Rilen

A perception quirks note, for those who don't listen to the Crate & Crowbar they had an interesting bit of this. After being in the Vive for several hours without ill effects, Pip and Chris(?) were getting ready for bed. She was sort of looking around the room and got stuck thinking about where the boundaries were. Chris said she looked over, asked "Is this..this is the real one, right?" and then fell straight over. She was fine, but it seemed like an attempt at mental juggling that overloaded the system. On an AR note, I got to see a demo of the Microsoft HoloLens at a talk yesterday and it was pretty damn fun. The gesture interface looks like wizardry, and not having to have peripherals besides the headset (which is not tethered) meant you could just walk around the room. Interestingly, when you create a hologram or otherwise 'add' something to the space, it has permanence. Like, if you put a spray on the wall of our conference room it would still be there months later when you came back. Got to see a demo of a game that scanned the room, then had things tearing chunks out of the walls and coming in from....the other side Very cool and mildly unsettling when he leaned over and looked through/deeper into the unreal hole. Still no word on consumer release and the devkits are 3k, but apparently the team is working with devs on a case to case basis and often handing or lending them out. Their also trying to make them available in major cities, so if you look up your local Microsoft Evangelist (an actual position) you can make an appointment to play with one.

I've never been to GDC, but the more interested I get in the making of games and the idea that I might somehow in some small way be involved, the more it's been a dream. So, I'm thinking of applying to be a Conference Associate for the 2017 one. Has anyone done this before? Was it fun? Worth it? I'm more interested in meeting people and just sort of seeing the whole things than attending specifics talks so I don't think I'd miss out on anything. Any advice for a good application?

Hey man, go for it, I'm on the other side of the country so you might have a better shot.

Haha! Fair enough. Thanks for the input, I'm going to try to apply.

Oh God that looks good! Nice scallions.... Is that a bowl of the juice?

Good tip, thanks. I was also wondering if there is a quick and easy way to move 3D items around on a plane without worrying about the Y-axis. I mean using the sliders for the other axes works, but it's not very natural for setting a scene. Is there a way to lock one of the axeses?

Sorry, I think I meant 'normal' cabbage, ie small green head thin green leaves, vs chinese cabbage, which is almost like bok choy, very long white leaves growing vertically with green tips.

It was the first one I got into, but part of that was a difficult aborted 1st playthrough, a break, and then running through it once I had the confidence of knowing where things are. Definitely don't be afraid to play with a guide, advice, etc. Very fun and the Scholar addition has some lovely later areas.

All right, I finished the Roll-A-Ball tutorial! I took a little extra time figuring out a skybox and making some random impediments. Here's a link in case anyone's interested: http://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/10349

Great! I have been working on them but things slowed waaay down because of hectic personal life. I do not have a background in this beyond being someone who enjoys poking around computer systems and wants to see a thing made, so things are slow going at first because the tutorials don't really go over basic definitions and concepts. Also he seems to have different presets/other things than my version, so things look different and sometimes are created in different states, but I learn more from having to unpick these problems. I did spend a day trying to figure out why there was no light in my game until I just restarted Unity 3 times and it fixed itself, so that was less helpful.

I used a thin green napa cabbage, but I think it would have been much better with a thick Chinese cabbage. It might also be a good idea to rub the cabbage with a tiny amount of sesame oil or other flavorful oil.

I've never heard of this, but it looks smashing. I am surrounded by apiaries where I live so we are always looking for more ways to use up honey, can't wait to get this started. How did you learn about it?

Huzzah! I just broke out my slow cooker the other day for asian short ribs. Loved the way they came out, I used: 1/2 c tamari 1/3 c brown sugar 1/4 c rice vinegar 6 cloves garlic smashed 2-4 Tbsp ginger smashed or minced (also to taste, I would have used more if I had it!) A small handful of birds-eye chilies (this made it super hot, but having it over rice was perfect. I would leave them out if you are heat averse) 4 carrots peeled and chopped 1 small cabbage, quartered and peeled. pork short ribs, as much as the liquid will coat! (1/2 lb - 4 lbs, I think) You mix the liquid, carrots, beef. If you can mix the liquid and beef together earlier, all the better. Turn the slow cooker on, it will take 7-8 hours at low or 6 at high. Cover all this with the strips of cabbage. The cabbage keeps it moist while cooking and the flavorful steam breaks it down so it's sweet and delicious at the end! You slide the meat off the bones, shred/toss it all and have it over rice or on a salad! Sorry about the lack of pictures, we had eaten it all before I thought of it.

Half Life: Source I remember my first experience with games as a larger thing that existed outside my house was a PC Gamer issue where they did their first 50 best games ever roundup. Most of the issue was about Half Life and Deus Ex. I read and re-read the articles, and though it turned me into a pc player, I never managed to pick up copies of either of these two games. In the intervening years I read many many retrospectives, re-plays, and commentaries on both games, their genius, their historical impact, etc. Still never played them. So when I finally sat down to play HL, I was worried that the dated graphics and famously frustrating platforming would stop me from enjoying it. I was Half-Right The game is incredible! It's astonishing to see the development of Valve's slick ability to do environmental storytelling, their plotting and suspense chops, and the overall weirdness and oppression of that world that I had become so used to from HL2 and Portals. The story was fun, creepy, exciting, and intriguing, even though I knew what was coming. It was a blast and I was genuinely affected by most of the story beats more than 90% of the game's I generally play. It was great, and I'm glad I finally played it. Good god that game is old and needs some love, though. The movement is awful, crouch-jumping makes me hate everything, I had massive gaphical tearing and sound effect problems in several levels, and occasional it would cause my graphics card crash. Considering how good and historically significant the game is/is considered to be, I can't believe that Valve haven't bothered to release even a token re-skin/remaster. Bleugh. I think I also had forgotten how hard shooters of that era was, it definitely took me a while to get back into the mindset. Anyway, I think I'm going to replay HL2 and then play the episodes for the first time.

To the people considering re-installing Alien Isolation, I would recommend it. I was frustrated with many aspects of the game, but often found that with lowered difficulty it was often possible to play difficult scenes like an action movie, ie throw explosives everywhere and kill all enemies. The game does a pretty good job of communicating when the Alien is not around, in which case you can just murder everyone to enable walking around stress-free. When the Alien is around and you get tired of his shit, you get the flamethrower and molotovs, both of which make him flee and leave you alone for a bit. So you can sprint through an area, flame him when he shows up, and be safe. The game doesn't do a great job of communicating how all the tools work, and it wasn't until pretty late in that I realized I didn't have to be hiding all the time. Part of it was definitely immersion at first, and I really tried to not kill humans because it seemed so alien to Amanda. By the end of the game though I was a ruthless madwoman, laying waste to the innocent and the guilty alike; I just wanted to get the hell off that ship. (as for length I just checked and Steam says I spent 24 hours on it, which is definately including some backtracking and meandering, so that's not tooo bad)

Just completed Alien Isolation. Good game, frustrating at times. Really loved the design, I often just wanted to hang out and look at things. Especially towards the later missions where you get to see the outside of the station and some space, I would often just stand for a minute, watching solar flares and the gas clouds moving over the planet below. Really enjoyed the stealth until maybe 3/4 of the way through the game where I started going crazy with the items and basically brute forcing some rooms after dying too often. By the end I was very ready for it to be over, and frustrated with the multiple false endings or near endings. Still, a gorgeous and impressive game. Really enjoyed the lead actress and the physicality of the player movements helps to ground you in her body, make you feel vulnerable. Great great sound design, really wonderful to be able to traverse an inky black room with without looking at threats but knowing exactly where they are because of the sounds. In summation, 80's grunge futurism is always cool and spooky, especially when it's recreated so faithfully.

Oh my God, SIm Earth looks hilarious. I love the Gaia Window sooo much! Why is she wearing lipstick?

PlasticFlesh, no muddying at all, this is like bumping into someone also rifling through record bins looking for antique field recordings. "I didn't know anyone else liked this!" Love the suggestions, most of the first crop are things I've already tried. I think this might be one of those rare gaming offshoots that had a brief period of popularity beginning when computing power allowed for multiple independent 'ants' and stretching to roughly Startopia. In my memory that felt like the last of them for quite a while. And then, recently, there's a bit of a tiny resurgence going on, but most of it's still in development. I am learning Crusader Kings 2 with the help of a very eager friend who wants someone to crush in multiplayer, I think. Will check out the Anno games. Funnily enough the reason I started this post, that I couldn't play Clockwork Empires, has more or less resolved itself. The latest update stabilized it immensely and added a ton of new things that fit together. It's still in Beta, but I think it's getting into the 'cleaning up' phase rather than 'making things and checking they work together' phase. If anyone is interested in this genre I'd recommend checking it out as it scratches the itch for me better than anything has yet. It is still very much in development, however, so some might want to wait till it's release. If anyone likes early access or development pipeline stuff, however, they are an absolute joy to watch work. They communicate constantly on the forums, take ideas, fix bugs, and every week release a funny, interesting post about what their working on or quirks of the process, each week with a beautiful new art asset highlighting the thrust of the post.

Is there any place to watch Danielle's old streams? I really enjoyed listening to her talk about her journey through Alien: Isolation, but avoided watching because I knew I was going to play it. Now I'm playing it and I want to lessen the stress by watching Danielle progress besides me. Are those around anywhere anymore?

Just finished: Doom: So incredibly fun. Now all I want to do is shoot things but I don't have any other decent shooters installed. Played switching between Nightmare and Ultra-Violence, thoroughly enjoyed the difficulty curve throughout. Loved searching for and discovering secrets, planning another playthrough to find them all. The weapon mods encouraged me to try many different play styles and gun combos, and rewarded me with interesting new perks. I grew to love using the plasma rifle, firing it wildly to get it to overheat, running into a cluster of weaker enemies, and expelling the stored heat in a wave of explosive force, then scooping up the health powerups. The music was great, the plot and design sense were boring but fun. I can't wait to spend more time in that power fantasy, and I hope they have some DLC planned. Never Alone (KIsima Innitchuna): I was very excited about this, and I suppose it fulfilled it's intended purpose. That is, I knew a lot more about Inuit culture and history than I did at first, had greater respect for anyone who lives in that part of the world, and had some cool stories to share. The game was ok. Not too hard, often very easy, often frustrating. Would have been more fun with a co-op partner, as several of the puzzles seem designed with 2 players in mind. It did make me wonder at times if they could have just made a full documentary to accompany as an extra, and a lot of the time I was more interested in the interviews than the game. Still, I finished it, I had fun, I'd recommend it, especially to play with a kid. Witcher 3 Main Quest: Goddamn. Of course a lot has been said about this. I loved it, and I was so happy with my decisions. They were not all happy or smart ones, but I tried my best to do what I felt my version of Geralt would have done, and the world really reflected what I was striving for. I got what I wanted, without knowing that it was even a possible ending. I'm a little emotionally wrung out and am going to take a break before starting into Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine. Seconding what a previous poster said about the game's menu and loading screens helping to ease you back in after being away. Also, that slide that Geralt does down steep slow is super cool. Nothing beats slaying a beast on a slope, then skiing downhill against the setting side as he sheathes his sword. Can we have an extreme winter sports game that also has swordfighting? Or just a ski-jedi game set on Hoth?

Hey Professor Wizards, I got my add/drop class scroll all filled out and I'm jumping in! I couldn't start earlier because I was staying on an island with little to no internet, but now I'm back! Thank you so so much for doing this! I'm working on the ball tutorial, should have it finished by tomorrow. Had a number of setbacks with a weird way my unity booted up for the first time, but restarting it fixed all of them. (Had no lighting, couldn't make shadows, etc). I really enjoy coding from dipping my toe in twine, ruby, and java. I've never really committed to one besides twine, and it seems like the way coding concepts are being presented he's assuming some familiarity with the language. Would an intro to C# be a good idea in conjunction with this?

twmac, your Space Boss piece really got me. Especially b/c I didn't know that it was an actual song, so it had this wistful quality where I figured I would never hear this fabled song by this imaginary band. Imagine my surprise... My feedback on the Rumours and Hearsay draft. Working on my entry now, excited to see everyone else's.

It's funny I find myself more likely to quit a good book if I'm not feeling it, because I am sure I'll come back to it in the future. But really awful books I will normally finish because A.) hate is stronger than indifference, and B.) I never got over as a child telling someone I didn't like a book I recommended only to be told that I had missed a crucial final chapter twist that would change my opinion (it didn't). So now I have this urge to finish trash so that I can really tear it up from all angles. Last book I quit: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr, which I feel kind of shitty about. I really like that era of sci-fi, but I think it was the audiobook production combined with the fact that ideas in the book have had so long to permeate into culture that it almost seems predictable. Last book I finished that I should have quite: The Dresden Files 1: Stormfront by Jim Butcher. I found it at a bus stop and new I hated it from the first chapter. But I read the whole thing, then threw it in a dumpster so that no one else would find it and have to read it. This is the first time I have ever knowingly thrown a book away. Hmm, reading the wiki it says he wrote the book essentially to prove to a teacher who bad genre fiction is when written without any care or love. So, I suppose I agree, but it's like those dumb jokes where the punchline is you getting hit in the arm. I get it, but I also hate you.

Thank you so so much for these! I've been writing some little twine games while listening to Ben Prunty and now I need pretty space music for them. I thought I'd never find something so pretty, but you've got loads of it! And thank you for the UI SFX, that's incredibly kind and generous of you!