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Cheers twmac. VERY sorry about the colourblind issues ... I keep telling myself "this puzzle game *will* be colourblind friendly" and then the time is never there. Next time, promise! As you may have heard, sales haven't been great on indie games, so there isn't real incentive to make more games for the platform. If things had gone better, Smiley would be on there by now. Moreover, my game design mind is leaning toward handheld these days, so I'm focusing on the iPhone for now. Still, I'll let you know if I've got anything coming up on XBIG. Mo

Cool, let me know what you think then. Mo

Might I shamelessly suggest DUOtrix? Mo

Car bashing bonus stage? SOLD! http://www.joystiq.com/2009/11/06/super-street-fighter-iv-trailer-unlocks-bonus-stages/

Okay, so I agree that it looks pretty awful. However, just watch/listen: http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2009/10/28/Disney-Epic-Mickey_3A00_-Audio-Tour-With-Warren-Spector.aspx Some of that sounds pretty awesome. Like Oswald being the bad guy because he knows that Disney ditched him. Old archived content used in the game. The game being populated by the old, forgotten characters and rides of Disney. The projector screens being used as teleportation devices, which are actually platforming mini-games based on retro Mickey cartoons! You can tell this is Warren Spector's baby ... by using the old & forgotten, Warren used his encyclopaedic knowledge on the subject to creates a "fresh" take on Disney while still being very true to Disney. The choice aspect is very Spector, and seem reasonably compelling. "Choice matters" he says, but we'll have to wait to see how much. I'm crossing my fingers for the art style to get better, but after watching the video above, I'm actually really looking forward to this. Cheers, Mo

I hated the controls for Civ Rev ... ranted about it here: http://www.mobeenfikree.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/11/ocd-about-guis-examining-civ-rev-for-iphone/ Also, it crashed on me at some point and I've been bitter ever since. Mo

"You're going to be blown away!" -IGN.com I knew it was IGN before I looked below the quote.

Sorry for the double post, but ... And that's exactly what makes Carmack so awesome. The other guys just aren't doing any of this. The other engine developers are all pretty much doing the same thing: seeing what the video card vendors come out with, and upgrading their base engines accordingly. You can see this with Unreal Engine ... it gets prettier every iteration, but fundamentally, it's the same damn engine! Carmack is going beyond that. He's thinking outside the specific hardware implementations and getting creative. I know people don't associate engine programming with creativity, but the best developers are *incredibly* creative ... just in a different way. There's real innovation in coming up with a different way to stream textures versus "oh, let's implement normal-bump-displacement mapping" or whatever. Cheers, Mo

I think all us programmers are, to an extent. Yeah, but not really. The ports weren't done in-house and they were generally quite poor. Like you mentioned, framerate issues in Q4. Quake Wars I believe also had issues/compromises. Doom3 for xbox was stripped down significantly. Etc. Contrast this with Rage: 60fps on all platforms. Again, this was tied into the elongated dev cycle. Carmack's work was done in 2002, Invisible War came out 2003. If id had the same policy as Epic (the engine is always a WIP, release first test later) things would be different. id's policy is to ship the flagship title before licensing the engine. (Honestly, I'm not sure id have the right policy any more ... it was admirable when games took max 2 yrs to make, it's a bit of a wasted opportunity these days. Still, there are some very valid points for going by id's policy, mostly having to do with Doing The Right Thing) That's a very good point. Doom3 more than any other id engine was designed specifically for that *one* look. Definitely hurt them. Another good point ... ish. Obviously, I don't think Unreal engine is better. Ease of use from an engineering POV, I'm guessing id's stuff is better. I've had the pleasure of briefly working with the Q3A open source code at work ... Carmack creates beautifully structured code. No doubt cleaner/more elegant than Unreal's offerings. But of course, this is speculation. Dev tools, yeah, totally agree. I didn't mention that, but it's a very good point. But again, check out the previews of the Rage toolkit ... very intuitive stuff, especially the painting/decal stuff. It's Quake Wars turned upto 11. QW only used megatextures for the terrain, and even then it was kinda limited. QW was a proof of concept. This is the real deal. Cheers, Mo

FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm a complete, and utter id/Carmack fanboy. He is *SO* still at the top of his game! id had a bad run with Doom3. They misjudged the market in two very important ways: (1) the engine was PC-exclusive when it should have been multi-platform, (2) it was a corridor engine when the industry was going open world. However, consider this: the Doom3 engine started development in 2000, and was more-or-less complete by 2002. In 2000, those decisions weren't all that outrageous. By 2002, the writing was on the wall: Carmack *knew* he'd gone wrong, but his hands were tied until Doom3 shipped, which was of course in 2004. We know this by looking at id tech 5 ... id tech 5 is the complete opposite of doom3: open world and multiplatform. Further, I genuinely think id's engines are just built better. There's an elegance to them. Unreal is just a bunch of graphic & shader tricks thrown at the wall. Crytech is impressive ... if you've got the horsepower. IMO, that is not a great engine. Carmack has always balanced the right amount of features with the right level of performance. Every one of his engines has a theme, and the features work around said theme ... Q1 was true 3D, Q2 was opengl support, Q3A was speed and curved surfaces, Doom3 was unified lighting, Rage is open world and megatexturing. There's a certain elegance to id tech that I can't help but admire. Alright, I think that's enough fanboy ranting. Cheers, Mo

I find that two reasonably vigorous shakes work pretty well.

Okay, this is (a) shameless self-pimpage and ( not really a game, but whatever I've been a member since forever, so I feel I can get away with it. I've written an app called 32x32. It's a pixel art editor. It's simple to use and super fun. It's just 99 cents. Try it! More info: http://www.caffeinemonstersoftware.com/32x32/ Cheers, Mo

I like how you translated "Designing Multiplayer Maps" back into French.

FYI, Natal was apparently developed in-house. And no, I don't see why they'd lie about it. I'm guessing the real reason they bought out 3DV was for more mundane reasons: patent rights. Re: Japanese developers. Like Rodi, I'm always a bit disappointed with the interviews. Like, whenever there's an awesome Japanese developer interview I get all excited but always end up underwhelmed by the content. But I really think it comes down to the language barrier, cultural issues, or something! I don't know what it is, but I'm just not convinced that such interesting developers don't have anything interesting to say. Mo

Oh neat, OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Mind you, it still isn't going to make games retroactively look better. Mo

What about releasing Team Fortress Classic for free? Unheard of at the time. That was in 1999. Also: Deathmatch Classic. And sure gamers got impatient (like we always do), but I don't think anyone doubted they'd deliver. They wouldn't deliver on time, but they never had a 3drealms-esque reputation. But whatever, it's beside the point. THE POINT is that Valve have built up a great deal of good will over the course of many years. They are one the most (if not the most) "philanthropic" developers out there. Gamers know this, and yet they throw a hissy-fit over L4D2. Why are they (we?) so fickle? Mo

Well obviously not, but a "graphics update" that magically makes all games look better isn't really possible. Anti-aliasing maybe, but everything else would have to be done on the developers side. Still, it does mean games will probably start having graphics quality sliders like PC games have. Cheers, Mo

This is what I was getting at. It annoys me just how fickle gamers are. Valve built up a huge amount of good will over the course of 10+ years and one tiny decision means all of that is forgotten. Would it hurt to trust Valve a bit? Cheers, Mo

Here's my response to the boycott: Guys,Valve gave us five amazing games for the price of one. Cut them some fucking slack.

The processor is around twice the speed. That's pretty much a graphics update.

Finally, a reason to dust my PSP off! How do I get my hands on said demo? I've been looking forward to this for a while, especially because I *haven't* played Amplitude/Frequency before, but have always been intrigued by the mechanics. Mo

toblix is right. The stories are connected, but the beginning of each game gives you a quick recap of the story. To really appreciate the whole thing though, it's best to play them chronologically. Mo

Well that was fun! Reminds me of Another (/Out Of This) World, with a greater emphasis on puzzling. Which I, of course, approve of. Very desperately needs a quicksave key, but whatever, I can deal with it. Thanks for the initial recommendation Toeblix. Mo

Thank you good sir, Steam is downloading Abe's Oddysee as we speak. Mo

*bump* Okay, so I bought this a while back and now I wanna start playing. Which game do I start with? Oddysee would be the obvious choice (chronological) but is there any reason I should play Exoddus instead? Is it a better and/or easier game or something? And are the stories connected, or can I play them in either order? Sorry, just having a needlessly difficult time choosing here. Cheers, Mo