Notices by PsychicParrot (Jeff) 😷 (psychicparrot42@mastodon.gamedev.place)

@sinbad Yes! Amazing! 🤩 And here we are now.. it's bonkers how far it's come and my kids just think I'm being a mad old git talking about it lol

I'm not really that up on fancy graphics - I've been playing games since before we even had graphics (you're a letter A and you jump over letter O's, right?) - but I've been playing them Tomb Raider reboot games on me Xbox recently and the lighting in Rise of the Tomb Raider is melting my brain. It has no business looking as good as it does. Some of the environments are stunning, mostly because of the lighting.

My kids, who were born into a time of fancy graphics, don't even bat an eyelid when I'm calling them over to look at the lighting.
"Just look at it! Look at how good that is! It's unbelievable!" I say, as they roll their eyes for the 100th time, shrug and mutter something along the lines of:
"They're just lights Dad, I dunno!".

@sinbad Yeah me too, sadly. I really wanted to be a surfer and I tried, but I don't have the best balance and I tended to accidentally swallow more water than I was able to surf over. Given the state of pollution, I don't imagine that'd work out so well. Especially now.

@sinbad Reminds me of driving my VW Beetle in the 90s (custom purple paint, dropped to the floor, obvs!) giving this gesture to all the other bug drivers as a sign of Volkswagonny solidarity! Back when the thought of driving l something old that was literally falling apart and could break down at any second wouldn’t have bothered me one bit. Today, not so much..!

@sinbad No worries!!

@sinbad When I made RC Rush, I thought I needed multiplayer for it to sell (*slaps head*). It's one of those things that people complain about when it's not there in indie games, then when it *is* there complain that the multiplayer's dead because barely sell enough copies to pay bills let alone enough to keep concurrents at a good enough rate. And that's exactly what happened. Added it, nobody used it. I doubt I'd do multiplayer again after that other than split screen, like.

@sinbad Good stuff to know, thanks Steve!

@sinbad Yeah it's getting harder all the time to avoid them but I can't keep going along with it any more. It's making life harder not going with these big corp assholes, which is probably why I haven't got rid sooner, but I dunno we have to try and fight it as much as possible I suppose. Especially now. 🤷♂️

Due to Bezos, I'm getting rid of anything Amazon. Although the thing is, when I'm quitting these asshole services, I just feel like I'm just going from one evil corp to the next, making my own life harder when everyone else is just carrying on as normal. Trying to live an ethical life shouldn't be this bloody difficult! Bollocks to capitalism.

@sinbad @JeremiahFieldhaven @crussel I'm hoping I can stick to 'when it makes sense' on both sides, really. Like I doubt I'll be moving any input code over to C++ any time soon, just because it's loads more complicated to set up in C++ than it is in Blueprints so I don't really see much point at this stage. Everything can be passed into the components I'm using, so may as well keep it simple. On the other hand, there are times my graph has 10 nodes to do something I can do in 1 line of code etc.

Did a bit of work on the AI last night for my stunt racer … hmm .. prototype? I don’t want to call it a game because I haven’t fully committed to making it yet 🤪 Anyway, I realized that the ‘quick hacks to get things going’ were utterly rubbish and my Blueprints were fast becoming spaghetti so it’s time to rebuild it all in C++.

@crussel Yeah for a minute I thought “hey this is working well, maybe I should just leave it” but I don’t fancy its chances of remaining anything like readable after 6 or 12 months of chucking more stuff into it! It’s already becoming a mess, so best to just sort it, eh? 🤓

@crussel Not saying you can't do just Blueprints, like, but it's just that I know my brain will struggle a *lot* once the Blueprints get over a certain size. I was chatting to the person who made the snowboarding game 'Slopecrashers' a little bit ago, and he told me the whole game is Blueprints! No C++. So I know it's possible, but I know in my own brain the code is more manageable in the long term.

@JeremiahFieldhaven @crussel I think as long as you can manage it and keep track of it, then it's all good. It only becomes a problem when it becomes a problem for you to manage, I reckon. My graphs were getting messy and I know that in a few months there's a strong chance they'll deteriorate into total insanity. I'll still use Blueprints for a bunch of other stuff, but as soon as things start getting messy my brain works better in code.

I'm considering lowering the price of Die for the Economy, as it's not selling very well compared to my other games. I'd originally thought since Berzerk Recharged was priced at US 9.99 it'd be reasonable to ask for 7.99 for my funky comparable version, but of course I don't have the same clout Atari or the clout the official name has, and now I'm thinking maybe $5 might be more in line with what gamers expect for a game like this. I don't know, just considering it. Pricing is hard.

I am really angry with Nintendo for rejecting me/my games again. I’ve made some good games that would be perfect for Switch (they’re great on Steamdeck) and yet they’ll allow all kinds of scammy shovelware on there and here they are rejecting someone who is genuinely trying to make good games. It makes no sense and I hate even more that there’s no human on the other end to talk to about it.

I spend the time writing up the application; about my games, my history as a dev, why I want to make games for Switch etc and all I get is a ‘your application for access to Switch was rejected’. That’s it! This is how I’m treated as a hard working game developer by this company. I’m shit on their shoe and I don’t even deserve a proper response or a human to appeal to. It’s demoralizing, you know?

Just got a reply from Nintendo! They said NO to allowing my games on their hardware 🤷♂️ no idea why. They provide no reason (just a 'declined' message) and there's not even a human to ask what they're thinking. What a great company to deal with. Not.

One of my relatives shared yet another right wing, climate emergency denying piece of shit meme on FB this morning. Then they'll be looking for sympathy from other relatives because I don't talk to them any more, of course. Rather than thinking for a second that (as I've told them in the past) it's their hate-ridden bullshit spreading that makes me think their insides might be dead, not that I'm being mean to them because we 'disagree on things'. 🤔