Showing posts with label anniversary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anniversary. Show all posts

Friday, December 21, 2018

Radiator Blog: Ninth (9th) Anniversary Roundup


Wow, it's been nine years. I didn't write as much as last year, partly because I took on so many small projects and did so much traveling this year. (There was one month where I was basically in a different country every week!) But overall I think this blogging pace has been sustainable, and for the future I'm going to aim for this kind of rhythm of posting: roughly once a week.

In the tradition of past anniversaries, I use this annual post to try to collect and curate all the blogging I did over the past year, and maybe even do a little bit of reflecting.

First: as usual, I cover some individual games...
  • NSFware is one of the best sex games I've played, and I think my favorite thing about it is that it's so much about timing and feel -- yet it was made in Adventure Game Studio, an engine not known for its timing and feel (to be charitable). The process of rotoscoping from PornHub videos also lends it an uncanny quality, despite the abstract neon color palette. Basically a masterpiece.
  • The Forgotten City was a popular Skyrim mod that felt very "dense" to me, with lots of possible options and connections between its various NPCs and quests. Like other "dense quests" in Bethesda-style open world RPGs, it also doubles as a commentary on the game systems and simulation, exposing assumptions and limitations and engaging with that friction.
  • Subnautica brilliantly solves 3D 6DOF open world design in a novel way. Most open world games are about traveling laterally to the edges, but here Unknown Worlds provides a fresher approach to progression with its focus on (literal) depth to the bottom of the ocean. It's especially ambitious to do this in a first person format, a genre where players rarely look up or down.
  • Fortune 499 is a innovative deckbuilding puzzle RPG with a fresh story that meaningfully engages with the accounting inherent in CCG-style mechanics. It also has some very compelling encounter design, resulting in an RPG with no grind and no "filler puzzles." It's a huge shame that more people didn't play this game, it basically does what everyone claims to want, and it's smart about it too.
  • Un Pueblo De Nada is a short game mirroring an experimental short film within the Kentucky Route Zero universe. There's an attention to detail and craft here that is basically unmatched anywhere else in games; I've also become so paranoid that I think this game has secret messages intended just for me, hidden deep inside it??? Anyway GOTY 2018

I also did more level design projects this year...

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Radiator Blog: Eighth (8th!) Year Anniversary

As is the holiday tradition in December, teenagers throughout the world have gathered around their radiators to critique environment textures and be wantonly gay, in flamboyant celebration of the anniversary of the Radiator Blog's founding. This year, the blog turns 8 years old!

For 2017, I resolved to blog more... and I ended up with 72 posts, which is double the amount of 2016's posts (a mere 36). Compared to social media like Twitter, I've always thought of blogging as a more "formal", slower platform. But to keep up the pace this year, I had to relax my attitudes and write more freely, which I think was ultimately a positive thing.

(You can check out past years' anniversary round-ups here.)

Now let us gather around the radiator, and review the past year's "greatest hits" along with some commentary...

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Radiator Blog: Seventh (7th) Year Anniversary roundup


In keeping with tradition, I do a round-up of this blog's "notable" posts from the past year, and offer a bit of reflective commentary. This year, it arrives about a month late, because I forgot. (Oops.) As always, past years' roundups are accessible here.

GAMES

I haven't finished as many projects as I would've liked this year. Ideally, I would've had one big new sex game ready by now, but both WIP sex games are much more complicated than previous games, so it's taking quite a while to develop the technology for both.
  •  "Shapeshit" is a short vulgar pooping game made for Ludum Dare 35. (The theme was "shapeshfting"...) Prototyping the dynamic poop technology for this was pretty fun, and this is probably one of the most game-y games I've made in a while. Hopefully it'll make a triumphant return in VR in 2017! Imagine: VR pooping...
  • "Cobra Club HD" remaster, prompted by various games festivals needing updated builds. Big features included pubic hair, strap-on mode, over-hauled dick physics, and a half-functioning foreskin mode. At this time of writing, there have been about ~55,000 dick pics from this game uploaded to the internet... yes, you're welcome.
  • "Radiator 2" remaster, mostly to put it on Steam and to get my foot in the door on that platform / test the waters. In the end, all I had to do was to mark my game as "for mature audiences" and it was allowed; I hope my future releases go as smoothly? At this time of writing, there have been 150,000+ users, and the game bounces between an 85-90% user rating from time to time.
  • "Good Authority", the Robert Moses-y urban simulation game I made in collaboration with Eddie Cameron, is still unreleased. Although it did well in the Power Broker game design competition, we feel the game still has serious problems, and we need to overhaul the mechanics. Look for it in 2017, when me and my husband are less angry at each other, and can finally work on it again.
  • "No Stars Only Constellations" was an unfinished stargazing game prototype from 2013 that I cleaned-up and finished for the Fermi Paradox jam. If you're a fan of my Radiator 1 work, from before my sex game phase, then this is basically an alternate remake ("alt-make"?) of Radiator 1: Polaris. Expect this to be remastered for VR in 2017.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Radiator Blog: (belated) Sixth Year Anniversary


In keeping with tradition, I do a round-up of this blog's "notable" posts from the past year, and offer a bit of reflective commentary. This year, it arrives about a month late, because I forgot. (Oops.) As always, past years' roundups are accessible here.

For 2015, I promised myself I was going to blog more regularly than in 2014. I started pretty strong for the first half of the year, but then my output began plummeting toward the end. (Oh well.) Here's to a bloggier 2016!

TALKS / PUBLICATIONS

Friday, December 5, 2014

Radiator Blog: Fifth Year Anniversary


In keeping with tradition, I do a roundup of this blog's "notable posts" from this past year -- because this blog is now about five (5) years old, it is enrolling in kindergarten and learning how to write. Oh my, the time does fly! (All of the past years' roundups are available here.)

This year, I've posted about 50% less than last year. This is due to a few things: I've been busy teaching more often, I've been trying to work harder on my projects and de-emphasize my writing, and also I realize I've been "saving my material" to deliver at talks instead of "giving it away" on my blog. I don't like that I'm doing this, I've always thought I would be the type to discuss and share freely -- so next year, I'm going to try to post more reliably again... but still, it wasn't such a bad year:
  • I finished and released three games: Chandelier, Intimate Infinite, and Hurt Me Plenty.
  • My post as "A first-time IGF judge with IGF submission advice" in February got quite a few referrals from game development communities... and judging by this year's new batch of entries, a lot of people still need to look at this advice! I'll probably write another list of tips for next year, but this time closer to the submissions deadline so maybe a few more people will heed it.
  • "An alternate history of Flappy Bird" was me weighing in on the event that was Flappy Bird, back in February. I felt like (and I still do feel that) there was a strong racial current to the weird backlash and faux outrage. After all that speculation, I believe Dong Nguyen said in interviews that he withdrew Flappy Bird because he felt that distributing such an addictive game was unethical... which was an angle that occurred to approximately zero Western thinkpiece writers. I think my personal favorite Straight White Male angle was Charles Pratt's piece for Polygon, a formal analysis on how well Flappy Bird is tuned.
  • I took a few more stabs at procedural dialog / conversational NPC systems for Nostrum. Then I actually showed it at GaymerX2, and I had to disable the system at the last minute because it was still too abstract -- once again, I made the mistake of focusing on a system instead of a game experience. People seemed to like flying under rock arches though... which convinced me that I needed to re-think my approach to the game, and so Nostrum is currently on hold.
  • I am now one of (several hundred? maybe a thousand?) architecture critics with my words printed in a book, an expensive mega box-set organized by Rem Koolhaas. Of course, I haven't actually seen or touched these books in real-life, so they're still mostly imaginary to me, but I've totally seen the page proofs and they looked nice enough.
  • My snarky game engine review roundup fooled Jonathan Blow into following me on Twitter for a day or two, almost as if I were an authority on this stuff?...
  • Noserudake 2 is one of my favorite Japanese Unity web player games, and I riffed off that to write about the role of language in game dev, specifically how game development / our identities as game developers ("self-learning self-taught polymath nerd gods") is mediated by English being the "default language" of code and development, vs. other cultures and language users developing their own ways of game making.
  • Modding is still alive, it's just taking a different shape... I wrote about how Ryan Trawick's "Keys" plays with conventions of the "alt walking simulator" genre, and it's kind of amazing that there are established conventions and motifs now? It prompted me to look into Source SDK 2013 and revive the old Radiator... which, um, I still need to finish making. Shit.
  • I reviewed Anna's book on ZZT and Darius' book on Jagged Alliance 2. Both are excellent books, you should read them. I think I'm going to assign them in my classes.
  • I got more into tool development... here's me making a simple 3D scribble-modeling tool called "Mural", and here's me working on a Twine-like plugin for Unity called "Bramble"... which reminds me, I still need to finish those, huh? Shit.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Radiator Blog: Four Year Anniversary


This year marks the Radiator Blog's fourth year of existence. It's now ready for preschool, wouldn't you say? (They grow up so fast.)

Much like the first, second, and third times I did it, here's a "best of Radiator" list for 2013 along with some brief commentary -- and please eat some of this cake, forks and plates are on the table behind you.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Radiator Blog: Three Year Anniversary


Wow, I've been blogging here for about 3 years now. This blog is now approaching the end of its toddler years. Much like last year, and the year before, here's a "greatest hits" compilation of this past year's posts:

(Oh, and feel free to have some cake. Forks and plates are over there, on the table.)

GAME ARCHITECTURE CRITICISM

COMMISSIONS
  • Level With Me, a post-mortem. A Portal 2 mod I did for Rock Paper Shotgun. The level design is some of my better work, and I like the idea of game journalism in the form of games, but it seemed somewhat cooly received. I have to conclude that it must simply be not as good as I think it is... or that Portal 2 players are super lame.
  • The Future of the FPS, written for PC Gamer UK in issue 240. A short essay and list of really cool indie FPS games and how they're changing the genre, kind of the basis for my later RPS series. Thanks Graham!
  • A People's History of the FPS. A three-part essay series for Rock Paper Shotgun that argues mods are transcending their video game bodies, becoming genuine culture that is increasingly independent of the products that they're meant to be "modding" and adding value to.

ON GAME NARRATIVE
  • The myth of psychological realism in narrative. Argues that thinking of fictional characters as "people" is meaningless for a writer. It is much more useful to write by thinking of a character as a vehicle for plot, and let the player fill-in character for themselves.
  • Dishonored fails as an immersive sim in its first minute. The simulation should be "immersive" -- meaning, the scope of it should be consistent and everywhere. Scripting special cases goes against this genre dogma.
  • Dishonored uses the Heart to lie to you. You'd expect the Heart to be an unreliable narrator of some sort, but it doesn't lie to you with narrative -- it lies to you through gameplay and psychological framing.
  • "Stair K": architecture criticism, Thief, and a coffee maker. Situates Thief as dialog on social class and urban architecture. (e.g. stairs are invisible to rich people who take taxis, not subways, and frequent buildings with abundances of elevators) It argues that in Thief, stealing is framed as an ethical act because the rich deny the truth and infrastructure of cities.
  • Thief 1's "Assassins" and its environmental storytelling. I really hate the type of analysis that just thinks of game narrative as a static text that you read -- game narrative is also a game design tool, a way to make the game better to play. Games tell stories, yes, but those stories tell games too.
  • What do simulations simulate? Argues that a simulation gap is important for framing a narrative.
  • The structure of Sleep No More (part 1, no spoilers) and (part 2, detailed and spoilery). You paid a lot to see this damn show everyone's raving about and now you're inside, on a timer. Are you going to spend your valuable time (a) reading faint scribbles on random pieces of paper under a dim flickering light-bulb or (b) follow the crazy naked people who have an interpretive dance orgy in a blood-smeared disco?

    I still think a lot of "game critics on Sleep No More" like the idea of it more than how people actually consume it -- unfortunately, reading is boring and performance is captivating. So I argue the readables function as set dressing to assure you of the production's expense, not to serve as barely coherent narrative in a familiar plot that's hundreds of years old. Of course, the dancing's fantastic, but I guess it's hard to argue for the value of dance to gamer culture.
  • Rule Databases for Contextual Narrative. On modding Valve's dynamic self-branching conversation system and using it to author dynamic self-branching narrative, and how Emily Short's already doing something like that, naturally. I think it's one of the more promising directions toward a holy grail of procedural narrative.
  • Balls and conversation: let's narrativize the sports genre. I really love baseball movies, but I'm really bored by the focus on statistics, which is probably why Moneyball sucked. There's a rich tradition of sports narratives in film and literature, but in video games it's conspicuously absent. Let's change that.
  • "Do you think shooters take themselves too seriously?" We watch blockbusters in a special way, I think, but the gulf between action films and action games is this: the films are structured to be human and sympathetic, but games are sociopathic and mean. This is a game narrative writing problem.

ON GAME CULTURE
  • Frog Fractions should really win something at the IGF.
  • On appreciating the UV texture flat as fine art. Here, I propose three aesthetic modes for enjoying texture flats on their own merits and glorifying them as authentic game art, rather than the silly concept art we parade as game art. I later re-wrote this piece for Game Developer magazine, as "Loving the Bones."
  • Desperate Gods and rules-forcing in games. Pretty recent, but I think it's a good summary of current thought on the issue -- if you can play a game of Starcraft in your head, and Starcraft exists fundamentally more as a mental construct than a product, then why can't we just argue the rules of Starcraft in the same way we interpret and amend the laws of board games.
  • On grad school for games / what studying at Parsons was like. Imagine a cohort of game developers from all around the world, and 50% are women, and 10% aren't straight people. Parsons is like the rainforest: diverse, beautiful, and vital to the global ecosystem -- but it's also humid, with lots of insects everywhere, and it's constantly in danger of deforestation. It's not for some people, while others will really grow to love it.

GAME CONFERENCE / FESTIVAL NOTES
  • Why Indiecade is the best games conference / festival I've ever been to. It might sound like hyperbole but it really isn't.
  • I spoke at Games for Change this past year, on LGBTQ attitudes and developers in games. It went great. I began with "I'm Robert Yang, and I'm a practicing homosexual" -- and the entire auditorium erupted in applause and cheering. It was an amazing feeling.
  • Notes on the Games for Change industry. Fun fact: I got into an argument with a G4C speaker in the comments. His stance -- yeah the games suck, but people want to put a lot of money into this, so just accept it. My stance -- art should be a free or reasonably available public good, not a product.
  • How the worst part of the game industry uses PAX East to teabag your entire face with its cancerous scrotum. I encourage everyone to go to at least one big mass market game convention, because that's when you will know what "indie" really means and you'll realize how small, puny, and insignificant we "video game intelligentsia" really are. The sheer amount of money being thrown around in this industry is insane -- the money spent on a 20-foot tall Blops booth-complex, blaring out noise at a regular interval, is a huge contrast to the humility and humanity of indie game culture.
  • What were the main trends of GDC 2012? A look-back on what happened and what stuck out as significant.

    UNITY TUTORIALS / RESOURCES
    • Shader-based worldspace UVs ("triplanar") in Unity. The worst thing about BioShock's environments is the cookie-cutter feel of the game architecture, the result of modular building in game engines today. The scale and proportions don't feel human or plausible. To me, one answer is to embrace old school BSP construction techniques with procedural UVs so that you can scale your primitives to arbitrary sizes without texture stretching.
    • How to integrate Unity and Twine. Notes on Unity's web player JS hooks, and how that can feed into Twine's JS, or any webpage's JS, really.
    • How to dig holes in Unity terrains. How to use depth mask meshes to selectively mask geometry, then disable the terrain collider temporarily.
    • The best Unity tutorial writer in the world. He really is. I'd pay him to write a book, in fact, but unfortunately I'm poor.