Category Archives: Fun Stuff

The Nicest Fan Comment I’ve Ever Received

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I know I mentioned similar stuff week ago, but I couldn’t resist mentioning this. I’ve always been thinking that the goal of making a game is not to please everybody. The goal is to please some gamers for some time. There were some players that didn’t like the switch from the FPS view, but most of the people I’ve talked with have been pleased with the results.

Here’s one of them.

I was talking with one of the Dead Wake zombie game players and he said to me:

13:17 – player: i think i might cry when dead wake comes out
13:18 – player: my eyes would not be able to handle the awesomenessneesss

After that I told him a secret that “I will be integrating physics engine to the game in future versions”, and his reply was:

13:20 – playeR: OMFG THE CRYING HAS ALREADY STARTED….. damn you sob sob

Heh.

The Wickest Marketing Plot I’ve Ever Done

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I was playing a match of Half-Life 2 Zombie Master mod, and noticed that some people were spraying walls and stuff. I thought that I want to do that too.

And then it strike to me… that I might as well do my own spray. I took my Dead Wake banner, imported in the game (Valve has done great job doing this, it was matter of couple of clicks) and then I continued playing and sprayed the banner.

It was fun to watch seeing one or more players stopping near the banner and looking downwards. (But maybe not so fun to see them starting to shooting the banner…)

Here’s couple of screenshots: my Dead Wake banner in Half-life 2. Now I just need to convince every Dead Wake fan to do this when they are playing…

Wicked.

Want To See Guy Dressed Up As a Tomato Near Valve’s Office?

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Group of indie developers have started a petition to get indie games to Steam. The petition is located here. The guy who started all this – Paul – has promised the following:

“If we get 10,000 signatures, I will personally fly out to Valve’s offices and give it to them, while dressed up as a tomato.”

That’s a good reason alone to sign the petition. I’ve just signed the petition and really hope that you’d do that as well. It took me like 8 seconds, so I’m sure that’s not too much to ask: just sign it, please. Can’t wait to see that guy in a tomato suit.

If you happen to have little bit of more time, remember to digg the article as well.

Why Cannot They Manufacture Headsets That Won’t Hurt Your Head?

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Today I discovered a secret for finding a proper headset. Earlier I’ve bought cheap and expensive headsets, and there was always something bad in them. It didn’t matter how much I paid, there was always something bad about them.

Today I discovered that you actually need to break headset before they fit well.

I bought a headset for about $20. The headset is one of those Creative’s where you hurt your head when you try to wear it. It was pretty annoying, so I tried to “adjust” it.

That naturally lead me breaking it… (yeh, I was a bit annoyed) so now I have a headset “fixed” with tape (here’s a photo):


That whiteish-yellowish stuff on the right is the tape. And no, I’m not suggesting you go and break your headset. I’m going to get a new one. It’s just not nice to have video talks if you don’t have a proper headset…

The funny thing is, now it’s now longer hurting my head. Only my pride took a small hit by knowing that I’m actually wearing this thing.

Every cloud has a silver lining… but I think I’m going to get a new one.

P.S. I’d really appreciate if you could tip me, and tell me where to get a proper headset (and a mic) if you know one.

Software Pirates Want to Legalize Drug Dealing

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Yesterday’s post about piracy got some comments favoring different views here and also at indiegamer board.

I found it quite hilarious (and maybe bit sad) that people really think that preventing piracy is against “freedom of speech”. I mean, these pirates are sharing copyrighted material illegally. Banning pirate site means taking action to prevent this illegal action to happen.

Same logic could be used to make thievery, murders, drug dealing (you name it) legal. Let’s suppose that in your country, drug dealing is illegal. So, when people deal drugs, they are breaking the law.

To prevent drug dealing, countries have police forces to stop this.

To prevent games dealing, countries are banning sites to stop this.

If we think that “freedom of speech” has anything to do with “sharing games illegally”, then the next step is to legalize all sorts of drugs based on “freedom of speech”.

Duh.

An update:

Basically, I think that:
- “Stealing stuff” shouldn’t be allowed based on reasoning about “freedom of speech”
- “Drugs” shouldn’t be allowed based on reasoning about “freedom of speech”.
- “Murders” shouldn’t be allowed based on reasoning about “freedom of speech”.
- “Put your own example” shouldn’t be allowed based on reasoning about “freedom of speech”

The Pirate Bay says that censoring their site is act against freedom of speech.

I fail to see how sharing illegal content should be legalized based on freedom of speech.

I’m not saying that they wouldn’t have reasons why they’d want to have their site unbanned, but freedom of speech doesn’t belong in the list of reasons.

What the Cloth Washing Instructions Can Teach About Game Production

I received an image that shows the kind of washing instructions all clothes should have. The instructions describe how men should handle cloth washing – something what should be applied by game producers as well. It’s pretty amazing what you can learn just by looking what you clothes has to say.

While I admired the practical instructions, I immediately thought about two things.

First of all, I thought that the guy who planned the text should be a game producer.

Secondly. While the advice can be applied in game production, the planner should realize that this kind of text is asking for trouble.

Here’s the picture: (Not sure how old this is or where this originally was shown)

To set the record straight… the “it’s her job part” is just an ego-boosting way of saying “because you moron can’t wash your clothes” (at least that’s what I think when I watch my wife washing the clothes).

Seriously, if we apply this lesson to game production, we get the following:

  • Don’t try to do everything by yourself if you don’t know how.
  • Get people smarter than you to help you out.

And lastly:

  • If you delegate tasks that you are too stupid to complete and argument by saying “it’s your job”, you will get slapped in your face.

If You Could Be a Game Character, Who Would You Like to Be?

Before the weekend begins, I have a question for you: If you could be a game character – who would you like to be?

Why?

What are the reasons you chose your character? Is he heroic (is that something you want to be)? Beautiful? Has super-human powers? Is a nice dude? Perhaps he is a commander? Survivor?

Or perhaps he is something completely different.

I thought about this and one character immediately came to my mind.

If I were a game character…
I would definitely be the guy who:

  • Knows how to fight*
  • Never dies
  • Survives no matter what the situation is

But those were not all the reasons.
There’s more into this fine character I chose:

  • He has the best-ever strategy when dealing tough guys (that would be: escape!)
  • He has the deepest pockets in the history of video games (and those can come handy – I like to have lots of pockets in my jacket)
  • He gets along nicely with other people

    • (that’s pretty useful as well)

  • He likes to feed dogs (dogs are nice)
  • He has the ability to hold breath for 10 minutes (that could be cool)

My character is of course… revealed here.

*Knows how to fight… with words

Now, who game character you would like to be?
Tell your answer at the forums.

What Kind of Chair You Have?

I have a new chair. I was wondering if I could could say this to be the 101th productivity tip which wasn’t included in the list of 100. Getting new chair wasn’t as trivial as I expected.

Okay, getting the chair from the shop was pretty easy. Even putting the pieces together at home was not such a big deal.

The new chair means change, and change is something people tend to resist. For example, as I’m typing this blog entry, I’m swinging back and forth on my chair. I adjust the height. I want to adjust it well. I want the chair to feel absolutely superb when I’m sitting on it.

The chair feels good, but I want to feel super-great sitting on it.

I want my chair to be so comfortable as possible and help me get more stuff done. I suppose I’m adapting to this new situation.

Strange how something like a chair can become such a tricky issue.

What kind of chair do you have?

The Stupidest Invention In The History of Programming Languages

In programming, the award of the stupidest inventions goes to use of characters == and =. (setting value and comparing whether values are equal).

Just think about it. There are countless errors being made because somebody wrote IF (a=b) instead of IF (a==b). That error is really difficult to trace and it gives no compiling errors. (Okay, some programs don’t use ==, but there are many languages that do)

My rough estimation is that because somebody started using == several decades ago, it has already cost billions of dollars today (I base these estimates on average hourly salaries that’s wasted on debugging – and on the results of the dice throw I just had).

Why couldn’t they use something else… like < - symbol or something to “set value”.

Wouldn’t it make a lot of sense?

a < - b

That looks like “b value is put to a”.

I wonder why nobody asked me when programming languages were invented.

Update: After some thinking, symbol ¤ could be used as well. Check out the discussion at the forums and give your suggestion.