I think it's fair to say, given how many streamers are playing Metro 2033 for the "First time" that we can expect the next installment in the Metro Game series fairly soon
3 - 0
Here's a controversial and unpopular opinion.
It's easier for an artist to learn to develop video games than it is for a coder. That wasn't always the case, but it is today.
14 - 1
WIth Gamescon, comes the release date for Vamipre: The Masquerare - Bloodlines 2. It's been a LONG wait for this game as it was teased several years ago. I might get it because I enjoyed the first one all those years ago, but I can't help but notice that the Trailer looks Janky as all heck. Also hiding two playable clans behind the "premium edition" paywall is a pretty shitty thing to do, those should definitely be in the base game.
4 - 1
It's very sad, but at the same time perfect that Arcane ended the way it did and they've ruled out a third series. This is how TV shows and Movie franchises used to end. The old credo of "Always leave the audience wanting more" seems to have given way to the corporate credo of "Milk it until it's dead".
8 - 0
Humans crack me up! especially the Keyboard warrior types. Touch grass once in a while kay...
5 - 0
I think most VPN services are probably thanking their lucky stars that governments across the globe are starting to tighten up on online safety. Let's be honest the reasons for having a VPN were starting to get a bit shakey given that most streaming services aggressively ban VPN IP addresses, and Online privacy is basically a non-starter these days. Encryption is fine when for stopping people snooping on your traffic, but when the person at the other end of the connection is harvesting and selling your browsing data, it's pretty much irrelevant.
8 - 0
Over the years people have said some pretty funny shit. I've been accused of working for Unity, of being a government bot, even of working for Daz Productions at one point.
I've done a few different jobs over the years, the two biggest ones being Electrical Engineer in the Armed forces, and Commercial Photographer, but i do have side-hustles. Game dev being the most obvious one. These days I'm a professional teacher working in the engineering industry, which obviously includes all the qualifications and bells and whistles.
Being a qualified educator in any industry comes with some responsibilities, not least of which is to stay in your lane and teach only what you know, and avoid getting swept up in media hype and using sensationalist "headlines" even if it would generate an up-tick in views. Anyone who knows anything about Social media knows that's not exactly good for growth, but my moral obligations come before my need for ad revenue.
For example when Unity announced it's new pricing model a couple of years ago, YT was riddled with unqualified "game developers" ranting about how they were going to be screwed over. Hour long videos explaining how the new pricing model was a cash grab and we should all be marching on Unity HQ. Of course none of that happened, the armchair activists and sensationalist leeches on this platform knew they were talking shit, but it didn't stop them. My personal obligation was to do the research and calculations and look at the real impact of the price changes and for 99% of Unity users there was no change.
Sadly it's human nature to be drawn to that sort of thing, we all want to believe that the reason we're not richer or more successful is not because of our own failings but because someone (or something) is deliberately stopping us getting there. I've had all sorts of threats made to me over the years from halfwits who tried to blame their lack of success on me for teaching other people to be their competition. Threats such as Doxxing, identity theft and even a couple of death threats.
Anyway, I went of piste a bit there. Enjoy the sensationalist crap, but just bear in mind, they're probably not very good teachers if they rely on those sorts of stories to get attention.
11 - 0
If you listen to the self appointed experts and critics, having multiple projects on the go is a bad thing. But according to whom?
If you work for a professional game studio, there will be tasks set out for you with deadlines, your day-to-day is pretty much determined for you just like any other job. But as a solo developer, there is absolutely no rule that says you MUST stick to the same project until it is completed. In fact, having several which you dip in and out of as the mood takes you is probably far better for your mental health AND what you learn working on one project may very well help you learn something useful for another.
Take for example Scriptable Objects. They were all-the-rage a few years ago because some guy went on a Unity event and talked about how his specific studio used them as a replacement for Singletons. Naturally everyone went nuts trying to shoe-horn scriptable object events into their own games regardless of whether or not they were actually useful, nevermind optimal. All that fuss because one person made a flippant comment about how he didn't like singletons and thousands of indie devs waste thousands of hours. Whilst I wasn't one of those people who went crazy, since I was largely working with Python at the time, I have however since explored the utility of Scriptable objects in several projects and how know from experience, when to use them and when not to, often in-tandem with singletons since they aren't mutually exclusive.
Anyway, Don't let some loser on a piracy forum, or some guy making sensationalist videos tell you that what you're doing is wrong. Do what's best for your brain.
17 - 3
RIP Jim Lovell.
6 - 1
The whole "season pass" thing that some publishers use is actually a very clever con trick.
You see, any service provider, as a matter of due course has a continuous improvement (CI) department, whose role it is to eensure that as time progresses, the service provider (in this case the publisher) makes the service attractive to the customer and remain competitive.
When you buy a game via a digital marketplace such as Steam, Itch, Epic, Battle.net etc you aren't actually buying the game, you're buying a license to play that game, under the caveat that the publisher / developer continues to support that game for a finite period of time. In other words you enter into a service contract with the developer and as part of that contract, they are obliged to continuously improve that game.
What AAA publishers have managed to do is monetize their CI obligation and brand it in such a way that people don't realise that they are actually paying for a service which they are already entitled to.
8 - 0
Welcome to the home of Game Developer Training
This is the number 1 place on YouTube for Ren'Py tutorials with over a hundred lessons with clear, concise explanations for how to achieve amazing Ren'Py based games of all styles. No waffle, straight to the important content delivered by a qualified teacher. Get the absolute most out of this fantastic Python based visual novel engine.
This is also still the best place on YouTube to get Daz Studio Tutorials as well as some essential training to iClone, Character Creator, Unity, Unreal Engine, Photoshop, ProCreate, C# and many many more.