why are so many people being laid off? Like I don't really understand why you would hire so many people to begin with if you're just going to fire them no matter what later.
i wish I had a better answer to give you than: corporate greed.
doesn't help we've been in a huge recession and that companies are ran on the whim of investors.
the sad truth is, to them, we are disposable. They can and will just hire new people who will be paid less and less. Being able to be at a studio for more than five years is a fucking rarity nowadays. getting to my fifth hear at maxis was a huge achievement for me, because I didn't think I would get here.
There are smarter people who can explain it better, I'm just coming at it as an artist who has been in this industry for more than five years. I'm tired of seeing my friends lose their livelihoods. You don't get into game dev to make big money, you do it because you love it
Yeah, maybe it is time to turn this incomprehensible Baseball document into an actual game of sorts.
Been working on what kind of game I think it should be and while it's pretentious to make my own genre, I really like the idea of an ARG that's less confined to digital and more confined to the long form roleplay's I used to have on the playground as a teenager. where the rules are open but easily explainable to someone
some kind of Larp, but less of a larp and more of an Imagined type of game you can challenge someone to if you noticed something on the street.
IRG, is the loose kind of idea I'm going for with the meaning of "Imagined Reality Game"
Another update to ability/gear cards. Comparing the "beginning" to now. Have learned to trust the process more.
I've learned a lot on how to do vector work and very pleased I've achieved my goal of doing the majority of the work in Affinity Designer before I'll finish all final rendering details and fixes in Photoshop. Even before that I have to do a few more variations to see what I'll like the most but happy it'll just be some copy and paste work.
Despite several attempts, I find myself unable to get back into playing Arknights regularly. I love the game, I love the characters, and despite my qualms with the VN genre I do tend to enjoy the story, but there's just am immense barrier to entry called Being A Mobile Game.
So.
What's the deal with mobile games?
At a base level, there's the issue that I get burnt out from some combination of frustration and overstimulation when confronted with endless daily missions and red notification dots. Arknights is actually not that bad with these, and you can safely ignore the News/Updates panel after your first login each day (though i would Vastly Prefer it if I could simply disable that until there is actual New things to read that I have not seen before).
Mobile games also have the other barrier to play that they require either a physical extra device, or an emulator.
I barely use my phone.
I don't enjoy how the game controls on PC with a mouse.
So the majority of my desire to play gets eaten up by the dread of not liking either the environment (phone) or controls (PC), and then the rest by the ever-present need to manage Sanity and dailies.
And this ties back into the trend in game design that has been present for a while and just continues to get worse, one that live-service games and particularly those on mobile platforms cannot avoid. You aren't expected to play the game on your own schedule, on your own time. You're expected to play the game for an hour a day, for the rest of the time it exists on your phone.
Far be it from me to call Hypergryph a greedy company. I know so many that are far worse, and all of the merchandise I have physically and all that I see them do for their fans and in their game design shows that, despite this being a product at the end of the day, they do care. But they are a company, and a company needs to turn a profit, and to turn a profit on mobile means to play with the tools that are proven effective.
For every player who, like me, stops playing the game, or has never spent money on either the gacha system or the cosmetics shop (it's been really hard sometimes, to be fair), there are several others who spend a bit of money here and there to enjoy the game a bit more.
Side note, I don't actually have an issue if I sink a couple hundred into the game itself one day. It's been well worth my time despite these complaints, I just enjoy the challenge of playing without spending a cent. That exu skin pack for global, though...
Anyway. This is all to say things that have been said before, and I don't really have a grander point to make other than "I really wish I could still enjoy Arknights to the point that I could play it daily". But I can't. Neither as a game dev, nor as a player, nor as the writer that I was back in college. It sucks, but that's just how it is. Forcing myself to log in is just going to make it worse.
I'll probably hop in here and there at a whim still, but I don't see myself ever getting back to logging in 7 days of any week ever.
I really do enjoy all of the fan-created posts I see from the AK community, and for what it's worth IS has been some of the most fun I've had in the game, but even with the cool events or the operators I'm looking forward to...
Arknights is still A Mobile Game.
Anyway.
Give me more Frostleaf content if you want me to play. When is she gonna get her Alter? Where can I buy her headphones? What's her number so I can ask her out for a drink? What are those old songs she listens to, I'm really curious. Frostleaf Module where?
Let’s see here, it’s been... over a year since I’ve posted am article. Huh. We can fix that real quick.
So yeah. Flinthook. That’s what we’re talking about today.
You know, Flinthook! The indie title from 2017 that had its time in the sun and then went wherever it is most indie titles end up, far from the eyes of consumers. As an indie title from a developer with only a handful of games under their belt, that developer being Tribute Games, Flinthook cannot be expected to be a perfect game. But for what flaws it has, Flinthook is fun, and its flaws can be analyzed for what can be learned from this experience. So this is like a review with a game development lesson I found along the way.
Find the rest of this article over here on my website!
When I have things more set, may do a poll for ideas on how I'm going to handle movement and actions.
Stumbled across a DND Simultaneous Combat System(which immediately reminded me of how Atlas Reactor works) and I really feel like it would work for [Trickster's Chase]. Somewhat less 'waiting' on turns and could keep everyone engaged and keeps everyone on their toes and constantly thinking.
Still has rounds/turns but they're broken down in an action cycle that goes like:
Prep(Buffs/Heals/Traps/Etc.)
Movement + Search(Dice rolls for normal movement)
Rush(Instant movement(may swap before movement)
Combat
Movement + Search(Use up remaining dice movement or not)
Rebound(Buffs/Heals/Traps/Etc.)
End of round.
Will have cards marked on what phase they can be played in. Some may be able to play in either of two phases.
