I submitted a game for Ludum Dare 39. Hopefully my submission worked. DIfficult to tell, cause the site was slow.

I’ll try to give a summary of the weekend later on, with things I learned and such.

My game isn’t much, and I found some bugs in it after submission, but here it is.

 

I had some other plans for this weekend, but discovered that LD39 was on. I was thinking about trying to write some quick small games anyway, so I might as well participate. The theme is “Running out of power”.

I’m going to make something pretty basic, and not so creative, because I want to get something done. Basically the idea is to have 10 cannons shooting laser automatically. You’ll have to redirect power between them to defend yourself. The power is degrading over time and you have to prioritize what lasers you want to use.

Spent an hour before going to bed thinking about ideas and doing project setup.

Hour two was spent making a skybox and changing some things around in unity. I am using Unity 5.6 for this btw.

 

If you need to set a number of vertices to a specific color, it’s not obvious how to do this (at least not for me).

  1. Select the vertices edges or faces in edit mode.
  2. Switch to Vertex pain and click the icon that says Face selection masking (it’s between the layers and pivot point settings).
  3. Select a color
  4. Hit space and search for set vertex color.

This is great if you want to use Vertex colors to mark different areas of an object.

 

 

For quite some time now, this blog has been dead. I really didn’t have the time to write, and it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to when I started it.

I don’t want to through away the old posts however, and instead, I decided to use this for some other content that might help people out.

For a few years now, I’ve wanted to learn about game development, and maybe develop some simple games.

I have a tendency to try to lear everything at once, but I’ll at least try to post my experiences while learning this new stuff, as well as providing a collection of useful resources.

The first one i’ll mention right now is Gamefromscratch. It’s my go to place when looking for new tools, or before getting started with a new game Engine / Library.

Even though I’ve pretty much been sticking to unity for the past few months, I have been looking into other libraries, such as XNA/MonoGame, LibGdX. The site and the youtube channel also has a lot of useful information about other tools you may want to use.

I’ll still post a game first impression every now and again, but from now on, you can expect seeing some of my crappy art and 3D modelling skill as I try to learn more about game development.

While I’m at it, I’ll also try to make a new theme for this site.

 

I picked up this game a year or so ago, but never really gave it a serious try. I played the tutorial and felt I didn’t have time to really focus on the game at the time and gave up. This game suffers from the same issues as some other Paradox games: it can be overwhelming for new players.

But now, A year later, after playing EU4 I decided to give this a serious look. Now, 50 or so hours later, I really love this game. Now I’m not sure what made this game seem so overwhelming, even though there are some concepts I still not grasp 100%. I guess the main reason is that you approach things differently. Instead of playing a nation, like in other similar games, you play a dynasty. or rather a member of a dynasty. You try to spread your dynasty while at the same time trying to keep enough land to ensure that your heir will be powerful enough to survive against other claiments. This can be tricky at times, since other dynasties, as well as other members of your own dynasty will try to take what they consdier to be theirs. I use the term “land” ligltly here, cause the game is more about titles. You can hold a Kindom without actually holding any land in it (even though you run a huge risk of getting into trouble with revolting powerful vasals).

Each characters has traits that you have to take into account when arranging merriages and deviding land. Traits can be gained and lost throughout a characters lifetime. This brings an interesting RPG element into the game.

The game takes place in medieval europe for the most part, so you don’t have access to the whole world like you do in EU4, however, the most recent expansion adds india to the map. In the original game, you can start in 1066 and play all the christian feodal leaders. Expansions have added the option to play muslim and pagan leaders as well as the option to start in the 9th century. No matter what  start you pick, the game will end in 1453, since this is considered to be the end of the medieval era (The fall of constantinople).

Something that may put people off, is that the game has a lot of DLCs. I’ve picked up most of them by now, but if you are looking to pick this game up, I would start wit hthe original game, and if you like it, pick up the DLCs on sale.

 

Graphics

THe game uses the same engine as EU4 I think, so if you’ve seen that, you know what to expect. There are a limited number of character faces in the game, but several small DLCs will add more distinct faces for different cultures.

 

Audio

The sound effects are nothing special, but the music is good for the most part. There are also a lot of music DLCs to add flavour to different cultures.

 

 

User interface

As mentioned, the game can be very overwhelming berfore you get used to it. Some things can be pretty difficult to find, unless you know where it is (financial overview comes to mind). It will take you a few hours of clicking around to learn where everything can be found. Some areas could probably have been made more intuitive, but at the same time, once you get used to it, it works quite well.

 

 

Gameplay

You start out as a member of a dynasty with one or more “landed titles” and your goal is to make you and your dynasty gain more power, and survive the test of time. A lot of decisions you make will be long term, for example, you marry one of your children, so his or her children will inherit a title. Events will occur throughout a characters lifetime, changing their traits, opinions of other characters and so on, usually involving active decision making.

You’ll also get involved on plots to clain or revoke toties as well as getting rid of certain people. Managing your vasals is another important area that sometimes requires some creativity. You want to keep people happy without making them to powerful. To sum it up, the game is basically a dynasty simulator.

 

Conclusion

If you can get through the steep learning process, this game is awasome. I would higly recomment this game to anyone who likes strategy games. It also won’t hurt if you are a fan of intrigues such as those found in series like The sage of ice and fire :). Presonally, I really like this game right now, and there isn’t many similar games out there.  For beginners I would recommend picking up just the original game, playing through one game and then picking up all the expansions and DLCs.

Having an affair with your daughter in law can have some inconvenient results

Having an affair with your daughter in law can have some inconvenient results

Well, the wrong person inherited all the titles I wanted. This is what happened to the unlucky 1 year old who inherited all my titles.

Well, the wrong person inherited all the titles I wanted. This is what happened to the unlucky 1 year old who inherited all my titles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you think the Civ series has become dumbed down or just want something deeper, maybe this game is for you. That said, this is not Civ. I would describe it as a historical world simulation. The game starts in 1444 during the decline of the Byzantin empire and close to the end of the 100 year war., and ends in 1821. You can basically pick any country during this time period (even though some of them has a lot more events and country specific decisions then other countries).

I’m writing this after having spent about 50 hours with this game. That’s how long I feel it takes to really get a grasp of the game. I still don’t know everything there is to know about the game, but I feel comfortable playing and know what to do in most situations.

 

Graphics

Graphically, this game looks quite good for a strategy game, even though graphics are not that important in this genre. The most important thing is that the map is easy to read.

 

Audio

The sound effect are ok, but the music is really great. THis is a good thing since you’ll have to listen to it for hundreds of hours

 

User interface

Despite the complexity of the game, the UI is quite easy to get used to. It’s quite intuitive, even though I sometimes spend time looking for something that I know can be found somewhere (A lot of statistical

Gameplay

This is a grand strategy game, so expect to spend a lot of time looking at a map. Well, the concept is easy. You pick a nation, and control it from 1444 (or whenever you like to start) until 1821. Theis is a very interesting time period in most of the world, and the experiance may differ depending on what country you decide to play. For example, as England, you’ll start out in the hundred year war, but later on probably end up cononizing, trading and exploring the rest of the world, pretty much staying away from the european continent. ON the other hand, if you picka country such as Poland, you’ll end up in a lot of the big european conflicts. The game isn’t scripted per say, but some historical events will trigger under certain conditions, such events can turn out to be both good and bad. There are also a lot of other events that will trigger under certain conditions, such as big revolts, trade events and formation of new nations. The game has no real goal, even though there is a score system. it’s more of a simulation then anything else. The game has the usual features of other strategy games such as research, but things are structured in a slightly different way. When you first start out, it feels like you have very little control over your country’s progress, but as you dig deeper, you realized that there’s a lot of things to manage. I would recommend starting as a decent sized country without to many enemies. I started out as spain, and I feel that was a good idea. Your wars early on won’t be that complex and you can experiance some colonizing right off the bat.

 

 

Conclusion

Right now, I love the game. It’s the best strategy game I’ve played for years. If you want a game that’s relatively easy to learn, but has a lot of depth, I would pick this up right away. Just be aware that each game will take 50 hours plus, especially before you get used to the game.

 

 

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I’ve played both Far Cry 1 and 2 and found them to be pretty good. I lost interest in FC1 after a while, but played FC2 quite a lot. It’s not like I was in a hurry to get this game when it came out, but I felt it was worthwhile to pick it up on a sale.

The plot is similar to the previous games. You end up alone in a sparsely populated area somewhere in the world, in this case in an fictional archipelago. This time around you won’t have to worry about the malarea like in FC2, so you can focus more on exploring and improving your equipment. The game has a basic crafting system that allows you to get better equipment by hunting wild animals and gathering plants.

 

Graphics

The graphics are really, really good for the most part, with a lot of stunning views, good looking characters, vehicles and animals.

 

Audio

Great sound effects, not much in terms of music, even thoug hthere is music to add to the feel of the game.

User interface

One of the few problems I find with this game is the user interface. The whole things feels a bit “consoly”. THe inventory system is easy to use, but I feel that some things requires to many clicks.

 

 

Gameplay

You start out alone on an island, but the game has more to offer then most first person shooters. A lot of exploration, tons of side missions, a good story so far, and just lots of things to do in general. You gain experiance by killing pirates, hunting, taking over outposts and completing missions. COmpleting missions also unlocks certain weaons. The crafting system could be a bit more flexible. Right now, the way it works is that certain items requires certain hides and sometimes things just get stupid. The game has a lot of stealth elements along with the usual shooting stuff. You can also find a lot of vehicles throuighout the game, and I like the way they handle.

 

 

Conclusion

If you want a good first person shooter with some of the best character interaction I’ve seen in a game like this, you should pick this one up. I wish the main character wasn’t as good at shooting, and they should have made more out of the survival elements in this game. The unexperianced main character is surprisingly good at using firearms that he has probably never seen before. Despite the problems, it’s still a good game and worth playing.

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I decided to replace my old computer, even though worked ok for everything except Rome 2 (it actually worked ok for room 2 as well except for campaign map lag). The old rig had a few memory issues that meant I could only run it with 2x4mb. Seem to have been a motherboard issue cause replacing the memories didn’t solve it.

 

Well, here is the specs, and it seems to work really well so far.

  • NZXT Phantom 630 black
  • Intel i7 4770k
  • Corsair TX 750W 80+
  • Corsair Hydro H80i
  • 256GB Samsung Pro 840 series
  • 16GB CL9 1600Mhz memory
  • EVGA GeForce GTX 770 SC ACK 2
  • Noctua fans for the CPU cooler

 

 

I’m running WIndows 8 on this rig and so far it works really well.

I’ll try to provide some pictures later on if someone wants them.

I can also provide 3Dmark vantage benchmakrs upon request.

 

This is another of the games I got as part of a bundle with my video card, and as such I didn’t pay full price for it.

Metro last light takes place in  russia (I think), in a dystopic future where people spend most of their time below ground. As the name suggests, a lot of the game takes place in the metro. The Metro universe is based on a series of novels by the Russian author Dimitry Glukhovsky (not sure I spelled that correctly 🙂 ) but I don’t think it follows the story of these novels.

I didn’t play the original MEtro 2033 (a prequal to this game), but even though there are references to events in that game, Last light is definitely playable without having played the previous game. Something I wouldn’t say about a series like Mass effect for instance. The game is a single player FPS with focus on stealth. It’s probably possible to shoot everything, but that doesn’t seem to be the best approach to the game.

 

 

Graphics

The graphics on the PC are outstanding for the most part, with a lot of emphasis on detail. I’m not sure how the game will look and perform on lower end system, but on my new 4th gen I7 with GTX 770 it runs really well. I like the amound of detail they’ve put into some items as well as the envireoment.

 

Audio

I find nothing to complain about wihen it comes to the sound effects, but the English voice acting is a completely different story. I’ve heard the Russian voice acting is much better, but so far I’ve been using the English version and it ranges from average to terrible. The developer’s are Ukrainian and I feel that they didn’t put that much effort into the English voices.

 

User interface

Not much to say here, it’s an FPS, but you have less information on screen then in most other FPSes these days. Something that adds to the imersion of the game and I don’t mind this at all.

 

Gameplay

As mentioned this is an FPS, but it’s not Doom, half-life or CoD. On the other hand it’s not an FPS RPG like  Fallout 3 or Fallout NW either. Stealth is pretty much a necessity, especially on higher difficulties. There is also a ranger mode available that’s soposed to force you to be even more stealthy. In the world of Metro, you buy and sell stuff with military grade ammo. This can also be used in the weapons you find in the game, but for the most part you’ll use “dirty” rounds.  You’ll spend most of your time in the metro since you have to wear gas masks when going outside. The gas mask has replacable filters that last about 5 minutes. If you are easily scared, you might have some problem with this game since you’ll spend a lot of time in dark places and the amound of detail put into the game really adds to the overall dystopic feel of the game. So far the game is super linear, but hopefully you’ll be given some more freedom later on. If the linearity is a problem, I think you may want to look at some reviews before purchasing the game, since this is a first impressions article. In terms of gameplay I don’t really know where to place this game. It has a little bit of Deus Ex HR, but since it’s post apocalyptic Fallout 3 also comes to mind.

 

 

Conclusion

If you don’t mind the linearity, this game is really really good. For some reason, half-life comes into my head while playing this game. I like the world and a lot of the small details they put into this game. I’m not a huge fan of the genre, even though I’ve played a bunch of FPSs. This game fels different in some way and I expect to play more of it. The graphics and overall imersion in this game makes it more apealing to me then most other FPSs Add the stealth elements to that and you have a game that stands out from the rest of the genre.

 

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