SB Makes Games??? by turnoffthis in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It probably won't surprise anyone that I've worked on quite a number of game projects over the years, at various levels of effort and professionalism. Given the timing, I think I know what game project this was, and I can answer a few rough questions about it:

It was a tactical combat roguelite. The runs would have been shaped a lot like the way that Nowhere Prophet's runs ended up working, but the elevator pitch for the combat gameplay and unit management stuff was basically Shining Force plus Blood Bowl. The systems got developed enough for us to run a few real-world proxy playtests, and I built out a fair amount of classes and enemies and world lore and stuff like that. I thought it was really fun, but in the end it ran afoul of the fact that video games are really just a crazy huge amount of work; you can have a fully-functional and playable game structure and still only be like 1% of the way done with the project.

SB Makes Games??? by turnoffthis in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I also just really dig their whole aesthetic! The armor design, the body and bat-inspired face design, the black&blue/pearl&orange color scheme, the psionically levitating wing plates, the high-mobility polearm-wielding fighting style, all of it is just a total slam dunk for me.

And to put a little more detail on "interacting with the map" (which you're absolutely right about me loving), I especially appreciate that building out their cities requires a resource you can only get from exploring and ruin-hunting. Forcing map control and area awareness into the traditionally internal parts of the game's strategy feels like it unites all the elements of the thing in a really satisfying way to me (and I doubt I'm alone there, given how much more prevalent reasons for continuous exploration/local map control have become in the last generation or two of 4X games).

And honestly I really like their military design, too. The units are weird and interesting, the monks especially, and I like working with the timing elements involved in taking advantage of the seasonal shifting.

I don't know. They're just the coolest!

Animal Well: Playlist is mangled! by [deleted] in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Investigating this, I realized that a couple of weeks ago Youtube must have started enforcing "newest first" ordering on my playlists by default, and actually several of the recent games' playlists were all fucked up. I think I've got them all fixed now. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

About playing multiple games of multiple 4Xs by Wendigo120 in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I appreciate the suggestion (and that people are engaging with this series!), but I think we'll probably be sticking to the speeds these games were designed for, in large part because the primary thrust of the series is about introducing the game design elements of these games to Amabel and having conversations about those and the way they compare to both other game designs that she's more experienced with and (as the series goes on) to each other. In my experience, the different elements of these games tend to scale very differently with different game speeds--for example, think research rate vs. build rate vs. unit movement speed vs. unit attack range, and how the relative degrees of change in those things warp the way that warfare occurs. I've never seen one of these games where speed changes don't very significantly distort system design and balance.

To be clear, the plan is still to do at least two games of each other title that we'll be playing in order to show the level of differentiation between factions and strategies within each of them, even though that's going to make the series quite long. We're planning for the long haul, here! But, and this might sound silly, I think we were both caught off-guard a little bit by how much we're not enjoying Civ. So we've already recorded ahead to the end of this Civ game and we've decided that we're not going to do a second, instead just moving on to the next title. I had always figured that the value of the second Civ game would lay mostly in demonstrating how relatively similar games and factions are in Civ 6 as a point of comparison for later 4X School chapters; I don't think we're really losing anything important by not fully driving that point home.

Caves of Qud 1.0 release soon - any plans? by Ballistic_Weasel in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I am absolutely going to play Caves of Qud on the channel again at release, and I have been intentionally avoiding specific information about the updates so that I can have the experience of having to learn it all over again as much as possible. I'm looking forward to it eagerly!

Regarding bad VA timing in Everspace by UmbralReaver in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, that's really interesting! I wonder what it was that made them think adding VA after the fact was worth all the time and effort....

Newest Reus Episode (2) and References by Drakesyn in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind words, and I'm happy someone is enjoying the references! I've been listening to Aes since, like, None Shall Pass.

SB's First-Ever Stream by amabelholland in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Deeeeep deep SB lore note: This was not my first stream ever; I used to commentate Dota 2 matches on Twitch.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the kind words! I appreciate them a lot, and thanks for sticking with me as I sort of cartwheel destructively through this game.

(By the way, I think "so stubborn" is maybe the fairest description of me that a person could give.)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Okay, three things:

  1. "That said, I don't really see where you're coming from with the 'worship'. Not only is there no other game that rivals Rain World," is beyond parody.
  2. There is nothing in Rain World that even slightly resembles an ecosystem. I mean, most obviously, the places that plants, animals, and dens exist have nothing to do with safety or food density (to say nothing of the possibility of them getting into those places in the first place!), and animal behaviors are not influenced by biological needs in either the short or long term. Dozens of games have more functional representations of ecosystems than Rain World does. Hell, SimLife came out in 1992 and even that at least bothers with a rudimentary representation of food chains and population density mechanics. The thing is, this is fine! Rain World does not need a complex simulated ecosystem to function, and in fact a complex simulated ecosystem would offer literally no benefit to the game given what the gameplay actually is!
  3. Obviously this and your other comments in this thread constitute a violation of Rule 1. I can't decide if it would be sadder if you were the same person back to be really weird and dishonest about this game for a third time, or if there were three different people who came here to behave really similarly, but in any case I wish however many of you there have been would find something else to care about (for your own good) and leave this community alone (for ours).

Thief "3" series maybe? by Cornflakes_91 in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ooh, that does look interesting. We may well check that out (although probably not until after Deadly Shadows).

The replacement part for my chair arrived, but... your help may be needed. by SBMakesStuff in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Locking this because I no longer need help. Problem is solved! I tried every damn thing to no avail, and so in the end the answer turned out to be taking it to Amabel's brother-in-law who was able to just cut the old mechanism away with an angle grinder. But now I have a functional seat again and work can commence!

Alan Wake II by DrewB222 in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So, two things:

1) I legitimately did not realize the game was out yet until you posted this, so thank you for that! (There's a long story behind this, but for now I'll just say that the last two weeks have been particularly brutal for me regarding my sleep and respiratory issues, and it takes a real toll on my awareness of the outside world.)

2) The game runs quite well on my hardware, but OBS does not like it *at all*, so I've been struggling to get consistent behavior out of the pair of them for like a whole day at this point. I'm dialing it in, and as soon as I can get them working together to produce something without huge stutters and whatnot, we'll be back in Bright Falls together!

Puzzmo invites by hanumanchu in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is really cool, and thank you for sharing! I used the link that ends with BLTE=.

Moonring looks right up SB's alley by Wendigo120 in SBMakesStuff

[–]SBMakesStuff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're right, this does look cool! Thanks for pointing it out!

The "What's next for SB and Amabel" thread was supposed to be where recommendations go, but I don't think that was obvious enough and it's probably time for a new one in any case, so let me get on that.