An imp of envy I drew on my last stream, for my horror RPG! Animated it for fun over the weekend. Will be drawing more little demons tonight on my stream, not sure yet about their themes. Tune in here – https://www.twitch.tv/frankiepixelshow
If you were wondering what I lost in the the big Moriarty Glitch Incident…. this.
Don’t worry I can make it again!
Aren’t you worried about the whole Geneva convention thing with the Red Cross on watson’s arm band?
Eeh.
The Red Cross symbol has been used since 1864 to denote in times of armed conflict that military nurses and doctors are protected under the Geneva Conventions.
Video game developers have got into trouble for using it to evoke the general concept of “health pack” or “medical kit” because those uses dilute the meaning of that symbol, and the Red Cross doesn’t want that.
I think that is very different to using it in a historical setting to denote that a character has actually been volunteering for the Red Cross as a military doctor.
I’m assuming the Red Cross had an issue with that sort of thing they would go after things like the BBC’s period drama ‘The Crimson Field’ and the other gazillion historical works of fiction set in WW1 that have nurses and doctors wearing historical uniforms before they come after a small indie game that will be lucky if it sells 100 copies.
i took so long to fix these glitches they gave people stockholm syndrome. anyway my advice for designing software that appeals to everyone is you don’t
Among Us Dev got a phone call with Unity execs. They said they would do deals with specific devs, to mitigate the fee and the backlash but they would not cancel their decision.
He added that the execs seems to think if they can wait long enough, and if few enough have to pay, all devs will drop the matter and not care about those that are still affected. (because solidarity is not a concept that those money-hungry fucks understand)
Among Us Dev then said he was going to start looking into other engine options.
Very smart words from someone I’m lucky to work with.
If I came away from this with one thing, it’s that game development is truly brutal and I don’t understand why anyone does it.
This was a nice little history of a game dev studio in Iowa. I wonder how they might have fared in this new era of remote work.
Some memorable passages:
I would say our core tenet was: We make our dates.
“I never thought our studio would get shut down,” Jason explained. “Who would shut down a studio that always delivered on schedule and on budget? For Activision, we never missed a deadline. On top of that, we were also cost-effective with the lowest burn rate of any Activision Studio in the United States.”
“After my experience with Budcat, I have no interest in buying a house or settling down, but I think being in motion is probably good for me, so I don’t see it as a negative.”
Working with 2 Player Productions on this massive 7-year documentary about game development has been a singular honor in my career.
That we get to be so honest about the ups and downs of working on these video games, well, that’s a small miracle.
I had the great fortune to work with Amy on a game project and she’s really one of the hardest working people and greatest managers in the industry. I hadn’t come across this talk she gave back in 2017 until today. Anyone who wants some understanding of managing game projects will get a lot out of this.
This bit got me, part of the great cycle of loving and hating working in video games:
I was like “fuck it, this is terrible. This is absolutely the most painful project I’ve ever been on. I’m gonna leave games, I’m gonna move to Portland, and that’s going to be the end of my life in games.” And something really interesting happens. A lot of you will know this, if you ever try to leave games, it’s like the mafia. You never really are able to leave, it sucks you back in. And I think one of the reasons for that is when you work in the games industry for any length of time, it kind of perverts your brain in a very specific way, such that when you try to live like a normal person, that just feels very weird and boring.
