Corollary: a well-stocked salesman surrounded by mortal danger will still charge you through the nose for the armaments you need to defeat the zombies/monsters/terrorists who are clearly a terrible threat to his person.

It was the best symbol I could think of for 'This guy is not dead'. I'm not entirely happy with the body, but like I said it's just a test.

I did not mean to hassle you about it. I mostly just wanted to make the Metal Gear reference.

Looks like that one guy feel asleep.

Thanks! I think the high singing and harmonies might make it seem a little Beatles-ish. It was a lot of fun to record, anyway. I had all the instruments recorded about a year ago and kicking around with no vocals, then a couple of months back I finally put some vocals on it, and here we are.

For example, I'm never worried about whether a game will be worth it when it's finished or not, because by that time the best part of the whole thing will already be over, and I'll be too focused on what to do next to worry about whether my time was well-spent, because I already knew whether it was well-spent or not every moment I was spending it.

I don't know, having hit pretty much the one-year mark, while I'm starting to actually have something to show for it, which is totally awesome, I also feel like the huge amount of designing/redesigning, writing/rewriting code, etc. has been quite a drain, and I'm sometimes definitely just fighting to stay motivated.

I mean, I'm not counting on blowing everyone's minds, but it's scary to think about pouring three years or so of work into something and then at the end having everyone just be totally indifferent, or whatever. The stakes seem high sometimes, is all, and obviously while I'd be doing it anyway, I'm writing this so people can actually play it, and not so it can sit on my hard drive and rot.

So, you know, it's a little stressful, because it's difficult to tell whether you're going to get to the end and everyone's going to be like, "THIS IS AWESOME. MAKE MORE OF IT HAPPEN. HERE IS SOME MONEY SO YOU CAN STILL EAT FOOD WHILE YOU DO THAT" or whether it's just going to get panned or be some big joke or whatever.

Not that I don't find the work fulfilling, or whatever, but I'm doing a difficult degree and developing a game full time on the side, for no pay, and for living with the combination of living off money mostly from relatives and working sixteen hours a day most days, I would like for it to be at least a marginal success.

Edit: whatever whatever whatever.

It's been a long day.

That's looking mighty sharp, Paul!

There's definitely a huge element of uncertainty in working on a long-term project. I get kind of worried sometimes that I'm just wasting an enormous amount of time for nothing.

Since a matrix is just an array of numbers, it is A-okay to call that a matrix, even if you don't happen to be using standard matrix multiplication.

Sometimes I write the saccharine pop music (but with sneaky key changes):

Some Lingering Regrets.

Edit: also, this song is sort of old.

For all those who claimed that an IDE could do everything the command line could, try setting up a combined Ada/Objective-C project in Xcode.  Let me know how you did it, if you pull it off.

The cutoff between what is achievable with an IDE versus what is achievable solely with command line tools is eerily close to the line between actual development and elaborate, technical procrastination.

I am working on my slow descent into a hellscape of substance abuse and 90s movie references.

Also, some games, I guess?

I kid because I love.

So... y'all hacking the Gibson with undertech, or what?

I'm so indie that I was embarrassed by this thread long before "undertech" had even heard of it.

Also, I'm a little embarrassed that "undertech" sounds like a name from Hackers.

Or at least that's my impression of their business strategy these days.

Absolutely the opposite. Like multimillion dollar publishers are idiots who can't tie their own shoes?

They want to protect their release date, which is where half of their development money goes. If that means fucking a paying customer over, well, will they refuse to pay? No? Fine, whatever.

People seem to be riding the "publishers are trying to fight pirates but unknowingly hurting their own customers" train, but the fact is that they get feedback. They know paying customers hate it, they just don't care as long as you keep buying. The nice thing about artistic endeavours is that there's some inelasticity, especially when recognized names are involved. So they can keep screwing you, and you'll keep paying to get screwed.

And then you'll say "x publisher doesn't get it." Man, those motherfuckers are laughing all the way to the bank.

I think the thing to remember is that it isn't Roger Ebert's club, and most of the people in the club have no problem with games. Hence why art museums are putting on game-focused exhibits now and again.

Also, ugh, I can't get my thoughts sorted out pre-coffee, but if anything, Roger Ebert's love of film is more of an inspiration than his half-formulated thoughts on video games. Great films grew up out of a discourse engendered by films people loved regardless of the fact that they were perceived as trivial.

People who are like "someday we'll learn to make real art games" don't seem to get the fact that real art films weren't considered art simply because they got to some objective level of quality, but because people became entrenched enough in the medium to understand its idiosyncratic language and use that to express themselves. This is the same deal with games. Roger Ebert doesn't get it because he can't see how Braid puts the pain of loss into a critical response to Super Mario Bros. (and come on, how cool is that?). He's missing the point entirely.

So I don't know. Ebert is an old man, he's had a tough life, he's been through a ton and he really has done a lot for film criticism. I don't think people should be out and out bashing him, but no matter what you say to him about games, he just isn't going to get it. Not because he's stupid or whatever, but just because he hasn't grown up in this medium of expression.

There is an interesting topic to be made out of this, I think, and it's that there's still a shortage of in-depth artistic critique of games on anything more than a technical or commercial level.

I mean, there are a few sites that lean in that direction, I liked the RPS breakdown of X-Com, for example, but by and large people writing about games stick to "the graphics are bitchin'" and "fun gameplay for the whole family!"

I'm not saying game writing should change just to justify the fact that games are art to a bunch of dicks, but personally I'd like to see fewer "reviews" and more actual "criticism," because certainly there is no one physically stopping people from treating games as art, and who cares what the haters think?

Disclaimer for this and the last post: I have not yet had coffee.

Edit: also, fuck, man. Lobster telephone.

I don't know. It is interesting to hear everyone's take on this. I tend to offhandedly refer to video games as art, for convenience sake, and because 90% of people don't seem to have this huge issue with it. Most of the actual fine art artists I know don't even have an issue with it.

But honestly, there are installation pieces that are walkthroughs, basically, they have a start and a destination, and in between there is a process of some kind, so you could easily argue they're goal directed, but we still consider them fine art. That seriously isn't the issue, and I get the feeling from Ebert that the goal-directed part is just some silly argument he came up with to justify his opinion rather than the actual reason he'd prefer to believe games are not art.

He makes it pretty clear that commercialism is his major issue. But, I mean, this is just the same issue as with pop surrealism in the art world. Sure, lowbrow works sell for a lot, and they are shown in major galleries, but are they art? I mean, can we let them into the club? "Are games art?" is just a cover for the question "are games culturally significant?" And, yeah, take a look around.

But still people will waffle: "Well, we admitted found toilets, paintings of celebrities and something called 'Lobster Telephone' into the club, but can we let games in?"

It's just... very silly.

I can't believe anyone is still listening to anything he has to say about this. I mean, there are tons of game-oriented art shows, several recognized folks from the art world, at least, are working on interactive digital stuff, and the VAG (tee hee) already had an exhibit focused around video games (although I hear it wasn't great).

Point being, apparently having your stuff hosted in a respected, international art gallery does not make it art if Roger Ebert says it isn't.

Edit: Also, I don't know that you should hope for his death or whatever. The man's been through a lot, and obviously I have much respect for his film criticism. He's just really out of his element here, and I do kind of wish he'd stop embarrassing himself by looking so incredibly out of touch.

* Using 'Up' as a jump button in anything else than a fighting game.

How about Prince of Persia style where there's a leap and an upwards jump?