Campaignjunkie

Hopefully those who couldn't relocate can go indie / Kickstarter / something

I'm sure AAA devs are very creative, etc. unfortunately you guys often aren't allowed to express it in your games. There are countless stories of bold new AAA stuff getting crushed by conservative publishers or skittish investors (e.g. The Crossing, LMNO) and I think that scares me shitless, the idea that I'd work for years on something then watch it get swept under the rug without even a whimper. Depression and anxiety are normal responses because it's a crappy situation. Also, I think that IGS soapbox rant was totally missing the point. People rarely hate people; rather, people hate self-destructive institutions that hurt other people. So when you get an industry that says you're a failure if your Metacritic is under 85 and you sell "only" a few million copies for $60 each and management decides to close your studio, that seems crazy. That seems like a horribly dysfunctional system that encourages conservative design choices and thinks of devs as resources to be optimized or discarded. (Soylent green is made out of people!) Let me be clear: I think most indies like AAA devs, AAA techniques, and AAA studios -- but they hate the AAA industry that exploits the cultural capital of games, and they hate the idea that some random CEO gets to fire you AND determine how society perceives what all of us do. Sure, you can be cynical and say "that's the nature of all industries" or "well I work at ___ and I have job security"... but I think that's a really unproductive attitude.

Reminds me of Hera. It looks well constructed and well done, but conceptually I've always been more a fan of ns_machina's organic sci-fi forms, almost Giger-ish, and I hope those find a place in the map cycle too. Anyway, congrats / nice color choices.

I know!

For some reason I really like that rock mesh on top of the tunnel, also a fan of the more autumn colors, reminds me a lot of Briscoe's de_forest map... good work!

Experimenting with graphic design-ish treatments, using screen space patterns.

This has me thinking about other hybrid game modes, e.g. "Capture The Payload" -- one team has to deliver the payload, the other team has to bring their flag to it and capture the payload or something.

I hope this game is only 1 or 2 hours so I'll actually be able to finish it

I tried my best, didn't get past the phone interview a few months back. Man they are tough. The thing is, if I ever got a phone interview or on site interview with valve I'd just shake myself to death with nerves. I did a GDC interview with Robin Walker once... I was pretty nervous but he was incredibly classy / charming / awesome the whole time. At the end he said he liked my stuff, but that it was too weird, and that I wouldn't fit anywhere like on the Half-Life 3 team or something. I guess he's right. Anyway -- if you get the chance, don't be scared, they're among the nicest people ever. Anyone in the beta play the new de_dust? How does it play? Better now?

Yeah, go improbable!

I think this will be great for blocking out a Portal 2 puzzle -- you do a "puzzle editor" graybox pass, then a "hammer" art pass.

:bananawrench:

it's taking a long time, but we're nearing the end!... (btw if anyone here is in the NYC area, come to our thesis show -- there'll be free beer and wine and video games / weird design stuff! https://www.facebook.com/events/277230829032903/ )

We kinda do, though I think the overbloom is more from DoF + FXAA. I'm not really sure how to reduce it. Maybe we'll switch to the built-in AA. I'll put up a preview version here in about 2 weeks. Yay crunching!

It's Unity. I like the Source lightmapper a lot better than Beast, and wish there were some simple BSP tools in Unity, but it's otherwise a pretty amazing toolset. (You don't have to spend an hour to import models, for instance.)

Me and my team's thesis project, Souvenir. It's VVVVVV + Proteus. Once we graduate / hit alpha, I'll do another art pass on it and hopefully hit the festival circuit. We'll see!...

Um it was a nunnery (?) where you start in an elevator shaft, hide through some hallways, crawl through a vent (we all kind of flinched when we realized there was a giant vent there, to be honest), hide some more, throw a dead dude into a ball pit, etc. Then the second playthrough, he shot everyone with guns and killed people with props. I understand a lot of the Arkham City-ish design choices (x-ray "flame vision" that shows enemy patrol paths) and the stealth they had on display seemed to be more about improvising and being impulsive vs. sitting behind a corner and memorizing patrol paths yourself. That, combined with Splinter Cell-ish instant kill tag things... yeah, it's designed to sell. But it was a little jarring in that I always found Hitman to be more like a methodical puzzle game / social camouflage game, but I guess that's not very interesting to watch. I felt like they showed the least interesting parts of Hitman, when Blood Money shined more with stuff like the Mardi Gras crowds or Suburban birthday party with all these different paths and consequences. Comparatively, this was pretty much a corridor with grunts. As always -- I reserve judgment, PR demos aren't the real thing, etc.

me and generalvivi and furyo and deceiver and others went to the PAX East debut, and were shouting obscene things at the screen the whole time

Ha, um, okay, here's detail: I've got an IGDA scholarship pass for all 3 days, I'll be there from Friday morning through Monday, but I'm pretty busy Monday because that's when the IGDA arranged all these studio tours -- Harmonix, Tencent Boston, Zynga Boston -- also, on Friday I'll be at MIT for the International Hokra tourney.

I'll be around.

Spoilery, but quite convincing. Assuming this isn't what they planned, they should follow through with this interpretation anyway: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/ ... nes-heads/

Just finished it. My thoughts on the ending: Oh well, I enjoyed everything leading up to it though. They really sunk a lot of money into the branching and character animation.

ahh I love the brushwork scissor lift! you're such a star.

Got to meet Rob Briscoe, shook his hand and everything. I haven't washed my hand since.

I'll be around on the show floor. Probably hanging around the IGF pavilion with indie friends most of the time. Say hey at me if you see me! I'll be at the Wild Rumpus and Kill Screen parties too, and I think I'm gonna swing by the Polycount meetup too.