Thrik

You can't disable the shrinking — although it's easy enough to restore the full-size credits — but the skip-to-next-episode stuff is an app setting on the PS3 at least.

Isn't the PS3 Netflix app the universal one that all devices should get? I remember them making a big deal about that when they overhauled it. The Wii U one is indeed an absolute travesty, especially considering that the game pad could enable it to work really well. I'm unsure why it doesn't have the same UI found on other platforms.

My assumption is that the Kickstarter target is meant to be the sum of money required to successfully produce the <whatever>, therefore anything less would mean that backers have put their money behind a non-viable project. Or to put it another way, this is one of few safeguards Kickstarter has to protect backers' pledges — and in a situation like this, it's better to lean towards protecting those dishing out the money. If campaigns are calculating their costs correctly, missing a 100k mark by 5k would be disastrous and not just something that can be overlooked. If it was something they could have lived without it shouldn't have been part of the core funding target in the first place. That's precisely what stretch goals are for.

Both ads are creepy as hell. The final clip in the 3DS one... jeez.

Makes me think of: Looks beautiful, but I do agree that I don't really consider voice acting optional. I doubt it's been a major factor in people backing it though, certainly not as much as the absence of iPad/Android tablet versions which are bizarrely only to be considered as a very high stretch goal. Why on Earth would they miss out those platforms considering their suitability and market exposure for adventure games?

Yeah I enjoyed the disco level, but I did pretty much just blast through it. I think that all of Psychonauts' levels are great fun to experience, but they mostly don't hold up to endless exploration to collect everything. I couldn't really bring myself to do it. I did love thoroughly exploring Whispering Pines Rock between stages though, as the characters were continuously doing new things. It made the overworld feel far less static and boring than most games'.

Video about the developers making the FPS module: I was totally taken by surprise to find the creative director wearing my forum's t-shirt. :tup:

I'd never heard of Rimworld before. It looks a lot like Prison Architect — like, borderline excessively so — but I highly approve of the game's premise.

What a saddening story. It's perhaps of little consolation to that guy that MI2's special edition actually ended up being pretty good compared to its predecessor, although that could have just been because dividing work between teams like that is very challenging and often saps morale out of everyone — I guess a more focused effort from Singapore worked out reasonably well. I think it's safe to say that virtually anything Disney does with the LucasArts licenses is a step up from what LucasArts itself did with them. It's splendid to see re-releases and remasters actually being done right. Or at least, put into capable hands.

It's so weird this ended up happening with Spacebase. I generally don't touch in-progress simulation/management games because they tend to have horrendous issues that make it unworthwhile. But Spacebase is exactly the kind of game I'd love to play, so I've been waiting for it to get into a good state — much like I've been doing with Prison Architect, which by the sounds of is it getting seriously awesome now. Is the problem here just how Double Fine chose to fund this game? It seems like it'd have potentially been way better off if it had a slightly more conventional development cycle, even if the funding came from a Kickstarter. I applaud Double Fine for experimenting, but the whole early access thing has always seemed a bit shit to me. A lot of people just don't want to play a WIP, so if you're relying on that then you're going to run into trouble. I'm sure there's much more to it, but it makes me so sad to have a game that looks so brilliant dangled in front of me and then effectively taken away (if reviews of its current and now final state are anything to go by), especially when it looks like a game that'd do really well if it'd been released to the masses in a more complete form.

That's true, but I guess it is a Civilization game and it's enough of a jump for many series fans making the theme so different. Not that I would personally oppose it, but I can see why things might be a little conservative. I spend a bit too much time thinking up stupid canonical explanations for things that seem a bit weird in games. I struggle with the whole 'it's just a game' thing.

The planets' atmospheres are too thick for any kind of photography to be practical when landing, and composed of material that makes heat-based imagery ineffective. Planets are selected for their ability to sustain life, not their geography — being picky is not an option in the advent of humanity's demise, and there hasn't been time for scouting missions. An explanation that allows for mechanics that make the game work as a Civilization title, without compromising an aversion to overlooking gamification of this tale of aliens and Firaxite.

So it turns out this game is fucking addictive. I like these kinds of games as it is, but Battlefield 4 seems to have hit a series high in terms of its shooter equivalent of 'one more turn'. As I learn how I like to play the game best, I find myself craving the equipment that facilitates it. And it takes god damn ages to unlock said equipment, so I tend to dabble in other things as well but then I discover even more things I enjoy doing but would be so much easier if I just had that certain attachment for my gun... But it is a lot of fun. Genuinely a great game, I'd so go far as to say the best Battlefield second to the magnificent Battlefield 2142. I mean it is probably a better game, but there's something about that sci-fi atmosphere I just can't get over. It very much delivers the full Battlefield experience, especially with the return of the commander role. The level design is also absolutely excellent, a marked step up from Battlefield 3 that combines optimum size (it's very easy for Battlefield maps to be too big or too small) with great use of destruction to genuinely change the flow. For vehicle fans like myself, there's more depth to them than ever thanks to there being five slots worth of stuff you can customise for most of them to really suit your style — it's like a whole game in itself. It also turns out that the PlayStation 4's recording feature is really cool. I just leave it recording all the time with no ill effect, and if I happen to do something interesting I can press a couple of buttons and it's saved forever. I've been putting some of my adventures up on YouTube. Launching a vehicle into the sky: Bringing down the dam with one rocket (kind of): Saving myself from a tank on the head, which also revealed some weird double tank glitch: ... and what shooter would be complete without these immersion-breaking arse holes?

Haha, yeah while watching the trailer it seemed pretty obvious they were referencing the exceedingly difficult nature of Flappy Bird that made it so popular, and of course the core mechanic is the same (as the games Flappy Bird aped it from) except with the ability to control direction too — which sounds god damn impossible. I like it though, I just hope the game itself has the same soundtrack as the trailer.

Indeed, based on what little I know about Schafer (i.e. Grim Fandango) the story is fleshed out in a pretty in-depth amount of detail way before all the actual dialogue is written. I guess the concepts of the dialogue are established early, but all those amazing quips Schafer is great at take longer to brew. The beta/whatever version of Monkey Island 2 was similar, practically the whole game was developed yet missing a lot of dialogue.

I've only watched the trailer for this game, but my opinion is that the game looks entirely abhorrent and not a game that I would be willing to play. However, I have no desire to condemn others for playing it, and I would actively oppose any movement to ban such games. I'm pretty sure that games still don't turn people into killers, and I feel that any censorship of entertainment is wrong. If an individual gets some kind of thrill out of playing a game like this — much like a sizeable number of people enjoy books with extremely controversial subject matter, paper-thin plot slash horrors, violent porn, etc — I don't have the right to judge them for it. Anybody who does so is quite simply arrogant, although expressing personal disapproval is fine. I think we're going to see a lot more games like this, and that games are increasingly going to have this side catering to various taboos that is somewhat akin to comparing film and pornography. Describing all of these things as 'games' is something that will probably have to stop in the end, though.

That campaign's page is absolutely brilliant. I'm 99% sure it's a joke but at the same time I'd love to see that shit happen.

As someone who has never played a Civilization game, after watching some gameplay videos of this I'm highly interested. Stuff looks superb.

I always assumed that being beaten in Monkey Kombat pissed LeChuck off and somehow broke through the spell of the ultimate insult, at which point he very consciously smashed the shit out of Ozzie. By the way, did anyone notice just how overpowered LeChuck is in Escape from Monkey Island? God damn.

God yes.

That's what my first post addressed really. You need an economical web host, if you were in Europe I'd recommend EuroVPS but you should be able to find comparable North American web hosts. I'm sure somebody from that region has better recommendations than I could give, although considering that it's just for a static HTML website even the bargain basement hosts like Dreamhost and Site5 should be good (also I have heard good things about Site5). Most web hosts let you set up the domain as part of your hosting package, or even offer you a free one. If you choose to keep your domain separate from your web hosting, you just set a couple of fields in your domain admin panel to be some server addresses your web host will give you. A domain is literally just the thing you type into your address bar; everything functional such as hosting, email, etc comes from a web host. A domain is typically paid yearly, whereas web hosting is monthly. I'd say that averages would be $10/year for domains and $5/month for web hosting. You're paying for support when you get web hosting, so they should help you out with anything that seems confusing.

You still need web hosting, though. Unless I'm missing something Hover is exclusively a domain registrar; there's nowhere to actually host your files.

Another thing worth considering is using a site such as Dribbble or Behance as a portfolio. It isn't necessarily seen as a negative thing to do this (unless you're a web designer/developer, in which case building your own from scratch is ideal), and it comes with a lot of bonuses like exposing you to potential clients and making it easier to solicit feedback. It's a bit like how a lot of people let their LinkedIn profiles do a lot of the work when it comes to attracting employers rather than having some static resume/info site sat somewhere on the internet which nobody ever comes across.

Squarespace is a service so the template and hosting is all part of one thing. I wouldn't go with them because you're locked in, in that you can't (and aren't allowed to) take the site and host it elsewhere. Once you've actually built it and mostly finished using their lovely editing tools, you're pretty much just paying a huge premium for unremarkable hosting. If you just want somewhere to host your own design/code then you'd be better off going with an economical hosting package, for example EuroVPS does a great mini plan that has performance on par with its (awesome) higher-level plans but with far less diskspace and bandwidth, thus making the price really cheap — albeit paid yearly. You're in Canada so that's probably not any good for you, but there must be similar North American deals. If you're just doing a portfolio then a wise approach might be to install WordPress on a regular hosting plan — which virtually any host allows you to do with a few button presses nowadays — and then install one of the numerous free portfolio themes out there. You're then in complete control, and WordPress even updates itself automatically nowadays. If you ever change your mind about your host and want to go somewhere cheaper/better, it's a total cinch. Most hosts are familiar with WordPress too and are willing to help if things go wrong.

Always knew Luigi was a smooth criminal, man.