Campaignjunkie

I agree about L4D, but how is TF2 not complex? I've watched some competitive TF2 and it just boggles the mind.

... Codename Gordon? What's that?

Ah, that sucks about Outerlight.

I wonder when we'll start seeing the fruits of http://indie-fund.com/ ?...

I was excited... until I heard they're copying EVERYTHING from the original. What the hell?! There's definitely bloat with 100 different heroes. I was hoping for something accessible and fun, instead it'll just stay the same old elitist circle jerk it ever was.

Played the prototype. Double-jumping everywhere was pretty fun, uncovering treasure and such.

- The NPC scale in comparison to my character kinda creeped me out -- there's what looks like a 10 year old boy, when I first landed at the docks, and his eye is as big as my head!

- So when I talk to people... I also automatically steal from them? But what if I don't feel like stealing from them? Some NPCs deserve it, some don't, some I feel like stealing from without talking to them... I mean, I understand that it's a way of making "talking to NPCs" more fruitful and useful, but you're also trying to break from 2 decades of RPG / action RPG convention that has "steal" as a separate verb.

- I'd definitely put the conversation textbox at the bottom of the screen, not the top.

reminds me of the computer in Little Big Planet

I wandered around a frozen lake, searching for coal... then I finally found some in a cave, but then 2 spiders snuck up on me and I ran away, and I broke all the ice to turn it into water and flushed them all away. I love this game.

I'm about 30 minutes in... I can't decide whether I like it or whether I think it's a bunch of "cheap" tricks. Fake footstep sounds, lots of random sudden FOV changes, seemingly random deus ex machina triggers. Sometimes it feels right and awesome, but sometimes I'm kind of rolling my eyes at so much effort to achieve a really artificial atmosphere. Some parts feel like Doom 3 but without the campiness. I dunno. I'll play some more, I guess...

To me, "slaughter" suggests something mechanical -- e.g. cows get slaughtered. It's not out of intent to emotionally scar / hate the cows, "it just happens."

Also: condolences to that family

Wait, I don't get it... Orcone leaked it?... Dick move.

EDIT: Mixed feelings about how AM is turning out...

http://twitter.com/radiatoryang

Starcraft 2, Machinarium, trying to get through Bad Company 2 and BioShock 2 but both are getting really boring in the middle

Cool game, but hate the name.

It's because they have vbsp converting all world brushes into func_details, so if you try to use a world brush to seal it up then it'll just turn into a func_detail and not really do anything.

Why turn everything into a func_detail though, is what I'm wondering. Is it because it's a top-down view, so you don't need any visibility testing? But then if nothing's a visblocker, you don't need vvis? But then how do you calculate radiosity without any leaves or VIS information or anything? Do you just use direct lighting information to calculate the lightmaps? Because the lighting isn't fully dynamic, is it? -- it's just smart placement of env_projectedtextures which only render one at a time.

Gaaaaah so confused.

JP: that just looks like your Lambda Core stuff. Try adding some color! You can't just map in bluish-gray forever, even if it looks cool. Challenge yourself.

3dnj: reminds me of the swamp theme stuff but better realized, kind of New Orleans-y

and here's how mine is shaping up, working on it about an hour a day. It's slightly more respectable now:

I kinda like the big inexplicable wall. It forces you to be creative.

I dunno... a game design is nothing without a great execution. It's about the particulars. The small ideas Valve has added (that aren't in similar games): the active reload from GoW, how you lock-on to enemies when they're in light, the semi free-roaming aspect with a draw-on map, the XP system to earn perks -- these things are what raises the game above everything else.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Swarm_TileGen

It looks like we can do a Mapcore co-op project pretty easily: everyone contributes a room or two using PhilipK's new textures, then some brave volunteer packages it all up.

My WIP entry into the TF2 artpass thingy. The TF2 mapping style is a lot more complicated than I thought, I'm finding it pretty difficult to make "new" theme that still looks TF2-ish

Everyone keeps saying that. What's wrong with huge sightlines? There are a bunch on Gold Rush that are utterly crucial.

Same with the semi-building off the grid -- that's what avoids the cookie-cutter syndrome of a lot of maps. You can definitely tell when everything's in increments of 64 and 128. It looks boring.

Let's use PhillipK's sci-fi textures and do a mini Mapcore comp OR co-op project

QUICK SOMEONE ORGANIZE IT

Actually, I'd make-up a word but make it easy to spell -- e.g. "Narbacular Drop"

"Onward, Swashbuckler!"

Haha, I kinda have to agree, the name sounds awkward in English. (and I've spoken English my entire life / studied English literature for 4 years at one of the top English lit schools in the US...) but unlike Rick I'll try to explain why I think so:

a good example: "Sins of a Solar Empire" is fantastic because you get the "S" of Sins and Solar together, the "aa" in "a" and "sol-A-r", and the "RR" in "Sola-R" and "Empi-R-e" -- in literature we call this effect "sibilance" (sss), "assonance" (vowels), and "consonance" (consonants). It rolls off the tongue nicely, at least to fluent American English speakers, and it's also suggests undertones of the 4X genre taken as an dark imperialist / religious allegory so it's kind of smart-sounding too.

Rhythmically, Sins of a Solar Empire has a lot of strong syllables, specifically positioned at the beginning of the 3 most important words in the title. In literature we call this "meter," commonly used when studying poetry, and we'd render that like this:

\      x     x     \  x    \  \    x

SINS   of    a    SOL ar   EM PI  re

Meanwhile... "Pirates of New Horizons" doesn't have the same sounds or the smartness, it just sounds really bland / awkward to my ears to be honest. "New horizons" sounds like a rehab center or an adult school or something, or a header in a promotional pamphlet, or the name of a chapter in some heavily biased nationalistic history textbook. It doesn't fit with my idea of a pirate, a rebel / enemy / parasite of society. Rhythmically:

\    x       x     x      x   \   x

PI rates    of    new    hor  I  zons

You have a lot of weak syllables (the "x" syllables) which makes it sound like I'm mumbling or something when I say the name of your game out loud

There's also no article in your title and both nouns are plural. e.g. "Sins of Solar Empires" doesn't sound nearly as good. "Pirates of a New Horizon" sounds better but still awkward for the reasons detailed above.

So, in conclusion: your game title sound awkward in terms of sound, rhythm, syntax, diction and cultural connotations. Hope the explanation helped. You still have time to change your game name!

Are uncompressed normal maps really worth the memory? There are some 5 mb VTFs here.