Katana314

Katana314, wczoraj

Ark seems to fit into the same niche that enjoys Roblox, Fortnite, and Five Nights at Freddy’s. That might make a statement about how much money they have.

Katana314, 2 dni temu

It’s a quandary that blasts the very question.

There is no good reason for us to define, or seek out, the “worst games of the year”. Only outrage culture wants us to direct hate towards known bad games like Black Ops 7, even though by any practical analysis it’s a better game than hundreds of ignored, pretty bad asset flips, and even some high-effort low-thought indie games that have come out.

Katana314, 3 dni temu

Does sound like laziness. I get the impression it’s because some things change in the game depending on difficulty, like number of items, etc. So, it can’t exactly go back and turn the 3-ammo pile you picked up into 8 ammo.

Katana314, 3 dni temu

Between this and the Divinity controversy, I think the gaming world needs some kind of Responsible AI seal, like the old Nintendo Seal of Quality. While Microsoft is shoving Copilot into Notepad, it can be really hard to guarantee every team member has never used an AI for anything.

Standards like “No generative AI” are a good one, and it turns out we’re also under debate whether AI for concept art - something absent from the game files - is okay. Many say not.

Katana314, 3 dni temu

A DBD creator I like made a video about this topic, and the degradation of the term.

Katana314, 3 dni temu

Okay but first, will you admit that if my cancer curing Unicorn only dispenses 100 doses of its miracle medicine from its butt when I kill a homeless man, you’d agree killing the homeless is a moral good, right?

Or, you know, we could throw away silly fantasy scenarios.

Katana314, 3 dni temu

Same way you’d celebrate a studio for “No workplace abuse.” People would have to come forward to testify about it, as concept art generation is very likely to arise from hiring fewer artists.

It’s also pretty easy if the credits list an abnormally low, or zero, number of concept artists.

Katana314, 3 dni temu

Really? Can you share your fully realized and operational generative AI that exists, and only created its model from artwork you personally made or retain full legal reproduction rights to?

Answers Yes, or Sorry, I Lied.

Katana314, 2 dni temu

Again: This is not a cake. This is a recipe book and an oven. Scenario’s demo reel showcases models they have finished training, and vouch that you can make one from scratch. I am asking you for a finished AI model you have ready to use.

Katana314, 2 dni temu

Yeah, quite often the games themselves have needed broad changes to account for how people tend to shoot on controllers.

For instance, PC games will typically penalize your accuracy or sway the scope if you strafe around, which is terrible for controller players as you describe. Other times, the “aim down sights” action became very standard in a world of gun-at-corner hipfiring, because it lets them snap aim onto enemies for at least the first shot.

Katana314, 5 dni temu

In some ways, I try to acknowledge the original race to the voting on prices was sometimes bad for indies. The Factorio dev even saw the writing on the wall and decided to head it off, declaring “This is the game’s price floor. Buy it or don’t.”

Katana314, 3 dni temu

In some ways, I think we have to accept the early years of “8 indie games for $2!!!” is over. Inflation has hit, and indie devs have to buy their coffee too. If you really want a near-freebie, keep an eye out for bundles on Fanatical, where they’re sometimes $3 each game.

Katana314, 6 dni temu

Recently this channel came up in my feed. There’s a few like this, that will highlight interesting games on Steam that haven’t had much attention.

www.youtube.com/

Katana314, 7 dni temu

I’ve had an idea of making a visual novel with gen AI, but I’d want to attach “Placeholder: AI Artwork” in a visible location for each sprite. And I only even consider that because I’m not exactly a known game dev and don’t have ready access to artists.

Larian should likely expect if they’re taking shortcuts in their position, they’d get backlash. I can at least recognize that they’re trying to be moderate about it.

Katana314, 9 dni temu

Emulation seems neat to me, but I know behind every comment on it there’s a whispered implication: Piracy. Very few people are imaging their own game discs. That unfortunately makes it less appealing to me, especially as trustworthiness shifts at many of those sites.

Katana314, 10 dni temu

Best way of handling this is to load the environment with random events that can occur on various return trips. Sea of Thieves and Red Read Redemption 2 do this, though it doesn’t work for every game.

The other good way to handle it is a fun movement system, eg Insomniac games.

Katana314, 11 dni temu

If you haven’t played games in a while, a subscription service like game pass or PS+ can be a good idea.

It’ll let you try out a lot of games that you might not try otherwise, and also try/discard some games that seemed cool but turn out to be unlikable.

Katana314, 11 dni temu

I’m a sucker for Zenless Zone Zero. I recognize it’s often catering to male gaze, but I appreciate there’s some uniqueness and interesting themes to the designs.

Basic example, “Corin” being on first blush just a cute maid cut, but also following a Frankenstein design theme with the bolts/chainsaw and hair color.

They’ve also had a “bunny-girl”, Alice, who much like real bunnies is skittish and easily frightened (and is thankfully not nearly as sexualized as the theme often carries)

Katana314, 11 dni temu

If HL3 was ever to get news, I don’t really think Valve would do it on someone else’s awards show. They tend to own their own announcements.

Katana314, 11 dni temu

Something I tried to do earlier to help with it, in this very channel, was a “Downvote any game you’ve heard of before” thread. It was a nice exercise to help people post odd games no one had heard of.

Katana314, 12 dni temu

Silly Poly Beast - 3 GB Another Crab’s Treasure - 7.7 GB

Rabbit and Steel - 376 MB, coop PVE game, plays a lot like FFXIV raids

Katana314, 13 dni temu

The worst part is, I consider myself a bit of a gooner; I like alluring, attractive characters. But that was meant to be a story-based game, and yet it designed so many jokes around attractive women dressing in rags, being clueless, easily offended, and seemed to design the story around an intense contact between a shonen hero and a large-breasted woman.

At least in something like Stellar Blade, they evade the subject because they know there’s nothing constructive to say.

Katana314, 14 dni temu

I wonder how they plan to cover the events. Normally, you’d bring gaming journalists, but Saudis are terrified of journalists.

Katana314, 15 dni temu

Apollo is out there in Kuh’rain, wondering if Ace Attorney will ever pick up on an old story so his boss can tell him something important and he can say back “Yeah, Mr. Wright, I figured that out because I’m not an idiot.”

Katana314, 18 dni temu

Huh. A long time ago I would’ve thought this purchase would’ve gone the other way around.

Katana314, 19 dni temu

What’s sad is, I also had a silly web project like this, but had to abandon it since browsers (logically) decided to mute webpages on load until you interacted with them.

It was basically just user selection of image and audio, and then you pick a spot to forever zoom into. A little like YTMND.

Katana314, 23 dni temu

Wonder if H4 will really continue off WOA’s ending; or if it’ll be some weird reboot.

Tap for spoilerFor those who don’t know, the ICA, signature org 47 follows, was dismantled in WOA’s story since it was basically a servant of Providence. Providence itself was too large to destroy, so Diana still runs it, basically just dismantling as much as she can.

I might even be interested in some form of main character switching for Hitman if they can invent someone that has most of 47’s capability with some interesting nuance. (No, the spoiler is not that 47 dies)

Katana314, 25 dni temu (edited 25 dni temu)

I think the studies showing how certain minds can be targeted and manipulated by dark gambling patterns made me think differently about gambling. I’m less likely to blame the victims now - in many ways it can be difficult or near-impossible for them to control those impulses. I’d at least like lootbox gambling slop to be regulated the same as casinos.

Look how popular fantasy sports is now. It’s basically just the casino industry seeking out new avenues to cheat the definition of “Playing odds to win cash”.

Katana314, 25 dni temu

Don’t forget, “Turns out it was a losing bet to back DEI and Trans people”.

This is something scared, pathetic, loser, feral, spineless, sociopathic, moronic fascists come up with to try to win a crowd larger than an elevator; Assume the outcome as a foregone conclusion and try to talk around it, or claim it’s already happened.

Respond directly. “What? That’s ridiculous. I’ve never even seen ANY AI that I liked. Who told you it was going to pervade everything?”

Katana314, 24 dni temu

Take a look at Half-Life 2’s old Face Poser software. I feel like you don’t see that sort of action-level control much anymore.

Indie studios are evading the need for lipsync entirely, by making simple models, giving people masks, putting them on radio overlays, etc. AAA studios are overengineering it, putting a $4,000,000 actor in a motion capture suit for each of their cutscenes to capture every fine detail as they stare in wonder at the white ping-pong ball in the studio with the sign written; “LOOK HERE”.

Face Poser was a good median; it’s where the director gets control, but you don’t need a vast technical setup beyond animations, some vowel extraction, and some basic know-how. It means that if the director wants to add a criticism “No, character B should give a dubious, unsure look when character A says that”, it’s something they can apply directly rather than ask the animators to do by hand.

For some reference, old machinima like Clear Skies, or my own “AS” made use of Face Poser.

Katana314, 27 dni temu

I’ve never even installed the Epic Lawnchair. I just use Heroic, which works very well.

Katana314, 27 dni temu

I feel like I get where he’s coming from, but I can see the revulsion.

I picture someone asking their AI to write a rules engine for a gamemode and getting masses of duplicative, horrific code; but in my own work, my company has encouraged an assistive tool, and once it has an idea of what I’m trying to do, it will offer autocomplete options that are pretty spot on.

Still, I very much agree it’s hard to sort the difference and in untrained hands can definitely lead to unmaintainable code slop. Everything needs to get reviewed by knowledgeable human eyes before running.

Katana314, 26 dni temu

Ooh, sorry, politics not allowed. /s

Sarcasm, but it’s sad that kind of hate gets wrapped into the definitions of “political opinions” these days.

Katana314, 27 dni temu

1. Developers should spend effort vouching for a launch without startup logos. Even if supporting libraries/publishers are credited some other way, startup movies take up a lot of time when gamers launch the game many times.
2. Trails in the Sky has a feature where you can choose to launch the game directly into your most recent save game rather than ending up at the menus. This would be a boon for many singleplayer games, especially those with densely animated menus.

Katana314, 27 dni temu

I could still see it as an admission of imperfection.

Arc Raiders includes an “unstuck” feature. They’re aware their physics system isn’t infallibly perfect, and getting stuck permanently could lead to loss of hard-earned gear. So, if a player is in one spot for more than a minute, they offer an option to teleport you to a safe place a few feet away.

Katana314, 27 dni temu

Watch Dogs 2 had an “invasion” system like Dark Souls, but it also allowed pausing in the world anytime you weren’t being invaded. It’s been a nice thing to point to anytime Souls fans make that excuse.

Katana314, 27 dni temu

I’d love it if a group could collude on a standard for music signals.

Imagine this: You have a music player following this signal standard.

Game starts, it signals GAME_STARTED, and the media player signals STOP_GAME_MUSIC, so the game itself plays no BGM, leaving it to the music player. But, then the game can also signal later on: THEME_MENUS, THEME_EXPLORE, THEME_COMBAT, THEME_BOSS; and the media player can respond to that by cross fading between playlists built for each.

Katana314, 29 dni temu

On the gacha front, I play Zenless Zone Zero. Parry mechanics are nothing new, but I love both the way they have you parry by swapping in an agent to take the blow, and the very detailed effects and animations they have for each attack.

It’s still a gacha, and I remind myself to stop playing anytime it bores me; but it manages to hold my attention decently.

Katana314, 28 dni temu

Yeah…a long time ago I learned lessons about patience, delayed satisfaction, and ended up building a large roster in that game without giving them a dime. I could afford their packs, but it seems like a bad price ratio especially when acknowledging the low chances.

Katana314, 29 dni temu

Here’s aiming to be hopeful…

I remember back when playing DRM video in a web browser on an open source operating system seemed like a worrying impossibility. Many sites stayed stuck on closed-source flash players for that reason alone. It was a while before we ended up with this solution I only partly understand - where the DRM decoding is handled through some kind of trusted block, that generally doesn’t have full OS control?

Katana314, miesiąc temu

It’s rare, but there’s a few indie games where I did not wait for a sale, even knowing I wouldn’t play it for a while, because I wanted to be supportive to devs that made something I wanted.

Katana314, miesiąc temu

I had a PC connected to my tv for a while, main issue was I didn’t want to use a mouse or keyboard to interact with it. I tried desperately to get more ways of starting via controller or other lite interface devices, but nothing convenient. It was an old machine, so eventually I gave it away.

Katana314, 29 dni temu

I feel like a lot of these pointer devices miss the simplicity of a remote. A simple one will have a tough time entering passwords, but it’s perfect and simple for the most common actions: Turn on without walking across the room, open the most recent application, play the next episode of the series I was watching last, usually just by mashing confirm. (Nothing to tell it to go fullscreen: Because that’s an obvious assumption for everything)

Running it all on a PC just adds more steps, unless you follow a LOT of guides to configure it to get through those things easily.

I’d really like it if web standards were better at allowing a video website to be navigated with an “Up/Down/Left/Right/Confirm/Back” device, so that you didn’t need apps for everything. That would be good for consumer devices like Apple TVs as well as people running home PC setups.

Katana314, miesiąc temu

Trails in the Sky has some interesting logic behind this where the gameplay serves the story.

You’ll do some quests for people who actually end up being evil later in the plot. There’s also party members who temporarily join you while they have time off from their other job - then as the story progresses, their “lunch break is over” and they go back to their life. So, if you try to save content for later, it won’t be there anymore.

Those little things end up putting more focus on what is accessible at a given moment, so a level 60 player isn’t going back to the starting area to wrap up quests he doesn’t care about for completion.

Katana314, miesiąc temu

“Look at this! You can run GeForce Now on anything!

Also this thing we sell is a thing”

Katana314, miesiąc temu

I can’t remember which ones, but I recall some games out there that were putting out new console versions, and kind of sputtered when marketing them for PC.

It’s Game, from 15 years ago!
Yeah, we know. Steam still sells it.
But can it run in HD?
Yes.
Oh. Uh……is it really still available for sale?
Yeah, it-…Hey, wait, you just pulled it!
$60!

Katana314, miesiąc temu

Whut, yeden can’ fek givin’ the ritesiden? Com off yen