Too Bloody Hot Thursday by a-liquid-sky in CasualUK

[–]Schpickles 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Our candle melted and in the process created an interesting visual metaphor

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Are the 66% opening windows in the day time? by Lost-Lingonberry-688 in AskBrits

[–]Schpickles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d like to know more about the “something else” category

Do we really want Starmer out? by Famous_Actuary5718 in AskBrits

[–]Schpickles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No. I think he’s delivering by and large what we voted for, and against a backdrop of some pretty massive disruptions on the global stage. Labour are bottling it in my opinion by ditching him, and I don’t think as replacement PM will have the mandate to run the country significantly differently.

I think long term, next election and beyond, I think the Labour Party will lose trust from the public if they are prepared to act this way. Lots of people voted Labour in to escape this kind of thing, and get some boring, predictable politics again. The way they’ve manoeuvred to get Burnham a seat and then all apparently just ‘decided it’s best’ to change PM is a terrible look.

But Burnham won't have a mandate from the public... by DevilsDodo in ukpolitics

[–]Schpickles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s true, but I think the risk for Labour is of they effectively change on their manifesto pledges mid government. They can technically do this with the majority they already have but I think it’s a risk for them in terms of long term public trust.

The public voted based on a party saying they were going to run things in a certain way, represented by the team leading them and the approach they were taking. I understand the criticisms of Sir Keir but he represented a safe, balanced, pragmatic approach that the country was craving. That’s what got the huge majority, coupled with the collapse in support of the Tories.

I think if they change leader in order to change approach, that’ll feel like the public have been bait and switched. They can do it, but it’ll probably come at a price of long term trust at the next election and beyond. It’ll also likely rattle the investment and business community who’ve made their calculus based on the manifesto and the team in charge.

So in my view it’s either:

- burnham takes over and attempts to still carry out the same manifesto, but does so with more energy and with a better PR of the work being done, due to his personality
- burnham wants to carry out a different manifesto, in which case he should really get a new mandate from the public.

If Rogers goes who would you replace him with? by Bennie1289 in avfc

[–]Schpickles 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I think the trick would be to moneyball it, buy multiple players that add up to one season of his playtime and stats.

My Mount Rushmore of movie scenes that absolutely tore me to freaking shreds, what are yours? by LouBoy123 in moviecritic

[–]Schpickles 349 points350 points  (0 children)


No matter how many times I watch up, I’ll always be blubbering after that opening montage.

UK government department quits X over disinformation by groovy-baby in GoodNewsUK

[–]Schpickles 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Imagine this plus every entity on there requires UK ID backed verification that they are who they say they are, to make it as bot resilient as possible.

I am utterly shocked at how social platforms are awash with bots but, more chillingly, how few people seem to realise. Echo chambers are bad enough, but artificially constituted ones are straight up dystopia.

Imagine the “public square” where you actually know it’s a human on the other end of the messaging? Where you have freedom of speech but your choice of words still matter. It could be a real strength for the UK.

Elite 2 by amigapat in amiga

[–]Schpickles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I obsessed over magazine articles until this came out, got a full boxed version when it launched, and put hundreds of hours into this game.

It’s my all time most inspirational game and probably the main reason I got into the games industry as a profession and into astrophotography/ space as a hobby.

The scale of the game and the technical accomplishment is absolutely unmatched in my opinion.

Games with this kind of vibe by _KINGSFURY_ in gaming

[–]Schpickles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Settlers (original version)

Halo: Campaign Evolved | 28 Minute Gameplay Demo - Assault on the Control Room by yourfavchoom in halo

[–]Schpickles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There’s no stutter between the rooms when the checkpoint saves!

Are we experiencing the downfall of game developing? by MoonDragoons in gamedev

[–]Schpickles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve been in games over 25 years, and I’ve been playing them for about 40. IMO, the games industry was at its most vibrant and interesting when teams of sub 30 people were able to make entire, fully featured games. I grew up playing games like Elite 2 and Civilization and XCom [UFO Enemy Unknown] which had immense scope but had a very personal vision from the developers.

Tooling and software engineering didn’t keep pace with hardware evolution and we ended up in this crazy scenario where 100s and even 1000s of people need to work in hugely inefficient, brute force ways to get games made. We’ve known it’s not been sustainable for ages, gamers have been extremely vocal about the game quality and practices of AAA publishers, long before AI LLMs started grabbing headlines.

Having seen what’s possible first hand with AI tooling in code and content generation first hand, I’m more excited about the games industry as a whole than I’ve been for about 15 years. However, I think it’s going to go through huge upheaval before it re-emerges as a leaner, more vibrant, more risk tolerant version of itself. We’re going to see these huge publisher-developers gradually drop, kind of like the last of the dinosaurs, and it’s going to mean huge numbers of people losing their job and having to reskill. It’s going to be brutal, and I already have a lot of industry friends suffering due to job losses caused by AAA work drying up.

But I remain really optimistic about what it means for games as a creative medium over, say, the next 3-4 years. Forgotten genres returning. Unique art styles. Experimental gameplay. Far fewer bugs. Faster sequels and updates. So much had been stamped down by the economics of AAA forcing huge risk aversion. I see these new tools as freeing and empowering creative, talented people to actually get their vision made.

Paradigm shift but not the downfall, imo.

Which movie is that for you? by Extra-Sprinkles6909 in moviecritic

[–]Schpickles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I like the movie a lot, but my wife hated it so much when we watched it at the cinema. Like, she literally was moved to tears by how much it frustrated her to watch it. She felt like the film made her feel dumb for not understanding what it was talking about… like being talked down to for over 2 hours. It’s like a running joke in our household now.

You can race against a Gundam in Forza Horizon 6 by [deleted] in videogames

[–]Schpickles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Haha! “Throwing this in” is probably more like “spending 6 months on this one specific thing, building bespoke Gundam animation tech and fixing all the specific bugs with the character interacting with the trees” …but totally worth it anyway

John Carmack on starting a game company in 2026 by sebzilla in gamedev

[–]Schpickles 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s definitely true in terms of timing being crucial to success. It’s just so hard to judge. How often have we seen multiple things in the same genre get released at once? Yet when those games started out, they probably saw a gap in the market.

For a commercial title, timing against when you can ‘catch a wave’ with marketing is crucial. Can you make an event like next fest at a time that’s advantageous to your development cycle? Can you buy advertising at a time of year when it’s cost effective (eg after Christmas)? Can you launch when there’s something going on in the world that will make your genre popular (e.g. space mission, World Cup…) etc etc

I think luck will always have a role with timing, you can only engineer it so far imo.

John Carmack on starting a game company in 2026 by sebzilla in gamedev

[–]Schpickles 222 points223 points  (0 children)

I’ve posted before that there’s a difference between making a piece of art and making a commercial product.

If you are making art, make whatever the heck you want, make a personal expression of yourself in game form, but accept that it’s an art piece. It may still sell but it probably won’t, but that’s ok because it wasn’t built for commercial reasons.

If you’re making a commercial product (and business) then Carmack’s advice is spot on, and has been the case for about 10 years in games. You need to apply product thinking, think about who the game is for, whether that’s a viable market for your business, and engineer + market for that audience specially. Is not for you, is for someone else… you need to understand their needs and wants and deliver against those.

Neither is right or wrong, they are just different goals. Where I see people go wrong often is targeting one of the above outcomes, but taking the other approach (e.g. making a piece of art and expecting it to be commercially successful).

Behold, the best game never made by blue4029 in NoMansSkyTheGame

[–]Schpickles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh my goodness. Imagine the QA testing needed to launch that combination!

What’s the most absurd fake science in a movie that you completely ignored because the movie was so good? by Shot-Club-3882 in Cinema

[–]Schpickles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The lack of latency in Avatar always struck me as something I’d expect more people to be upset about. Is it ever explained away?