insomniac_lemon
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It also doesn’t matter how by-the-law they do that if they’re still using trademarked terms so will easily show up as a search result when someone at a corporation has an intern run a script to do another batch of DMCA takedowns.
I mean unless they have the willingness+time+money to fight a highly-paid team of lawyers in court. (which could happen either way, but it’s much more likely when it’s so easy to find even if it gets 3 downloads)
3·1 year agoIncluding a trademarked term right in the title is the thing that gets most fan projects. It’s a multiplier for takedowns, it can’t get any easier for companies than running a simple script that just searches Itch/Gamejolt/Github for terms and then doing a mass takedown of the results. And that will even catch things with 3 downloads.
Sure user-added* or redone assets could help, but just distancing the name would help a lot more. Having 100% new assets won’t stop a takedown if you use trademarked terms (see DMCA’s Sky), and the DMCA system doesn’t really discourage overstepping unless somebody has the willingness/money/time to take it to court.
*=image detection could be a thing as well though, so be careful with screenshots especially with a logo
It’s probably stuff being less “indie” than it appears on the surface. Both of those games you listed appear to have successful publishers, one behind Maplestory and multi-million (in USD) net income (also largest shareholder is investment firm, Maplestory NFTs). The other has more games (and significantly more DLC) on Steam.
That doesn’t really answer your question, well aside from saying money. Though there may be a deeper connection as well (shareholders having hands in everything etc)
13·1 year agoI’m pretty sure it’s a reference to this:
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/429c0010-e6f2-42fe-a03e-6f66457c0db5.jpeg
I don’t like the color noise, so yeah it’s fine with me.
I mean yeah we’re mostly on the same page… but it should be clear that I’m not suggesting crazy detail everywhere, mostly just being a bit more intentional with model design when possible to integrate vertex color (or another old technique, use multiple objects when it means a simpler mesh). And I mentioned Spyro’s texture/LoD system which is good, was going to mention sprite usage and also Crash having only 2 textures (shoes, back) but was too wordy (also Crash taking advantage of a linear camera for custom culling and view-specific models).
I’d say it’s really good to give variation (and unique-ness) on detail and effects that way every tiny thing you decide to add isn’t a fixed workload. Or in some cases the opposite approach, a more re-used/modular design for certain things like characters.
The problem with textures (aside from data w/high-res/high-color, resolution dependency, and workload) is that when you play an older game at modern resolutions (higher internal res or even just a Flash game) the elements that were designed for older resolutions/displays are really apparent next to the meshes that scale perfectly. Particularly if it’s a GUI or pre-rendered cutscene (sometimes other random stuff). Textures on meshes can still be a really solid aesthetic for the environment/characters.
Also generative textures might be a potential fix for the drawbacks (see .kkrieger), or something like textures that are designed to be used with an upscale filter (or in a similar way, maybe converting to SDF textures).
I don’t think that’s it. For 3D the workflow is already there and vertex colors are powerful (though usually used for shaders or other effects like terrain-based sounds). Even going for Spyro’s approach (esp. grayscale textures that disappear with LoD so it’s just color) wouldn’t be too bad as I imagine its music/voice is actually what takes up the most space (newer audio compression or MIDI-like music would reduce that), though a more minimal/stylized look could make it a lot easier. Certainly some things are more suited for it than others.
I could say a lot of technical reasons for or against this workflow, but I think the biggest is just that it’s something that people don’t think about or would rather have photorealism or blocky pixels instead (or at least that’s a large chunk of the market). Vertex lighting is cool but doesn’t have much use over modern lighting (if it did, it’d be very niche) and developers often don’t really care about optimization much, instead telling players ‘upgrade your PC’.
(admittedly my experience with 2D vector seems less supported as far as editors and AA, though I’m not sure if Godot’s clip children feature has an equivalent in 3D or if you’d just need to use meshes/rigging more cleverly… which is fair, I’m not aware of non-skeleton rigging tools in Godot’s 2D either)
Well I have a lot of problems with how people design games so I don’t really buy stuff anymore, plus I haven’t really seen a lot of stuff that focuses on vector (esp textureless). In other words it’s pretty niche even for indie, and discoverability generally isn’t great even on the best day.
I’d probably have more luck doing it myself, I’ve done a few 2D things (meme made with Godot 3.X, 4.0 eye animation, not-yet-in-4.X test of someone elses’ PR) but I’m not a dev and I don’t have much energy or many ideas.
Some people might be against them for the reason that they can de-list their old games from digital storefronts. For newer games especially it’d make that hard to compare what was changed.
I guess it’s not as relevant with newer titles, but I feel like many of the classics looked fine (especially with higher internal res which is a good option for emu) and had some really cool tech that gave it a nice aesthetic without it being bloated. So it kind of feels like it’s missing the point (limitation and ingenuity or something like that).
Like with Spyro, a big draw for me is the usage of vertex color including the skyboxes (one example, album). So it went from ~300MiB to 30-60GiB+. I mean sure some old games were designed with raster graphics that look crusty now, but for something like Spyro I’d rather play even a fan _de_make (leaning further into vertex colors) with more fleshed out gameplay (/more content) though too many fan game creators haven’t learned to distance even their game titles from trademarks.
2·1 year agoit gives suicidal folks a purpose.
Does it though?
I think that assumes: 0. They are \ at the right time 1. They know the viable solution 2. They are capable of enacting said solution 3. It’s really just that simple, a real “if everyone carries a bucket” problem not a “faster than we can fix it” problem
Now sure, sometimes it will work out that way especially for the people who have training/experience. Not so much for people who struggle to get out of bed in the morning now, particularly when they may have multiple factors that contribute to that.
Also governments will probably last far longer than anyone expects, and broken political systems will probably just keep going as always or even devolve rather than get reformed to be functional (as for self-governing, probably not guaranteed either).
For the cult part, on one hand probably yeah because cults prey on vulnerable people.
But also the religious/psuedoscience aspect(s) might prevent some people from being interested and without that it’d likely veer more towards being classified as a gang/criminal-org. So it probably won’t be dramatic.I would say it could be more like a tribe or something similar, but with communities eroded away as they are now I doubt that will work out on a meaningful scale. From the difficulty of being able to provide food and housing (and that’s now, before things get really bad) to people who might not be able to “pull their weight” or just general distrust of people on top of other issues like location and transportation.
Any half-decent option will probably spring up organically from people who have some connection already. I’m sure there are plenty of people now who don’t have much of anything tying them down but there is neither a destination nor a community or means to get to one. With no information/contact, nothing about that will probably change especially when you think about actual chances things will work out as desired.
Preventable deaths will likely be the more dramatic rise, especially related to heat and natural disasters.
1·1 year agoNim-lang. some code that I actually wrote using Raylib bindings (Naylib) (+what it’s loading)
I’ve asked about this on the Fediverse once already and didn’t get any responses.
Also note that bindings for Godot 4.X (or some other not-superheavy Linux-compatible engine that has an editor especially) are a big part of what I want, so some specifics that may work on paper otherwise might not fit the bill either. Also because polygonal art (meme made with 3.X, 4.0 eye animation, not-yet-in-4.X test of someone elses’ PR)
I was thinking similar, though I’m also still on X with nVidia and XFCE and am in a weird way* with programming.
I have my own custom XFWM theme that is really minimal (12px title with 8px tall buttons with some being wider to compensate, somewhat outdated example) and I’d like to expand upon it (floating titles, inset window buttons, dynamic button width, media integration) but I’ve looked at examples and don’t understand enough to even get just a rectangle for a titlebar (though X I assume for something basic, X would probably still be the easiest).
*= the only language that I’m interested in (due to it being easy in a style I like while still having performance/capability/flexibility etc) is not popular, and worse is I have lost a bit of hope/confidence in its future (as well as its bus factor reducing further because the person who made the package manager+installer and a book walked away) so I still haven’t really done much with it.
Influencing fun or depending on others for it is one of the reasons I’ve never really played multiplayer. I see the SS14 update posts on here and like the idea of playing but I’d rather watch a story (Tex or BoatB) than be a part of crafting one.
I kinda hate the mention of “that’s not universal!”. That usually isn’t even claimed (and factors are usually discussed in long-form videos), and needing to constantly change wording to prevent that gets old for both sides of a conversation (at least that’s my experience, most of the time).
For me a lot of the things that make games not fun are things that I can describe. Hunger/inventory management/decent items being rare/underwhelming rewards/backtracking/lack-of-information-or-feedback are the most common that make games feel tedious to me. Often a tiny removal or tweak could go a long way to fix that, but that isn’t really even viable in most cases (particularly for me).
I just have stopped buying games because money/purchase regret, though if I were: GPU and storage space(+6-8Mbps internet shared with other people) are considerations that block off many newer games for me (and indie games are not immune to this, particularly with resistance to buying).
That, and anything that’s heavy on story or atmosphere I can probably get 80% enjoyment (if not more, because I won’t be experiencing the issues) by watching a video of someone else play (particularly someone with a good voice adding their own narrative/spin). A lot of games that I’ve played were pretty obvious and thus don’t seem to have much below the surface.
On a more general note, it often seems like games either expect too much of me or just don’t respect my time (and I say that as someone with a lot of free time). And on a specific note, games that are co-op-first often just suck to play single-player.
As for Minecraft, due to the updates I was slowly losing interest until I stopped playing in the 1.8/1.9 era (I had my own resource pack with 1.8 models that kept me somewhat interested, 1.9 broke them). Then you needed to create a Microsoft account.
I’ve tried different Minetest games and there isn’t really a base that I enjoy enough to try modding onto, especially as many go for the same types of things that MC does.
The last thing I bought was a charity bundle more than a year ago (2022 march), there were a few games that I enjoyed but not for long and most of it seems not that great. Since then I’ve just been playing free games, which again some is pretty OK and a lot of it isn’t (it’s kind of annoying to sift through it on itch).
Well yes, but also lack of money is a big issue for buying games plus the hardware to run said games.
That and being in that situation it’s easy to get burned out on buying stuff due to not enjoying previous purchases, or them not having much replay value (sometimes it is possible but tedious in implementation). Also unforgiving/tedious game mechanics in general.
Though personally I think I get about as much enjoyment (or ~80%) watching a let’s-play of some games (especially if linear/atmospheric/multiplayer etc, and even more if it’s the story-ified or custom goals like ambiguousamphibian’s videos) as I would actually playing.
Is it though? I highly doubt someone with the “music bad” take would give any examples of things done right let alone newer names (even in the disliked genre) and explain potential production-level problems (beyond surface-level reactions to content/people). They even say that indie games are not as prone to said issues, or that adulthood might play a part. And it’s probably less of a universal issue and more of a “why are there so many multi-million-dollar-games that are over-hyped?” much like how box-office movies are often huge-budget “safe” IPs that are more spectacle than substance.
So I’d say it’s more nuanced than the title/thumbnail may lead you to believe.
9·2 years agoSo far I got
unrealistic idea that has lots of currently unsolvable logistical problems and the only currently working part would be a gamble that I can’t even get
and
unrealistic idea that could be attainable, but not for me in our current society… or if it could work, not within my reach and no way for me to know that it’d be viable
…🎶letting the days go by🎶
For putting people in jail/prison and also suing them for millions that they probably will never have, sure.
Just for DMCA it’s not needed at all considering they can just strike anything that pops up in a search (and they likely do this via a mostly-hands-off script), I would not be surprised if they had striked games about celebrities that happen to have a common name that is the same as a character trademarked by N. If it was still a fan game N would probably get away with it no challenge unless said celebrity actually stepped in to defend it.