the old nasties

[egypturnash]

I was looking through my old sketchbook scans for a particular drawing to maybe fool with in AI and I found this little gem instead.

I am 99% sure I drew this on the bus to or from Spümcø. That kinda tells you everything you need to know about it.



Oh, and if anyone's wondering about the videogame whim? I tried rebuilding the swarm behavior in Unity last night and today and actually got worse performance than I had with Blitz's native 2D alpha blits. It's possible that I don't comprehend the Right Way To Code For Unity, of course - but it doesn't seem like that much less work to pick that up than to remember C(++) and wrangle OpenGL myself.

Also, I still think this is cool. But not at all foul.

Comments

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

You and your commercial software. :)

OpenGL really isn't that hard once you have the boilerplate code down, and especially not for 2D applications. 3D is another story, but that's mostly because it requires a ton of math and, you know, efficient algorithms.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Efficient algoritms? Hahaha. Lets just replace those with data files instead. Sure the game will be 20 gigs and have to be shipped on 4 dvds but if the boys in marketing do their job that will be no problem at all.

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

Five DVDs. The program code itself is going to be colossal, and it has to be included on each disc.

I mean, there's a bunch of bug-workaround code for dealing with that one boss battle on disc three that really should only be loaded in that one place, and then those fifty-seven odd other hacks that had to be added after to correct some other bizarre behavior introduced by the workaround, but by the time we thought about it, it had already been so tightly woven into the rest of the code that there was no pulling it out.

And don't even get me started on the copy protection code. The hardware dongle we ended up using plugs into the system's poorly documented expansion port and we had to license an expensive third-party library to abstract the interface to a level that it was usable. Nevermind that the hardware manufacturer has repeatedly recommended against utilising the port as future models of the system will have it removed…

If we throw enough money at Popular Review Site and Mainstream Gaming Magazine, I think we'll have a hit on our hands. Everyone and their grandmother will be rushing to the store to pre-order a copy of Shark Jumper XVII Online.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Once we finally send it to market the boys at Game Ovoid™ magazine are sure to give us plenty of good copy to put on the box and in the TV ads, because our parent company owns the magazine too, and staffs it with ex-porn fluffers!

We're going to flog the hell out of the mandatory 1080p resolution, even though less than 5% of our market has a TV that supports that standard, because we are getting a huge kickback from Sony and Magnavox to create incentives for consumers to but $10,000 TV sets.

Also, we have to make sure that the "topless mod" appears to have come from a third party. Wouldn't want congress to know we were selling soft core porn to children!

The copy protection is beautiful by the way, if any one of the 22 CDs are placed in a system that's running Linux our central server dispatches a rent-a-cop to give the player a full cavity search.

Who cares if it’s the same exact game our competitor put out six months ago, it uses 70% more texture memory and is therefore a glorious improvement!

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

Each frame stays onscreen for twice as long, too, giving the player a better chance to marvel at our glorious creation. Which is great, because there was a serious flicker problem when the game was running at its original speed. The European release, of course, will give players an even better opportunity to savor each frame. in the five months between the American and European releases, the hype is sure to build to critical mass across the pond. I can't imagine those old chaps will have any other game on their minds.

Say, why not add a secret mini game that requires the player to finish the game three times with all weapons collected in under five hours to earn the ability to play a game of pong except with laser guns and monkeys and other random, quirky humor that no one else has ever done. And high definition textures with anisotropic filtering, those are a must. Then we can later release this game on Game Console's Online Internet Game Download Service. It will be a huge hit!

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

*shrug* 30-day demo versions are for fiddling with. I'm hoping to avoid reinventing the wheel and writing tons of support code. Though the amount of reference data involved in some of these things is pretty huge...

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Oooh boy. The drawing itself isn't actualy the disgusting part. Send a copy of that off to comedy central I bet they'll pick it up for a season.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Oh, by the way, I saw this, and it made me think of you.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Aaaawwwww!

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Wish I had a gamepad...

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

They're cheap :)

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

HUG LIFE

[dv-girl.livejournal.com]

That looks like one of the Is from The Maxx.