Sim Chiba City:

Whenever I find an interesting picture online that gets my brain parts moving I save it as a reference if I'm ever looking for ideas later on. In that spirit! Share pictures here that make you want to make games.

Boss Battle:

I'd say about 30% of my game development courses were actually useful. The other ones were useful because they required no work so I could pour the extra time into developing games on the side. The real value of school is paying to have 4 years where you're socially allowed to not have a job and sit on your computer all day. Take advantage of it and you will reap what you sew. Expect any school to teach you everything you need and you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

If you're just thinking about it from a corporate perspective, then yes the CS major is more valuable. But then, why would you want to think about it from the perspective of a horrible monster like a corporation?

From your portfolio it looks like you're more than capable of making interesting games - I honestly just don't know what your goal is by setting up this whole website system. I can see how it might work as a motivating factor to keep you going, if you know people are waiting to play it.

What throws me off is why you would implement a payment system for one weeks worth of prototype. I don't think many people are going to be willing to do that. Your audience is either:

Gamers - Do not care about prototypes, shit on anything that isn't polished.
Developers - Can make their own prototypes, are poor

So I'm not sure exactly who the site is for with your current plan. Payment aside, setting up a place to absorb ideas and display prototypes on a regular basis would obviously be pretty useful for you.

I don't have an overall design principle to apply to every single game I will ever work on, but what I try to do is define a few guiding principles for each game as I am prototyping it and getting a better feel for how it should play. When I start feature creeping myself or thinking about making major design changes, I go back to those principles and evaluate them based on that.

Gone insane, or the only sane man in an insane world? 

Needed a late night break from flashpunking. I decided to make this commeorative Phil Fish, Derek Yu, and Jonathan Blow high resolution wallpaper to keep motivated. You don't have to thank me.

http://imgur.com/pKeHG

Also, here's the Derek Yu only version since I figured it might be a popular alternative:

http://imgur.com/QiqsD

"CIRCADIN, LEXAPRO, DEXAMPHETAMINE AND ALCOHOL"

If these are your drugs of choice SlGVATR then I can see why you find yourself uninterested in the vastness of space. Get off the booze and the pharmaceuticals and squeegee off your 3rd eye.


...except for the speed. That's okay.

Everyone dies sometime, drink the fucking soda.

Or take speed. 

I can't believe nobody has mentioned the final scene of Half-Life: Episode 2.

In once scene they manage to make you feel helpless, vengeful, and incredibly sad.

Kind of how I feel about Episode 3.

I'm just about to finish Hitch Hiker's Guide 5, then it's Neuromancer time. Also some C & C++ programming books.

Neuromancer got me hooked on Gibson, just finished plowing through his short story collection Burning Chrome. (Spoilers: It was good)

Superb Joe saves another thread from chaos. 

Welp, looks like they've now started denying that the scene is attempted rape, or even sexual assault.  So there goes handling the subject maturely out the window.

Well, I'm out then.

I need a drink.  

I won't blame them for trying, as many people seem eager to do. I will blame them for failing though. 

I'm not worried about the capability of a Tomb Raider game to handle a rape scene in an adult way

Really?  That thought petrifies me.

It's one thing to doubt the capability of the developers, but an entirely different thing to doubt the potential of a game. Remember what V says, "We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail."

The producer said he doesn't think players want to "project themselves" onto the character of Lara Croft, but rather act as a guide and "protect" her.

is what worries me.  The goal of this sort of game should be to immerse you more into the character rather than less.  You shouldn't be using your manly gaming skills to protect the defenseless character.  You should feel like you ARE the woman beset by danger, and AS the woman gather the strength to combat it.

I agree, that was the most concerning thing I read in the article. I'm not worried about the capability of a Tomb Raider game to handle a rape scene in an adult way but if the game is intended to provide that "human being pushed to the limit, forced into extreme responses" feeling then why on earth wouldn't you make the player want to project as much as possible onto the character?

i think it's a pretty transparent attempt to generate "controversy" esp seeing as no one really gave a shit about tomb raider for like the last 7 years. it sucks how their tactic is already working because everyone's talking about the rape scene.

yes it's good that games try to tackle "taboo" subjects or whatever but it's also important how and for what reasons it's done.

Yes, it is very important how and why it is done. The "how" in this case has yet to be seen and the "why" was already explained in a reasonable way by the devs, but most people here are just assuming they are being insincere in their reasoning. It seems very transparent to you, but I'm not going to shoot down an attempt at maturity before I even see the results.

There are non-terrible ways to handle rape-as-a-theme but I don't think QTEs are the way to go.

Has it been confirmed this is being handled as a QTE? It wasn't mentioned in the article but I haven't seen all the gameplay footage from E3. It definitely wouldn't be my first choice as a designer, but QTE's seem to be the band aid for all non-primary-mechanic stuff that you want the player to do. I'm curious to see how they developed this.

"We're not trying to be over the top, shock people for shock's sake," he said. "We're trying to tell a great origin story."

Right... Yet for some reason I can't help but think there isn't some kind of sick, underlying motive for working this into the story. I mean, we're talking about game developers, after all, who evolved from gamers, who in turn are notorious for being dateless wonders and adept misogynists.

...

So at what point do we draw the line between "compelling games mechanic" and "creepy, revolting, and downright offensive nerd fantasy"?

So I guess what you're saying is that no character's background in a video game should ever involve rape, in any way, regardless of its portrayal? Rape is completely off bounds for video games to explore because its just a nerd fantasy? (By the way, I am friends with many nerds, none of whom fantasize about raping women so far as I know.) And here I thought we were working in a medium that could do anything, but I guess I was wrong and its limited to non-serious topics only.

And should I even bother responding to this?

"we're talking about game developers, after all, who evolved from gamers, who in turn are notorious for being dateless wonders and adept misogynists"

What if I said something like, "We're talking about women here who, after all, are notorious for getting drunk and acting like sluts and then complaining when they get raped".

That would seem pretty ignorant wouldn't it? You are being just as biased as you are accusing the developers of being.

I think sexism is a big fucking problem in our industry by the way. I'm not saying it isn't, but let's not start throwing specific accusations at a developer before you even see how the game handles it. There are plenty of already released games to pick apart.

similarly, resident evil 6 is going to be great

I'm waiting on Ninja Gaiden 4, pre-order confirmed.