Notices by Jacek Wesołowski (jzillw@mastodon.gamedev.place)

@cstross Perhaps the question refers to the reader's subjective understanding of "nonessential". E.g. in Poland we have the (sarcastic) concept of "nature descriptions", named so after 19th century realist novel authors' tendency to include long passages that literally describe some landscape. Pupils at school find those boring because they feel like nothing's happening. Prevailing consensus is "nature descriptions" can be skipped. Authors would probably beg to differ.

@cstross @arstechnica My very petty frustration with all these scams is that if some of those people gave me the money instead, it would result in an actual video game with a low but non-zero chance of financial success and a decent chance of at least being fun to play.

Anything that's demonstrably less useful than a video game should be treated with suspicion.

Fun fact: in my pet project (which has been suffering from my constant inablity to give it my attention), "plot armour" is an explicit mechanic. You're going to need to manage your characters' plot armor by putting them in situations that make them important to the plot.

One thing I absolutely can't stand in "Jedi Survivor" is how fucking unresponsive the controls are. Just did a simple test where I just tried to trigger a dodge while moving, and the character took about half a second to even start the new action.

Me on Friday: I've just fixed a major bug at work, solved a major health issue, and on top of that election silence starts tomorrow! It's going to be a great day to finally progress my pet project.

Me on Saturday: ugh, I've slept for 12 hours and I can't even bring myself to make lunch.

@cstross @neurovagrant *sigh* My day today did involve space battles, and dragon betting could be plausibly worked into the script, but the IP holder would skin us alive if we got anywhere near sex.

(working on a video game based on a well known "franchise" is its own kind of purgatory)

My enjoyment of Jedi Survivor improved once I finally got the hang of the parry mechanic.

But I still dread the boss fights. I've just reached the second encounter with the Angsty Amputee, and I just don't feel like exposing myself to what is going to be ca. 30 minutes of utter misery.

20 hours into Jedi Survivor. It has its ups and downs, but overall I think I like it.

That said, the content bloat in AAA games is real. This one could easily have cut half of its features and 2/3 of the "content".

Usually, in exploration-oriented games you're going to find resources and tangibly useful items. "Jedi Survivor" leans hard in the opposite direction and sends you in search of cosmetics. There's an entire system for customizing your lightsaber that doesn't seem to alter its functionality in any way.

I'm not much of a minmaxer and don't need everything to have a point value, but I'd much rather do all that sightseeing for the lore and not this.

I'm still enjoying "Jedi Survivor", and it's definitely one of the prettier games I've seen lately, but I must admit I don't understand its combat. It feels like I'm using 3 moves al the time because I don't remember all the others, and I don't even know when to use them. Combat against some enemies feels random: sometimes it goes terribly, sometimes it's a breeze, and I can't tell why.

Perhaps I'm just getting old and slow and default difficulty settings aren't for me anymore.

Man, Star Wars stories are so predictable sometimes. A character has sickly pale skin and emotional maturity of a 15-yesr-old = they're about to flip to the dark side.

TBH the whole trope of "bad skin = evil" has been making me uncomfortable since the first KOTOR.

I bought Jedi Survivor via Steam, because people keep saying it's good and there was a deep discount, and I am indeed having fun - no, seriously, the game is really all right so far - but the bugs, and the fact they're still there months after the release, are a bit hilarious.

I hate it when people claim a game was "abandoned", because usually it's complete BS, but this one feels a bit like that.

@cstross One thing that I find quirky about the US is that they love to put a bigger number on something than everybody else did, and at the same time they're a large, mostly empty country where trains have the room to go really fast, and yet they've completely ignored the unofficial worldwide race to have the fastest train in commercial service.

@foxhkron To be fair, Polish train network was gutted in the 1990s. Kazimierz Dolny got lucky, because it's a tourism destination.

Just finished "Skin Deep". Don't get fooled by its looks. It's a very well designed thing that plays to its strengths and steps back where it cannot win. Small, focused levels were the best choice. Mechanics are wonky but consistent, I can't even get mad at the glitches. 13/10, 14 if you have a twin

"Skin Deep" is pretty good! Has a very sensible ratio of unpredictable systemic mayhem and deliberate puzzle-like level design choices. The levels are small, typically 4 or 5 rooms, but on the other hand most levels have some kind of special mechanic or side mini-plot. The pacing is good, the challenges are comprehensible, and while you have to figure out stuff on your own, the process of figuring them out is fun. Overall feels more like a dessert than a main course, but I find it tasty.

I do game development professionally, so it feels weird to get excited because a placeholder asset is showing up on screen, but there's such a joy in just working on whatever the hell you want, even if its target audience is maybe 10 people.

Pet project now lets you float around the test level, but the level only has floors in the ground plane for now. I'm recreating a project I originally started in Unity, so I'm only going to start declaring progress when the current implementation does something the first one didn't. Unreal encourages a different workflow, which is why the game already has a main menu and level streaming.

@cstross I'm not so sure, because nuclear weapons are expensive. Part of the non-proliferation system is no one's sharing their tech, you need to build your own full stack. Poland has just had one shopping spree with conventional equipment, and now it needs to catch up with soldiers' training, personal equipment, morale and last but not least headcount.