#Immersive simulation

[bryce-bucher]

J(a)SON Post #2

Interfacing:

Games like Deus Ex, VtM:B, Prey 2017, etc. include interesting interfaces for things like computers, security terminals, etc. Rather than just simply showing the player the information they need to see and then moving on, they opt to allow the player to explore an interface with a degree of control closer to that of a real device or an operating system. The first time I saw the interface for controlling cameras in Deus Ex, all of the synapsis in my brain fired at once when I realized you can just manually rotate the cameras and enable /disable them individually. It doesn't take that much extra effort to include this degree of interactivity, and it baffles me as to why so few big budget games do so. At a certain point in development, I realized I needed a system like this, so I set it up so that I could easily create and assign an interface to any device that needs one. As you can see in the photos above, each interface has its own pre-render that depicts a closeup of whatever the player is interacting with. This allows me the freedom to basically do whatever I want with them, and it opens up the door to some pretty fun possibilities. On a surface level it allows a higher degree of player freedom as they can do things like manually set the timer on the c4, but it will also allow me to do some more ambitious stuff like create a micro-os for the computers that lets you check email, mess with a pseudo-code terminal, and play picross. This week I've been working on the ATM, which will allow you to enter any bank account information that you come across and drain whatever amount of money you want from the account. I'm looking forward to sharing more of the interfaces as I develop them, so I guess you'll see them then.

Conclusion:

Twas tha night before christmas when I wrote this post, but sadly I have not even remotely been in the christmas spirit this year. There isn't any particular reason or anything it just hasn't even felt like december weirdly. I think this post is kind of spiritually connected to my second Basidia post, as it similarly showcases my love of fun and interesting ui in games. Anyway, I hope ya'll have a happy holidays, and I'll see you again next week when I make yet another J(a)SON post.

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Deathloop

After Prey (2017) underperformed, Arkane mainly focused on an expansion for Dishonered 2 and helping MachineGames with some Wolfenstein projects. As for the next big project, that turned out to be Deathloop, a game subtly set in the Dishonored universe in an alternate history style Cold War era, and it turned out to be very, very different from any other project they’ve done tonally. Not necessarily in the design, mind you. 

Read more...

[taco-pal]

Lol decided to cheekily enter 0451 as a code into something on Deathloop and got an achievement trophy, amazing

For anyone that doesn’t know the reference, here u go!

[eela]

i’m playing skyward sword!!

[murumokirby360]

Top 10 Immersive First Person Games

[emptyrubiccube]

god idw 2's couples and potential couples...arcee and greenlight...paragon and cyclonus...cameo kobd...cosmos and blast-off's abysmal screen time...shadow striker and flamewar...road rage and nautica...pyra magna and strika...pyra and termagax...cliffjumper and deathsa-[GUNSHOTS]

[mariella-ending]

skip button ending amiright

So so SO well written, if this had been the only new content it would've 110% been worth the wait.

What absolutely FLOORED me going through it is that was exactly how I envisioned Stanley ended up in the first game, losing his mind to the repetition of the loops, the choices never changing, (the Narrator seemingly losing his memory with each reset), the majority of said choices culminating with him dead or alone. He'd be trapped until the end of time, going through waves of sanity/insanity forever. And seeing how that would actually play out with the Narrator... just the tiniest bit disturbing (but in a horrifically wonderful way)

Now we know that the Narrator does in fact have the capacity to remember past resets, it casts a sort of shadow over the original because no, it's not that the game has them both trapped (well it does when it can lol, but the majority of it is tied to the Narrator's mental state) it's that the Narrator is stuck all "maybe this next retelling will be The One (tm)" but due to his analysis-paralysis he will never deviate from his perfect script yet it will NEVER be good enough. A perfectionistic loop of inadequacy.

Too bad Stanley's stuck in the crossfire.

[xsumire]

Preservation path too good. It carried again for World 5 :'D

[real-dubai]

Digital Sports

Immersive Esports brings its unique blend of experience in grassroots and elite-level motorsports to the digital sports realm, offering unrivalled expertise in a range of marketing, strategy, and events disciplines.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

best free resources for learning spanish, for someone with adhd/autism and verbal processing issues? 

[bryce-bucher]

J(a)SON Post #3

Stealing Money For Fun & Profit:

Most of my week was spent playing dark souls 2 again, but aside from that I spent most of my time working on the ATM's functionality. The ATM is heavily inspired by the ATMs in Deus Ex, and just like in that game you can input an account's information and then drain it. In the gif above you can see an example of me sneaking into the nefarious Doctor Spider's evil bank account and stealing 200 bucks. You can also blow up the ATM to get 75 bucks worth of wads of money to come out of it, or you can try to hack the ATM and get it to lock up like a dummy. Pretty simple stuff, but it always feels amazing to sneak into someone's bank account and steal all their money, and in the game as well! For those interested, I used jwildfire for the background fractal textures on the ATM UI. That program is amazing and I'd highly recommended checking it out (especially if you have an affinity for y2k visuals).

Building a Gas Station:

After a while spent purely implementing devices and mechanics, I was really itchin' to make an environment. I decided to start putting together a gas station since it's the smallest environment segment I have planned for the main map. In the images above you can probably get a good feel for my process on an environment like this. I haven't ever really done whiteboxing before this project, but I've found it to be very helpful when having to make more detailed environments. I actually hate having to litter an environment with smaller details and objects, which is the main reason why most of the environments in my previous games feel pretty sparse. I can't just get away with broad strokes this time around though, so I started to employ "words" that dictate where a planned object should go. Texturing all of the products in the gas station is easily the most tedious part, and it burns me out pretty quickly. So far, I've only textured 4 chip bag variants and 4 cereal box variants, and most of the products are yet untextured. These environments always look pretty terrible before I get them in engine and all lit up, so I have to trust that it's gonna look and feel a lot better once that is done.

Conclusion:

It's new years eve the day I'm posting this, so I hope ya'll have a good 2023, and I hope that I can actually maybe release something next year lol. There is a big collaboration project that I have a game in that is supposed to come out early next year, so I'll be posting about that when it's out. Next week I'll be back on Basidia, but until then I'm gonna keep playing Dark Souls 2. See ya.

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Prey (2017)

By all accounts, Arkane Studios decided on the name Prey not because they wanted to reboot the old game, but just because the name was a good title for what their game was going for. You could argue the name “Psycho Shock” would be more appropriate overall, but that could have created some friction with Take Two. There still seems to be some shared DNA, like starting the game with the lead looking in a mirror, using a wrench as your melee weapon, and the use of mirrors to create impossible sights, facing down powerful aliens, but the real foundational stuff come from the classic System Shock games, down to anti-grav elevators and being stuck on a space station overrun with an inhuman menace that can even weaponize humans though mind control. It also has very, VERY similar gameplay, ultimately a sort of sci-fi dungeon crawler that rewards outside the box thinking. 

Read more...

[arlathen]

idk why but enb’s wetness shaders make me lose my mind every time

[ryo-maybe]

This playlist was created with the explicit purpose of causing violence.

[indiegamesofcolor]

[ID: A gifset containing four gifs of the anthology collection The Cartomancy Anthology. Several games in different artstyles and formats are featured.

Gif 1 shows two games. One shows two scenes from a colorful, top-down game as a character in yellow clothes walks across paths. There are many plants in the surrounding area and the player interacts with cubes to grow flowers. The second game shows a cooking interface as the player prepares a meal with the final result being a meat dish. 

Gif 2 shows two games. Three scenes from a mixed-media game show a blue player against backgrounds collaged from what appears to be hand-drawn art and photos. The other game shows a dark room with blue lighting traveling through it. On the right is text saying, “there is nothing else / there is only me / and you are alone.”

Gif 3 shows two games. One features a grayescale scene of a white skeletal figure riding a white skeletal horse while holding a flag that flows in the air. The character rides through a raining forest of bare trees and a smoking battlefield. The second game shown is a platformer featuring a scarecrow-like character with a pumpkin for a head. The character skips across a wooden platform past a house as the game’s overlay on the bottom reads. “Parts: 1/4 | Lure: None” and “[E] Talk to Gramms.”

Gif 4 shows a text excerpt from an interactive text game. It reads: “This isn’t exactly my dream job, but I can handle it. It’s not like I haven’t done repair work before. There’s so much to learn though. I didn’t know how complex a clock tower could be, but its guts are a labyrinth of metal and steam. I have trouble following the mechanisms sometimes. They tell me just to focus on the immediate task, that trying to grasp too much at once will just overwhelm me.”

end ID.]

The Cartomancy Anthology is a collection of introspective and compact experiences with each game representing a Major Arcana! Pull cards to explore powerful emotions and life lessons throughout 22 games. Play platformers, visual novels, cooking sims, fishing games and more as you learn about guiding one’s life!

For Windows.

Developed by a diverse team with 70+ game developers from across the globe. A full roster of the developers and the cards represented are listed here. Some devs/studios include The Sheep’s Meow of Tree Trunk Book; Jessie Lo of Later Daters; Seamus Ly of Solace State; and Sam of Tamales: Con Familia and Neon White.

[exclamaquest]

okay cool *cash register noise* that’ll be 4.50 american dollars

I'm going to need you to cover three more shifts this week. Thanks