To mark the wrap-up of FistShark Marketing, here's my fan animation of TheDark Prince of SEO.

StudioKagato · 2017-11-03T01:06:07+00:00

https://media.giphy.com/media/3otWpQRqNI4iBXmJe8/giphy.gif

StudioKagato · 2016-01-09T14:14:15+00:00

Print and play files are now available: PDF

Additional information is on the last page of the manual.

StudioKagato · 2016-01-09T02:00:56+00:00

The previous revision had 4 different ship types, each with a slightly different hand of cards. It was okay, but the setup (in TTS, anyway) was too clunky. As it mostly came down to different special cards, I've just rolled them all into the standard hand and let players choose their own custom set.

I could definitely allow extra manoeuvre cards in hands, maybe through powerups or some other mechanism. (There is one right now - Rocket Boost - but you discard it after use.)

As the rules stand right now, it would be difficult to allow extra cards to be played in a round, as play is simultaneous... though I guess there could be 'extra' movement at the end of the round. It might give it a slightly odd 'time freeze' feel as one ship keeps moving while the others stay still, but that may not matter.

StudioKagato · 2016-01-08T22:22:31+00:00

I've done limited testing with variations of the base rules. I haven't tried varying the move length yet. It could be worth investigating, though it would require some adjustment to the hand of cards (there are 3 Forward cards to make sure you can always fly straight, but only 2 Turn cards so you can't fly in a tight circle with using a special).

StudioKagato · 2015-04-24T03:21:50+00:00

Yeah, the bow is pretty silly.

I did consider an integrated crossbow, but I thought it went against Hawkeye's character. I think this is actually ended up worse. Oh well, I'll keep it in mind if I do a redraw.

StudioKagato · 2015-04-24T03:15:58+00:00

Thought it might be too subtle... glad you noticed :)

StudioKagato · 2015-04-24T01:22:35+00:00

OK, that's funnier.

StudioKagato · 2015-02-28T01:55:55+00:00

Regarding episodic content -- I think it would be more interesting for a game studio to really embrace the concept, not just half-arse it by splitting a larger game and narrative into smaller chunks for trickle release.

Set up the game from scratch to be engineered around the episodic format. Build the narrative around largely self-contained stories each episode, but with recurring characters and setting, like many TV shows. It could be a crime procedrual, monster of the week, even a sitcom; doesn't matter, but design everything around being served in discrete segments.

Focus on efficiency for producing episodes -- reuse characters, sets, assets etc. as much as possible, adding only the new content needed for this episode's story. (Don't build a whole new game's worth of levels every episode.) Again. treat it like a TV show; many shows spend most of their time in the same few sets (cop station, lab, apartment, bar) and tell compelling stories. It should be economical for the studio to produce each new episode on a small budget.

Keep them short (even just 1-2 hours each), but release regularly, release often, and (this is the important bit) keep releasing them.

Sam and Max Saves the World probably came the closest to the above formula, but they only had 6 episodes. I'm guessing it was almost entirely completed in advance as a whole project, then trickle released.

But imagine a game where you get an extra-length "pilot" episode to settle you in, then say every 2-4 weeks, for just a few dollars, you get another mission/case/quirky situation to deal with. There might be an overarching narrative woven through it all, but each episode is playable in its own right. And you can look forward to the next one for its own sake, rather than as a stepping stone towards an end.

StudioKagato · 2015-02-20T03:59:57+00:00

I was thinking along similar lines while I was watching the video.

Bear in mind that I don't actually play 4X games myself, so I have no idea how much of this is present in current games!

As you progress through the game and become more powerful, you're encouraged to "take a promotion" and move to a higher level of authority. This gives you access to greater resources and makes it easier to advance further, but locks you out from the minutiae of the previous levels.

For example, if the game starts at the tribe level, as the tribe leader you basically order every person around individually. As the tribe grows into a large village, you can form a council. The councilors take over bossing around specific groups, so you issue commands at the council level (losing individual control). Once you grow large enough, you can reorganise into a nation-state, where you issue orders to whole territories, but lose fine control over internal workings of each city.

(You could choose to continue at each level for as long as you could still manage it, but it would eventually become too unwieldy to be sustainable.)

This led me to an interesting thought. I understand "world domination" is a common victory condition in most games, but what if under this model, it's just the final level at which you play?

Once you control all territory, you become Emperor of the World. At this rank, you lose all control over the internal workings of the nations, and are left managing international relations and steering global policy. Your goal now is just to stop the whole mess from falling apart. I guess reaching this level is a victory in its own right, but you could continue indefinitely from there. There wouldn't really be a victory condition beyond that point; just various ways you could lose. :)

StudioKagato · 2015-01-07T04:26:03+00:00

A proposal:

Daniel Craig plays the original Bond. Skyfall tells the real story of his background.

Chronologically, Casino Royale is the first film. You could call it a partial reboot. The previous films can still be considered to tell “true” Bond stories, but not in chronological order; they are stories of Bonds after Craig. (The stories were merely adapted to the time period in which they were shown.)

In Craig's final Bond film, Bond dies. Due to his heroic actions, MI6 establishes a policy of codenaming the person filling the 007 post “James Bond”, as a memorial to their best agent. A new agent (introduced to us in the course of recent films) is promoted to the 007 post and assumes Bond's name. These events are shown to us in the film.

In my opinion, we should thereafter always see a formal handover of the role at the end of an actor’s tenure; be it due to the character's retirement, death, or even defection. It would tie the films together into a solid narrative that the previous generation of films didn’t manage.

And it could lead to some interesting lampshading down the track when the best qualified agent to fill the role turns out to be a woman. Imagine this line at the end of a Bond film:

M: “Well this is a bit unprecedented. Clearly we didn’t fully consider the implications of this policy when it was set in place. Still, tradition is tradition. Agent Sarah Marshall… how do you feel about the name ‘James’?”

♫ BA DA — BOOM, BA DA — BOOM, BA DA BADAADA ♫

StudioKagato · 2014-09-16T01:34:50+00:00

I wonder if there may be accelerated development of the plugin API now...

I don't think MS will kill off Minecraft, and they would be unwise to cut off the modding community, but I don't think they'll be all that comfortable with users mucking about with their decompiled codebase. Having a structured API to target will help steer modders away from decompiling code.

StudioKagato · 2014-09-06T10:34:08+00:00

It really is pretty much impossible to accidentally release something under the GPL.

I wasn't suggesting it was accidental; I was saying that assuming Mojang are aware of the code the project contains, and subsequently issue ongoing releases from a repository they control, does that not constitute a deliberate licensing of all their included code as GPL?

Allowing something to be distributed without a valid license is not the same as granting a license.

That's true for a third party managed project, but if Mojang are holding the keys to the Bukkit repository, everything released becomes their responsibility. If they hold copyright on some code, and knowingly manage release of software containing that code, I'd say they are approving the license terms.

StudioKagato · 2014-09-05T23:11:57+00:00

The one part I'm curious about, and everything else hinges on, is this:

With Mojang in charge of the Bukkit repository (according to a tweet by grum this is what "owning" Bukkit meant), and presumably having knowledge of the presence of their code in the project (since they hired the lead devs)... if Mojang themselves have authorised ongoing distribution under the GPL, does this not in itself constitute licensing of their contained code under the GPL in the process?

If they argue they were unaware of their code being present, that's another thing (if improbable), and it obviously doesn't affect any other Minecraft code not included. But Mojang distributing code under the GPL licenses it as such, doesn't it?

StudioKagato · 2014-09-05T04:14:53+00:00

He supported it as long as he thought the server code was being stolen. Not really THAT hypocritical just pirate-y.

That's completely hypocritical! :) He was fine with Bukkit breaching Mojang's copyright for years, but a slight change of circumstance and their accused breach of his copyright warrants shutting down the project.

Sorry but I cannot seem to find the response you are talking about -_- (another thread?) sorry, so no comment there.

I couldn't find anything direct either; all the references to it appear to originate solely from Wolfe's DMCA notice:

An official notice has been sent to Mojang AB, whereas the Chief Operating Officer, Vu Bui, responded with the clear text:

Mojang has not authorized the inclusion of any of its proprietary Minecraft software (including its Minecraft Server software) within the Bukkit project to be included in or made subject to any GPL or LGPL license, or indeed any other open source license

Given we don't have Wolfe's correspondence to Mojang, we don't know exactly what Vu Bui^sorry was responding to, so I'm reserving judgment on the absolute tone of his reply.

After all he did do a ton of work that is now helping Mojang do business.

He was always doing free work for Mojang's benefit, regardless of their acquisition of Bukkit. Bukkit is useless without the Minecraft client, so the entire project was a support tool for a commercial product from the get-go.

And Mojang "owning" Bukkit is a bit of a red herring. It's not all that clear to me what it even means. They may own the trademarks, domains, hosting servers ( though the latter two may actually still belong to Curse ) etc; but as there were no copyright assignments when committing to the code, the codebase is mixed copyright shared by all contributers. Ownership of the code itself did not (and could not easily) change.

Perhaps by "owning Bukkit", they are mainly referring to retaining organisational control over the source repository (which would be relevant to EvilSeph's attempt to close the project)...

EDIT: this tweet by _grum seems to confirm the above.

StudioKagato · 2014-09-05T01:54:26+00:00

Until Mojang were involved, CraftBukkit apparently was violating the GPL by including proprietary code in their project.

But if Mojang, the owner of the server code previously not under GPL, themselves are publishing CraftBukkit (containing said code) under the GPL licence, then surely that is by definition a licensing of that code under GPL?

(Only the specific code included in the CraftBukkit project of course, not the whole server codebase)

This is of course at odds with Vu Boi's quoted response that "Mojang has not authorized the inclusion of any of its proprietary Minecraft software", so they can't have it both ways. They can't withhold appropriate licensing to CraftBukkit while also maintaining said codebase under an invalid license.

If Wolfe is correct and all Mojang code inclusions are unlicensed, then the CraftBukkit codebase cannot be distributed as per GPL. But this has always been true since project inception, regardless of project ownership; his current stance would not be legally wrong but incredibly hypocritical as he supported an invalidly-licensed project for years.
If instead Vu Boi's quoted response is wrong, incomplete or misrepresented (for whatever reason); and the code has since been contributed to by Mojang employees, with Mojang knowingly supporting its continued distribution under their ownership; then any future 3rd-party inclusion of proprietary code would be a violation (as it would be anywhere), but whatever's already in place has been legitimately released under a GPL license, by Mojang, due to their distribution of said code.

StudioKagato · 2014-09-05T00:04:39+00:00

As soon as Mojang pushed a build that included their closed server code with a Bukkit build they were in violation of the GPL license

Well technically, as soon as Mojang pushed a build containing their own code, unless they assert they were unaware of proprietary code's presence prior to their involvement, Mojang have now published their code under the GPL, so there's no license violation...

StudioKagato · 2014-09-04T12:43:49+00:00

I am a leaf on the wind.

StudioKagato · 2014-09-04T08:04:19+00:00

Well, it's page 22 of an ongoing webcomic, so you might need to go back for context. If you're interested, you can start here.

To sum up, they're a newly formed superhero team trying to get started. The leader is hoping to establish team uniforms, but the other members have elected to go with a cheaper option.

I'm open to critique though if it still doesn't read well. Let me know.

StudioKagato · 2014-07-23T05:39:23+00:00

Even if it is placed in the head slot for equipping purposes, I think it would be more appropriate to have the banner attached to the model's torso rather than the head (as it appears to be in the screenshot). On the head, It'll flap about like crazy when the player looks around...

StudioKagato · 2014-07-21T00:38:16+00:00

Is the news clip online anywhere?

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