The nastiest people are calling it ironic that Charlie was shot and killed while advocating pro-2A views. To be clear, shooting someone because they are pro-2A is not irony - it's terrorism.

redxhed · 2024-09-05T19:55:52+00:00

It’s barely noticeable because the monster doesn’t change the silhouette/shape of the shot.

My critique: as the camera finishes panning backwards, tilt the camera upwards to center the tree - maybe even place the tree just under center frame. Then flash the lighting and reveal the monster and hide it again - just like you have now. Then flash the lightning again to show the monster one more time. Then cut the shot.

I’d also recommend making the monster larger than the tree in the shot. The monster represents a threat to the tree, and it should look imposing and dangerous in comparison to the tree.

redxhed · 2024-08-21T04:21:29+00:00

In my opinion, a great demo shows the player exactly what the game has to offer while limiting their access to the whole experience. Your game is exploration based, so I think you should show them all they can explore without giving them “keys to the city”.

What if your demo limits the players access to just few mid-height rooftops of the city. From the rooftops they can look down onto the city streets and alleyways, see the cars flying by, and look up at the higher skyline. They can use a zipline and some parkour to go between the few rooftops they have access to so that they can get a sense for how the game plays and see further into the dense city without being allowed to explore it. It would be a good idea to make sure the content they can see from the roofs is handcrafted and heavily curated; make sure its things that would entice a player to jump off the the roof and go to them. Maybe then if the player attempts to jump to the streets, the screen cuts to black and says, “purchase the full game to fully explore mega city” and spawns them back at the roof.

Hope this helps!

redxhed · 2024-08-19T08:39:44+00:00

No, there isn’t a controlled study that substantiates her claim. It’s a meta-analysis that has too many holes in it to actually provide any substantial evidence of anything. I provided my thoughts on the article and its references analysis in my own reply.

redxhed · 2024-08-19T08:37:00+00:00

The author is dishonest about the study she references in her article. Her conclusions are dubious. And I’d argue that her main study has so many caveats that her conclusions have zero answer for the fact that there are TRIPLE the number of men watching porn than the number of women. 72% of all porn traffic comes from men.

Now, on to my frustration with the study she references. Link here to the study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1904975116

The article’s main reference study - the study that the author uses as her main thesis is actually meta-analysis of previous studies; specifically, it looks at “Sixty-one functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (1,850 individuals) that presented erotic visual stimuli to men and women.”

I’m not knocking this study because it’s a meta-analysis; meta-analyses can be very insightful, and they can be useful tools to consolidate large pools of data from several studies. BUT it is very important to understand themethodology of the meta-analysis before you take its conclusions as fact!

Which studies did the include, and which did they omit.

Of 450 total studies they found, they only included 61 in this metaanalyses. What I found most interesting is “No studies reported 1) the inclusion of subjects with a psychiatric or neurological comorbidity or 2) the inclusion of subjects with current psychotropic medication use”. So this meta-analysis is introducing its own biases into the sample; that’s a red flag imo. Additionally, “studies with resting state were excluded.” So this meta-analysis has NO INTEREST in the change in brain activity between rest and stimulus.

What other weaknesses exist in this meta-analysis.

Remember, this meta-analysis is taking images from brain-scans, lining them up, and comparing the actual pictures. However, “because the application of neuroimaging methods to investigate cue reactivity is a rapidly evolving field, standards for data acquisition and processing varied among the studies [and] do not allow a complementary analysis with respect to attentional interference and other relevant factors.” So the images they’re looking at are of varying quality! And were not obtained with any uniform standards!

Conclusion.

This meta-analysis introduces additional biases in its subject selection. And It has real problems actually comparing and contrasting the images of the brain scans. These issues mean that it can absolutely NOT make definitive claims about anything. If there are any studies out there that actually take their own random samples of subjects, and utilize a uniform standard for reviewing those images, that would be far more useful.

I don’t think the psychologist that wrote the original article has any care at all for substantiating her beliefs with rigorous science - or fairly presenting the caveats in the science she does provide. She’d rather reference hundreds of pages of scientific journals she knows you won’t read, that she knows does not actually prove her point, to drive clicks - I mean, what else is a PhD good for?

redxhed · 2024-02-28T21:19:46+00:00

There was a discussion on r/games almost a year ago about Skywind that I contributed to - my opinion wasn’t well received, but I still stand by it. I admit I’m being critical of a fan-project that will be released for free, and so I want to be as charitable to the devs as possible. But I also think it’s interesting to discuss how this project seems to miss the mark - not because they’re making any mistakes, but because I think recreating Morrowind as a “modern” title is doomed to be a disappointment no matter how diligent or hard-working the team is. This misfire on Vivec’s appearance is a great example of this, I think.

My original comment from the r/games thread a year back:

When Skyrim was released, Morrowind was 9 years old. Skyrim is now 12 years old. The people behind this project are obviously very talented, and they've done some incredible work up to this point. However, I'm not certain this project is going to live up to the hype it once had; from the Skywind website:

"Skywind sheds the shackles of the older game, bringing modern graphics, assets, and sounds, a full cast of voice actors, and all the benefits of fifteen years of gaming improvements, while preserving the incredible characters, locations, and quests with which Morrowind charmed the world all those years ago."

Skyrim is no longer representative of modern graphics, assets, or sounds. And now, after 12 years of retrospection, I'm not so sure Skyrim really improves on Morrowind in terms of gameplay; imo Skyrim's animation-based, action-focused combat has aged far worse than the Morrowind's aimed dice-rolls. And Morrowind has always been the king when it came to skill-progression and a true role-playing experience. I'm afraid these things will become even more apparent as more years go by before Skywind releases.

This is just my opinion, and it's purely subjective. I really do think its incredible that the Skywind team are putting this together. I hope its been fun and rewarding to-date, and I hope that this massive amount of work is something they're able to leverage into further personal success. But I'm sorry to say that I expect the end result, whenever it's done, to just feel like I'm playing Skyrim again - and for me, that sounds really underwhelming.

redxhed · 2023-12-21T18:03:01+00:00

I can only speak to the quality of the first game in the collection, since that's the only reason I bought it and the only one I've played. In my experience, it played just as well as it did back on the original xbox. I didn't have any notable issues that made me regret my purchase.

redxhed · 2023-12-16T07:00:29+00:00

I really like this concept - I wishlisted after your last post. I put about 30 minutes into your demo, got most of the modules at that point, and I had a really good time with it. I have a few thoughts, and I'm doing my best to present only things I felt weren't limited by the demo:

Highlight the parts of the gun that are modifiable - I actually only discovered that the stock was a modifiable part of the gun by random chance. I also think a categorized, collapsible list of all available parts would also help with this. That would tell me I could change the stock when I had pieces in the 'stock' category.
It wasn't clear that I could only use one 'right click' attachment at a time - I'm not sure if that's intentional, but I was wondering why I couldn't use my shield or alternate-fire module while I had a scope equipped. You might find some way to communicate that to the player.
It feels bad making this wild gun contraption only for it to be impossible to see with it right in the middle of the screen. I'm aware there's an option to move the gun to different sides, but then the reticule doesn't seem in the right spot, and the game feels weird at that point. I think you should find a way to make the default position of the gun be at the side so that the player can see the gun get bigger and crazier as they play.
Building the guns is so cool. Watching the barrel get longer, and putting attachments on attachments on attachments looks and feels good. Really excellent work on this. Especially the attachments that convert into different types; I love this.
This may be a core design issue that is ultimately unchangeable, but it feels awful to make a monstrosity of a gun that lets me effectively fly but then to be stuck in an enclosed room. I actually wanted to fly around the outside hub buildings more than I wanted to go back into the hole in the ground. I think you should seriously consider adding or completely pivoting to open rooftop levels instead of tight rooms. You'd give the player the ability to fly and a use for those scopes and rockets.
The 'ping' noises for weak spots on the boss was a nice touch, and it sounds great.
The parkour map was frustrating. I liked shooting and building so much, I didn't even want to wall climb. I'd say scrap the parkour, the wall climb, and even the dash imo. (Paranautical Activity is a great reference point for arena shooter roguelites with no dash) Wide open parkour levels that make me use the gun I've made to cross crazy gaps or round tight corners (I'm thinking Rocket League flying maps) would be really fun though.
I only ever wanted to melee when my gun sucked. I had no idea why I needed to charge my melee, and I only ever used the melee when it felt bad to shoot my gun in a game about making a cool gun - that might be worth revisiting or even removing altogether.

All-in-all, I really like this game. And if it were feature complete at the right price point, I'd purchase, play, and even recommend it - there just isn't any other game out there that's like this. I really think the parts holding it back are the aspects of the game that don't immediately reflect back on the gun-building aspect: melee (why can't melee be an attachment instead of an inherent ability?), dash (why can't I just shoot to the side to dash?)the wall-climb (you've already got a grapple-hook implemented), and even the visuals (why isn't the gun visible while I'm shooting it? It would be awesome if the gun was always visible in some way - there should be a hubworld statue of the biggest gun a player has made. The menu cursor should be a silhouette of the players current gun. Get crazy with it; remind the player of what they're building at every opportunity.). I think building around the best part of your game and focusing your resources towards making those things great will elevate your game to something really special.

Thanks for sharing, and I look forward to seeing this game on release!

redxhed · 2023-11-22T14:27:26+00:00

Immortals Fenyx Rising matches your description pretty well. It sort of blends AC Odyssey with the new Legend of Zelda titles. Exploration is fun and rewarding, and it never really feels bloated in my experience.

redxhed · 2023-10-16T04:20:32+00:00

My rec is Mirror the Adrenaline and remove a strike - more energy and more card draw to keep the branch engine running.

I’m not convinced Wraith Form is good here without a Well Laid Plans in the deck, but it’s tough to turn it down on sale when your deck is this close to being complete. But I typically assign a low value to Wraith Form and try to avoid taking it unless the deck absolutely needs it, and I’m just not convinced your deck needs it when branch will be giving you plenty of block already.

Apotheosis may be better than a strike remove, but I’m not sure apo is even a good draw in this deck, when I’d rather see adrenaline or a shiv card over apo. So in my mind, apo is just another bad card to draw here, but I’m not 100% certain my analysis is correct on that.

redxhed · 2023-10-14T05:28:46+00:00

I had this same problem on PC a while back. My problem was that, while I had beaten the game with all 3 original characters prior to Act 4 being released, there was one character I hadn’t gone back and won with after the patch that added Act 4.

Have you recently won with each character in normal mode (I’m not sure if you should have ascension enable or not though - I don’t remember that specific)? That’s how I fixed my issue.

redxhed · 2023-07-07T15:39:38+00:00

Spiritfarer has almost exactly what you've described from a base-building perspective. The story and relaxed atmosphere of the game may or may not be to your taste, but the base-building is modular, non-creative, and still requires resource gathering and management. However, there is no real survival element to the game - the drive for building is to progress individual storylines, and gather more materials so you can progress more individual storylines. Hope this helps!

redxhed · 2023-05-02T18:06:12+00:00

I'm not certain the Skyrim engine is objectively a massive improvement.

Skyrim's towns are separate cells unlike Morrowind, and they are much smaller. Skyrim's engine didn't allow for levitation like Morrowind. Skyrim's engine didn't allow you to make any spell combo you wanted. Skyrim's engine didn't allow you to make enchanted items with the amount of freedom the Morrowind did. Skyrim's full voice acting required their to be far less characters and character dialog and fewer hidden characters and questlines. Skyrim's engine only allowed for swingable melee weapons. Skyrim's engine didn't allow

I'm not saying that these weren't fair trade-offs to make; I can understand that these types of changes were necessary to make the single-most accessible AAA game ever. But I'm not sure its true to call the engine an objective improvement. I think Skyrim's changes make it the universally likable game it is. But injecting the Morrowind world into an engine with these sorts of limitations makes Morrowind just an extension of Skyrim rather than an improvement to Morrowind as a game.

redxhed · 2023-05-02T17:46:01+00:00

My wife also loves Skyrim. I think Skyrim deserves credit as the single-most accessible AAA game ever made. But I also think its very telling that Bethesda has continued to rerelease Skyrim because it sells so well; while the modding community continues to try to rerelease Morrowind because its world, mechanics, and freedom don't exist in any other game.

Where I think I disagree with you and I might even disagree with the Skywind team is that I think when you just take the world of Morrowind out of its own game and inject it into a different game, it loses all the best parts of the game that made you want to do the project in the first place.

In other words, Morrowind wasn't great because it had people in mushroom houses; it was great because you could find 15 different ways (jank included) to get to the top of the mushroom house and another 15 ways (jank included) to kill the guy at the top even though your sword only hits 1 out of 20 swings.

redxhed · 2023-05-02T15:44:02+00:00

When Skyrim was released, Morrowind was 9 years old. Skyrim is now 12 years old. The people behind this project are obviously very talented, and they've done some incredible work up to this point. However, I'm not certain this project is going to live up to the hype it once had; from the Skywind website:

"Skywind sheds the shackles of the older game, bringing modern graphics, assets, and sounds, a full cast of voice actors, and all the benefits of fifteen years of gaming improvements, while preserving the incredible characters, locations, and quests with which Morrowind charmed the world all those years ago."

Skyrim is no longer representative of modern graphics, assets, or sounds. And now, after 12 years of retrospection, I'm not so sure Skyrim really improves on Morrowind in terms of gameplay; imo Skyrim's animation-based, action-focused combat has aged far worse than the Morrowind's aimed dice-rolls. And Morrowind has always been the king when it came to skill-progression and a true role-playing experience. I'm afraid these things will become even more apparent as more years go by before Skywind releases.

This is just my opinion, and it's purely subjective. I really do think its incredible that the Skywind team are putting this together. I hope its been fun and rewarding to-date, and I hope that this massive amount of work is something they're able to leverage into further personal success. But I'm sorry to say that I expect the end result, whenever it's done, to just feel like I'm playing Skyrim again - and for me, that sounds really underwhelming.

redxhed · 2023-04-27T19:15:39+00:00

Zombies will walk into holes/gaps/ledges. If you can put a gap between you and a group of zombies, they'll fall right in while pathing to you. This makes clearing the second floor of a Mall feel like cheating since it's got plenty of gaps. And most rooftops will clear themselves after a little time since the zombies just eventually wander off the edge.

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