xeneth.design

I feel like such a fool for trusting Google enough to get a "4K Streamer" set top box. Consecutive silent firmware updates have apparently disabled its ability to correctly HDMI handshake awaken an LG TV, and it now has a habit of sending a black screen with only audio until power-cycled...

This reminds me slightly of people belatedly getting upset about the state of physical games media a decade after accepting that games ship with progression blocking defects requiring giant day 1 patches, and needn't all fit on the delivery medium in the first place...

Anyone know if the way motion blur is implemented in current engines might be, I dunno, combining poorly with DLSS and other upscalers? Finding that I have to turn blur off in situations I didn't before to make action more readable, even if things look more "gamey" and less "filmic" or whatever...

Enjoying #ValorMortis so far, (surprising how fresh/different 1st person makes standard soulslike design feel) but it's awkwardly cruel progression to teach/unlock weapon upgrades, then immediately hand you a sweet Rapier after baiting you into blowing all your materials on the starting blade, oof!

Without knowing how easy it's gonna be to farm/find upgrade materials in the next chapter and catch that sword up, the temptation to simply restart with more parry skills & optimal systems knowledge is overwhelming, and not helped at all by there being only one save slot...

Going crazy seeing so many intelligent people willingly engaging with Musk's "flying car" narrative and legitimizing it by outlining how dangerous and difficult to control a street legal commercial jump jet vehicle would be- It's a fucking hollow aluminum drone in the SHAPE of a car!

*doubletakes* Wait... is that just the grip meter from Shadow of the Colossus? Thinking about it, SotC is a little like Chrono Trigger and other "beloved evolutionary dead ends" that I'm used to seeing indirect influences from but rarely DIRECT design references.

Even if the "screenshot" tech hasn't quite reached most devs, it's good that almost every metroidvania lets you annotate the map in SOME way... But for whatever reason we're still foolishly basing pin icons on the rewards and collectables instead of the obstacles and abilities needed to get them!?

Actually Desirable Unlocking World Map Icons: * Up Arrow (more height) * Side Arrows (more distance) * Down Arrow (dive/slam) * Cracked Block (destruction) * Ghost (intangibility/immunity) * Keys / Locks (item gating) * Hook (grapple/climbing) * Question Mark (suspicious/unsure)

Even if the "screenshot" tech hasn't quite reached most devs, it's good that almost every metroidvania lets you annotate the map in SOME way... But for whatever reason we're still foolishly basing pin icons on the rewards and collectables instead of the obstacles and abilities needed to get them!?

Sometimes it feels like we're "running out of names" somehow, but then you remember that there are millions of words we don't use because they haven't RECENTLY appeared in the name of another wildly successful game, like: Windermere Impetus Pillory Abrasion Ophidian Formidable etc...

I can't help but feel like one of the core issues with this whole GenAI race to the bottom is that from the perspective of the people with all the power and control over it, there isn't actually THAT big of a difference between "Space Corridor," "System Shock," "Halo," "Mass Effect," and "Pragmata."

Starting to wonder how much of the initial negative reaction to #ControlResonant boils down to Character Action simply not being the current culturally agreed-upon "base" genre underpinning the majority of video games. #Control was "only" a service(weapon!)-able Shooter, (sorry) after all...

Remedy places a lot of trust in the player; a very anti-yellow-paint ethos they're working with, but this time around that seemingly extends to allowing you to make very un-synergistic low damage builds and muddle through the early game with a very negative opinion of the combat...

Starting to wonder how much of the initial negative reaction to #ControlResonant boils down to Character Action simply not being the current culturally agreed-upon "base" genre underpinning the majority of video games. #Control was "only" a service(weapon!)-able Shooter, (sorry) after all...

Having "wasted" so much time in MOBA spaces, I don't think I'm particularly good at execution in either genre TBH, but I DO think in build/theory craft, and the early loadouts I see in streams and hear described on various gaming podcasts don't make a lick of sense to me...

Starting to wonder how much of the initial negative reaction to #ControlResonant boils down to Character Action simply not being the current culturally agreed-upon "base" genre underpinning the majority of video games. #Control was "only" a service(weapon!)-able Shooter, (sorry) after all...

Still got #BigWalk on the brain in a Big Way, and we're probably only halfway through?! So much of game design as a craft is additive, for lots of reasons that get reinforced by the iterative nature of something so densely interwoven with the complex technologies that make the medium possible...

House House's subtractive design philosophy on this title is SO impressive, especially in this moment when we're wrestling with/against generative tools to learn FARTHER into void-filling, "more is more," kitchen-sink-and-a-bag-of-chips style creativity...