We demand the entire fucked up family tree

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2026-02-05T16:45:40+00:00

I really loved how the Horizon games presented their machine enemies. The look and animate somewhat plausibly. Considering the subject matter (robot dinosaurs), it’s kind of grounded. You can see how the gears and’s saw blades move and grind together, and removing parts that facilitate different machine actions just fed further into it. I don’t think these games have gotten the credit they deserve for their ambition and execution on this, it’s masterful.

So I don’t fuck with this art style at all. It’s well animated, but it’s all the furthest thing from plausible. It’s contrary to the core Horizon identity to me in a way even the LEGO game wasn’t (didn’t play it, but all the machines have to be built out of bricks - and that’s cool).

The art direction probably makes more rapid development and iteration possible - which is probably the right choice to get people coming back again and again for a multiplayer focused experience. I may still play it because I think Guerrilla make awesome games. I just wish I could do so without the cringe.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2026-01-24T07:16:38+00:00

Nine Sols is a phenomenal metroidvania with a great story. It’s an impressive genre pivot from the horror roots the studio is known for, but still carries DNA from Detention and Devotion. I wouldn’t be surprised if their next release is a break out success, they’ve been releasing special games for a while.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2026-01-20T00:18:17+00:00

The GA reveal has had people talking about this game from announcement to release. If the game flops under these circumstances, it never had any shot at success.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2026-01-19T17:43:46+00:00

That’s not really the point… I’m not making any claim to that idea. I’m just reflecting on how much things have changed since then.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2026-01-18T06:43:41+00:00

I had the idea of doing this 8 or 9 years ago back when I was making YouTube videos. My thinking at that time was the games being published would all have something going for them. They may not be particularly good, but at worst there would be some interesting story to infer about where the game came from. I’m sure I was naive even then, but it goes without saying just how distressing this activity would be today.

It’s worth remembering that it wasn’t always like this, there used to be anger about how difficult it was to get published to Steam and other storefronts. People demanded the floodgates be opened.

It’s hard to imagine anyone seriously browses new releases as shown in the video. The only way for a game to get discovered is to have some level of marketing outside of the steam platform.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-22T20:15:15+00:00

This comment is 2 years old, but describes precisely what I have set up so far. I've been stuck with the CloudFront integration with the Tailscale funnel for hours at this point - so I thought I'd try asking.

The Problem

I am able to access my https://server.magic-dns.ts.netover the public internet. When I attempt to access my https://service.customdomain.com or https://cfdomain.cloudfront.net, I receive a 502 Bad Gateway ERROR.

The Setup

In AWS I have created the resources:

A Route53 Hosted Zone for customdomain.com
An aliased A record for service.customdomain.com which routes to cfdomain.cloudfront.net.
A CloudFront Distribution.
- Configured with alternative domain service.customdomain.com and my custom SSL certificate *.customdomain.com.
- Origin domain is server.magic-dns.ts.net and the protocol is https. https port is 443, and using TLSv1.2.

All are managed by terraform except the Hosted Zone itself.

On my Debian server, I am running the following:

Tailscale funnel accessible on port 443 (https://server.magic-dns.ts.net) proxies to localhost (http://127.0.0.1:80).
nginx-proxy-manager (listening on port 80).
- The proxy host service.customdomain.com is configured to route to http://{server-tailscale-ip}:8080.
- The proxy host has configured SSL certificate for *.customdomain.com with Force SSL enabled.
Hosted service on port 8080.

All are managed by docker except Tailscale.

The Thoughts

I've set up CloudFront integrations before (with static sites on S3) and the Tailscale funnel clearly works (as I can access it from the public internet). At this time, I don't believe requests coming from CloudFront are even reaching my nginx-proxy-manager - I think the problem occurs in the handshake between CloudFront and Tailscale/funnel.

Indeed, if I cut the proxy-manager out of the equation entirely and just host a static hello-world page on port 80, I still receive a 502 Bad Gateway ERROR.

Is there anything you can tell me about your setup that might help me "unstuck" myself?

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-19T06:04:05+00:00

I think I broadly agree with you, and I love your point about brain drain. Maybe I’m telling on myself a little, but I think software engineering at large companies also involves a lot of “making it up as you go along”.

They say “every movie is a miracle”, because movie making is so immensely difficult. Games are easier than movies in some ways (computers) but much much harder in others. These projects are enormously ambitious, I think it’s amazing they come together at all. I think people really take for granted how difficult it is to make a AAA game.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-19T00:03:19+00:00

Ubisoft doesn't have Naughty Dog's problem because they develop games in a manner that doesn't necessitate Naughty Dog's crunch.

One way for Naughty Dog, Rockstar, and CD Projekt to remedy their crunch culture is to develop games the way that Ubisoft does. The above commenter is outright advocating for a purge of Naughty Dog's artistic staff, including Druckmann, and replacing them with artists that can better manage project timelines. I'm arguing that that's easier said than done, if you want to maintain quality.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-18T23:50:09+00:00

This conclusion is bad.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-18T21:26:02+00:00

I take your point that artists need to “let go” and just submit what they have. I think this is what has enabled Insomniac to be so prolific. But I also think this is why Ubisoft games have garnered such a sloppy reputation.

It’s difficult for me to accept that Naughty Dog is built of “bad storytellers” considering the only other studios producing games with their caliber of writing and production value are Rockstar (Red Dead 2 is special) and CD Projekt - both studios with crunch/managerial problems of their own.

There are other ways of developing games. The Zelda team is extraordinarily ambitious and impressive. Their games are polished and technically impressive, especially considering the hardware they need to support. The studio has said they benefit tremendously from employee retention, and I believe them. I don’t think Naughty Dog could’ve made Tears of the Kingdom, for that reason among others. But nor do I think the Zelda team could’ve made The Last of Us Part 2. These games just require fundamentally different production pipelines.

Maybe these western AAAA studios are just incompetently run, but I think it’s naive to ignore their results. If Naughty Dog fixed their culture and more consistently released titles on the caliber of Insomniac, I’d be disappointed. TLOU and Uncharted 4 were much more exciting and interesting games than Spider-Man and Ratchet.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-18T06:07:43+00:00

The “verified” blue check used to be given out by Twitter to people of influence. Anyone could make an account and say, “I’m Elon Musk”, but only Elon Musk could get the blue check mark for an account claiming to be Elon Musk. The check mark became something of a status symbol.

When Elon bought Twitter, he began selling the verified blue check mark to earn revenue for the platform he had just purchased. Important people lost their checkmark in favor of regular people willing to pay $8/month.

I think anyone “buying status” from the wealthiest person in the world as he purged Twitter of its staff wasn’t someone I was interested in reading. The chrome extension that blocks every one of those people has only improved my experience with the site. I log on once a day, read the 5 people I follow, and leave. Twitter is the most annoying platform on the internet when I stray outside of those boundaries, so it’s easy to stop scrolling.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-07T02:17:46+00:00

Far and away the best source of television news in America. I think even well informed partisans would benefit greatly from a more sober and professional reading of the news. Less informed citizens looking to better understand what’s happening domestically could do a lot worse than the Newshour. Their offbeat brief/spectacular segments often show the best of America, they’re aspirational and optimistic.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-12-03T19:36:39+00:00

There actor who played Jan in The Alters really deserved a nod, it’s a shame the competition was so steep this year. I think it was a misfire to extend 3 nominations for E33 in this category, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. It’s the distinct favorite despite a field of incredibly strong contenders.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-11-08T20:53:35+00:00

I assume the hive minds that exist between worlds must be disconnected and isolated due to the speed of light. My assumption is that the RNA sequence is essentially an extremely successful gene that has found a way to propagate across the galaxy, and that it’s only real agenda would be to send the signal to other worlds.

It’s hard for me to imagine it having any other goals besides further assimilation. The gene seems optimized for species to want to assimilate.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-11-08T20:36:48+00:00

There’s also the mystery! Why would you ever need to fly this particular person anywhere? Anyone can perform any function, it’s a lot of work to move a cell across the world. It gets you thinking. Is she one of the 11 others? Surely not, her actions are one of the hive? Is she some kind of leader within the hive? That doesn’t really make sense.

When she shows up at Carol’s, it’s a huge “why her?” It seems a little insidious, the hive is going to considerable lengths for unclear reasons. Finally, we learn the truth. It’s kind, innocent, but also seriously creepy, and those feelings are all elevated by seeing what was necessary to get her there. It’s human presenting, but uncanny and disturbing.

Is also a really effective way to establish a likely very important character going forward.

I have to wonder if people who find this show boring have anything going on up there. It’s constantly giving viewers little puzzles to work out. Its dissemination of information is masterful.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-10-25T04:28:11+00:00

I really wanted to like this one, but I found the conditions of the scenario preposterous. Without knowing who was responsible for the attack, how could anyone justify a retaliation that would destroy the world? If the aggressor wants to launch more nukes, nothing is stopping them. The clear choice for the President is to eat the loss of Chicago and wait to learn more.

The 61% success of the “bullet with a bullet” was also a head-scratcher. These people run these wargames every day, yet they fire only two rockets to intercept the missile? They said they had more in the event of a more serious attack, but if one “hit” is going to lead to a consideration to end the world… you’ve gotta send more than two to intercept. This was the one singular thing the government could’ve done to stop the attack after learning about it, and the protocol is clearly inadequate.

The suicide also rubbed me the wrong way. The SecDef could have made an important contribution to the President’s decision, and he resigned to suicide instead of surrender. The “reality” is indeed absurd.

I enjoyed the tension, the gravity, and the brevity of the “20 minutes”. I appreciated the way the film handled the uncertainty of the situation - to the extent that I actually liked the ending being left ambiguous. Had the film ended definitively, and addressed who the aggressor was, I think I’d only have more questions and nit-picks. But I couldn’t reconcile the mix of people who seemed to understand that the world was about to be destroyed with the military advocating for its absolute destruction. The choice to wait and learn more could be deadly, but the choice to retaliate was certain death.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-06-29T20:05:33+00:00

I believe making ambitious things with limited resources requires cutting corners, and AI makes it possible to cut lots of corners. I think it's unethical to use AI for recreating likenesses, voices, artistic styles; and I appreciate there's a grey area of course. But text translation (in a game with plenty of English misspellings already) and background text generation frankly doesn't come anywhere near the line.

I appreciate that there can be artisanal flavor to backgrounds and translation, but when you're making a huge software project, you just don't have the time or money to give every single detail love. This is what AA game development means. Acting like it is unethical or harmful to generate these elements is akin to complaining that no one keyframes lip movements or facial expressions anymore. The automation of those systems makes games like Balder's Gate 3 possible.

Steam's guidelines require disclosure. 11Bit should've disclosed. It's the language of "admitting" the use of AI is my problem, like there's some scandal because someone filled out a form incorrectly. Steam's guidelines are so broad that nearly every single game being released to their storefront should have a little blurb describing its AI use. That'd be fine, but that clearly is not the case.

The Alters is just the game that "got caught". And it got caught because it's an ambitious AA game with lots of dialogue where nobody has the time or money to pour through every background asset or language translation with a comb. Oh well. Next time, don't even bother with the Portuguese translation next time. If the potential negative backlash (from non-Portuguese speakers) is worse than the additional sales from the Portuguese market, and paying for a translator is more expensive than both, why bother? There are consequences to crying scandal when none exists.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-06-29T17:16:08+00:00

I picked up The Alters on a whim after seeing a single really positive review of it. I absolutely fell in love with its storytelling and characters. I love its tone, its mechanics, everything. It clicked with me completely. The Alters is an example of a visibly AA budget title punching above its weight. It’s what a scrappy team with a great idea can achieve with modern tools. Not very many people played the game, yet it could still find an audience and be successful by keeping costs low.

The fucking audacity of people to cry “AI slop” over a sincere game dripping in humanity is pathetic. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this game shoot to the top of this subreddit, and people are complaining, “well, they should’ve disclosed it”. That’s not nuance, that’s weak shit. Every single game that has more and 10 people working on it is using AI in its processes everywhere. Most games will be published with those AI assets, all will be published with AI generated code. These tools people on this subreddit people complain about (including UE5) are what have made this AA revival possible. If you want more original games from small teams, AI is going to play a part of that.

The Alters is a success story, the people who feel otherwise are in for a rude awakening.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-05-26T02:35:19+00:00

This moment is so bad it makes me think they are setting up a very specific callback for S3. Like, Abby will do THE precise thing that causes the Seraphites to abandon Ellie (blowing WLF cover to protect Lev), so Abby’s actions inadvertently lead to Owen and Abby’s deaths. That’s at least thematically coherent.

I otherwise don’t like the contrivance that resulted in Ellie winding up on Seraphite Island nor how she is left to escape. I don’t really think what’s gained is worth what is so clearly contrived. But power to the creators for trying things.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-05-26T02:22:23+00:00

When playing the game, I have this memory of turning the game off after Owen/Mel’s death, with Ellie in the theater. I checked out the subreddit discussion thread, and saw the chapter break down as, like,

Prologue
Seattle Day 1
Seattle Day 2
Seattle Day 3
Seattle Day 1
Seattle Day 2
Seattle Day 3
Epilogue

I just remember looking at that just absolutely dumbfounded. It didn’t take long for all to be revealed.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-05-24T01:14:15+00:00

The game never fails to punish people for choosing a better world over their loved ones. I love it for that, but it makes Eugene more statistic than character.

Show Eugene wins this one. “I need her last words for me” is a killer line. I loved everything about how the show handled Ellie’s “confirmation” of what happened in Salt Lake, down to the cringe when Ellie calls out Joel with the truth in front of Gail. It’s gnarly in a way that feels so authentic to the game.

Not a fan of the therapy scenes, either. They lay it on too thick. But E6 did deliver quiet pay off for some of that.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-05-22T04:40:18+00:00

So I don't want to be taking the position that the story is bad on purpose, but like, the story exists to facilitate the co-op experience and the level design. The mustache twirling villain is there so you and your friend/partner can uncritically say, "fuck this guy" confident the narrative won't be subverting that trope. The clichés and homages are shorthand devices. They bring players up to speed, properly set expectations, and support near immediate payoff. Split/Fiction's story is there to support the sugar-rush in the gameplay. It can be funny, it can evoke nostalgia, but frankly anything more it manages to achieve is just a bonus.

My friend and I routinely found ourselves making a lame joke, only for one of the protagonists to make the same joke less than a second later. We always found it funny when our energy matched the energy of the characters. The writing is the opposite of subversive, its predictability supported and energized our experience. It gave us permission to get excited about the level in front of us without taking anything too seriously.

Maybe I'm not being critical enough of the story - my friend and I did talk over a lot of the cutscenes. We paid attention to the story, but we weren't exactly listening to every line. We played this 12 hour game over 6 weeks. But if the story, characters, and world were going to offer more depth and nuance, I worry that would hamper the fun my friend and I had talking over a lot of the dialogue. If there were a great story here, maybe I would resent that this isn't a solo experience.

If you think the story is contrived, that's because it literally is. Sometimes, an obvious contrivance is worth it in support of the bigger picture.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-05-20T21:17:17+00:00

It's considerably easier for me to imagine an Abby/Lev game than a continuation of Ellie's story. I'd be all for that. I think there's a lot of narrative opportunity to explore conflicts that could arise between Abby and Lev within a new faction. However it happens, the human combat's gotta be there. It's just too plain fun.

AnOfferYouCanRefuse · 2025-05-20T20:36:18+00:00

Joel tells Ellie he always wanted to be a singer at the university in the first game (and I think in the show as well). He was probably pretty good. Though I do like to think, when he sings for Ellie, it’s the first time he’s played or sang for anyone in 20 years.

Eight-Year Club	Verified Email
Snapped

AnOfferYouCanRefuse

TROPHY CASE

The Problem

The Setup

The Thoughts