I sorta agree with you, but Dishonored is less about thievery and more about target elimination (plus magic powers).
Gaming thoughts, bite-size chewables - new orange flavor!
- Thread starter pauli
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As a developer in a different industry, I would be utterly shocked if every single medium-large studio isn't leaning into having their devs use AI, it's absolutely everywhere. When used properly the AI tooling can take care of huge amounts of grunt work and testing that frankly human devs were always bad at because it was tedious and boring. You can use it to make slop, but that's true of basically every development tool from the past 30 years. I remember the angst over Macromedia Dreamweaver slop for web development back in the 90s and in my eyes AI for development is the same thing, it's just a tool and up to the devs to use it well or not.
Also as a developer in a different industry, I suspect there isn't an executive on the friggin' planet that isn't convinced that generative AI is the future of sliced bread. Loads of developers too. They're all neck deep in the Kool-Aid pool. In a year, it's going to be hard to find a single game, be it indy or AAA, that wasn't made without at least some usage of AI.
The only thing that is likely to even slow this down is the coming reckoning that will be the complete and total end of subsidized pricing. Then we will get to see execs who refuse to even buy their developers a decent monitor sweat bullets trying to justify tremendous capital outlays to the Sparkle Lords.
For me personally?
My personal jury is still out on whether or not this is a net productivity win, and I still hate using it. It has taken a job that I love doing and twisted it around into a job that I am at best lukewarm on. And I can't escape it. None of us can. The writing on the wall says to learn and use these tools or become irrelevant and unemployable.
If the bursting of the bubble doesn't destroy the whole affair, that is...
It's a shame, because this is the sort of magical technology we always dreamed of. A computer program that can take in natural-language instructions and produce a wide array of useful outputs? Forget about it! 20-year-old me would have been over the moon about it. The only problem is that somebody wished for it on a monkey's paw, and it has been brought into being in the most destructive way possible. Destructive to individuals and to societies at large.
It can automate grunt work. Sometimes that's even pretty great. What I'm finding, though, is that that grunt work was good for the soul. As a car-dependent suburbanite, I can't help but liken it to the car. A tremendous broadening of individual capability, at horrendous societal and personal cost. Sure, I could hop in my car right now and by evening I could be hundreds of miles away. But I'm wedded to that mechanical augmentation. Walking more than two or three miles is exhausting, and running is right out. It's corrosive to my physical health, and by extension, my mental health.
Is that too dramatic? It feels a bit dramatic. But it is what I feel, nonetheless.
If the bursting of the bubble doesn't destroy the whole affair, that is...
It's a shame, because this is the sort of magical technology we always dreamed of. A computer program that can take in natural-language instructions and produce a wide array of useful outputs? Forget about it! 20-year-old me would have been over the moon about it. The only problem is that somebody wished for it on a monkey's paw, and it has been brought into being in the most destructive way possible. Destructive to individuals and to societies at large.
It can automate grunt work. Sometimes that's even pretty great. What I'm finding, though, is that that grunt work was good for the soul. As a car-dependent suburbanite, I can't help but liken it to the car. A tremendous broadening of individual capability, at horrendous societal and personal cost. Sure, I could hop in my car right now and by evening I could be hundreds of miles away. But I'm wedded to that mechanical augmentation. Walking more than two or three miles is exhausting, and running is right out. It's corrosive to my physical health, and by extension, my mental health.
Is that too dramatic? It feels a bit dramatic. But it is what I feel, nonetheless.
I saw an interesting (I think) application of Claude earlier today: there is someone in the MiSTer FPGA developer's forum trying to bring new FPGA cores to life using Claude.
Since it's not taking the place of any art or the humans who produced that art, I think I'm mostly okay with this. The original game doesn't get modified in any way. The core is just FPGA emulation of the game's hardware (this is for an arcade game). Since there is such a limited pool of developers willing to tackle this work, I could see it being an overall benefit to the filthy casuals like myself who don't have the ability to produce more cores.
The MiSTer project is open source and highly collaborative. I think as long as the proper people get credit for the work that went into the AI-produced core (and the full source code is released, obviously)... maybe that's not a problem?
Claude still runs on a horrendous amount of resources in a data center the nearby residents hate. So there's still that aspect.
Anyone have any thoughts on this specific application of AI?
Since it's not taking the place of any art or the humans who produced that art, I think I'm mostly okay with this. The original game doesn't get modified in any way. The core is just FPGA emulation of the game's hardware (this is for an arcade game). Since there is such a limited pool of developers willing to tackle this work, I could see it being an overall benefit to the filthy casuals like myself who don't have the ability to produce more cores.
The MiSTer project is open source and highly collaborative. I think as long as the proper people get credit for the work that went into the AI-produced core (and the full source code is released, obviously)... maybe that's not a problem?
Claude still runs on a horrendous amount of resources in a data center the nearby residents hate. So there's still that aspect.
Anyone have any thoughts on this specific application of AI?
Given how most games use a third party engine (primarily Unreal) I don't think anyone will be able to avoid it as Epic will have some AI code in there sooner or later, if it doesn't already.
My problem with the AI discussion is that it starts small and bits and pieces and people are willing to let it slide in certain circumstances. We've heard of the AI used for background design issue and people are like "well, that's okay isn't it?" or how some companies use AI to get the look and feel of the game right and people shrug it off as acceptable.
As if there aren't people who are background designers or concept artists. One of the more famous concept artists is Yoshitaka Amano, without whom Final Fantasy would lack its style and feeling.
Every time AI is "allowed" in a game in some limited capacity, it's a job taken from someone. And each job taken isn't one that will ever come back. They start small with background details or concept art and then move onto sound design or spriting.
As if there aren't people who are background designers or concept artists. One of the more famous concept artists is Yoshitaka Amano, without whom Final Fantasy would lack its style and feeling.
Every time AI is "allowed" in a game in some limited capacity, it's a job taken from someone. And each job taken isn't one that will ever come back. They start small with background details or concept art and then move onto sound design or spriting.
I never claimed it was a particularly original rant. There are many others like it, but this one is mine, etc.
Magic Assassins Creed. Well... more magic.
I quite enjoyed the game and the sequel. Somewhat surprised that the franchise IP hasn't been revisited.
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/202...ngoing-diamond-comics-bankruptcy-fallout.html
Paizo is going through layoffs and is looking shaky after Diamond Comics somehow went bankrupt. Seeing as Diamond had a near monopoly on comic distribution…. Gods damn things are bad.
Paizo is going through layoffs and is looking shaky after Diamond Comics somehow went bankrupt. Seeing as Diamond had a near monopoly on comic distribution…. Gods damn things are bad.
I remember not being pleased when Marvel/Disney split from diamond during the pandemic and before things got really bad. Clearly someone over there saw the writing on the wall and bailed while the bailing was good.
Paizo's problem is nearly identical to the Lego situation that's been making the news lately. Specifically - their current litigation issues could have been avoided a long time ago with a $20 UCC form that would have identified them as the sole owner of the property now being argued over. It would have proven that the Paizo products in question are on consignment, and not property of Diamond. At most, they would have had to make one appearance in court for summary disposition, showing the document to the judge and demonstrating that the Paizo products are not, in fact, owned by Diamond, and are therefore not subject to JP Morgan Chase's liens.
Without that $20 form, they now have to spend more time and effort in court to prove that they weren't sold to Diamond. And it's in JP Morgan Chase's interest to fight it at least a little bit.
Finally finished Hades2. Really enjoyed the gameplay, but it kind of becomes a slog repeating run after run at the end. I just wanted to see how things wrap up.
You know how in LOTR3, the story “ends” but it takes like another hour for the movie to actually end? Thats Hades2. Holy shit it just keeps going on and on.
You know how in LOTR3, the story “ends” but it takes like another hour for the movie to actually end? Thats Hades2. Holy shit it just keeps going on and on.
That is a crazy story. If you have not seen it look up bricks and mini-figs
View: https://youtu.be/SfRdFGnkT1g
Nice little piece of history. Lot of innovation coming together all at once even if it doesn't get the hype that Gen X titles like Addam's Family does.
Addams Family is only so well-known because it was the highest production pinball table ever made, and probably won't ever be topped unless we have a new resurgence of pinball frenzy. Bally/Williams produced and sold 20,270 tables*, breaking a record that had been held for 15 years. And then they produced another 1000 as a special edition when the movie Addams Family Values was released. No other pinball machine - not even contemporaries for Addams Family - have had more than 15,000 made. So it's not just hype that everyone knows Addams Family - it's also because so many were made. It's literally everywhere.
Although Stern does not release official numbers of their production runs on new tables, people with far more knowledge than me estimate that modern tables are under 5k produced and sold per table.
* Eight Ball, the previous champion from Bally in 1977, had produced and sold 20,230. The number for Addams Family was quite probably deliberate, specifically to break the standing record, and by enough that there would be no question. The sequel to Eight Ball, Eight Ball Deluxe, made by Stern in 1981, only had 8,250 produced.
I think they added a bunch of stuff in a recent update too. Took a quick look, but haven't really gotten back into it yet.
Physical Steam gift cards are going away
Valve cites the scammers as the reason for doing away with them, but I'd bet even money that the real reason is that retailers weren't getting a cut and they're tired of it. So for those of you who like buying Steam games without a credit card and also don't have Paypal, now's the time to stock up.
Valve cites the scammers as the reason for doing away with them, but I'd bet even money that the real reason is that retailers weren't getting a cut and they're tired of it. So for those of you who like buying Steam games without a credit card and also don't have Paypal, now's the time to stock up.
I get you, but that's just industrialization/automation, whether AI is involved or not. All these modern game engines, Unreal, Unity, Godot, those have "taken jobs" from lots of people that will never come back. You used to have to have skilled coders write all that stuff from scratch every game. Motion capture has taken the jobs of legions of hand animators. Hell, 3D rendering took the jobs of pixel artists. Every incremental advancement in programming languages makes things faster to code and and need less devs working on it compared to the old days.
The thing you have to keep in mind is that none of this is a zero sum game. Having games take less labor to make is not a bad thing, it just means more interesting games from smaller teams. Steam is absolutely fucking packed with A/AA/indie games these days that never would have gotten made back when it required a big publisher to bankroll nearly any game. Sure, AI is probably going to lead to some high profile AAA disasters, but what's new, they do that all the time anyway.
It's also not like AI magically replaces creativity. It's getting pretty damn good at doing what you tell it to do, but at best it's an entry level dev following instructions. If you want something really unique and original then you need to put a lot more effort into getting that out of it.
I think AI has only gotten all this hate mainly because of the external factors (data centers, the people involved, hardware shortages) and because it's bumping into jobs that felt they were safe, even though most of us have been racing against automation and change our whole career already.
Yet another game recommendation request. Rhythm games edition.
Would this be better as a separate post? I don't post in GESC much, so I start here before making a separate post.
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I miss the glory days of the 00's, when Guitar Hero and Rock Band were insanely popular. I had the whole Rock Band set, and my friends had many drunken concerts. I had soooo many add-ons. This was a time when you could buy Free Bird on iTunes for $0.99, a 10-second long Free Bird ringtone for $1.99, and Free Bird for Guitar Hero for $2.99. I bought all three.
My son, born in 2016, has never experienced Guitar Hero. I know he would love it. There's gonna be a lot of videos of him jamming out to his favorite tunes.
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What's the state of rhythm games today? We have a PS5 and a Switch 1. For controllers, I can only find the PDP Riffmaster. Are there other guitar controllers for PS5 or Switch that work well? Does anyone still make drum controllers?
For games, is Fortnite Festival the only game in town? Has anyone played a beta or read a review for Stage Tour, supposedly coming out this year?
Would this be better as a separate post? I don't post in GESC much, so I start here before making a separate post.
.........................
I miss the glory days of the 00's, when Guitar Hero and Rock Band were insanely popular. I had the whole Rock Band set, and my friends had many drunken concerts. I had soooo many add-ons. This was a time when you could buy Free Bird on iTunes for $0.99, a 10-second long Free Bird ringtone for $1.99, and Free Bird for Guitar Hero for $2.99. I bought all three.
My son, born in 2016, has never experienced Guitar Hero. I know he would love it. There's gonna be a lot of videos of him jamming out to his favorite tunes.
.........................
What's the state of rhythm games today? We have a PS5 and a Switch 1. For controllers, I can only find the PDP Riffmaster. Are there other guitar controllers for PS5 or Switch that work well? Does anyone still make drum controllers?
For games, is Fortnite Festival the only game in town? Has anyone played a beta or read a review for Stage Tour, supposedly coming out this year?
CRKD makes all sorts of guitar controllers for various platforms and IIRC they also have a drum kit. I personally like their clicky strumbar more than the Riffmaster's non-clicky one, but it mostly comes down to personal preference.
As for games, being on PS5/Switch does kind of limit things. Fortnite Festival is the only modern guitar game in town on those platforms, though I believe Rock Band 4 might be possible via PSN, though I have no idea what the DLC situation is these days. If you could set up a PC, that opens up the possibility of Clone Hero (basically Guitar Hero 5 with the serial numbers filed off, has a massive charting community) and YARG (Yet Another Rhythm Game, basically Clone Hero but with Rock Band styling). Plus being on PC means much more breadth of controller options.
I'm personally pretty hyped for Stage Tour. I got the chance to talk to the dev team at PAX East, and assuming they can secure good music licensing deals, it should be a good revival of the genre for those who don't want to deal with freeware titles.
Rhythm games more broadly are very stable as a genre, and have had some unusually good new IP's such as Rift of the Necrodancer and Rhythm Doctor. Also the currently Steam-exclusive Beatblock and the gameplay in UNBEATABLE. The behemoths also still have stable releases supported by Japan's arcade scene in particular.
Specifically guitar-centric entries are a lot rarer, as mentioned above.
Steam needs to work on the digital side of the experience. The requirement that someone be registered on Steam and linked as a friend is a major generational hassle. That said, I've had multiple poor experiences with the physical card activation being botched by the retailer, and every time it turns into a game of finger pointing. I don't blame Valve for wanting to shed the bad sentiment that creates, but the digital option isn't ready for all the use cases that the loss of physical cards will displace.
Also there's a new breed of rhythm shooters like BPM and Metal: Hellsinger that have gotten really good reviews.
I miss amplitude and frequency. I think frequency was the game that finally convinced me to buy a PS2.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doV0yq4kAP0
New Fable video, it's long but should be interesting to fans of the old games. Definitely looks like they're following the recipe, but this approach to morality looks a lot less dumb than we normally see in video games, A bit more variety and nuance, as long as they can deliver beyond this demo.
I am assuming the economy will be significantly less easy when it comes out, I imagine it was all scaled up to make the demo work.
E: forgot about the age restriction - I would feel like an ass leaving this as a blank "this video is age restricted" - It's a video from their official channel, 30 minutes long, goes over the morality system in one specific settlement.
Beat Saber is, IMHO, the ultimate gold standard for rhythm games in general. Though I also miss the jam out days of Guitar and Band Hero. Still have a pristine BH Keyboard under a cabinet somewhere...
Not really sure why instrument-based games declined in popularity to virtually disappear. I would have bet on it being a very persistent genre, as there's never been any shortage of people playing air guitar and pretending to be the one up on the stage.
I'd say it's dramatically lowered the bar for entry, though. Ten years ago turning a sketch into a detailed, 3D animated model was the work of uber-talented artists and animators. Now you just ask the machine to give you 500 variations of a catgirl with a sword and they're all perfectly shaded, detailed, and readily converted into an articulate 3D model. Iterate further on the ones you like. It's a game of prompt engineering more than skill with a Waycom tablet and Maya.
It was a combination of oversaturation because of Activision's publishing policies and the economics of the plastic instruments becoming less viable, especially when so many already existed. It's got a lot less of a hook when people play less couch co-op, as well.
Essentially, you need to provide enough value to get people to purchase both a game and a peripheral for the newer systems, over finding one of the many older titles at a budget price and either borrowing a plastic guitar or buying one cheaply from practically anywhere that sells controllers secondhand. While guitar-centric genres are still around and have some popularity, they don't get anywhere near the reach they used to compared to genres that are more vocal-centric and have more electronic sounds and hooks on average.
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The main reason was that between 2005-2010, there were:
-6 mainline Guitar Hero games
-6 spinoff Guitar Hero games
-3 mobile spinoff Guitar Hero games
-2 turntable-based Hero games (which were quite good, but expensive)
-3 mainline Rock Band games
-4 spinoff Rock Band games
-4 mobile Rock Band games
And not helping matters is that rock music in general has been on the decline since 2010s, so people looking at rhythm games generally aren't all that enamored of being a guitar hero in the first place. It's telling that most of the popular rhythm games post-2010 are either rhythmic integrations into other genres (notably Dead As Disco being a beat'em up, Crypt of the Necrodancer being a dungeon crawler, BPM as an FPS, etc) with a greater focus on electronica than rock music.
It's not just rhythm games. The history of gaming demonstrates over and over that any game that requires a specialized input device sees both the game and the device relegated to a niche. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but for me personally, the fact that these types of games are best played in the living room means consoles, and consoles just love to obsolete your controllers so you have to buy a whole new set every generation. I think we are now in a better place on that front than we've ever been, but still not perfect...
The recipe for success seems to be great playability with stock controllers. A flight sim may be best experienced with specialized equipment, but you can still have a good time with a regular old controller. Same for racing sims. You can't really play Guitar Hero or DDR with a controller.
(Speaking of DDR, that's another specialized input device and game type that has fallen by the wayside. Does anyone know what the state of DDR pads and games is these days? That might be a way to make light exercise less soul-crushingly dull...)
From the looks of things, the biggest name in pad makers is L-TEK, but if you want any kind of durability those pads will run at least $300 minimum. As for games, Stepmania seems to be the nom de plume these days, but I haven't looked much deeper than that.
I think DDR got destroyed by Just Dance, which rode the wave of motion and Kinect controls
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
So, which one of these upcoming games resonates with you the most?
Even Fable 3 was so long ago that I... don't feel like a fan of the old games, even as I used to be. It doesn't even work as a point of reference for me.
- Control Resonant
- Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy
- Final Fantasy Resonance
Even Fable 3 was so long ago that I... don't feel like a fan of the old games, even as I used to be. It doesn't even work as a point of reference for me.
If you're running through the PC, which you almost have to considering how arcade-centric most offerings have been in Japan, you might want to look for a dance pad that also has a center button, as Pump It Up continues to retain market share thanks to the difficulty it introduces using that central button (well, and the nature of its stepcharts which include fun things like bombs). It turns out that it's just enough to force players to abandon the bar-gripping strategy because it can be near-impossible to contort one's body properly, including some charts that require the player to effectively squat on the pad to hit specific hold notes.
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technophile
Ars Legatus Legionis
2026: The Year of ResonatingThat's... way out of left field. I'll keep an eye on it, because I loved the first one's story. I really need to play the second (been sitting in my backlog forever). But jumping back to Ancient Greece seems like a heck of a departure for an up until now very French franchise.
First trailer (I think?) for My Time at Evershine. I absolutely loved Sandrock, so very much looking forward to this.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF91Cu4aRIg
From what I've read elsewhere, the new focus of Evershine are co-op play and an expanded building system for the whole town rather than just your workshop. I think I'd prefer to play solo, but town building? Very keen.
I like that they've moved on from the big-head-cartoon style; it was fine for the very silly light-hearted moments (which is most of the game), but it did clash pretty badly with the more serious dramatic beats.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF91Cu4aRIg
From what I've read elsewhere, the new focus of Evershine are co-op play and an expanded building system for the whole town rather than just your workshop. I think I'd prefer to play solo, but town building? Very keen.
I like that they've moved on from the big-head-cartoon style; it was fine for the very silly light-hearted moments (which is most of the game), but it did clash pretty badly with the more serious dramatic beats.
It wasn't just the number of games, but their massive fucking boxes.
As physical distribution of games died and shelf space decreased in size over the years, retailers quickly ran out of places just to put the damn things, with all their giant plastic instruments, so they could sell them.
Definitely Control Resonant for me. I haven't played any of the Plague's Tale game, and ..... I had thought Final Fantasy Resonance was the 3rd Final Fantasy 7 game.
I haven't ever played a 2D Final Fantasy game before, and FF Resonance seems intriguing.
But I LOVE Control. Got it on the PS4 and got it again on PC. Got both DLCs and thoroughly enjoyed them both.
I am ready to return to the Remedy-verse.