insomniac_lemon

Are you challenging me?

For the most part, it’s not hard to find them if they’re doing the things I said and you pay attention while they do it. Look at how many titles a publisher has on Steam, see if they have a wikipedia page and if so if there’s monetary info involved. Recognizing a dev/publisher might also be part of it.

Also with self-publishing never being easier, some of my skepticism starts there. Another is games seeming somewhat shovelware-esque or like they’re trying to ride the wave of some other successful game/trend and that’s why targeting consoles early-on is likely important to them for the money.

I originally wasn’t, but off the top of my head some of the stronger examples:

Just because something is cute pixels that does not mean it’s indie. A good introduction to this is the existing discussion of Dave the Diver and its ties to Nexon. EDIT: Also, lootbox controversy with Nexon and Maplestory

One involving unpaid marketing and crowdfunding/early-access: tinyBuild. ~$473m IPO. Publisher of Hello Neighbor, which also has some controversy around it on quality (also mobile games with micro-transactions, because kid audience). While searching on this, I also saw someone angry about them doing testing on Steam and then a post-launch Epic exclusivity. EDIT: Also one of their games not having all content available on GOG.

The game Roots of Pacha had a license dispute (I do not know the cause, but the dev did end up getting the Steam rights) their original publisher had at least 6 different accounts on Imgur (and they also did the crowdfunding/EA thing too, and no it was not like 1 game per account either and some of those accounts are mysteriously gone now). Same publisher was in the news about controversy over boob physics, and I don’t doubt it was either suggested by the CEO for the headlines or just marketing clicks if controversy hadn’t have happened.

Even if people don’t care about stuff like this enough to stop buying the games, I hope they at least try to not enable or reward blatant self-promotion (particularly the more dipping and questionable practices involved) on the fediverse

And don’t confuse high budget indie studios with AAA game developers

On the other hand, there are a lot of publishers out there who really shouldn’t have things called indie when they’re involved.

The ones who have struck gold (perhaps multiple times) and are already worth multiple millions, publicly traded or even owned largely by investment firms. Some like this still footing everything on the players (crowdfunding and then early access) and on top of all of that going onto places like Imgur and Reddit and doing unpaid marketing there (doesn’t seem great for the actual devs, and then there are things like multiple accounts/sockpuppets/deleting+reposting etc).

And even without the unpaid marketing stuff, a publisher has a lot of ways to screw over developers and/or players usually with the goal of money in some form.

Sam has a nightmare: Paul* saying “You’re not perfect.”

*= Of DECtalk

I’ve also recently heard about VAs/creators (Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Space Ghost) not getting royalties (and living rough now despite their shows being successful). It’s also frustrating considering the style of stuff like this was low-budget in the best possible way.

If it is actual (local, in-engine) Text-to-Speech, I’d see that as more forgivable. Less space taken up by audio files, better for modding/user-generated content.

Though given the mention of AI and a AA/AAA game I highly suspect they aren’t going that route.

The publisher of this is somewhat scummy* so I wouldn’t doubt whatever this is being completely planned/manufactured to get in the headlines. Or at least the idea being originally pushed by the publisher to “boost engagement” on Imgur/Reddit.

*= Publisher having a decent amount of games, using multiple accounts for unpaid self-promotion on Imgur (to the point I assume they either made devs do this or pretended to be them) on top of crowdfunding+early-access. Also one of the published games was de-listed on Steam temporarily due to a license dispute with the creator (who now has the rights).

Does it even have touch capability? Though I could see the logic if there is some way to develop in a way that allows easily exporting to both the Playdate and Android.

Also I’d say a lot of those features are easier had with a Steam controller (or perhaps other gamepad). Granted they are not sold anymore, but I got one in the fire sale and likely a lot of people did as well due to being dirt cheap (PC Gamer says 48 million, 10% of sessions).

I was originally going to reply to @essell on agreement on cost, but the only real substance was

1. It’s not really for me for a lot of reasons (I don’t need portability, I don’t like buying things generally+use what I have)
2. I haven’t worked my way up to real creation yet (due to a lot of problems) but my desired aesthetic is more like these things I’ve made animated 2D eye (note:imgur links only work if opened in a private window for me) or 3D plant with only vertex colors.

I only skimmed the article (I am no cloud scientist), but I feel like vertex color skyboxes should probably be mentioned. Used in the Homeworld games and the early Spyro games.

Explanation.

Spyro example, 2 (you may need to open this in a private window for it to load properly). Gallery. (also these will likely look more natural in-game, then again they may be obscured by the map itself)

The relevant bit here is that the artist can control how soft the edge of a cloud is using the density of the mesh. Defined clouds, wisps, overcast/fog looks etc. Also, aesthetic.

Easier and cheaper to get a second screen.

Also allows you to position the monitors/TVs differently for competitive gaming.

Yeah that’s the bit you install, and the .rap is the license. You could use the emu or an actual PS3 assuming you have custom firmware (or hen).

I am more interested in how much content it actually has without a server, how it’d compare to other versions. Looking into it, seems like some LBP1 levels are archived as save data but I also wonder if custom servers could be a thing (uploading too?). EDIT: The answer is yes, I should’ve just looked it up. Beacon.

The vote federation is different though, not sure if it’s just downvotes that don’t transfer but you can be downvoted on lemmy and it may not show on Kbin. Looking at OP’s account here doesn’t show a pattern of being downvoted, for instance.

It seems like the old login servers don’t even exist anymore (so I don’t see how it’d actually verify unless it just checks a username’s purchase status), but yeah that launcher does work for offline. (I still have my lastlogin file assuming it can’t overwrite itself easily, but I don’t think anything uses that other than the old launcher which can’t seem to actually download the files because 404).

It’s also interesting for the built-in modding, though it doesn’t seem to be perfect. Also added an edit to my original comment mentioning parallel timeline mods. Though I’ll just check out some classic(/revived) mods if I can get them to work.

@Stelus42

Yeah, one of the things I liked in old versions was having just one type of planks (not having multiple variants of everything wood, particularly). And I’ve never cared about the bosses or searching for something 50K blocks away from spawn or whatever. The other annoyance is hunger, though eating to insta-heal isn’t much better either.

One issue for me is that I really liked the block model system of newer versions (release 1.8), particularly as a resource pack creator. A ladder looks so much better as a few cuboids than it does as a flat texture, and my models (which I made in a text editor) looked a lot nicer than my textures.

Also, never migrated my account. Are the servers to download the old versions from the old launcher even still up?

Minetest could be a solution here, but it seems like most Minetest games are either following new MC’s footsteps or are doing something completely different. At least I’ve never played one that made me want to keep going, something good enough to start my own thing with (I would like chaining sticky pistons or similar things that are powerful in single-player, blocks that look cool but offer specific benefits like an iron grate floor/ceiling).

Parallel timeline mods are interesting, though I am not having luck with trying them thus far and I also doubt the modding tools are there enough especially for me who doesn’t want to code in Java. I could also see it interesting if there were an easy way to just disable a large amount of blocks/items/mobs etc and then just add in new stuff… maybe even with data packs especially for this sort of thing.

I am thinking about game mechanics that interact (has anyone tried liquid-like gravel/coal piles yet?) or that just connect simply/are instant (rather than high-throughput automation). Or different systems for healing/buffs/food. Maybe alternate tools/transportation/skybridges etc.

EDIT: So they really added data packs without the ability to make “true” blocks/items (instead still dependent on entities and commands, data overridden not data driven), huh? Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

These problems are not new and he is/was/will-be lead writer+lead designer for decades worth of Bethesda’s games. Sure you can blame Todd, but beyond that it seems like saying it wasn’t Emil’s influence is a bit of a “so you agree” situation (as in still his fault) relating to his public admissions (lack of design document and saying that players don’t care about story).

Aaaand it’s gone (12 hours ago).

Seems to me more like they repeated all their old mistakes and made new ones. The engine might’ve slowed development (and gave some influences/limits etc) but design direction seems to be the issue. Being on-par with their older games would be a step up, it’s like they missed the point of why people liked their worlds.

I mean often times they just have a script that looks for the trademarked terms (or in some cases, visual matches, or music for video), so it does matter using such things. At least when something it released, if it’s largely original work using trademarked names/logos is an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot (and can result in very early detection).

I also doubt takedowns are usually a higher-up hearing about said projects and “ordering the strike” (probably just that it popped up on an automated/intern-ran script), that’s why I think even the easiest changes would be good to do. Because they probably aren’t ever going to see Jimmy Eagle even if it were uploaded and popular.

The video part isn’t really important to my point, just the general idea that involving trademarked stuff is basically a multiplier for risk. Some simple changes and fans will still see what it is and like it, scripts won’t. And people fail to see this too often, so I don’t think people should encourage it because “it’s probably fine”.

That’s why I said without consequence. By that I specifically meant that a takedown could be used no matter the context. Non-infringing videos are often taken down and often people don’t even fight it because doing so can result in strikes.

Most people probably aren’t going to fight anything in court let alone compete with an expensive team of lawyers, so they aren’t ever going to get even the slightest pushback if they overstep things. That’s why I say it’s better to distance yourself from trademarks as much as possible.

I’m not even talking about monetization, just that they’re making and announcing something that is obviously DMCA-bait. Even the video could be taken down without consequence (even if it didn’t have monetization enabled, also the corp could force enable and get the money). This is a common thing that happens and it seems completely pointless and easy to avoid (again, even just plausible deniability/under-the-radar level).

If somebody was going to make a video cooking something “just for fun”/learning, I’d also say they should still try to be mindful of food safety rather than saying “if I get food poisoning, I can deal with that. Don’t do-as-I-do”.

Or in other words, just have some discretion.

How I remade Game™ in-

YOU FOOL!

How difficult is it to call it something like Toby Bird’s Overground? Feels particularly silly on somewhere like Youtube, where if the video blows up it’s likely any future hopes for your project will too (and this could happen at any arbitrary point in the future, though probably with a change of staff or just before a new competing title is about to be released).

That and I feel that at least a little plausible deniability (while matching the feel) would add to the “Hey, has anyone ever told you that you look like Tony Hawk?” joke.

(see also the video PSA: A Message to Unofficial Fan Game Creators)