#dev thoughts

[reason-with-the-underdog]

alhaitham then vs now

alhaitham as a teenager, puffing up with indignation: cute is not a word that applies to me. first of all, the connotations are frankly, presumptuous about age-- alhaitham now as an adult, with the most deadpan voice ever: am i not cute kaveh

[yuandgames]

been thinking about how korean games often feel social, even when you’re playing alone.

maybe it’s the pc bang culture. maybe it’s just that collective mindset baked into everything. but there’s this quiet presence in the design.

like someone else was just here. or like the game expects you to be seen.

systems that assume you’re not the only one. even when you are.

[ik-ek-chutki-sindoor-ki-kimat]

Ik delulu when I see delulu

[eosonera-moving]

I can't believe my Seven Colors video already has 900 views!! Thanks so much to everyone that's been watching it! I'm planning on releasing an updated version, maybe in a few months, since I think my current voice models are much better

I actually started working on it more than a year ago, in November... Originally it was just going to be an ut//au cover, but it took me a long time to make the ust and then I got into machine learning singing voice conversion (S//VC) etc etc...

[rabbitspawgames]

I've made quiet a bit of progress since the intro post. Which means I'm now battling the ADHD desire to fully switch tracks to something that I've barely touched.

I'll put a progress post together in a bit to help realign myself.

[broadsiderenegade]

Justifying my warping system

I think an interesting part of game design is that for a system to be good, you should be able to justify why it is in the game in the first place. An obvious common one today is crafting. Some games it adds to an already tight resource management system in an interesting way, other games you forget its there (or it adds an extra interface and button clicks to do something simple).

In my case, it was the addition of randomized maps and the ability to travel between them. While it does add for some visual mix ups (I randomize which nebula color and alpha maps I use), and it randomizes which factions you face, it still needs *more* to justify why I went this route vs a standard arena survival. My main focus right now content wise is adding personality to map archetypes to justify the system. Ironically the one I thought was going to be the hardest is currently the best one, "junction." A junction in my world is a relatively empty part of space where warp gates meet, effectively a crossroads. What makes this one interesting is that it has low odds to spawn almost any existing point of interest. This means it is likely to have the largest variety of things, leading to some level of surprise. It also has the highest chance to spawn debris fields, which bring with them scavengers who try to steal your money before you can pick it up. More fields equal more scavengers, which in turn makes the map feel like there's more life there than other maps. They also give you the strategic choice to let them collect your gold in one place for you to take back (as long as you catch them before they leave). The second best one is currently the asteroid field, as that brings with it... asteroids. I want to flesh out that one a bit better with mining infrastructure etc, but it at least feels unique in its own right already.

Today I am hoping to lay the groundwork for a new type of map that came to me last week, "Alien ruins." Here there will both some strictly aesthetic background assets to mix up visuals, AND some not so dormant defense systems that only appear on ruin maps. I have a few ideas to make these defenses exploitable to destroy normal faction enemies (think explosive barrels but in space), so it should be both a visually interesting and gameplay varying choice (you always pick from two map types when warping to travel to).

Lastly, the larger art challenge is a region a bit too close to a sun. Conceptually these ones will deal damage over time if you get too close to the side of the map the sun is on and have periodic ejections to dodge (or lure enemies into). Rarely they might have the remains of a Dyson sphere passing by in orbit to dodge as well. Essentially a high risk map that will probably also crush a lot of enemies for you, offering a high reward.

[nidbaesenpai]

two mimir

[cswiftrock]

Working on a tabletop RPG, and trying to share the progress online is weird. If it's art then it's super easy to show off. Everything else, not so much.

Posting something like, "Hey, check out this dude with a cool weapon," or, "Look at this frog with a gun," will be far more interesting than, "Check out this table for merchant inventory. Pretty cool, right?"

[bunnieswithknives]

As much as I love angst I think it would be funny if he just didnt give af

[shrimpyjackal]

I fluffing swear I am so happy that i drew that-

[milkamel]

Has been seeing a lot of Smilk hate cause of the polls and I felt bad so I quickly doodled him 💔

They could never make me hate you Shadow Milk Cookie

[reason-with-the-underdog]

au where siraj recruited kaveh into his hivemind, except kaveh doesn't know he's in a hivemind

ok so in a series of unfortunate events, kaveh is inducted into siraj's hivemind.

...except he has no idea he's in a hivemind & just thinks he has weirder intrusive thoughts than usual

so the hivemind is suddenly full of:

"the cross-tensile strength of concrete made with fine grit sand + seawater is.." and

"remember to place another order of those beautiful tiles" and

"i can't believe alhaitham wakes up an hour early to drink coffee leisurely before work"

...wait what?

siraj goes from being jubilant over recruiting the light of the kshahrewar into his hivemind(!!!!) to realising very quickly that hivemind thoughts about alhaitham have increased by 250%.

in three days.

basically kaveh accidentally hijacks siraj's hivemind lmao with his 21 revision draft woes and also with the thought of how cute alhaitham is when he hums while doodling

imagine if alhaitham goes through all the effort of his SQ and then he discovers that the hivemind is already in shambles bc there's a civil war waging between two camps:

"alhaitham is the worst" and

"alhaitham is misunderstood"

(kaveh is leader of them both btw)

kaveh has no idea he's part of the hivemind (and has been considering hivemind thoughts to be intrusive thoughts) so when they get more negative, he's just like "wow brain i know alhaitham's the worst but that's a little extreme... he should be nicer to me though, you're right, brain"

once the truth is revealed, kaveh would be VERY horrified to discover that many many strangers know a bunch about his personal problems

(he got tipsy and went on a passionate rant about how capitalism devalues what it cannot sell to the masses, the hivemind was ENRAPTURED and agreed to form a union immediately...

siraj put a stop to that, absolutely no need for unions in a hivemind!!!)

it turns out that the hivemind has incredible potential for unlocking human brainpower beyond individual capacity, exactly by design ...which also means its easily hijacked by strong emotional appeals for idealistic causes

exactly what kaveh is good at--

except kaveh isn't actually trying to radicalise anyone into becoming activists. he just thinks a lot about how the decline of arts in sumeru is a leading sign of academic society's downfall... also about how there exists disrespectful juniors who always keep score, whatever happened to common decency!

so this means siraj & kaveh having a brain fight broadcast over hivemind like:

siraj: alhaitham is a terrible scribe who will kneecap the akademiya with his close mindedness

kaveh: don't be preposterous, he's actually really good at his job. alhaitham can't stand incompetence, especially in himself

another hivemind member: shut up about alhaitham already

siraj & kaveh: no.

bear in mind that this is the time period where kaveh built mehrak bc he was lonely so when he accidentally joins the hivemind, there are no red flags to him bc hell yeah, he's not lonely anymore, he's got a bunch of random voices in his head now

call that problem solving 😤😤🧠‼️

tighnari is mildly concerned when kaveh stops ranting to him as much about his roommate woes as of late. kaveh says that he's gotten better at talking with the voices in his head about his emotional problems, actually more helpful than you'd think

tighnari: the what now

kaveh: idk remember that one time you said i should see a therapist

tighnari: yeah..?

kaveh: well i looked up how much that costs & oof... anyways some stuff happened and then now its like i have imaginary group therapy sessions

tighnari: now you need that therapist even more tbh

siraj went from congratulating himself for recruiting the light of kshahrewar into the hivemind to experiencing major regret in 0.4 seconds bc it turns out kaveh has unmedicated adhd and now the hivemind is:

20% rug facts

12% fancy angles

28% eco-friendly wood veneer

25% alhaitham thots

15% wine math

recruiting kaveh into the hivemind is the beginning of the end for siraj's plotting bc the hivemind's existence becomes known now that alhaitham suddenly goes from being "who? oh, is that the scribe?" to:

oh my god IM SICK OF HEARING ABOUT HIM

he sounds like a dick tbh

i know way too much about how this guy prefers his coffee, almost like we had lived together??

imagine if kaveh mostly ignored the responses he gets from the hivemind (there's plenty of thoughts going on in his head, no need to pay attention all of em) except for when he needs witty quips to respond to alhaitham with, which the hivemind delivers, pronto

quality of life upgrade right there for kaveh, huge!

imagine having all the computing power of a hivemind at your fingertips... and you use it to come up with clever remarks for your housemate who you absolutely do not think too much about

(the hivemind goes absolutely wild when they learn that alhaitham chuckles at one response)

siraj is coping & seething SO HARD btw this hivemind was supposed to benefit HIM the most!!!! how did this happen. this is all alhaitham's fault, clearly

kaveh: ok random negative thought, not everything is alhaitham's fault. i'm perfectly capable of creating my own problems!!

anyways the hivemind falls apart, for entirely different reasons to canon, but also very much due to alhaitham's existence. kaveh still doesn't know who siraj is

[mistakeofnature]

Was bored, painted THE BOIII

[deakyjoe]

Show me a motherfucker with big brown eyes and I’m automatically whipped

[eosonera-moving]

Sorry I've been a bit too busy to post anything lately but I should have a bit of time this weekend

[threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat]

Why Dev Patel failing to jump out of a window is so cool

This era of movies tends to skirt the line of satirizing so much as to stand for nothing. The tradeoff of sincerity for meta humor is not in a ratio I recall voting for. I get wary every time a story possibly maybe makes fun of me for caring about it, and I've come to accept that I think of sincerity as a fragile thing. But fragile is not the same as meaningless.

Let's talk Monkey Man. Bobby/The Kid/Dev Patel is trying to get out of a building and leaps sideways into a window, ready to smash through it and land on the street. He clunks against it, he falls to the floor out of frame, the window remains fully unscathed, and the action music cuts out. A beat. Then he gets up, the chase keeps going, and the music kicks back in. In a lesser movie, this choice is saying, "Aren't action movies stupid? Anyways I guess here's an action movie." On the other side if nothing is ever changed, it's saying, "Aren't action movies perfect already? Anyways I guess here's more of the same." It's great when you can subvert expectations in a way that doesn't undermine everything else, so here's why this isn't undermining its premise and even enforces it.

First off, after coming back in, the music keeps playing and being a legitimately exciting beat underscoring the rest of the scene. The joke knows when it's over and gets out of the way. Second, this trope is a great target for this bit; windows are so much more reinforced than this genre ever credits. But then the magic is that the entire rest of the movie is consistently brutal. The window bit comes from a unified authorial voice that also earnestly digs into the action before and after it. A deliberate drawing attention to the difficult realities of action only works if the rest of your action does hit harder than the fare of movie you're invoking.

And Monkey Man delivers. Every henchman takes so many hits before going down, and the hits are bloodier, closer, and quieter than Hollywood action. And the last thing that makes it work is that it only happens the once. It brings up John Wick and rather explicitly claims this movie will be smarter, and it does the joke with the window to ask you to take the violence seriously. Every time a movie distances itself from its genre, it's making sincerity take so much more work every other minute. Lots of movies give up on it entirely. This movie chooses the work.