First Encounters and the Screams of Dying Plans

We flew over to where the blip showed on the map. What we found was a Sand People encampment around a small mountain. We surveyed the area and decided to land a bit farther away, I still prefer to keep the Badger as safe as possible, at least as long as it’s not paid for. So we walked. And what we found from the ground level was lots of buildings but few people and an entrance into the mountain from which people exited, looking not very happy. At the entrance to the mine we found the object of our search, Jaa Adik. We explained that we meant no harm and just wanted to see what the fuss was all about add our mission was to ascertain what happened. Inside the mine we found containers of water and crates of explosives. That was the point I started to think that maybe we should just go away. But before we could leave, an explosion buried us in, causing a boulder to mangle my arm. After everyone was excavated from the rubble, I called it quits and headed outside, hoping to reach safe ground before passing out. But outside the cave, Jaa Adik was waiting with open guns. I drew my own but he managed to shoot first, burning my side and thoroughly disabling my left arm. I managed to duck out of the way and then the rest came and battled him out. At the end, I was saved from unconsciousness by Continue Reading →


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האימון של אתמול

את האימון של אתמול אני יכול לסכם, בצורה הכי טובה לדעתי, בצירוף האותיות GG. למי שלא מבין, GG או Good Game הינם ראשי תיבות אינטרנטים שהומצאו לשימוש בסיום משחק מוצלח וכסוג של מתן כבוד ליריבים שהפסידו או ניצחו. מאוד דומה לשני טורי השחקנים שלוחצים אחד לשני את הידיים בסוף משחק כדורגל. אבל מה שצריך להבין הוא את נסיבות השימוש. לא מדובר ב”יאיי! ניצחתי!”. אם כתשת את היריב לחלוטין, זה לא היה משחק טוב. אם הוא כיסח לך את הצורה, זה לא היה משחק טוב. אבל עם המשחק כלל עליות וירידות, לקיחת ואיבוד הובלה, מהלכים מרהיבים וכשלונות מחפירים וכל אחד פעם בצורה מאוד מקצועית ופשוט הטוב ביותר ניצח… זה GG. אז באימון אתמול, למדתי מוותיקים ממני ומחדשים ממני, הותקלתי והתקלתי אחרים, הראיתי לאחרים איפה הם חלשים והראו לי איפה אני טועה, עירבבנו טכניקות, הרחבנו מהלכים, ירדנו לפרטים והתעקשנו על קאטות אחידות, שלמות ומהירות. באמת הרגשתי שבסוף ה-session יכולתי לסמן 1+ בשורה של המיומנות שלי בדף הדמות.


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Interesting on Steam

Lego Worlds is Lego Co. dive into the Minecraft clone business and they might be big and tough and interesting enough to actually make it. Now in Early Access. Trove, at first glance, looks like a generic Minecraft clone among all the rest trying to claw out some room. But what’s different about this is that they’re going massively multiplayer and, unlike Minecraft, they’re taking the gaming side and running wild with it. So, I’m looking forward to it. Out 9th of July. Interstellar Rift looks like a space simulator built out of LEGO bits and the best parts of DF-9 and I have to say that, as an avid space simulation fan and a typical builder/explorer personality, I’m quite looking forward to this and hope it comes out good. Early Access on the 23rd of June.


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להקדים ציפיות

אנחנו רוצים להוציא גרסה גדולה בקרוב עם הרבה שיפורים ועדכונים ולכן עבדתי הרבה על דיאלוגים בימים האחרונים. אני עדיין משתדל לתת הערכות קצת נדיבות לגבי כמה זמן כל דבר ייקח לי כי אני יודע שאני מאוד גרוע בלתת חסם עליון לכמה זמן אני צריך. אבל, מכיוון שאני מכיר את המערכת הזאת יותר טוב מכל אחד אחר, זה לא נורא מפתיע כשאני בדרך כלל סוגר אותם מוקדם. אבל זה באמת שעשע אותי אתמול. אתמול התחלתי בלסיים את החלק השני של המשימה שנשארה לי מיום לפני. הכל היה סבבה רק עמית ביקש ממני לסדר קצת את ה-colliders על הכפתורים כי הם לא הגיבו כל כך טוב. ובזמן שטיפלתי בזה, הוא בא לפרוס בפנינו את התוכנית לימים הקרובים כדי שהכל יהיה מוכן. אז אני קיבלתי משימה שהייתה אמורה לקחת יום החל ממחר בבוקר. אז כשסיימתי את המשימה הקודמת, התחלתי לעבוד על זאת. הדיווח האחרון שלי לפני שעזבתי את המשרד? “בגלל שזמי כבר הלך אז אני לא יכול לקבל תיקון לשני רקעים אבל חוץ מזה, הכל כבר סגור.” כשאמרתי את זה אז גם עמית וגם טל נראו כאילו הם לא בטוחים אם להיות מופתעים או לא. וסיימתי את זה כל כך מהר שאני לא יכול להתחיל את המשימה הבאה כי אני מחכה למשימה אחרת שעוד לא נגמרה. אז זה קצת גרם לי להרגיש טוב עם עצמי.


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Blasted Droids and Flashing Lights

Throutek lost balance for a second and almost sent the white paste down the wrong hole. He quickly put down the bowl next to the console and coughed, causing his side to sting and burn. He lifted up his shirt and looked at the bandages with the tiny red smudge covering his left waist. At least it’s not as bad as Naritt got. He spat at the nearby bin and tried to swallow the rest before he continued typing. As we were scouring the operations room’s computers and electronics, a previously locked door opened and a bunch of worker droids filed out. I wasn’t expecting them to, but not really surprised, when they started to attack us. With welding tools, of all things. Me and Naritt engaged with blasters after the droids started advancing. We managed to take out three of the four droids, even after Zimir wanted to keep one for himself. Then a proper security droid showed up and blasted Naritt and me before I got the luckiest shot of my life and hit his central power source or something, making it explode. We quickly bandaged what we could and started scouring the rest of the facility. We found a couple of stimpacks which Naritt needed more than me. Then we found a report saying the goal of the whole facility was moot. And the map in the operations room displayed a coordinate which was probably where our target was headed, the next stage of this search. As Continue Reading →


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Throutek and a Band of Misfits

Captain’s Log, I’ve been in the Rim for a week. I’ve managed to acquire a ship. It’s a refurbished clunker on the cheap but it was still too much for me to afford and since I already had to clean it, derust and debuff it, I didn’t bother erasing the strange, snarling, black and white animal painted on its side. This led to a long service contract for a corporation known as Isotech and a chance alliance with a bunch of other ne’er-do-wells, the least weird of which is a human. The others were an over eager droid and self-important Drall. Competent as I am on my own, my skill set does not cover every possible occurrence on the Rim and so their addition to the crew was acceptable. On our first assignment together, we had to go to a desert wasteland called Tatooine and find an informant. Apparently, Isotech sent someone to find a hidden facility and that someone disappeared. We went to the surface, found the informant and received the coordinates of the facility. Not wanting to risk the ship by landing it in the middle of no where, we took a couple of local beasts on a few hours trek into the desert where we found the facility’s entrance. Inside we found a fully operational underground base hidden in the dunes but it was completely deserted. Throutek leaned back in his chair, taking a break from the writing to consume another spoonful of the dull, nutrient rich, Continue Reading →


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Throutek’s Second Chance

My parents, By the time you read this, I will be outside Ascendancy space. Do not try and reach me. Even if you could, I have no intention of turning back. I have tried to be the person you wanted me to be, the person everyone wanted me to be. But, much as I tried, it appears that I can’t. I am not like other Chiss. I have… desires. I wish to see, to experience. I wish to know. And, be your reasons as they may, yours and grandma’s decline to talk about who my grandfather is and where he had gone has driven me to search on my own. And I cannot find the answers I seek inside the Ascendancy. I took a merchant ship to a way station and from there a transport to the core. I am now making my way to the eastern rim, somewhere along the Perlemian Trade Route. I might write further letters and I might not. I might return and I might not. I know it is not exactly customary in our society but know that I love you and will always cherish all that you have done for me. Who knows? Sometimes goodbye could be a second chance. Your son, always, Route The old woman put the pad down on the table and looked at Throutek’s parents. She thought about it until his mother couldn’t wait no longer. “Well, mother, what do you think?” “I should have known that saying nothing would lead Continue Reading →


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Interesting on Steam

Act of Aggression is a spiritual successor to Act of War and its expansion pack. Those two have been on my list for a while because they looked awesome – though I have yet had the pleasure of playing them. Act of Aggression again promises to take us back to the old school RTS games only in glorified modern graphics and experience. So my thought is to quickly get to playing Act of War and then eagerly await for this. Coming in June. Victory Command by looks and definition is a modern military, squad based, 5v5 battle arena. Meaning, it works like a regular MOBA except you control modern military units, each player has a small squad of units, you can costumise  your layout of units and you can control each of them individually and it looks like it’s very well made (from people who were on the Command & Conquer team, they say). Well, that looks way more interesting to play than another fantasy/genre confused regular MOBA. If they nail a story to this, I’m betting it’ll take off like a #@#%@#^##&)!#. Now on Early Access. Space Rogue looks like a cross between an expanded and revamped FTL and Galactrix… maybe. I’m not sure from what I can see and so I’m not sure if I should be excited about this or not. So, best to reserve judgement. But it looks nice. Early Access on the 14th. ARK: Survival Evolved looks like Jurassic Park if it was Rust – it’s multiplayer and every player Continue Reading →


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About the Game

I’ve had a talk with our Lead Visionary in the company about what I can and can’t write on the game. Although we have extended our testing circle, the game is not finished and we are still hard at work on it. As per these conditions, I’m allowed to say, in general, what I’m doing but I can’t go into specifics like features or style or assets or anything that a competitor can use against us. Yesterday I finished a huge dialog revamp that took me almost three weeks (because I was seek for about two weeks of them) but it’s finished, it works, I removed the old material and checked that nothing breaks. So, phew. I hate it when things drag on forever. Today, after making sure two bugs are not reproducible, I took on a new task… which was to take the dialog I just finished and convert it to a phone version. And it’s not an itsy bitsy thing. When previous dialogs were converted, they were one, two, maybe three objects that need to be converted. This dialog? Eight objects! This is not a day long affair.


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The Kill With Skill Debate

Or “Why Wolfenstein – The New Order is better than Bulletstorm in making players do things a bit differently (Except, maybe, driving a dinosaur into combat)”. What’s the deal with that headline? One of the tag lines for the 2011 Bulletstorm was “Kill with Skill”. It was a core mechanic of the game. It’s something that garnered a lot of praise for the game. And it was one of the things that annoyed me the most about it. No, I meant, what the hell does it mean? Oh. In Bulletstorm, you get points for killing fashionably. When you shoot a guy in the face, that’s a couple of points. If you pull him towards you, kick him back, blast him in half with the shotgun and then shoot the pieces with the rocket launcher. That’s a heck of a lot of points. And these points are your currency in the game. Ok… What’s the problem with that? It sounds cool. It sounds cool. And that’s about where it ends. In Bulletstorm, ammo and health drops are scarce. You get most of your boosts from some sort of recharge station you find all around and they only accept those points. Otherwise, you can’t get ammo. And that’s annoying. So, what’s the big problem? Just kill the stuff the way the game says. It gets tedious. Extremely tedious, extremely fast. You know how when everything is special, nothing is? Well, when every kill needs to be fancy, then no kill is. And some Continue Reading →


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