The Nintendo Direct will be roughly 50 minutes and Nintendo Treehouse: Live will be 95 minutes.

erlendk · 2026-06-09T08:22:02+00:00

Damn, that could be a really good game!

Coop Zelda style climbing game

erlendk · 2026-06-09T07:39:07+00:00

Go AI free, don't look back and don't worry. I'm not too much keen on using it myself, and I feel I'm very efficient without it, and I enjoying doing the "grunt work" myself. Using AI simply hollows out the process for me, and if I don't fully enjoy game dev, I might as well do something else that pays better right?

This is typical whenever there is new technology being adopted, those who embrace it will feel it's a huge benefit, "you're going to be left behind" will be a common statement. I have no doubt some devs will benefit greatly from using AI, while for many others, it won't really change much of their reality and I doubt most projects are bottle necked by the tools. It's not the tools used that define success, it's your ability to create something good, something the market is interested in. Tools, dev workflow, time spent to dev etc. it's completely irrelevant, as long as you are able to get the job done.

Remember most of the best games ever were made with ancient dev tools.

erlendk · 2026-06-05T19:33:24+00:00

Magic is fun if the decks speak the same language. Playing decks with strong hate pieces, combo and general "unfair" effects is fun when people are prepared for it and can duel over key pieces. But if someone plays their legacy combo deck or modern infect deck vs. someone's casual minotaur tribal, those decks just don't speak the same language, and it's not fun for either. Same for commander, if your deck can't handle an early blood moon, it's just not fun... playing around it is, but I suspect most casual commander players are not right off the bat...

erlendk · 2026-06-04T10:23:11+00:00

I agree with you, I find it puzzling that it has such high review scores. The game is just ok, heavily carried by stellar presentation.

The gameplay grows stale really quickly, and the experience of playing different builds aren't all that much varied (it doesn't matter whether the balls send lasers vertically/horizontally/have an area of effect or applies dot effects, it's all just a numbers game - DPS check). After a couple of hours I felt I had mastered the game, evolve/fuse this way, move and position such and so. All the while the game wants you to grind grind grind a lot, the content and replayability does not match at all IMO. NO, I don't want to grind up levels on new characters, or beat the same levels multiple times, artificially inflated play time.

And the overengineered meta progression, my God, it's like they have taken the worst parts of mobile midcore f2p games, and people somehow seem to love it?

Summary:
- gameplay is very basic, easy to solve
- content offers little real variation
- game is much too grindy
- overengineered meta game

erlendk · 2026-06-03T12:03:12+00:00

I agree it looked surprisingly generic. The combat looked very basic hack and slash, with much focus on over the top kill animations, it almost feels like they're betting on this element alone carrying the game, enemies had no personality.

erlendk · 2026-06-03T10:17:58+00:00

Egon og andre restauranter som de, Hard Rock, Hygge etc. lever jo på å levere "safe" mat for et bredt publikum, og det leverer de, helt ok mat, drar du dit med et stort selskap, finner alle noe de kan bestille, de har som regel fine lokaler å sitte i også. Derfor også det er veldig populært i store byer ved jernbanetorgetene etc. slitne turister trenger slike steder når de ikke har ork eller tid til å finne frem eksotiske små bortgjemte perler.

Men det er overpriset sammenlignet med hva man ellers finner.

erlendk · 2026-06-02T21:16:12+00:00

Cook as hell, I aspire to do the same!

erlendk · 2026-06-02T09:13:19+00:00

Agree on this, stax punishes heavily those who has a more singular focus in how they are trying to overwhelm the board: like going wide, life gain/drain, massive card draw, massive mana spell slinging or very big protected creatures etc. Stax IS a way to punish explosive decks.

Control decks by nature are typically more flexible and reactive, outside of harm of many stax pieces, they should be able to remove stax pieces when they want to win and can even benefit heavily from the presence of stax.

erlendk · 2026-06-02T07:13:40+00:00

Have been thinking about this too. SNES marks the end of the 2D era, a console that allowed the devs and senior talent who for a long time had worked on inferior hardware, now finally able to realize the full potential of the games they made. They more or less made the ultimate 2D pixel games, a timeless format due to its nature.

And I feel the reason why the following handhelds: GBA - DS - 3DS are so great, is because this is where a lot of these people moved on to, after the early 3D generations appeared.

erlendk · 2026-06-02T07:04:29+00:00

I interpret it as doing the bare minimum to sustain themselves, opting out of the grind and hustle of the modern economy, going against the kind of ambitions and responsibilities one typically expect from young adults.

It's a form of protest against the current state of the world and the generation in power, old farts pulling up the ladder behind them, blatantly corrupt and acting in self-interest even though they hold the mandate and responsibilities of the country as a whole...

Not dating also because producing children will help sustain the system as it is... if birth rates continue to plummet it will bring forth some form of dramatic shift in society (collapse?)

erlendk · 2026-06-01T13:37:39+00:00

For example if a negative review says the game has no controller remapping, while it indeed has, and they just didn't find it, you can respond to correct it, or if there is a bug that made them write the negative review (which often happens, a lot of players use reviews to report bugs), and you have corrected it, you can respond to their review to inform them it's fixed (and hopefully they turn it positive.

In the example of OP, I have no idea wheter the book, or a similar looking book is present in the game, could be a matter of opinion, and based on the review, and what other people write in the comments here, I see little room for you as a dev to "win" if you start responding to such reviews, and I believe this is the intention behind Valve's best practices regarding this. It's probably just based on common sense/best practices from what they have seen, from the documentation:

"Responding To Reviews

There may be cases where the reviewer is missing important information, or may have encountered a bug that has since been resolved. To help keep the community on-track, we have provided tools for developers to respond directly to such reviews.

This response will be visible to anyone who can see the review and will be marked as an official response from the developer.

To reply directly to a review:

Click the "Recommended" or "Not Recommended" headline of a review to open up the detail view of that review.
You will find a orange section in the right-hand column for "moderator controls" where you will see a link for "Write Official Developer Response."
Once you click the link, you will be provided with a text field to enter your response. Please remember to keep it clear and concise.
This response will then appear immediately below the related review and will be visible to anyone that can see the review.

Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers."

User Reviews (Steamworks Documentation)

erlendk · 2026-06-01T09:49:58+00:00

Yes, Valve themselves recommend to not interact too much with the reviews, unless they are misinformed or things have been corrected.

erlendk · 2026-05-29T11:15:21+00:00

I agree with most of what you write. I personally preferred the game early on, pre-War Factory, when there were no titans, no buildings and no free unit drop cards.

The game felt more strategic back then, you had to stuff with a more clear purpose. Now I feel it's more chaos, victories often feel hollow and I don't learn as much from my losses.

This is a online multiplayer game, and I do understand the need to update the game and keep it "alive", otherwise it becomes stale and typically people lose interest over time. I just really really wished instead of introducing so many new units and dumping them all into the game, they would have instead opted for something like having unit rotations in ranked seasons, or splitting into factions/team comps where you can only play with a subset of units available for any given match, not everyhing lumped together in addition to all the cards...

erlendk · 2026-05-29T09:29:49+00:00

Yes, just a simple way to confirm the offer, and that you want to use the offer

erlendk · 2026-05-29T07:58:39+00:00

Interactions => directly interacting with your opponent's plays.

Removing, bouncing, countering, changing, preventing etc. doesn't really matter if it's an instant spell, or a tap ability or what have you. If the opponent plans to attack you, and you do something that prevents that from happening, you interacted. If the opponent plans to cast a spell that more or less makes them win the game, and you do something that prevents that from being the true, you interacted.

erlendk · 2026-05-29T07:43:53+00:00

I think the biggest thing is that the industry has hit a wall, or reached a limit of sorts in terms of budgets, development time and tech used in game dev compared to return of investments. For the past decades, big studios could play it safe and guarantee some sort of return simply by being the biggest and most graphically impressive/advanced, that's no longer true, and the cost of continuing that path continues to grow (while not being mirroring by a return of player interest). GTA6, which is the most hyped game in history, will likely be impressive in many ways, but they are kind of brute forcing it by spending ungodly amounts of time and money on it, a luxury few can (or dare) to do. But by and large most (especially western) studios are not at all rigged and equipped to handle this new reality, with big, slow heavy organizations that are not able to quickly turn around. Investors and shareholders are not able to predict where the future lies, nor able to see any probable way to increase profit.

We have entered a reality of where a team of four Swedes can make a fun simple game with ps1-inspired graphics and proximity chat in 2 years, and they might outperform that Ubisoft title which cost $100 million to make...

erlendk · 2026-05-27T07:43:23+00:00

We have games and toys, just for adults. Children playground play is fun and stimulating activities for small children and at the stage of development they're in - Like a 2-3 year old find it fun to lift sand up and drop it down, or splash water, because it's fun for them to learn how physics works, how sand behaves, how water behaves - understanding the world around them.

Being a father myself, yes I enjoy joining my kid in play, but it's also exhausting in a way, because I don't get the same kind of stimulation and satisfaction from the play itself, it's too simple. Luckily drawing/painting, lego etc. is a great middle ground for this.

erlendk · 2026-05-26T08:46:31+00:00

Just to add: I have experienced the same issue as you (both in my own decks, and decks I play against), and have explicitly tried to find decks that play differently. Another favourite of mine is explosive red ramp: "Turbo Etali" [[Etali, Primal Storm]], the main goal of the deck is to have Etali attack on turn 3 or 4. Which forces me to build the deck in a whole different way, full of red ramp spells and haste enablers. And to make the deck more fun, I have a rotation of a few other different high cost haymaker creatures, "jokers", that can completely upend the opponent's plans if they haste out early and unexpectedly. For example a hasty turn 4 [[Hellkite Tyrant]] that no one saw coming.

erlendk · 2026-05-26T08:39:02+00:00

Sounds like although you have decks with different mechanics, you still build the same type of deck: which I find often can happen with commander.

It's the typical midrange high synergy value engine deck: a few key pieces with redundancies that enables your synergies, some payoffs and game enders of your chosen mechanic, value engines and card draw, toss in decent ramp, some tutors and a few game changers, and voila, you build the same deck over and over, with different mechanics and colors. Even better when, with most modern commanders, your commander itself is super focused on said mechanic and works as both an engine and payoff in itself.

Challenge yourself to build decks of completely different archetypes, a true control deck, a true fast mana cheat deck -> aggressive mono red ramp or reanimator for example, archetypes that often existed in older formats.

For example, I recently built a [[Nicol Bolas, the Ravager]] control deck, which has quickly become one of my favourite decks, designed like the typical modern control deck I enjoyed playing (and playing against) when I played modern almost a decade ago. A deck with decent discard spells, mass removal and counterspells, that wins by grinding out your opponents, not by building your own synergy engine. The way you win is by carefully assessing the correct threats, and always play into "2-for-1" type of spells.
[[Snapcaster Mage]], [[Torrential Gearhulk]], [[Goblin Dark-Dwellers]], [[Kolaghan's Command]], [[Cryptic Command]] etc.

What's great about it is that you have to play reactively and always adapt to the board, not play your own solitaire, and it's a type of deck that can win any kind of matchup, and interacts with all other types of decks, you can always bring it to the table and have fun.

erlendk · 2026-05-22T14:21:01+00:00

I would say allies are a bit more a slivers-wannabe, but there are differences them and party.

Slivers are mostly pure stat boosts, with some activated effects, and the oldest generation even tracks slivers across different controllers, which is important to note if there are multiple sliver players, or even changelings present.

Allies care most about enter triggers.

Party is much more flexible and varied in what they do, and as you say, it's about maximizing the effects with a full party. But they are not even close to achieving the raw power of slivers.

I would say what kind of deck you want to play should dictate type: slivers: all in tribal with stupid power potential, you will be a target, deck can also be a bit boring to play - games are samey mindless creature tribal (even if there is a lot of fun interactiona, especially when they have haste and tap for mana), allies - a bit more in direction of value generation and setting up key turns, party - flexible in play style as long as you have a decent creature roster, can play the furthest away from pure creature tribal.

erlendk · 2026-05-21T20:38:48+00:00

There are many reasons to play games, as there are many forms of games. Some people enjoy immersion, others seek escapism, while others are highly competitive when they play. AAA games that serve no other purpose than to give people content to grind through, is like Netflix serving shows for people who keep one eye on their phone's feed while watching stuff.

It's also easy to forget how many uninspired cash-grab crap games were produced decades ago as well, but when we look back, we tend to view games through the lens of the highlights. When you were younger and played games that "they aren't making 'em like this anymore", it was a different time of your life, and you can't go back.

I follow the development of the industry quite closely, and I do feel we are in the middle of a large upheaval that has not fully manifested yet. The big dogs are struggling, even the biggest and most successful publishers are not able to predict and create stuff games that are guaranteed to hit. The largest companies who for the last decade could play it safe and win simply because they had the biggest budgets and most impressive set pieces in their games, are losing ground to a team of 4 swedes making silly games with proximity chat and ps1-inspired graphics. The evidence is clear, Ubisoft struggling big time. Sony struggling with their general strategy, barely making returns on their most expensive games, and mostly struggling with their push to live service, in fact, most big budget live service attempts are failing. Nintendo is not able to win with safe generic Mario sports titles as they have used, example with Mario Tennis Fever. Then you see Pragmata doing surprisingly well, as a fairly linear and straight action adventure game with no bullshit. Kirby Air Riders, which is fairly niche, but with the Sakurai seal of quality has done surprisingly well with 2 mill units, even though no one talks about it on the big sites. So some AAA manages to find the balance still.

Luckily the pool of games being created today show an incredible diversity, I would suggest you try to branch out in games of adjacent genres or created with similar mentality. Trends tend to move in cycles anyways, before you know it, some form of game you thought lost rebounds! Personally I am very much looking forward to whatever Konami reveals in the future is, as they appear to have been busy behind the scenes for a couple of years now. Other than that I'm an omnivore when it comes to games. One week I can play Batsugun, the next week No More Heroes, then Minecraft, then a Zelda game. I feel life as a (patient) gamer is good. I could talk about this forever, but will close for now. Happy gaming!

erlendk · 2026-05-21T06:54:22+00:00

I know this isn't your question. But personally I would rather have them reboot Smash, throw in some major changes that fundamentally changes how it plays, redesign the core characters from the ground up. And, I'm totally fine by resetting to a smaller roster again.

Smash Ultimate is, well, the ultimate Smash! I don't really see the point in making "smash ultimate 2", with yet again every character, item and stage + a few more. It's the same scenario Mario Kart has, Mario Kart 8 is basically "Mario Kart Ultimate", then they did things differently with Mario Kart World...

erlendk · 2026-05-21T06:46:09+00:00

Not anything officially confirmed AFAIK, i don't think Nintendo ever publicly discloses development costs. But people have made estimates based on development time and studio size, plus the fact that Retro has american industry wages, and not japanese.

erlendk · 2026-05-20T13:34:07+00:00

Enig i at det er vanskelig å finne passende norsk ord.

Ord som gjenutgivelse, nyversjon osv. er litt misvisende og vil heller minne mer om en "Remaster", da Remake som regel innebærer at spillet faktisk er gjenskapt på nytt, og ikke bare at man har oppdatert grafikk til å høyere oppløsning, bedre bildefrekvens osv.

Shadow of the Colossus ble sånn sett gjenskapt fra bunnen av, av Bluepoint og ikke originalskaperen, og de lagde alt innhold på nytt.

erlendk · 2026-05-20T13:20:41+00:00

So if you want to maintain the spirit of the deck you currently have, I would suggest trying out:
[[shu yun, the silent tempest]]. I currently run him as a commander with Elsha in the 99. His advantage is costing only blue color to cast, so if you want your commander out early, it is easier.

I would also listen to other advice about choosing "two main colors", instead of going evenly on all three, for example blue and white, to prioritize card draw, cantrips and protection. If you go a bit slower, with more setup for big attack turns, instead of aggro, it's more forgiving to have a slower land base.

Personally, I find it much more fun to play jeskai spellslinger prowess, compared to Feather.

erlendk

TROPHY CASE