should Have Been Released Post-‘Avengers’⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s an incredible irony here too. Watchmen the comic was released after years of superhero comics had played out the tropes to exhaustion. Watchmen was a critique of that comics industry. So to say that it belongs in a post-Endgame world is to acknowledge that the movie adaptation is now working as pre-satire of what superhero movies would become.