The Currently Playing & Random Game Thoughts Thread (7 August to 13 August)

[Pifanjr]

OT QUESTION: What was the first thing you ever coded? It's going to make a big difference whether you taught yourself or learned in a classroom setting--Hello World.

My first project was when I was about a freshman in high school creating a text based RPG like Dungeons and Dragons on an Atari computer using BASIC. I had some sort of instruction manual I was using. Had to save my work on the ever-reliable cassette tape player, Never actually finished it, but you could create your character and play for awhile. The "rooms" and encounters were randomly created from lists. There was no save game, and if you died you started over. It was a roguelike before Rogue (you can correct me, but I don't care).

So what was the first thing you coded?

i think it was a game using GameMaker where you competed against another player to try to reach the end of each level first, while dodging two different variations of ghosts who would send you back to the beginning and using teleporters which would send you to random positions on the level.

I will note that this was a remake of the game my brother made, after we lost his version when we had to reinstall Windows. So I had seen him create the entire game before and just copied it.

I did also make a very simple slot machine in high school using Visual Basic. That's probably the first proper program I made where I wasn't just following instructions.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

That's hard core man!

With the C64, it was pretty much either BASIC or Assembly Language. I had compilers for other languages, like Pascal and C, but they weren't really worth using on the C64. I had the Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference Guide, which was a gem. That thing taught you how to do anything you could possibly want to do on the Commodore, and there was also a huge section on Assembly Language in there.

 

[ZedClampet]

Then about a year later, I decided to start programming a much bigger graphical adventure game similar to Questron. I used Assembly Language for the heavy lifting, and BASIC as the scripting language. I even got it officially Copyrighted, and I advertised it in the C64 magazine, called Compute!'s Gazette. I created a decent paper manual for it and freelance sold it for $10 a copy. I made about $100.

What you need to do is make a half-assed remake and advertise it on Steam as the return of a beloved classic. I mean, you loved it and it's old, so technically you aren't lying. Then you go to Reddit and announce that you'll give a collection of free hentai art to anyone who wishlists it (You'll have to get the hentai from @Zloth )

 

[WoodenSaucer]

What you need to do is make a half-assed remake and advertise it on Steam as the return of a beloved classic. I mean, you loved it and it's old, so technically you aren't lying. Then you go to Reddit and announce that you'll give a collection of free hentai art to anyone who wishlists it (You'll have to get the hentai from @Zloth )

Back when I was programming more (like 13 years ago), I seriously thought about remaking it. I could definitely make it a lot better than it was on the C64. And hey, it had turn-based combat, so you'd probably love it!

 

[ZedClampet]

2 1/2 days since Guido went back to school and I'm moments away from losing my mind due to boredom. omg omg omg omg omg omg *rocks back and forth*

I either need a good project or a job.

 

[ZedClampet]

If you want to know for sure whether the universe hates me, I finally made that parkour section in Raft I was whining about last night. I was so happy that I wasn't going to have to get Guido to do it for me. And that's when I glitched through the floor and fell about 200 meters into the ocean...

 

[Brian Boru]

it had turn-based combat

Turncoat!
Traitor!!
Turn-based coat!!!

need a good project

Answer just above. Hook up with TimberPlate and make a half-assed remake you can both be semi-proud of—you're in charge of producing all the artwork via AI, I'll bet you can guarantee half-assed imperfection

 

[Zloth]

I either need a good project or a job.

I can think of something that works for both...

EVE Online | The #1 Free Space MMORPG | Play here now!

Be whatever you want in EVE Online, the biggest space game of all time. Download the free space MMO game and play online for free here.

www.eveonline.com

See if you can get a good company started for me. I'll be along in 5 or 6 years.

When you get tired of playing, you can hit the local library for the audible version of The Wheel of Time.

 

[ZedClampet]

I can think of something that works for both...

EVE Online | The #1 Free Space MMORPG | Play here now!

Be whatever you want in EVE Online, the biggest space game of all time. Download the free space MMO game and play online for free here.

www.eveonline.com

See if you can get a good company started for me. I'll be along in 5 or 6 years.

When you get tired of playing, you can hit the local library for the audible version of The Wheel of Time.

I played Eve for a few hours. Spent the entire time fending off people wanting me to join their companies. Didn't like the gameplay, anyway.

 

[ZedClampet]

Answer just above. Hook up with TimberPlate and make a half-assed remake you can both be semi-proud of

Meh, I got a hundred game ideas if I want to go that route.

As far as AI goes, everyone is on a goldrush. I'm not paying what they're charging for half-assed these days.

What I'm really considering, though, is writing my own machine learning AI. I'm going to teach it how to post on here and play Forza. You know, take some of the pressure off of me.

 

[ZedClampet]

Tried a life sim called Dinkum with the express intent to either enjoy it or refund since I'm kind of hit/miss on life sims. Despite it having Overwhelmingly Positive reviews, I just couldn't get into it.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it. This dude asked me to bring him food, so I went out, found a fruit tree, picked some and brought it to him, at which point he told me he didn't eat that. I thought, "Well, don't eat then." and went off and did other things. haha. If you think I'm going to wander the entire map looking for foods and then bring them to you for your pronouncement, you got the wrong guy. Then I stopped talking to people entirely because I didn't like the fetch quests they were giving me

 

[Brian Boru]

life sim

I drew the short straw in the 'Who's gonna gee Zed up?' staff meeting, so here are some therapeutic or motivational ideas:

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Grumpy

Get more from Grumpy on Patreon

Sims 4 Modder & Content Creator

www.patreon.com

The Grumpy GameDev - itch.io

thegrumpygamedev.itch.io

 

[Frindis]

I tried the new MMO Tower of Fantasy yesterday and did not like it one bit. Clunky animation, littered with microtransaction, dumb dialogues, and an over-complicated crafting system. It more or less looked like a Wish version of Genshin Impact. Am I the target audience you might ask and to that I say: Hell no!

 

[ZedClampet]

I drew the short straw in the 'Who's gonna gee Zed up?' staff meeting, so here are some therapeutic or motivational ideas:

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Grumpy

Get more from Grumpy on Patreon

Sims 4 Modder & Content Creator

www.patreon.com

The Grumpy GameDev - itch.io

thegrumpygamedev.itch.io

From the wiki you linked: Grumpy Sims are rarely in a good mood. It's quite difficult to make them happy because they simply don't want to be happy.

This is not me at all. I only sound grumpy on here.


**************

We played an interesting Trial Championship in Forza tonight. It's 6 human players versus 6 Unbeatable AI that are usually nerfed pretty significantly. Tonight was different though.

So we were in S1 cars, which are really fast and harder to handle, and the first race was on a track where I've never been able to beat Unbeatable AI. So the race starts and I'm 1st of the humans and Guido is 2nd, but there is an Unbeatable drivatar in 1st and 4 through 8 are all AI. The rest of the humans are 9 to 12. And that's the way we finish the race, and the humans lose. It's best out of 3, so we head to the second race.

This time the humans are fairing a little bit better. Me and Guido are still 2nd and 3rd, but the other people are spread out a little rather than all coming in last, but as I glance up at the points, the only way we are going to win is if I pass the AI that's winning, and the AI has obviously not been nerfed. I do my best, but admit to Guido that I'm not going to make it. But right before the race ends, the guy in last place drops out. I'd heard before that this was something people sometimes did, but hadn't seen it. When the last place human dropped out, it changed the scoring system, and I no longer needed to win. Coming in second was good enough.

Anyway, so we won that one, but the funny thing is I don't think the other drivers realized it because Guido and I were the only ones to go to the last race, which we won pretty easily to get the Championship prize of a Lambo.

 

[ZedClampet]

I was thinking of this the other day. Is there any other industry like the game industry where you have many avid customers who buy lots of products and then never uses them?

Every time I look at my achievements and see things like "Completed Chapter One" and then notice that only 28 percent of players have that achievement, it amazes me. Of course, I do it too. I have plenty of games in my library I haven't played or played only a small amount of, and I don't do that with any other product.

 

[Brian Boru]

many avid customers who buy lots of products and then never uses them

Books for sure are like that, every avid reader has a TBR pile like we have a TBP backlog. Back in the GODs I had over 1,000 print books, at least half unread. I never did get to read them, had to sell my collection due to space constraints.

I don't think it's common in movies or music. Fashion products are another likely sector, things get used once or twice, and then left aside for the latest latest.

Obviously collectors will rarely use their products, by definition

 

[ZedClampet]

Books for sure are like that, every avid reader has a TBR pile like we have a TBP backlog. Back in the GODs I had over 1,000 print books, at least half unread. I never did get to read them, had to sell my collection due to space constraints.

I don't think it's common in movies or music. Fashion products are another likely sector, things get used once or twice, and then left aside for the latest latest.

Obviously collectors will rarely use their products, by definition

That's interesting. I never did that with books, and I used to read 2 or 3 a week. As far as fashion goes, I think wearing something completes it. Don't have to wear it again. And collecting is complete upon purchase by nature.

But I will accept that I was the oddball on books.

By the way, I got rid of a ton of books, too, right before my daughter was born. I had been using what would become her bedroom as a library. Every book I'd ever read was in there, including children's books from the 1960's. I saved the children's books and a selection of the others (books I thought my kids might either want or be forced by teachers to read) and then took the rest of them in boxes to a public library where I knew the librarian. She had told me they could sell the ones they didn't want. And that was the end of my book collection.

 

[ZedClampet]

OT Question: Who would win in a fight if they were all the same age: boomers, gen x, millennials or gen y?

Clearly gen x are the smartest and most handsome, but would their superiority carry over into fisticuffs?

sincerely, Zed Clampet, sower of generational harmony

 

[ZedClampet]

The current series (four weeks) in Forza is all about electric cars. Up until this the final week, I was developing a strong dislike for electric cars, as they all handle horribly in the game. But this week got me these two, a Lotus and a Raesr (the Raesr is the one I put a giant American-style electrical outlet on )

Without my bad designs on them, they are really nice looking cars.

There are no Tesla's in the game.

 

[mainer]

I was thinking of this the other day. Is there any other industry like the game industry where you have many avid customers who buy lots of products and then never uses them?

Books for sure are like that, every avid reader has a TBR pile like we have a TBP backlog. Back in the GODs I had over 1,000 print books, at least half unread. I never did get to read them, had to sell my collection due to space constraints.

I think the games industry is pretty unique in that respect, where many customers spend $20 or more (and multiple times) and never use the product. I have many games in my Steam & GOG libraries that I've never installed. Many of those un-played titles were purchased on sale and often purchased so that I could have a digital copy of an older boxed version of the game. I may never even play some of those, but it I like knowing that I can "one click" install them if I do. There were also games that I had some level of interest in, saw a deep discount, and bought them (and still haven't played). I'm getting a bit better and not doing that in recent years, but it's still something many of us consumers (gamers) indulge in that you won't find in other industries.

Books would be the only close that I could think of as well. Much like my game's library, there are books that I've purchased that I've yet to read. And also similar to my game's library, I find myself re-reading a book or book series rather than read some of those unread books, just like re-playing older games than playing something new.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I was thinking of this the other day. Is there any other industry like the game industry where you have many avid customers who buy lots of products and then never uses them?

Every time I look at my achievements and see things like "Completed Chapter One" and then notice that only 28 percent of players have that achievement, it amazes me. Of course, I do it too. I have plenty of games in my library I haven't played or played only a small amount of, and I don't do that with any other product.

I can't count the number of games I have that I've either never loaded up, or I loaded them, played for 30 minutes, then scrapped because they sucked.

OT Question: Who would win in a fight if they were all the same age: boomers, gen x, millennials or gen y?

In this order from winner to loser:

Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials

By the way, do you know what generation Forrest Gump was a part of? Gen A

 

[ZedClampet]

In this order from winner to loser:

Boomers

Boomers are well known pansies.

We're going to make this a real Internet forum yet!

***********************

We finished Raft. Final boss was a pain. I would have died 100 deaths if not for the extensive collection of healing balms I brought with me and the fact you can run and apply the healing at the same time. Dying would have been a real disaster for me considering what you have to go through to get to the boss.

Was a fun game. You start on a 4 square meter raft with nothing, hungry and thirsty, and a short 50 hours later you are living the easy life on your 1800 square meter luxury liner complete with windmills and electrical appliances, not to mention biofuel refineries and engines.

There are too many nice little touches to mention, but a couple I really appreciated are that pipes work exactly the way you hope they would as opposed to how they would work in the real world. Doesn't matter how you hook them up. As long as there's some sort of connection at the source and another at the receptor, you're good to go. Another thing is that you can pick up and move pretty much everything instead of having to destroy and rebuild.

 

[Pifanjr]

I was thinking of this the other day. Is there any other industry like the game industry where you have many avid customers who buy lots of products and then never uses them?

Every time I look at my achievements and see things like "Completed Chapter One" and then notice that only 28 percent of players have that achievement, it amazes me. Of course, I do it too. I have plenty of games in my library I haven't played or played only a small amount of, and I don't do that with any other product.

People who are really into board games often have a big backlog of games to play or get rid of games after playing only once. I personally have a game I've been meaning to try out for years, but have never gotten around to actually putting on the table. I also have a game I've only played once, a game I got as a gift we haven't gotten around to, several games we used to like but don't any more and games we keep coming back to over and over.
There's also a ton of board games I'd love to get, but sadly board games don't get nearly the same discounts as video games.

OT Question: Who would win in a fight if they were all the same age: boomers, gen x, millennials or gen y?

Clearly gen x are the smartest and most handsome, but would their superiority carry over into fisticuffs?

sincerely, Zed Clampet, sower of generational harmony

Let's see what the military says:

Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) – General officers and senior civilian leaders today

Strengths:

More committed to their roles than other generations
“Workaholics” who value long hours and have the value of experience/expertise accumulated over a career

Weaknesses:

Prefer structure and discipline and are less welcoming of change
The least tech-savvy of the five generations; struggle to keep pace with rapid developments

Gen X (b. 1965-1980) – Next Army senior leaders

Strengths:

70% of organizations believe they are the best overall workers
Prefer a work/life balance
Independent and self-sufficient

Weaknesses:

Value doing something quickly over doing it perfectly
Less than 40% are happy with their organizations’ senior management
More cynical than previous generations

Millennials (b. 1981-1996) – Current battalion executive officers (XOs)/ operations officers (S3s); MDO battalion and brigade commanders

Strengths:

Better at using their own creative processes than taking explicit direction
Tech-savvy generation (rely on tech for communication)
Concerned with ethics and social responsibility of their organizations
Value work/life balance and prefer flexible schedules

Weaknesses:

Hold a different perception of work ethic as they tend to work fewer hours per week than their generational predecessors
Nearly three-quarters (71%) will leave a job in two years if they feel they are not developing their desired leadership skills

Gen Z (b. 1997-2009) — Current lieutenants; MDO XOs/S3s

Strengths:

“Always on” and able to multitask
Most tech-competent generation currently in the workforce
Have strong community identities, ties, and values (work to improve their community)
Value mental health at work and work/life balance

Weaknesses:

Expect transparent leadership and communication and are unlikely to show strong company loyalty
Rely on technology to solve problems for them
Do not remember a time without social media and having easily accessible internet

source: https://madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil/...8-serving-generations-and-service-propensity/

Gen X would give up after a few minutes because they thought they'd done a "good enough" job.
Millennials would be considering the ethical ramifications of fighting back while being hit in the face.
Gen Z would be unable to do anything without technology to help them.

Boomers have no downsides that would hurt them in this situation and their strength to keep going past the point where it's detrimental to their own health is a big bonus.

 

[ZedClampet]

Let's see what the military says:


source: https://madsciblog.tradoc.army.mil/...8-serving-generations-and-service-propensity/

Gen X would give up after a few minutes because they thought they'd done a "good enough" job.
Millennials would be considering the ethical ramifications of fighting back while being hit in the face.
Gen Z would be unable to do anything without technology to help them.

Boomers have no downsides that would hurt them in this situation and their strength to keep going past the point where it's detrimental to their own health is a big bonus.

WRONG

That didn't say anything about Gen X quitting anything early. It said they liked to get the job done fast, which means the Boomer would go down faster. Gen X are the best overall workers, which would include pounding a Boomer. Plus Boomers have difficulty keeping up with rapid developments, like being punched in the face. Slow reaction time would be terrible in a fight. Also, a Gen X person could just hand the Baby Boomer a remote control, which would baffle them into submission.

The way I read that military breakdown is as follows:

Gen X - Best overall
Gen Z - Would use technology to their advantage
Millennials - Their outrage would carry them
Baby Boomers - Confused and slow to react

 

[Zloth]

Books for sure are like that, every avid reader has a TBR pile like we have a TBP backlog.

Eh? I read all the ones I bought. Some I started and didn't like, but I gave them all a fair shot. There are quite a few "gift" books that are unread that I might get to when I retire.

There are no Tesla's in the game.

Porsche wouldn't like it when the low-end Model 3 left their cars in the dust.

How do the electrics work in a game like that? The weight distribution is pretty different on those cars. Do they only race against other electrics?