Linux Mint 13 - Second Impressions

I'm a Linux man myself. I like Mint especially, as it seems to take the attention to ease of use that Ubuntu is so big on and and mix it with the goals of power, configurability, and less bloat that Ubuntu forgot about. Also, the Ubuntu aesthetic is awful, whereas Mint has an awesome aesthetic. While I've always preferred it to Ubuntu, it never played all that well with my multi-head setup and tended to always find something to keep broken at any given time. I suspected that a lot of this had to do with the desktop manager/environment shenanigans that Linux distros still haven't quite gotten over, so you can imagine my stokedness(which should totally be a word) when Linux Mint 13 came out.

Cognitive Observation #30

What? All comic artists have the right to a pun every once in awhile.

Hecticity is not a word

This week/weekend has become excessively hectic. Please accept this Hard Trance release as a symbol of my willingness to do a proper game design article, even if I ended up not having time.

Infiltrator - Part 23 - Heads Up

This session has gone almost completely into updating the HUD.

The giant speedometer style shields indicator, while cool looking, was hogging a ton of screen space and giving the player a noticeable blind spot. Thus, I have replaced it with a progress bar like the energy, and have shrunk both of them. The screen now has more space for the action and gameplay, but still provides you with needed info.

That's pretty much all I've had time to do so far. I've been working on the fighters, but they're kind of in a mess at the moment. Right now I'm just basking in the glory of knowing that the HUD is finished. Unless I get far enough to start adding the adventure game parts anyway...

        --LazerBlade

Action RPGs

I like almost anything that takes multiple good things and mixes them well. I like Pizza, programming(a blend of science and art), cross-genre music, a well color coordinated room, and I like action RPG games. But what makes a good action RPG tick? Why do we all love them so? Why must so many articles and analysis' start off with a bunch of questions?

This may be a bit subjective, I.E: why I love action RPGs, but I highly doubt that this won't produce fruitful game design ideas and knowledge.

Music Hacker - You broke my beat!

Because you all demanded it.

Infiltrator - Part 22 - Primordial Code

The majority of this session went into one very fun improvement. It's not that great, nor is it something that can be fully communicated via screenshot, but it's awesome anyway.

Cognitive Observation #29

Mass Effect 3 - System Sweep

Deciding how to start this post was hard. But what I arrived at was a rather clever piece of meta in my opinion.

Bla bla bla, Mass Effect 3, bla, bla bla, RPG, bla, lets just jump right in and sweep over all the little remaining systems I want to talk about for now before I start scoping out another game to discuss.

Infiltrator - Part 21 - Optimizing and Upgrading

Well a-whoop-dee-do for me. My game got to the point where it needed optimized. Sometimes optimization is just going through and replacing place-holder code that does the ridiculously stupid with more neat and tidy code that is easier on the CPU, but sometimes it's a bunch of tedious busywork as you try to pinpoint bottle-necks and come up with convoluted ways to circumvent the need for using up vital processing time.

Mass Effect 3 - Insert Vivid and Clever Simile About Cover Based Shooting here

After gabbing on about the story for an entire article, it's time to talk gameplay. The action gameplay specifically, as I'm saving the RPG like systems and other stuff for later articles.

The original Mass Effect had a cover system that was fiddly and awkward, but still held up well enough. The cover system in Mass Effect 2 was better, but still broken. So the third, final, and theoretically ultimate Mass Effect game should build on the knowledge gathered from the last two games and create an solid, effective cover system right? WRONG! Mass Effect 3 has the worst cover system of all three games.

Music Hacker - live FX

Sorry if this episode seems a little rushed. I had a really busy week/weekend.

Thinking About Advertising

So I've been running this blog for awhile, but only recently have I thought about getting some Google AdSense in here. My primary focus will always be to provide you with free, interesting, and entertaining content, so don't think this a step toward the dark side. I would like the opinions of my readers on this, as you will be the ones who see the ads. Obviously, I would still get money even if you ignore them and don't click on them. But if you feel that ads would in some way ruin this site, please discuss in the comments. If you think I've waited to long and you're just filled with joy that I'm thinking about advertising, also discuss in the comments. I think you get the idea.

 Also, if/when I setup ads on this blog, feel free to complain if they seem too invasive or obnoxious. As previously stated, ads take the back seat in the automobile of priority.

    --LazerBlade