Star Control: Sequel Wishlist
What would you like to see in a sequel?
What would you like to see in a sequel?
I have a 2012 MacBook Pro that I'm using to type this on.
As a Windows/PC user mainly, I am used to my PC laptops and desktops start to feel slow and obsolete after a few years.
Yet, this laptop feels as good as ever. The display is still amazing, arguably better than my Surface Book 3 (Which I have here and yet find myself using the Mac when doing light work) and the GUI remains as smooth and responsive as ever.
That is one big benefit of MacBook Pros over every PC laptop I've ever used, they retain their value.
Brad’s hand youth system. Hand on left: untreated. Hand on right: one day of Brad’s youth system.
The secret ingredient: Bee stings!
Changelog for what I'm working on for Ashes v2.0:
Structure Changes
I do my first Spring inspection on the new hive. The bees are really gentle so I don't bother wearing gear. No problem.
But when I go to put the hive back togoether, one young bee has managed to get stuck on the outside. Knowing that she isn't likely to find her way back in (she can't fly yet) I take her on my finger and try to get her to walk back in the front. She insists on walking on my arm.
Eventually I gently blow to get her to move back towards my fingers and into the hive. When she reaches my knuckles, BAM, she stings me. No good deed...
I've worked on a lot of games over the years. It's really hard, on a personal level, to dedicate multiple years to a single project. It's the nature of the business but at the end of each project I end up in quite a bit of a funk.
Looking back on my own schedule here is what I've been worked on:
I recently wrote an article for Gamasutra on scripting languages and game engines.
Whether it be Lua or Python or some other scripting language, I think there is a lot to be said about not having to compile your code after every change. It makes iteration much faster to be able to be playing the game and be writing code changes to improve it while it's running and have those changes simply update.
I don't have a strong preference between Lua and Python other than I prefer Lua's C++ like nature and it's small and fast. Our engine, Cider, can use any but our next generation of games will be using Lua.
Using Lua means other people could, in effect, completely mod up our games to be completely different because the gameplay is largely available.
Traditionally, performance is an issue in using scripting. But that was before we had a core-neutral engine core: Nitrous. If you have a 4 core system (8 logical threads) then scripting becomes a non-issue. At that point, it's really video card stuff that becomes the limiting factor.
I'm a total convert. The only thing I don't love, which we have to deal with still, is the debugging.
It's funny how Twitter started out claiming it was a messaging service. And yet, over the years, it has become as moderated, often with a political bias to its moderation, as any community forum.
I wonder if it might be worth putting in effort on JoeUser.com. Before there was Facebook or Twitter, we had JoeUser which was intended to be a place where people could easily share their thoughts with friends.
This will be the feedback and discussion thread to the upcoming May edition of Stardock Magazine.