ihavefivehat

Speaking of new sci-fi, and also to go completely off-topic: what are the good modern sci-fi writers that I should be reading? The newest sci-fi book that I've read is the Star Wars book where Chewbacca died (and I read that in middle school.)

Cool! Love the hand drawn look! Controls felt weird at first but I got used to them pretty quickly. I ran into one bug, right before going off the jump which had a shark on it (I think it was a jump), my surfer totally stopped. Once I jumped the game carried on as normal though.

Yeah it turns out you just have to verify your account by having them text you a code. The more you know!

I made this video for an 'art games studies' class that I'm taking. It got a decent response so I thought I might as well share it here! I take some time explaining basic game concepts because a lot of people in that class aren't familiar with such things.

I saw you present this at Indie City Games a few months ago. Game looks good! And thanks for the video, I'm finding it really helpful.

Ludum Dare started an hour ago! Theme: Beneath the Surface Anyone submitting something?

I love how he pretends to be impressed even though that thing must seem like a toy compared to the secret race of hyper-liberal robotic super-soldiers which the CIA has been developing from captured alien technology in order to secretly replace conservative voters before the next election.

Contemporary jazz seems a little bit boring to me. Maybe I'm just not listening hard enough but I haven't heard anything post 70s that hits me the way Charlie Parker, Mingus or Sun Ra did at first listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixt_2BQpKX4 Any recommendations?

I've been using Playmaker, and it's pretty cool. It's allowed me to get games running without actually learning C# or any of the Unity syntax. Sometimes I get frustrated when I know I could type something out faster that it takes to click through the Playmaker menus. Of course, like Chris said it's probably awesome when used in combination with actual code.

One approach would be to empower the players such that it is just easy and fun for them to get back to their goal and guard it. The 'brute force' application of that might be to allow them to teleport or dash back in front of their goal with a button press. To avoid abuse you could put it on a cool down, or make it take a little bit of time. Actually thinking about it, a cool down might not be necessary if you look at it as replicating the effect of having a dedicated goalie in soccer. I think real-world sports have generally solved this issue by having multiple players. But then there's one-on-one basketball which only has one basket and I believe allows players to switch to offense by taking the ball and running back a certain distance. Maybe you could take some inspiration there.

That's an interesting idea. I wonder if it could work for a slightly different type of game, maybe a top-down shooter. Your stats would increase or decrease based on your movement relative to the enemy that you are currently targeting. For instance, your shields would increase if you were moving towards that enemy, your speed would increase if you were moving crosswise, and your attack would increase if you were moving away. Actually, for this type of game maybe speed wouldn't be a good variable to keep changing. Maybe it would work better for a one-on-one multiplayer game, encouraging each player to move around each other in order to get the most advantageous relative position (sort of like naval combat in the wind-powered days.)

Haven't played Magicka, but I'm pretty sure it's in my steam library so maybe I'll check it out. Aside from power-ups, I have some other pretty specific ideas that I feel would be effective in encouraging the player to continuously change their stats.. Whether or not I can implement them effectively is another story. Broadly, my goal is to encourage the player to continuously move back and forth between various combinations while still allowing some freedom in how to tackle the various obstacles. I want the game to feel a little bit sandboxy in that there is not always a single best stat combination for each challenge. I anticipate that hitting the right balance will be the most challenging part of designing the game.

I will third The Indoor Kids. They have a less invested angle on games than the thumbs, but that can be refreshing. They're also just generally funny and intelligent people and they get entertaining guests.

the best: also this is tangentially related to jazz so here you go, it's one of my favorite recordings. just listen to the way he weaves his voice in and out of the rhythm of his guitar playing. there is a quiet and intense complexity to his music that gets under your skin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sul21ng3E1o

cool! I just got this really great compilation called Girls in the Garage. It's all music that went relatively unknown in the 60s, but was dug up and compiled in the late 80s. part of the same DIY feminist climate that gave rise to riot grrl.

Worked on this game a bit this week. You can die now! Other than that, these are mostly cosmetic changes. Next on the to-do list: - Add more things to make moving around the stat circle fun. - Make it look good. Establish a general aesthetic. - Start adding things which encourage you to change your stats. (Enemies, pick-ups, obstacles, etc.) - Design a level.

Just played through Quake for the first time! Even though I've been a Doom fan for most of my life, I've never found myself able to get into Quake. The weapons felt too weak, you moved too slowly, you weren't fighting enough enemies at a time. This time, though, it clicked for me. I realized that those were all conscious design decisions, and that I had no reason to expect 3D Doom. But, at the same time, the game manages to push a lot of the same buttons that the Doom games do. It has that feeling of dread where you're always hesitating to go around the next corner, and where you always have just barely enough ammo. The sound track may not be as rockin' as Doom's, but it definitely helps to reinforce the atmosphere and I thought it was pretty cool how it changes dynamically while you move through the levels. Enemies are sort of a mixed bag. I like the ones that leap through the air at you, and the dudes with the chainsaw in one hand and the grenade launcher in the other are fantastic and they force you to think about the space around you in a way that Doom never required. The slimey jumping around guys that they start throwing at you towards the end of the game are the worst, though. I still have a problem with the weapons in the game; they're boring. Essentially you have a basic melee weapon, a shot gun, a more powerful shotgun, a machine gun, a more powerful machine gun, a grenade launcher, a rocket launcher, and the lightning gun (those last 3 are pretty great though.) The grenade launcher is my favorite, because it's the only weapon which really seems to make use of the new 3D engine. Also the final boss is incredibly lame. But overall I really enjoyed the game! Now I should probably play Quake 2 one of these days.

Yeah, you should at least change to hard. Normal is secretly easy mode since the re-vamped loot system was put in place.

I've never heard of Uprising, but based on screenshots, it looks like their concept is really similar to mine! Having the statistics affect AI is a really awesome idea, but I think it's a little bit out of the scope of my current project and skill-level. I'm definitely putting that idea in storage for future projects. Also, I kind of like the 'rub your belly, pat your head' aspect of this system. I think I can design game play that makes it feel wacky and fun rather than frustratingly difficult.

Yup, that's what ultimately makes the leveling system in Morrowind work better than Oblivion's. Even if you truly have no idea what you're doing when you create your character, you'll still eventually grow your stats enough that you'll be able to beat enemies simply by out-leveling them. It just might take longer than if you read a min-maxing guide.

There's still some very annoying stuff and it does feel like they're constantly prodding you to buy the expansion. The game is still enjoyable, though. If any other vanilla people need someone to play online with, let me know! l'm 'food' on battle net. I don't plan on upgrading any time soon, either. (Monetary reasons, not as some weird protest.)

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Hey guys! I thought I'd get in on some of this action! This is an ugly little prototype of a game I've been working on. It will probably require some explanation... controls: Use WASD to move your triangle Use space to shoot your space gun Move the mouse around the little circle thing to change your stats on the fly! red is the rate at which you can shoot, green is your speed, and blue is your defense This is still in the stage where I'm figuring out mechanics, so it's barely functional as an actual game. For instance, you can't actually die yet. The big idea behind this is that I wanted to create a game where the mechanics can be changed on the fly super-intuitively. Right now I essentially have the mouse's position mapped to 3 variables. I'm just using the variables to change basic game play values, but eventually I'll use them to draw visuals that change on the fly. Things I want to do: Make it so you can die. Make the visuals of your ship change according to your various stat-values Make the visuals look nice in general. Design an actual level. Oh yeah, and I wrote the game in Processing. You can see the code here if you're curious.

Ha! Dumb robots can't even play Mario right! Not so scary now, are they?

You could look at Glorious Trainwrecks for one example of a community with a highly developed bad games aesthetic.