Maelor

Passionate about writing, computer games & programming, cooking & camping.

Blogging about game design meditations.

[Maelor @bratansov]

Interfaces of Play!

Thoughts on the marriage between quest and level design, or how level design can attempt to compensate for absent/bad quest design.

This fails, b/c mice don't run the maze for the sugar; people don't play games for the dopamine hit.

https://t.co/SM8jY0eNpb

[Maelor @bratansov]

I don't think leaving is a solution to the political problem, but 90% of my feed is dead.

Solution to that latter problem, inaugurated with a review of #HandmaidsTale, the novel.

Leave you with #Bresson:

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen

[Maelor @bratansov]

Rasterize the present with the breaths and brushes of the past.

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

But not everyone loved the Menin Gate.

The poet Siegfried Sassoon, who fought in the First World War, was disgusted by it.

Does he make a convincing case? Was this too little, too late, for a generation betrayed?

[Maelor @bratansov]

On #RemembranceDay I remind myself that "subjects" (people & ideas) are always historical. I also remember Tolstoy: not doing something can be just as heroic.

I regret the subjects of war. I want to do better: better than them, better by them.

I want to make games, not war.

[Maelor @bratansov]

Forgot the damn screenshot

[Maelor @bratansov]

I've got ~100 pages left before having to decide if the razor passages & word-wizardry (like this) of #HandmaidsTale counterbalance the heavy-handedness of its "sci-fi" genre.

Just like #gameDesign it's hard to separate superfluous lore from worldbuilding resonant with the theme

[Maelor @bratansov]

It's almost as if in novels too there is the same kind of necessity for a special sauce correctly combining quest and level design, eg in books style and substance.

Inseparable from the problem of the relation between generic, derivative and original... TBC...

[Maelor @bratansov]

@BacklogReviewer It takes a choice person to appreciate a choice word 👍🙏

I'll keep in mind your recommendation also, I'm all for bold choices in this marasmus of the derivative blockbusters 😬

[Maelor @bratansov]

@BacklogReviewer I've been feeling the itchy-itch for this one as I completed GoW2018 last year in December.

Still, the prospect of going through the whole rigmarole of the 9 realms again has been dampening my enthusiasm HARD.

Also I have almost 0 time to start any software except Java, RIP

[Maelor @bratansov]

From my morning read.
Margaret Atwood, Handmaid's Tale, publ. 1985

Stay safe & don't fall into complacency.

As Thoreau said: first order of business every morning is to dust off your mind.

[Maelor @bratansov]

Baked lighting = artistry > computation;
So that baked lighting > ray-tracing.

Difference between talking to a model-derived AI and talking to another person through the medium of their work and expression and emotion.

#worldofwarcraft
#Graphics
#pcgaming

[Maelor @bratansov]

Weekly reminder that you don't need Ray-Tracing for great game lighting.

#SeaOfStars
#PS5

[Maelor @bratansov]

@m_nt_13 Missed your last tweet but I caught this one!

I've been in and out of hospitals too. Just stay safe and take care of yourself. Sending warm thoughts for courage and recovery. 🌻

[Maelor @bratansov]

3. Combat seems a diluted, tasteless and directionless blend of God of War and Arkham (even on Hard difficulty).
4. My toon with a backstory relevant to the intro was referenced AND brushed off ("not the same city neighborhood") instantly?! Nothing beyond the "Veil" of an RPG.

[Maelor @bratansov]

I wish everybody enjoying #Veilguard good fun.

I think game has a lot of merits technically, but I can't look past:
1. the nauseatingly quippy Marvel dialogue;
2. generic nature of the plot (starting with demons coming out of portals, really, you had nothing else??);

1/2

[Francisco Ribeiro @fraveris]

Golden October declined into sombre November.

- T.S. Eliot

by Jamie Heiden

[Maelor @bratansov]

@fraveris That's such a beautiful quote, thank you.

[Maelor @bratansov]

Heeey, Tarantino liked Joker 2... too! Let's gooo am I a hipster or what 🙃

I love his take that, actually, the movie is directed by Joker. On point!

https://t.co/xNohwdtv2A

#JokerFolieADeux

[Maelor @bratansov]

7) Very surprised this kind of movie actually could get made & released. You cannot speak the language of the movie without having some serious baggage in your life. No wonder most reviews are negative.

Huge privilege to have seen it.
Joker/10

#MovieReview
#JokerFolieADeux

[Maelor @bratansov]

@BacklogReviewer Welcome to the future

[Maelor @bratansov]

@JMazgareanu, my Pillar

[Maelor @bratansov]

Pillars gets so much right about gods & religion: each a practical philosophy at its core.

If you're even remotely interested by good writing and world-building, read up & enjoy.

#PillarsOfEternity2
#loredump
#pcgaming

[Francisco Ribeiro @fraveris]

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.

~ Laurence Sterne