I_smell

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Posts posted by I_smell

  1. Posted

    I actually wish Rami would've not said "Hey, maybe you WILL win the lottery!" at the end. I thought the lecture could've stood well on it's own without a cherry on top.

    Nice talk though!

     

    On that topic, I encourage everyone to check out ctrl500.com. It started as a site where you submit a helpful anecdote from development experience in 500 words or less. There's some Mass Effect stuff, some Last of Us articles, Hotline Miami, and a couple from me! :o

     

    Right now it's full of Control Conference lecture videos, which is fair, because they're good too.

  4. Posted

    I have not played this, but after just watching the trailer, I'm stunned.

     

    A little bit of success with The Stanley Parrable gave this author a megaphone, and I think his use of that reputation here is really admirable. He's just grabbing the creatives and the critics of the industry by the ears and very plainly making a statement, starting a worthwhile conversation.

     

    Hats off, dude.

  5. Posted

    I just had to tell someone about this, and Idle Thumbs seems like the right crowd.

     

     

    No Man's Sky had an appearance on this American late-night TV show.

    I've seen games pop up on these things before, if it's the Nintendo Wii or the Occulus Rift... but watching this game be explained to an audience was so bizarre. It's just strange, it's like watching The Black-Eyed Peas get on stage and play Magic The Gathering against each other.

     

    By the end of the segment, I actually felt like that was the smallest, weakest showing of the game I've ever seen.

  10. Posted

    Wow, I searched, but couldn't find anyone talking about the Pixar movie "Inside Out". I just saw it last weekend. Feels like nobody on Earth's talking about it.

    No spoilers in this review!

     

    It's a good movie. The stakes never get too high, and it's not a one-in-a-million story, but it's a nice watch.

    It's very directly about emotions, and Pixar wears on it's sleeve an objective to make nutritionally healthy movies for children.

    The animation is really fun to watch, and the gags and acting are nicely human. Casting Amy Poehler (Leslie Nope from Parks and Rec) as Joy was a perfectly perfect choice.
    I felt like the plot had about 1 insightful thing to say on emotions, and it's a shame they managed to dodge anything more interesting in a whole movie starring Anger, Fear, Disgust, Sadness and Joy. I thought their metaphors for personality and emotion were a bit convoluted and shallow.

     

    Still contained within the box of being a children's movie, but has slightly more to teach than Big Hero 6, Minions or The Croods.

  14. Posted

    I totally love Shadow of the Colossus, it's very unique and ambitious!

    I can definitely remember being stuck on some guy's beard for a LONG TIME, and the climbing feeling very slow and unreliable too, though. I think it's a very cool feat, acknowledging it's flaws.

    I like to play the PS2 version because it does have a bad framerate that compensates with big heavy motion blur. It gives the game an anime or stop-motion vibe that actually feels appropriate to me. The PS2 is struggling to move these giant things, and I like that as a concept!

     

    Also I agree that you guys should quit playing games with my heart.

  15. Posted

    With X-COM 2 just being announced, I looked up this hour-long chat between the designers of Massive Challice at Double-Fine, and the designer of X-COM Enemy Unknown at Firaxis:

     

     

    Recorded in the early stages of Massive Challice's development, of course.

    Just a fun podcast!

  17. Posted

    Totally two thumbs up on this, like everyone else.

    Just wanna throw it out there that Jake Solomon, Enemy Unknown's designer, is so much fun to listen to. He's got super passion for being in the role he's in, similar to Brad Muir. Looking forward to the interview!

  18. Posted

    SPEEDY!!

    2j47oud.jpg

     

    Hey how about some UI art? I opened up my old side-project recently BATTLE SNOOKER!

    It's hopefully something like Advance Wars, but you putt your units around like a minigolf game.

    Here's my old artwork:

    and here's some new artwork:

    2deb098409cb4fe34b22ba0114fd668e.png

     

    The old way just wasn't cutting it for me. I was using the white stripe on the ball to communicate damage or defense bonuses, and because it was stretched around a sphere, then aliased, it just looked like pixel-stew every time.
    Also having the radial health-bars around the outside of the ball just wasn't good enough, as it obscured exactly what was collision and what wasn't.

    I used to have one aim-line that would get longer as you pulled back, to show an estimate of your trajectory. The problem with this was that I'd always pull back 100% just to get a better view of my aiming angle. Weak UI decisions shouldn't be influencing me to hit harder every shot- So I made an aim-line that was always long. It's thick as the ball too, so you'd know exactly when you were just nipping someone on the side.

     

    Still frustratingly unfinished. The bars on everything are so small, and you can't always tell if you're doing 25% damage or 30%- which of course is important! Just thought I'd post some UI iteration for a fun mix-up, I think this is interesting.

  19. Posted

    Thanks to whoever recommended watching The Book Of Life. I found the stuff about Mexican folklore really interesting, and the artwork and sets in the movie are so much fun. This one guy's pupils are skulls that exist and animate by themselves as he's talking, what a neat idea!

     

    The actual plot and characters are just about good enough to keep me in the movie, I'm more there for the imaginative world they set up.

     

    Oh and, unrelated to the above, here's the sequel to SunCreature's amazing short film The Reward!

    If you haven't watched The Reward, then definitely seek it out first.

  20. Posted

    I thought the Arkham Asylum Harley Quinn was straight-up stupid. That whole game's aesthetic isn't my kind of thing.

     

    I think this Harley Quinn that you guys are posting about looks alright, it does seem to maintain the character in a way that's less super-hero and more street-thug. I like it. I completely hate that everything's sapped down to dirty, muddy, zero-colour mode, though.

    The rest of the characters on display here, I dunno, who fuckin' cares!

     

    The original Harley Quinn is a totally perfect character that everyone seems to re-design of their own liberty, so yeah I understand the ire.

  21. Posted

    I tried to pick up a couple new comedy shows recently, but I just can't roll with the dark or cynical nature that comes along with them.
    I watched a couple episodes of The Last Man On Earth. There's one person left, and he unravels after a couple years. It's an interesting premise! I thought him living in a huge house with a bunch of stolen museum pieces is fun, and I think him using guns to open doors is fun. Issues of loneliness, alcoholism and chronic masturbating are bound to come up, but it felt like that was their fall-back. To write a fiction where the last man on Earth regresses so easily to a vapid gross lazy teenager felt really sad to me. I thought it was wasted potential to do something fun or interesting.

    and when the one woman turns up to SPOIL ALL THE FUN AND BE ANNOYING, I just stopped trying to like the show at all. Cliche husband-and-wife gags by episode 2, are you kidding me?

     

    Secondly, I just downloaded the first episode of UNBREAKABLE, a comedy show with another interesting premise. It has a positive style, and definitely more ambition than that last one, so I liked it enough that I'll watch a couple more episodes. This premise, though, stars a group of cult survivors who've been in a fallout-shelter for decades, thinking the apocalypse had happened. They exit the shelter and integrate themselves into the modern world. Jokes happen.
    These characters are really upbeat... because they are victims of intense trauma. I find this notion terrifying, so I can't really ease into the jokes about a whacky LA lifestyle.

     

    I just discovered Silicon Valley and have been digging the crap out of it. It's just so accurate. It could be a bit sharper/nastier but goddamn hilarious.

     

    Yeah I really agree that they nailed the start-up culture. Every episode is a case of "I've been to this business party" or "I've met that dude".
    I thought it was aggressive enough, but as I've said before I don't have a high tolerance for these dark comedy shows.

     

    I actually came here to write a comment about seeing Avengers 2 last night, but hey look, in a nutshell: It's really fun.

  22. Posted

    I just tried to pin down as many lesbian relationships as I could, because that is an exciting Commander Shepard to me.

     

    Yeah in Mass Effect I role-play as a giant slut, in the privacy of my own home I'm allowed to do whatever I want!

     

     

     

    If it makes you feel any better, I did only realize I'd fallen in love with Yeoman Kelly Chambers when I found out she'd died on the Reaper ship, so that taught me a lesson.

  23. Posted

    Thanks for linking the Mario game reviews! "Insightful" is exactly the right word, it's a very objective critique with a lot of straight-forward knowledge on how gameplay systems interact.

    I must've watched the guy's whole Youtube channel in a day, he also went from beginning to end with Metal Gear Solid.

    I'm loving video essays right now!

     

    I'll dive into the other content on this page soon too, thanks a lot thumbs!

     

    EDIT-- Actually, what's funny about these reviews is that I've found myself becoming more attracted to people talking about games in completely boring voices and flat delivery. It's silly that that's a good indicator for me. It's because I'm looking for an introvert's perspective on all this stuff as I think it'll be more valuable to me academically.

    I'm sure if anyone with any camera or stage presence would watch this, they'd just laugh.

  24. Posted

    "They've worked from the shadows for years. Their darkness must end!" -Says guy wearing black trench-coat, black metal skin, sunglasses, invisibility cloak in a hushed, gravelly whisper

     

    "Innocents have died as they play their game!" -Player protagonist, slicing a dozen throats and straight-up murdering everyone in badass stealth-combo

  25. Posted

    I wouldn't typically say this to someone with a Video game goal, but I feel that this behavior is so extreme that my suggestion is to learn to cook, or learn to paint, play the guitar, go to the gym, read a book, or try literally any other form of enrichment.

     

    Just throwin' it out there, gonna leave it out on the table for anyone to pick up n think about. If nobody does, then hey; no harm done.

    That's my post.