SAILERIUS'S PROFILE

Sailerius
did someone say angels
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Something happened to me last night when I was driving home. I had a couple of miles to go. I looked up and saw a glowing orange object in the sky. It was moving irregularly. Suddenly, there was intense light all around. And when I came to, I was home.

What do you think happened to me?
Vacant Sky Vol. 1: Conte...
I died once. (Complete Edition Act II+ now available!)

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On Secondary Game Objectives

Study link: http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/game-abtesting/fdg2011/fdg2011.pdf

author=study
Secondary game objectives, optional challenges that players
can choose to pursue or ignore, are a fundamental element
of game design. Still, little is known about how secondary
objectives affect player behavior. It is commonly believed
that secondary objectives such as coins or collectible items
can increase a game’s flexibility, replayability, and depth.

I stumbled upon this earlier while doing some research, an academic study into optional objectives in games and their effect on player psychology and retention. It's interesting to see how the findings both support and defy conventional wisdom.

What do you make of it? What does it mean for RPGs?

(Please read the research in full before responding.)

"Fan games can still ruin your life. Please stop believing otherwise."

An attorney who practices video game copyright law gives a legal AMA about fangames.

Some select quotes:

Joking responses you'll see aside, I've seen homes lost, families broken up, and credit ruined for life. No company owes you a cease and desist, and many are more than willing to destroy you in order to stop a competing game, as is their right. The reason you never hear about it? Because those life ruining settlements (which are better than life ruining judgments) also come with a very strict NDA. The creators disappear into quietness and don't talk about what actually happened. But it is the height of lunacy to think the worst case scenario is a cease and desist. And it doesn't matter if you don't own anything right now, judgments stay with you twenty years and they'll make sure you don't own anything in the future either.


Yes, there is no difference if your game is free or not. Whoever started this rumor is up there with "a cop has to tell you he's a cop."


Given how much misinformation and "common knowledge" there is on the subject, it's interesting to hear it from a legal expert. In particular, I find his point about why you never hear about fangames being prosecuted because they always come with an NDA interesting.

It makes me wonder where myths like "it's fair use if it's free" come from. Maybe from people who wish that's how it worked, like "it's legal to download a ROM if you delete it after 24 hours."

The Witness



So I picked up The Witness on its launch date and have clocked about 6 hours in it so far. For those who haven't heard of it, it's a puzzle/adventure game designed by Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid.

I've been really impressed by the elegance and cleverness of the design so far. It has a fantastic learning curve and the best tutorial system I've ever seen in a game; it's gentle without holding your hand, and instructive without being condescending. Despite superficial similarities to Myst, I would say the game closest to it in gameplay that I've played is Portal.

It's been making the rounds on Twitter as a must-play for game designers because of the masterful elegance of the mechanics, perfect pacing, and constant progression of concepts without being over-complicated or having any filler.

Has anyone else played it yet? Have it given you ideas on how to implement progression in your games? Please be sure to mark spoilers!

Star Citizen allegedly going bankrupt, development mired by turnover, racism, sexism

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

A game with a larger budget than Metal Gear Solid V is allegedly (by several employee reports) going bankrupt with virtually nothing to show for it. Also, this gem:
author=article
It was also alleged that Roberts' wife and Cloud Imperium Games Vice President of Marketing Sandi Gardiner enforced discriminatory hiring practices. CS1 reported that they were instructed to, first, check the education field on a prospective employee's resume. If too much time had passed, Gardiner reportedly informed people not to hire them, because "they may be over 40, which makes them a protected class and harder to fire." It was also claimed that Gardiner used race as a determining factor in selecting employees, allegedly once saying "We aren't hiring her. We aren't hiring a black girl."

Yikes.

A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art

http://www.dinofarmgames.com/a-pixel-artist-renounces-pixel-art/

Though I never intended for Auro to be a “retro-style” game, what I intended doesn’t matter at all, and it’s 100% my fault for failing to communicate in a language people understand.

As a game developer, time is the most valuable resource a human can give you. Nobody owes us their time or attention. As such, when someone gives us their time, an implicit agreement is made and we are now in debt to that person. We owe it to them to deliver value for their time, and to deliver it efficiently.


A very insightful article by a professional pixel artist about the relevance of pixel art in games in the modern day.

HoloLens Games

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/29/8513561/microsoft-hololens-apps-build-2015

So Microsoft just demoed architects designing holographic buildings around themselves, controlling real robots with a holographic interface, holographic pets, and decorating your bedroom with holographic posters, windows, and apps.

And Unity just announced that they're going to support HoloLens.

So which one of you is going to be the first person to make a starship simulator game with Hololens and when can I give you my money?

Seriously, though, if you told child me that I would live to see a time that anyone can design holographic games that interact with the real world, I wouldn't believe you. What kind of cool games are we going to see? What kind do you want to make?

Retail Xbox Ones to be unlocked as devkits in 2015

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-05-retail-xbox-ones-will-be-unlocked-as-test-kits-later-this-year?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialoomph

author=
Microsoft confirmed that retail Xbox Ones will be unlocked as test kits for games being developed in the Windows 10 universal app.

This will happen in the second half of 2015, the console manufacturer revealed at a GDC panel attended by Eurogamer.

ID@Xbox director Chris Charla noted that Microsoft is bringing its self-publishing program, ID@Xbox, to Windows 10.

Of course, self-publishing has always been an option on PC, but going through Microsoft's impending unified app platform has some advantages.

Joining the programme gives developers two dev kits at no charge, and enables support for Gamerscore, Achievements, Xbox Live, Kinect and so on. There are no fees for certification or updates.

Furthermore, you'll gain access to Microsoft's expertise and its gargantuan collection of data. For example, Charla noted that "your launch date is probably as important as your control scheme."

More interestingly, Charla revealed that "the correlation between game length - like how long it takes to beat your game - and how your game sells is non-existent. There is literally no correlation there." Fascinating!

He added that you don't have to take Microsoft's advice, but it's there for those who want it.

Charla boasted that porting between platforms on the universal app is very easy. In fact, Other Ocean ported #IDARB to PC in a day.

[UE4] Unreal Engine 4 is now free

https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

The monthly fee to use UE4 is now gone. It is completely free for noncommercial use now, and although you can also use it for commercial projects, you owe them 5% royalties on any amount you make over $3,000 quarterly. If you make less than that on your games, it's still free.

Now that it's completely free to try out, you should give it a shot! It's a lot of fun and pretty easy to learn. Its new Blueprints system lets you develop gameplay in a manner similar to RM's events, so even non-programmers can give it a shot!

Would there be any interest in a community event to try it out together and produce some simple games?

Sai-Art

While I'm mostly a programmer, occasionally I do art, mostly 3D stuff. I randomly decided to start sculpting a cyberpunk character this weekend. It's my first foray into hard surface modeling and it's going fairly decently.



Ignore the hair; it's mostly a placeholder since a lot of it is going to be covered up. I started with the jaw piece and learned a lot from it, such as proper use of the transpose line, which is why the rest of it looks much better. I might want to revisit the mandible later now that I've improved so much.

The headset is about 5.5 million polygons presently.

Last night I started on the clothes. So far I've only got a start on the jacket:


Turntable:


The jacket is roughly 650,000 polygons and still needs a bit more detail, such as the zippers and ribbing on the collar and cuffs.

Can we please do something about Mafia spam?


Whenever these threads get going, they render one of the site's features completely useless. Can there either be a separate board for them that's not factored into the site's activity feeds or they be moved off-site?
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