Jeffool

Jeffool, 16 days ago

I wish I had your restraint. EVERY time!

Jeffool, 17 days ago

Considering I’m unemployed and job hunting, and Windows says I can’t upgrade my current (old) PC, and I regularly play Warzone with friends? No, probably not any time soon.

Maybe if I get a job with a six digit salary in a city with a reasonable cost of living (or remote) so I can jump out of debt before 6 months? But I’m not holding my breath.

Jeffool, 29 days ago

I understand what you’re saying about Game Informer, but it’s hilarious you name Nintendo Power and PSM as alternatives, considering that.

Jeffool, 30 days ago

Tetris in a walkway. Any format, really. It’s just great.

Jeffool, 1 month ago

Wild to think they’ve spent $100B on VR and for tons of people it’s probably still a “Beat Saber” machine. I mean, respect to Beat Saber.

Jeffool, 1 month ago

Story-wise I’m not sure there’s much more that needs to be said for GlaDOS, but I think tech-wise they could advance it some. Currently players can build testing chambers. It’d be cool if you could build entire complexes consisting of several chambers, with your own (optionally voiced) personality core running the tests. Then the base game could pick up between facilities and whisk you away to new testing places. Basically, make it easier for players to make their own full mods. Especially if you allowed custom hooks for your ins and outs between facilities.

Jeffool, 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Which, in the immediate future, makes me wonder less about the things that are going to be done in code, and more about the creation of new, free, visual and audio resources that make this work. That seems like quite a noble pursuit.

Jeffool, 1 month ago

Scoob! Holiday Haunt, was the third one.

Jeffool, 2 months ago

I had genuinely forgotten about it without playing it. Thanks for mentioning it.

Jeffool, 2 months ago

I couldn’t pick a single one, but I got endless joy from all the Quake mods back in the day. Not just level designs and sprite replacement, but complete weapon changes that made everything different, Quake Kart, Cujo, etc. It seemed the sky was the limit.

Jeffool, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago)

I’m just picturing big chambers like Super Metroid, and the characters moving around testing things to see what happens, then putting it together. (Maybe a zoom out button, or the map screen being relatively detailed.) So it could be very similar to the original, just “more”. You’d just need a few sets of puzzles in every chamber, for when they backtrack and revisit areas. Mind you I’m not saying it’s easy to “just” design good levels and puzzles, especially in such a large scale, just that it’s easy for me to imagine it being fun.

Jeffool, 2 months ago

A friend linked it in a Discord server recently and I’ve been enamored since. This recent update last week really made it harder. But like Minesweeper, sometimes you just gotta guess. I like to guess a few random spaces for my first energy bar, apart from the initial orb, so I crash out early if I do.

Jeffool, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

I agree, I think it’s feasible. Start with Wander getting to the temple, revealing the bundle on Agro is Mono when he places her on the pedestal. The first words can be Dormin speaking to him. Then cut to the priest leading his men along the path we saw glimpses of Wander taking.

Alternate back and forth, the priest and Dormin doing the talking, with Wander rarely talking, and to Agro when he does. With the focus on Wander adventuring through the beautiful world, interesting visual storytelling with him, Agro, and their travel. And then the fights.

Though I think you need 4. A human-ish one first, a four-legged bestial one, and a flying one, before the final one. Then the priest and crew arrive, and the end happens. I think it all depends on the director.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, but I think Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,) David Lowery (The Green Knight,) and Nicholas Ashe Bateman (The Wanting Mare,) could all handle a great movie with limited dialogue and beautiful visuals. They might need help with action, but they could hire for that.

I don’t know about the attached director, Andrés Muschietti (It, It: Chapter 2,) but I’m going to try to not judge him by The Flash.

Jeffool, 3 months ago

I think I was thinking more significant changes than your were. I’d go so far as to re-write it as 4 colossi (not counting the finale.) I’d be sacrilegious enough to combine elements of them along the feature-sets I grouped them into. For instance, the first of the four main fights could introduce the puzzle solving against a biped. Use elements of the sword-carrier mostly, probably. The smaller four-legged beast colossi could group well; it could chase Wander around some ruins, and end up fighting in a dilapidated arena. For the flying one, I’d have it start as fighting in a cave, going in the sand there, before bursting out of the cave and flying into the air along the beach. Then the final fight for Wander has to be against the final Colossus that you fight AA Wander; you have to hit that story best with Agro and get emotional resolution for it, which perfectly sets up the finale.

Basically for me the fights are an opportunity to showcase visual spectacle in both colossi and the world as he combats them, in addition to overcoming the challenge both in plot and the eyes of the viewer. I imagine the 4 fights being probably 15m or less each. (The first being longer, to lay out the rules, then shorter and shorter.) That’s less than an hour of hard action.

That leaves you an hour for the other three significant parts of the film: a) serene beautiful shots of Wander and Agro in this world to establish their bond: hunting lizards, camping, climbing trees, showing Wander getting less healthy, and showing the two of them bonding. b) Intercut that with Lord Emon and his men traveling and camping with Emon explaining their mission to the men. Add in a little foreshadowing of how they might have to face “the colossus” when they get there. c) Then the finale and resolution.

Lowery

Dude killed it with The Green Knight. It wasn’t even the scene with the giants that made me think of him, but the pacing and quiet solemnity that made parts of it feel like a storybook. That whole part with him coming up to the battlefield was great. The stop at the other castle felt like a whole other movie, yet still felt perfect. It was great. He could make a compelling story about a man and his horse. And I think that’s the part everyone assumes will be “the challenge” of the film, and makes me doubtful with almost any director.

I felt the same about the serenity and visual elements of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, if you haven’t seen it. The cast may not have agreed gracefully (Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck,) but the movie they made is a masterpiece as far as show deliberate pacing with moderate amounts of silence go. Dominik was great for this. Add in Roger Deakins and it’s worth a watch and a rewatch, imo.

Jeffool, 3 months ago

Yeah. They’re adding the Fantastic Four to it.

Jeffool, 3 months ago

It does a good job of onboarding people. The general tutorial is relatively short and sweet, and character specific tutorials are even shorter. It also gives each character a rank (in stars) for how complex that character is to use effectively.

The game itself is pretty chaotic, so it’s easy to convince yourself that your deaths are incidental, and your victories are a result of you playing well. And as long as you’re having fun you’ll be okay with that. But if at any point you start feeling like someone has your foil, just change characters mid-match and try a new tactic. There’s so many characters you can experiment until you find theirs.

I’m genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

I’ll probably always think that Tetris is the greatest video game ever. The inherent dramatic arc that comes with watching the blocks stack up is tension directly within you the player, not you watching tension unfold for characters on the screen. It’s different every time, even if the shape of the arc is similar, because you improve as a player. It’s the kind of emergent involvement the most designers could only aspire to create.

That said of course Shadow of the Colossus is also a favorite. That one probably feels a little more obvious, but I’m okay with that.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

“War. War never changes.”

“Remember. No Russian.”

“Itchy. Tasty.”

Jeffool, 5 months ago

It gives space to do servers based on specific interests if you want. I’m part of a game development server, and my “Local” tab has people on my server often talking about, and showing, things that are related to game development. And I can still follow anyone from any other Mastodon server too.

If you’re into video games, film, maybe a specific genre of music, you can have an instance dedicated to that. (It might already exist.) It’s like a virtual neighborhood, or forum. Remember forums? Those were nice. They cultivated a sense of community which made people a little more responsible in their attitudes, it feels like. Maybe that’s just nostalgia, but I like the server I’m on. It’s got friendly people I can talk to without feeling the need to fill my follows with them.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

Sure, but with that philosophy, why use a microblogging system at all?

Jeffool, 5 months ago

You know, that feels like a pretty great use case.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

Thanks a lot!

Jeffool, 5 months ago

I do wonder if they’d garner enough attention to pay for the licenses to add them to Game Pass. I loved the MUA games.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

Even if they do repeat 3 (and I kinda feel they will,) it’ll have a cliffhanger too. And I’m okay with that.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

Every little bit counts. And finding ten people (especially out of ten) who agree on anything is pretty impressive. Congratulations. I hope this does well for you.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

I’d love to make the move, but there’s a one-two punch of: I play Warzone with family. I think anti-cheat there is only going to get worse. Second? I already get caught with the fiddly bits of errors on Windows sometimes and spend too long searching for answers. Any time I see that on Linux it looks like I’d need years more of active learning new problem solving to reach my current level of comfort.

I’m at that “is it worth planting the apple tree now that I didn’t plant 20 years ago?” thinking.

Jeffool, 5 months ago

I actually used Mint for about a year a decade ago, and really liked it then. What made me switch back was the gaming. That said, I hear gaming on Linux has just gotten better and better; just like people in this thread are saying. Whenever I get around to putting together a new PC I’ll probably either dump something Linux on this one or dual boot myself. Sadly I don’t expect Activision to really support it. But hey, Lord knows I’ve been wrong before. (And yeah, printers are often kinda universally assholes though; that we all know.)

Jeffool, 5 months ago

That WOULD be a fraction of the cost of a new PC. But given my current one is a 2017 build with a 1080 in it, I’m really hoping to make next year the time to free up some money for it regardless. But I do appreciate the thought!

Jeffool, 5 months ago

hah, respect, but I play Warzone with some cousins who are on console. (Actually I just searched, and I didn’t realize Warframe had crossplay now! I might have to at least get them to give it a shot, thanks for the mention!)

Jeffool, 5 months ago

Nah you’re good. I’m absolutely going to suggest we give Warframe a try. And if we get off of Warzone, maybe I’ll end up moving sooner rather than later.

Jeffool, 7 months ago

Yeah, for all the difficulty I had with the dam on NES TMNT as a kid, I saw a streamer do it last year I think (I believe on first attempt?) not realizing it was supposed to be difficult. Blew my mind.