insomniac_lemon

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.

12 hours ago: https://itch.io/takedowns/2402026

I don’t really care (especially when it’s older than 2 decades), but when a company (this company especially) issues hundreds of takedowns in 1 batch (and they do this multiple times) I don’t think they’re evaluating each one at all let alone for any sort of merit/exemption. They have no real reason to do so, that’s why I’m saying don’t put the target on your back (especially scaling with how much work was put into it).

If anything I’d say I’m at the point where fan content kind of seems too good for companies that treat their users like dirt (and not just those who make fan content). Like that is inevitably going to be someone’s introduction into a series, can this giant company not do better than free-time fan efforts? Well, I guess what I’d really like to see is a game that’s simultaneously a love-letter to a game/genre yet a hate-letter (diss letter?) to the current owner.

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)

Easier: Stop using trademarked terms (particularly in this case where it’s the original game name) and screenshots of the logo.

It’s a multiplier to being caught, and can still result in a takedown even with original assets (for example, DMCA’s sky which originally used the M name in the title). The further you distance yourself from trademarks/IP the better.

Including 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 seems to me that atlas orthogonal adjustment is more of a real thing offered than just getting your neck twisted, then again as someone who probably needs that (I had whiplash many years ago) I have no idea if the places near me have the equipment for it (or x-ray stuff needed) so that along with paperwork/scheduling has stopped me.

I am not participating for very bad(/sad) reasons. Here’s to another lousy millennium.

Somewhat personal (including language preference/difficulty), but ultimately I just kinda lost hope/motivation for doing further learning/projects. The last code I did, load format example

Well that and AoC never really excited me, was for something more open like L1T’s Devember but I didn’t even pretend to myself that I’d try this year.

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)

I’m pretty sure it’s a reference to this:

https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/429c0010-e6f2-42fe-a03e-6f66457c0db5.jpeg

@souperk

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 generated textures (see .kkrieger for an extreme example) might be a potential fix for the drawbacks, 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.

I can’t go very fast even on my (small/cheap) ebike and have definitely noticed (even with not-the-best-eyesight) plants/animals, flooding, nearby infrastructure/locations, smells etc. on the trail. I wouldn’t say 15kmh is “barreling” and is my average comfortable speed. Slowing down or stopping to walking around a bit is also incredibly easy (and a thing already you stop to rest/drink/eat anyways), but you can still make up for lost time if needed.

In the context of a show, I could see a lot of angles to this. From somebody remembering something they briefly saw to 1 person in a group investigating something (staying behind, rushing ahead, taking a sample etc), also successfully evading chases and camp-y rock ambushes.

Personally I’d also say that biking long distances just seems easier than walking/hiking. Maybe mechanical advantage (esp. w/derailleur) or the speed, maybe health issues, or maybe there’s just something about the feel of it that’s boring/taxing to me. I can’t imagine walking 20 km but is something I’ve done a few times on my weak ebike.

it 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.

Nim-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.