Nier Automata on the Switch, it is the only version I have played so far I think it is a great port… The anime motivated me to get around this title BTW (I think it is usually the other way around) so far I like it, even if it is the same genre that seems to reign the gaming market nowadays, open world action RPG…
Ex game dev here who jumped ship and is now doing VR training stuff for a big medical company.
I don’t regret it one bit. You definitely lose some of the spirit and excitement of working with people who are super excited to make the fun games they grew up playing, but on the flip side, if you’ve been in the industry long enough to have 18 years under your belt, you’ve probably had enough of that excitement to see the bad sides of it.
By far the nicest thing about being in an industry that isn’t entertainment is that the success of the “product” you’re making is so much easier to define than “is this fun” or “will this help playing retention”. I can’t describe how nice it is to have actual users instead of players, and UX’ers who to come tell me what people want. Sure, it might not be as fun as games, but to be honest, I’m OK with that. I get vastly better pay, better work life balance, and most importantly, a complete lack of any kind of game director whose vision I must try to make real.
The tech industry is not doing much better. But in general, if you can find a job in tech vs. games, you’ll make more money, have more stability, and be treated better.
I’d say keep an open mind when it comes to industry and environment. I got my start in game dev but quickly left it after I realized it wasn’t really for me. I bounced around for a while after that, even picking up a job teaching English abroad (probably not advisable in your situation) before returning back to the US and taking a job working for a nonprofit.
A lot of industries like healthcare, finance, education, and enterprises in general have need of developers with experience and they still pay decently well. It may not be as exciting as FAANG/Silicon Valley style dev work, but you’re likelier to find stability and a more manageable work/life balance. It helped me finally learn to work to live instead of live to work, and I can also still take some pride that the work I do is used to help people.
Having been through all this, I would most of all prioritize getting a permanent residence permit. This brings stability, and then you can decide whether to work in games (more fun) or elsewhere in tech (higher pay). Having been in both industries for a long time, I can tell you you’ll always wonder if the grass is greener on the other side. But at least you’ll have options. If a tech company gets you to permanent residence quicker, go for it.
I’m applying for it in 4 months time, not sure how long the processing time will be though. This is the most stressful time. I only got my second 2 year permit in October 2023… I terms of pay, it seems like here every industry pays the same and I’m close to the ceiling of my role.
Most of the immigration issues we deal with are handled by HE or a company we outsource to - I have some direct involvement in terms of writing out roles and duties, but generally they keep us away from the actual mechanics of things. However, for us, it’s handled at the company level. I know that they’ve tightened up on the perm residency and H1Bs, but I think it’s something your employer should be solving, not you.
Second, things are tough all over these days, but the gaming industry as an industry has always had a terrible reputation for long hours and (comparatively) low pay. The attitude seems to be to get in younger people and burn them out. I’m very sympathetic to your desire to make a move.
The best thing you can do is find someone who can write you a recommendation for an open position at their company, but as you know you’ll have to take your immigration status into account. All of the companies I’m familiar with don’t take immigration status into account when hiring - it’s specifically forbidden by policy - but if you have to grit your teeth and deal with your current position for another six months or whatever, it’s probably better than starting from scratch.
EDITED: I should play The Witness again. I’ve played it once, mostly completed and loved it. I’m in the middle of the Talos Principle 2 now and want to finish it first. Come to my community and talk about what you didn’t like, OP.
I can say I was put off at first glance by the “realistic” aesthetic, with props like jammers and minigun turrets that have an unnecessarily detailed, grounded look when as a puzzle game, graphics should not be the focus of the experience. A stylised, or minimal, graphical style would put the focus firmly where it belongs - on the puzzles themselves.
Huh, OK. That never crossed my mind while playing TTP / TTP2 but I can see how that would be distracting from the puzzle solving.
Funny thing is, after I finished Witness, I went back to play Braid, the earlier game by the same creator and its look & feel just never worked for me at all. So yeah
Let me add one thing more, that a realistic aesthetic brings with it certain expectations. For example, I don’t question how Security Bots in Bioshock refuel themselves, or fly, or recognise intruders. I don’t ask how come the turrets in Portal never run out of bullets (though it’s answered as a gag in one of the videos). They’re not presented as realistic, and I don’t expect them to be. But when you make the choice to use realistic miniguns in Talos, those questions are going to bubble up to the surface, like “Where’s the ammo box on that thing?” and “Who’s maintaining these on islands in the middle of nowhere?” and “Scratch that, who’s making them?” and “If Elohim (yeah real subtle name there) did all this then why bother with a machine that requires maintenance in the first place instead of a magic pillar of fire or smth?”
Basically I was disappointed by the lack of star variety and the very predictable story. The environments were pretty but I also disliked that the devs put more effort into preventing alternate solutions, those were some of my favorite aspects of the first game.
The stars were 100% the biggest issue though. They were some of the most fun parts of the first game, but in 2 once you solved some of them you pretty much knew how to do the rest, and they became a major chore instead of a puzzle.
In the vein of multiplayer games with singleplay bot matches like Battlefield 1942 being mentioned, try the standalone mod for for Battlefield 2 called Forgotten Hope 2. Many maps have single player bot support (by launching coop server on your lan). Battlgroup 42 mod for bf1942 has a tons of singleplayer maps too. You can also get bots via third party plugins for the og Day of Defeat (sturmbot or shrikebot) and as mentioned Day of Infamy has built-in bot support. Worth mentioning are the Arma 3 WW2 mods and dlc.
waaaay out of the timeframe you have specified (it is a 2020 game that is still actively updated) but still with the same vibes, I'd check out Easy Red 2, as it scratches that specific itch of a WW2 shooter with scale. It is maybe too open at times for my taste but it is one of the very few modern games covering that niche. It does have optional squad management gameplay elements but you can ignore those in favor of playing a simple soldier, and the AI will do those jobs for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ziR73NhHjY
Sebil Engineering has a really fun mechanic I’ve never seen before. Its like those Hot Wheels tracks you always wanted as a kid but your parents never got you, but even better. I guess its a traffic control game? Anyone have other examples of these?
True, its not the best description of it. I was trying to land on something that would resonate with the type of person i thought it might appeal to, without fully explaining the thing. Maybe I failed lol.
Yeah there’s no track building. Each stage is a physics puzzle where you’re at some section of road, and there’s an infinite stream of cars. You’re allowed to make crude adjustments to verts on the road, in attempt to get the stream of cars to drive to some goal. The puzzles are very satisfying, and even when you’re not at a solution, its just fun watching the wagons fly into whatever direction your road positioning happens to take them.
Also its truly independent in the strict sense of the term. Solo dev, no publisher. Not that I have anything against small publishers.
Shadows of doubt is a sandbox detective game. You are a detective and you have to solve crimes, which are totally randomized. What makes this interesting is that the world does not stop:
the NPCs actually have daily routines
the murderer might not stop killing
you can talk with anyone
and so much more
It is truly a sandbox! I havent played it too much yet, but i feel if i really start playing it, then i will skip going to bed!
I mean, if Josh from Let’s Game it Out fucked around nonstop in almost every possible way and still “solved” a case, I doubt you could be playing the game wrong 😆
The PS4 allowed people to choose between frame rate and graphical prowess. The PS4 Pro basically eliminated the necessity to choose. We’re seeing games on PS5 that give you similar options, so I assume a PS5 Pro will also render those preferences unnecessary.
Is having ray tracing at 60FPS important enough for you to wait? Furthermore, do you have patience if PS5 pros are hard to come by for the first 3-6 months of availability?
Phoenotopia: Awakening – an amazing metroidvania-related game. Relatively more popular than the other games I list, but is honestly one of my favorite games of all time.
Vision: Soft Reset – a metroidvania, but you can travel backwards and forwards in time and this really matters for gameplay.
Bombe – Minesweeper, but instead of solving the puzzles manually, you create rules (“if there is a cell with the number N and there are N empty cells around it, mark them all as mines”) which the game applies automatically.
SOLAS 128 – a puzzle game where you redirect signals in a huge machine, just a great experience if you like puzzle games.
Obviously it depends on the deck, but in general you want a large number of item cards and less pokemon and energy.
Item/trainer cards provide a lot of ways to draw/recycle and support your pokemon/energy and you’ll likely want to see a bigger ratio of them in your opening hand. Especially since you’re not going to go through too many more pokemon than you have prize cards and you can only have 1 active pokemon at a time with 6 total in play.
So the exact ratio depends on the deck and the pokemon you are trying to support, but essentially you shouldn’t be running more the 15 pokemon and 15 energy on a high end. 12 pokemon is pretty standard. Most of the rest of your deck should be search and draw cards which there should be plenty of.
That's right. It's preferable to go for 10-15 pokémon, 30-40 trainer and supporters, and 10-15 energies. As long as you can guarantee a basic pokémon in your starting hand, many trainer cards let you get the other basics and evolutions that you need. 15/30/15 is a more casual friendly mix, the tighter ones are used by people with optimized strategies.
It's also good to have 4 copies of whatever basic pokémon you want to focus on, as well as anything else that's necessary for your main strategy.
I play it casually but I held myself against the utterly savage folks on the TCG app's ranked mode to have some idea of the basics.
I was rebuilding my decks and in my water deck i have a lot of stage 1s and basics to make it easier to build them up so in that deck I’d probably want more trainer cards
As for my psychic grass deck for example It still has a couple evolutions but it’s nothing I can’t go without so then I’d probably want slightly more energies since I thought that was a problem area
I always struggle with starting (no matter the task) so would a good general be start with 10 pokemon then build items (like if im going for evolutions or something) around them. Then build the energies based on what pokemon I want to pull and how their energy demand is. Then in occasionally see if I’m lacking damage or don’t have enough support
I mean that’s what I’m thinking but like I said starting is hard for me
Figuring out decks can be a lot of work but some cards are pretty much always useful. Professor's Research can save you from a bad hand and Ultra Balls can get you evolutions if they aren't showing up. For mixed color decks you might want Energy Search or maybe some variety of Rainbow Energy cards (but you can only have up to 4 of each special energy).
Ok so pretty much start with the few pokemon I really want then item cards to get them. Then just kinda fill in the gaps with other pokemon and items that have synergies as I go
I don’t remember if I said it here but this is just for fun between friends nothing serious
Dota and League of Legends. The moba format simply doesn’t click with me. Them being hyper competitive doesn’t help, and I’m someone who played plenty of UT2004 during my late teens
bin.pol.social
Najnowsze