u/riel__vis

I was debating whether or not to share this story, but hey ho, I'll be critical. I'm not a fan of Epic or Sweeney, and have no personal intention of using their platform to play or make games.

I went to Gamebridge a few months ago, a Cambridge-based student game dev festival where we get to share our game projects with the community. We had speakers from various people and organisations, and it was really cool! One of the speakers was a spokesperson from Epic (who I won't name because this isn't an attack on that individual; this is entirely on Epic the company).

They were supposed to deliver a session about building a career in games, but everything they said or advised was coupled with "...and Epic has [insert tool or resource] so you can do it!" But even then, I cannot remember much of what they said having to do with actually building a career, regardless if it was coupled with their platform or not. It felt like a slideshow of resources provided by Epic for us to use to build games, not careers.

I did not walk away with any better idea of how to build a career, nor was I sold on using Epic to make future games. It was like if Gordon Ramsay was delivering a session he called "How To Build Your Culinary Career", and the only thing he told you was that you can use HexClad cookware to cook your food.

Anyway, that's my Epic experience. Screw them.

It is so beautiful and heart-wrenching.

Loki is incredibly flawed through to his death in Infinity War. He's a narcissist, he is terrified of being alone, yet he always had a lonesome way of escape. And this persists in the first half of S1. Though we do see through the veil a bit initially, he tries to maintain that "illusion" as he puts it, continuing to attempt trickery and escape UNTIL the end of S1E3. In the second half of S1, when there is nowhere for him to go, his illusion means nothing. He's genuinely feeling remorse and regret for what he has done, in his remorse he admits his flaws, and he finds value and concern for someone other than himself. It all rises to the end when he lays this out for Sylvie, only for her to betray him and he is heartbroken and terrified.

S2 starts with him coming down from his craze, and it cuts to him being well established in the TVA. Meanwhile, the TVA is starting to crumble under the pressure of uncut timelines. This is a threat to Loki's new home and to those around him, and he is desperate to prevent a total meltdown so that he doesn't lose what he has. The situation gets worse and worse, and it all climaxes in the final episode when he realizes that the only way to save them is to sacrifice himself, BY PLACING HIMSELF TO SPEND ETERNITY ALONE HOLDING TOGETHER THE MULTIVERSE.

Loki is so tragically heroic.

And the music??? Swelling. Stunning. The blend of electronic and Nordic folk instruments gives me chills every time I listen to the soundtrack. That with the setting is like, "Ancient Futurism", which is PERFECT FOR WHAT THE TVA IS. They're a technologically fantastical institution in charge of managing every instance and variation of history to ever exist. I am star-stuck by the setting and devastated in the best way possible by the character that is Loki, and I cry every time I think about it.

It strikes something in me nothing ever has. It's almost religious.

(I wrote all this while listening to "Purpose is Glorious" lol)

I'm not asking for advice. I just catch myself sometimes whenever someone shares an idea they have for a game, there's a bajillion things I wanna be like "Make sure you do x, y, z, a, and more."

These are things we've learned either from tutorials or experience, and I wonder what bits of wisdom other game devs have that they'd like to share?

I had this realization last night and I wanted to share it.

In life, especially as adults, we have major objectives and responsibilities; our university/educational programmes, our careers and jobs, our friends and families, and our homes and bills to name a few. I have a tendency to look at these things as one major task, and whenever I have to work on them I do so with the weight of every individual task that makes up the larger.

In the case of university for example, if I'm working on an assignment, I am conscious about the research, the structure, the writing, the proofreading, and the citation even though I would only be at the research stage.

For me, I've bundled my career objective with my home objective because I desperately want to move out on my own, but I'm struggling to find a job I can sustain long-term. The noise around the smaller tasks like reading a job description or paying a bill makes it feel like I'm carrying the weight of my entire future.

Doing things this way also leaves me unsatisfied with the progress I've made because I'm only concerned with the whole objective, not the tasks that work towards completing the objective.

The background of my mind is swarming with everything that is going to come.

I think I do this because I grew up being hyper vigilant for reasons I won't disclose, but I think it left in me this baseline of, "I am the safest and most secure when I am prepared for everything and anything.", but it's exhausting. It's emotionally exhausting and it makes me feel like my life is one massive problem I need to chip away at rather than something to be enjoyed.

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This might be a weird/gross analogy, but, in a way, life is like a series of meals. (TW for misophonia/misokinesia? If reading about food consumption is icky?)

I've been looking at my meals with dread, wondering how on Earth I'm going to clear this plate without disrupting the other patrons. I can't just toss the plate and create a mess, that would be rude to others and I'm left hungry. The only way I ought to clear the plate is by eating the food.

Because I'm only thinking about clearing the plate, my first instinct is to fit the entire thing in my mouth and chew through it all. When I get tired of chewing, I spit it back on the plate to deal with after I've had some rest. Now the plate is this mangled mess of chewed food and I haven't actually eaten yet. It will only be eaten when it's been chewed enough to swallow whole. Clearing the plate this way is not only exhausting and unpleasant, it's also distracting you from the beauty of the restaurant you're in and the other patrons you happen to be sharing a meal with.

There is a far better way to clear the plate. You cut off pieces into bite-size pieces, and you chew through those one at a time. You're still eating the food, and it may still take a while, but in a way that is far easier AND actually gets you eating the food. And because you're clearing the plate more easily, you get to enjoy the beauty of the space you're in as well as the flavors of what you are eating. Some meals will taste better than others, and there may be some meals you need to finish but would rather not. No matter the quality of meal, it's far easier to finish it piece by piece, bite by bite.

Looking at life from outside the restaurant, it looks like we live to clear the plates. But when you're sat in the restaurant, we live to savor each bite one at a time, and each only after the previous. ❤️

Edit for context: Valve has an artist page on Spotify called Aperture Science Psychoacoustics Laboratories, which is where the official OST for Portal can be found. Recently, there was an EP called "Winter Spiral" released under that artist. We think someone hacked their way to releasing music under Valve's artist page.

I made two reports.

The first one I did was an "error report", and I got an email from the Escalations team yesterday asking for a link to the content I was reporting. I replied to that today with the link.

The second report was done just now with their customer support chat (I didn't realise the email was asking for information, I thought it was just a report receipt T-T). I explained the situation and they looked it over, and they've created a ticket with the Content team to review it.

I have no idea how effective this will actually be, but it's been reported at least twice. Not sure if anyone else here has also reported it?

I really struggle to just open an engine and experiment with mechanics without knowing exactly or enough about what it is I want to make, but I also don't have a ton of confidence in how to effectively design a game either.

Due to that, I've been in a "process planning" phase where I'm trying to outline the entire process from initial concept to final product. I'm also trying to outline it in a way that makes sense to me, because a lot of game dev content online (which I am very grateful for) explains or defines various parts in different ways, so I've essentially been trying to compile as much information as possible into a kind of master-formula for effectively making and monetizing games.

I've got 6 phases identified (pitch, pre-production, production, pre-launch, launch, post-launch), and I've got the pitch phase detailed with target deliverables. I'm in the middle of detailing pre-production which includes narrative, mechanic, interactive, aesthetic (art and audio), level, and market design, as well as technical specifications, scope constraints, and the budget for the project.

I'm loving my outline so far and I am confident in it being a guide for me to follow, but I do feel like a plebeian because I have no prototypes to speak of yet :/

Edit: I am enrolled in a course that teaches game design and development, so I am getting some first-hand experience. But this is admittedly a lot more armchair thought lol

The Good

The whole thing about the Backrooms is the uncanny feeling of it, and the music, set design, pacing, and cinematography capture that awesomely. The music had that perfect blend of nostalgic dread, the set design nailed it, the camerawork was excellent, and the pacing kept you in that eerie tension without leaving you bored.

The Complex (but still Good)

I was going to criticize how the characters were written, but I went back to it and thought more about what they represent, which is trauma and how we navigate it psychologically in our lives.

The dinner scene with Clark and Mary shows that by having Clark in control and recounting the night he was kicked out by his ex-wife, and leading up to this scene we're shown flashbacks of Mary's childhood and the trauma she endured.

Mary being a therapist represents how her trauma, at the hand of her mentally ill mother, eventually led her to want to help others psychologically. She may still suffer with her trauma, but she lives despite it. On the other hand, Clark kidnapping and trapping Mary represents him clinging onto his trauma to justify his misery, struggling to move on with his life and achieve what he wants to achieve.

Furthermore, if we believe that the backrooms are a manifestation of memory (which can distort and fade in detail), Captain Clark may be a crude representation of how Clark views himself. Being a physical manifestation of himself through the lens of his trauma, quite poetically, Clark is literally consumed by his own trauma.

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All in all, I love the movie! Very creepy on the surface and very poetic beneath it.

I'm not sure if this is the right tag or sub for this, but this has been bugging me for so long and I wonder if anyone else is also feeling this.

I've had ILR for well over a year now. I live with my family who also have ILR and we own a home here. Despite the rights granted to me by this and trying to build a life here, I still feel like I don't belong.

Although I am eligible to apply for citizenship, I'm a university student with a part-time job. I can't afford to leave my family home and live on my own, let alone drop £2k on a citizenship application. I took a risk by going to university on SFE, but being a graduate isn't the job guarantee it used to be, although we have been given resources on how to effectively network, job hunt, and/or self-employ. I'm also a queer person and support is a bit of a mixed bag, though that's most places in tbh.

Even though I am protected and have rights here, I still have this sense of national/societal insecurity. This may be less about being an expat and more generally about being a member of society today, but is there any validity to these worries being heightened by not actually being a citizen?

Edit: Thank you all! It's nice to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I do plan on going for citizenship, but money is tight right now. As soon as I can more comfortably afford it (I think I can make it soon), I'm going for it!

Hiya, I'm currently obsessed with PHM at the moment. I understand that some linguistic parts of it aren't entirely accurate, but it's still interesting to think about.

I'm thinking about how Grace starts to document Rocky's language. They start with mimicry and puppets to communicate information and commands to each other, but then Grace starts documenting by starting with numbers. Eventually (too quickly tbh, but in due time in any case?), they've established enough vocabulary (while skimming over grammar, another criticism but hey ho) to discuss their missions and livelihoods.

I wanna know, is math a realistic starting point for documenting a language? What other ways did people in the olden days document and share foreign languages? I feel like it would be a mix of math, as well as pointing to a thing and giving a word for it?

I'm just fascinated by what that progression 'tree' would look like, and what words would have been established prior in order to define later words.

It wasn't too bad tbh, I back up my files in case this sort of thing happens. But yeah, everything just kind of broke.

I was about to do a do-release-upgrade, but I backed out last minute as I wasn't too confident proceeding. About a day or so later, I saw almost every app in my Discovery update channel needing an update for something Ubuntu related. It was like 2,000+ things to update. I thought that was weird, but tried to update anyway.

It crashed multiple times, and during the final try my audio drivers went out. I did a force restart (I know I probably shouldn't have, but I'm impatient) and I couldn't boot into the OS anymore.

I kept my 24.04 LTS drive so I just reinstalled and redownloaded everything, but good lordt that was annoying.