#i'm not an expert on game design but the way it uses those aspects to create horror is just... insanely cool

[aquilamage]

Rain world is really good but the difficulty is defo one of my biggest gripes. Like, it sets out to be a hard game, and it is, but there are straight up some areas you may fall into that are so hard to get out of people suggest just restarting! Which feels weird and bad, to me at least. The wall jumping also drives me crazy, I feel like I can only sometimes get the rhythm right for it. I’ve found tho that if possible, putting a stick in the wall as a kind of ‘check point’ helps (you may already be doing that tho haha)

I am all for a game being designed to challenge the player in whatever ways because you can genuinely get some cool things out of it, and it's fine if that's considered the 'default' mode. But there's two caveats to that.

There's a difference between well-balanced and reasonable difficult and stuff that's hard either just for its own sake without thinking about whether it's enjoyable to play/overcome or hard because it's not designed as well as it could be. I'm by no means an expert on game design but having parts of the game where the common advice is just "yeah if you end up here just restart the game" that's not like. a glitch. Doesn't seem the greatest to me.

People have said this way more eloquently than me but even if the intended experience is for the game to be difficult, even extremely so, putting in features you can select that make the game literally as easy as possible should just be the default because that just means there are now more people who can or will play the game and it doesn't actually take anything away from people who want to play it with the highest difficulty.

Literally I think my game experience would be so much improved if there was just an option for more forgiving wall-jumps or even just a plain wall-climbing option. (I don't have that much platformer game experience overall but like. I've done all of Hollow Knight's platforming challenges except the White Palace and I'm almost done with chapter 7 of Celeste and iirc those are at least considered somewhat challenging as platformers. So I think I'm allowed a little bit of saying this is related to how this game's mechanic works). And if there were other options to make things easier I might take those too and that's fine! Because otherwise you have me sitting here contemplating whether I can keep playing a game I genuinely like because of it just being too much stress on me to be healthy probably! And y'know, maybe not fun enough to be worth it, I don't know yet.

It's like how about halfway through playing Subnautica I got too frustrated with being attacked and just put in the cheat code that let me not be attacked by the monsters. Even turned off oxygen a couple times when watching that made me too claustrophobic and it was great because then I just got to concentrate on playing the game and enjoying it; and it didn't feel like a lesser experience.

And yeah depending on how popular the game is overall and how many people might feel the same there may be a mod for this kind of stuff out there. But! As I said I have the switch version and I shouldn't have to buy the game again and play on a platform that doesn't work as well for me (or at all depending on how much it demands of a computer) just to get a version that's more accessible!

All that aside I do still think it's a neat game with some great design aspects to its gameplay. Wouldn't be talking about this so much if not or contemplating other options to experience it; I would've probably just dropped it.

(Oh yeah I definitely have been doing the spears-in-the-wall to facilitate climbing. All the time, including some spots where I made a ladder of several because searching for more spears was easier than doing the climbing. Super appreciate the tip though because if I hadn't that would've been SO useful to know)

#aha did not intend for that long of a response to come out of that but there you have it #does make me feel better to know that it's not all just me ty for that #an aquila original #asked and answered #replies browniefox #wet beast saga #ok one more tiny rant thing: I have been vaguely spoiled that there are some differences beyond just difficulty with the different slugcat #types you can play as. I don't know if any of that is story or not and I don't want to know right now but if it is #then that makes all this even more frustrating because if I can't do Monk level difficulty I certainly couldn't do the other ones #and I really really do want to see everything the game has to offer! #I haven't even gotten to the point where I can talk to Looks to the Moon! fuck!

[prowerprojects]

Hey, I hadn't seen your Oc Iggy (?) before today, can I ask 2 and 30 for the ask game (I think I've got those numbers right, about powers and motivation?)

Ooh thank you so much for asking!

I have to confess they aren't really my oc ^^' (though the design is all me since they don't have any official pictures)

They're a secondary character from the book "Sonic the Hedgehog and the Silicon Warriors". But I have changed them so much for my au so it's almost like having an oc (though I try to keep as many aspects of their characterization from the book as a can, the universe of the book is so different from the modern games so a lot of stuff gets changed)

Their full name is Ichneumon, but they go by Iggy. In the book they're a temporary sidekick to Sonic. (Tails gets trapped in cyberspace).

(I'll still answer because when else am I gonna get a chance to talk about them! I'm gonna answer based on my au rather than the book though. I'll specify what things are based on the book)

2. Powers/Abilities?

(In the book, they can run pretty fast. It impresses Sonic (!), but they still can't keep up with Sonic and Tails when they're going full speed. They're also a computer programmer (it took me forever to get the joke, they're a mouse that does computers – a computer mouse!). Since the book deals with cyberspace and stuff, they needed a character that would have some skills in that area)

I think most of Sonic's friends have some enhanced physical abilities, so they're probably slightly faster than an average person, but not a "speed" type, so to speak.

Programming... ok. They're basically your average hollywood-esque "*hacker voice*: I'm in" type of programmer. Anything you imagine a character of that archetype could do, they probably can. (I decided not to be shy and make them op in their main area of specialization)

(Also I guess they're a child genius too? If you count it as a "power". Though of course they're more specialized than Tails who while has specific interests dabbles a little bit in everything)

(Eventually they also become an expert on the Chaos Emeralds. It's mostly because of their cyberspace research and its connection to the Ancients and then the Ancients' connection to the Chaos Emeralds. Not really for the Emeralds' own sake. They also can't really use Chaos control or anything like that)

They're not a fighter by any means, but I didn't want them to be completely defenseless so eventually they become a pretty proficient user of a boomering (yeah, from Sky Patrol, I thought it would be a cute thing to bring back)

They're also really good at rollerblading.

30. What is their main goal/motive?

I don't really have anything deep, but I guess— Their whole life they felt kind of small and insignificant (They're literally a mouse but it's also kind of a metaphor). They're from some backwater island where nothing happens, they're a middle kid with a bunch of siblings, etc. So they want to become metaphorically "bigger", really put their talents to use and try to make a difference.

Their external goal is the cyberspace research, (re)creating a working cyberspace that could be used for the benefit of the public. (Even though the book they originate from is centered around cyberspace, they don't really have an interest in it, but I thought it would be a nice reference and a cool unique thing for a character to be into) This is basically their life project. (I don't think it's something you can ever be done with, there's always things to improve). (Frontiers is really playing into my hand here, it's giving me a good way to introduce them to the cast)

What I'm missing is some sort of "inciting incident" so to speak, something that would lead them to be dissatisfied with their "small" life and something that would get them interested in cyberspace. Preferably one incident for both of those things. But I'm working on it!

#thank you so much for asking I'm always thinking of them #iggy #sonic #sonic the hedgehog #project.txt #project.ask #novelverse

[boopidyboopidyboop]

Howdy!

I recently saw a reply you made in a post about feeding unfinished fic to large language models like ChatGPT. In there, you said that free-to-use AIs are "free to use because the company who makes them is actively profiting and taking aspects like phrasing, style, etc." I've heard of variants of this idea but could never figure out where it came from. Can you tell me more about the origin of that?

Well I'll start off by saying I'm not an expert in the field, and that AI technology is actually relatively "new" in terms of very recent rapid developments and it's in this stage where the future is generally uncertain. However, as early as now, people are already using AI for commercial works. There was a movie announced where all backgrounds were made with an AI, and a manga that was made near entirely with AI. The rhythm game Cytus has recently drawn ire from fans and even its own creators and designers for using AI generated art instead of the very stylistic art it used to use. The moral and economical issue here would lie in that they still charge the same amount for the game and it's already a game that is criticized by some for its high price point compared to other rhythm games. So not only are they earning more, in a way are putting less effort into the game. Those who purchase it would essentially be paying more for less and the money would not be going to the artists because their styles will have been copied but they themselves wouldn't be credited or paid.

Now for a more direct example, I've also heard reports that publishing houses are being spammed with hundreds of purely AI generated work. This of course directly negatively affects writers trying to get published if only by uhhh what's the word,,,, adding a bunch to the pool (sorry English is my third language).

I myself do writing for companies overseas by editing and writing the info on their websites. As someone from a third world country, this contributes to a good chunk of my income as the local economy is not great. Due to the recent popularity of bots like chat GPT, the market had dropped by a LOT and while at first it was my primary source of income, its not really sustainable anymore.

Now these examples don't all use language based examples but they do show that the creation of AI art forms so far is mostly just harming artists and from the examples such as Cytus and just,, life in general I suppose, as "young" as commercial AI is, we can likely assume that corporations don't intend on making their AI for purely wholistic reasons. The art AI midjourney was even found using stolen art after saying that they don't. AI writing, I believe, is going to be more finicky than AI art and as such, I expect theyd want to do a lot more fine tuning before using it to write whole textbooks while art bots are already being used on book covers and movies, only because you don't need to fact check art.

Sure people can see something is wrong, but with the sheer amount if it used, it's rapidly adapting to fix the anatomical issues in its art. Written work I think would need to be double checked a lot and by a human before they release one making bold claims such as "You can't buy food but you can buy paint thinner from home depot instead" (an actual AI result generated by Quora when I was trying to find a place to eat that Google tool as the top rated answer on the website and proudly presented to me). But that doesn't mean it won't eventually go as far as to take someone's job entirely. It's already starting to take mine.

For a clear cut example, sorry to say I can't name one myself, but you can look at the way AI is already being used this early on and how it's already being used to substitute and replace some artists and writers and how apparently even fanfiction writers who do their work out of love, and look just a few years in the future based on the patterns that have been happening and the way corporations will always value profits over the heart of what they make, and for most the picture of what will happen is a very grim one for art.

The "Origin" of it differs from person to person. Some artists have seen their art put into AIs and their styles mimicked (art which will be very difficult to claim the person who generated it shouldn't be allowed to use for commercial purposes). Some writers who write more boring industry stuff that is very easy to mimic are getting their jobs taken away from them. Others without firsthand experience can only look at examples or patterns and infer a probable and large scale outcome similar to that of Cytus. All in all, to me the backlash and opinion that AI is copying peoples works is more of a social movement with no clear cut origin but a lot of evidence that points towards AI generated writing and imagery being a bastardization of the work of hundreds even if it's just a lot harder to see when it comes to a non visual form of art like writing.

Hmm I think if you want a clearer answer or example, the best personal one I can give you is an article I edited which was so poorly written I sent it back and they had a different writer do it. When it got back to me it was better, but extremely familiar. It repeated phrases from the OG article and had the same problems I had noted (strange wording, odd vocabulary, etc) so I asked them if they had wrote it. Apparently they just put it into chat GPT and told the bot to rewrite it without changing too much, so the bot mimicked phrases and words but changed the flow by adding conjunctions or paraphrasing, but to me, who has read the first persons work several hundred times, I still recognized the style, if I can call it that. The person profiting wasn't Chat GPT, but if the state of AI art is anything to go by, in a few years it could very well be.

(sorry about the long reply and if anything is messy or hard to understand. I am not an organized thinker.)

[kruseahsasmussen]

'Dickie V.' is an emotional homage to ESPN's Cock Vitale that's not rather incredible, baby

There's an understandably strong sentimental touch going through "Dickie V.," a documentary homage to ESPN expert Prick Vitale, as he takes care of his death after being sidelined by cancer. The lack of deepness about Vitale's impact over how university basketball is covered, to use his parlance, stops this from being absolutely "Amazing, child!" or a "primetime player."

At 83, Vitale is clearly psychological as he recalls at the life that he has enjoyed, having grown as an university trainer and gotten discharged by the Detroit Pistons before unwillingly stumbling into shade discourse, calling his first ready a then-fledgling network called ESPN in December 1979. Vitale gained numerous fans with his contagious interest and also love of the video game, and trains with his dense knowledge of exactly how they operated. "In the midst of all that enthusiasm there was really good basketball knowledge," states Notre Dame instructor Mike Brey.

There are lots of heartwarming aspects to Vitale's tale, from his romance with wife Lorraine to his relationship with the late Jim Valvano, another coach turned expert that died of cancer cells. Vitale will be bestowed the honor called for Valvano at the ESPYs on July 20. Vitale likewise speaks psychologically about having actually lost vision in one of his eyes as well as his sensitivity to the way that looked, as an adult as well as a youngster.

At its core, though, "Dickie V." is a chronicle of what Vitale has meant to university basketball, as well as vice versa, and also it exists where the documentary feels a little bit half-baked. Especially, Vitale's comfort with coaches colored his method to covering them, singing their commends while commonly overlooking their extras.

"He builds. He does not take apart," states Kentucky coach John Calipari, which appears admirable, with the exception of the truth that there are elements of collegiate sports that are worthy of to be taken down, or a minimum of watched through a more unbiased prism, as New york city Blog post writer Phil Mushnick pointed out several years back. Those monitorings drew a rebuke from Vitale, that has never concealed his appreciation for numbers like controversial train Bob Knight or Calipari. Neither does "Dickie V." address exactly how Vitale's overblown design has been embraced by various other analysts, several of whom have shown up the quantity to ludicrous degrees. While replica is a kind of flattery, that, also, stands for a part of his legacy.

Former Notre Dame trainer turned analyst Miner Phelps calls Vitale "the master of advertising and marketing," which has actually certainly become part of his wizard, functioning as what totaled up to an ambassador for university basketball, in such a way that has gained appreciation from his broadcasting peers as well as coaches alike. "I'm in awe of Cock Vitale," claims "SportsCenter" anchor Scott Van Pelt. It's certainly difficult to fault ESPN's view or timing, coming as it does, as Vitale tearfully notes, in "the last chapter" of a blessed life. "Dickie V." works better as a homage than it does as a fully-realized look at not just Vitale's one-of-a-kind voice, but the mirrors associated with it.

There's a not surprisingly strong nostalgic streak running with "Dickie V.," a documentary tribute to ESPN analyst Dick Vitale, as he deals with his mortality after being sidelined by cancer."He builds. He doesn't tear down," claims Kentucky instructor John Calipari, which seems laudable, other than for the fact that there are elements of college sporting activities that deserve to be torn down, or at the very least watched via a more objective prism, as New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick directed out several years ago. Those observations drew a rebuke from Vitale, that has actually never ever hidden his appreciation for numbers like questionable instructor Bob Knight or Calipari.

#music

[cosmiciaria]

In defense of Detroit Become Human (spoilers marked - long post!)

I know I arrived late at the party and everything that could've been said about this game has already been said – but I do want to add some things I haven't found in some reviews I’ve come across, while addressing all the flaws and giving credit where credit is due. And believe it or don't, this game is due a lot of credit. Yes, a game by David Cage is due credit, what has the world come to?

I must admit I'm not the greatest of fans of Cage's works. I can see all the flaws and plot holes in his games/interactive movies, but unlike others, I'm not that bothered by them. Hell, there are plot holes in many good stories and even the greatest games have some flaws, sometimes it feels people like picking one director and hating on them (cof cof, Tabata from Square cof). This doesn't mean Cage is free of sins, since that's far from reality: I still remember the Ellen Page's controversy with her naked model inside the game, and the creepy things they did to Madison in Heavy Rain for no reason whatsoever. Man, I think you should revalue some of your fetishes.

But aside from that, his games are heavily narrated focus, straying too far from the ordinary hero path and 'saving the world with the power of friendship'. He's stated there are so many things we can do in the videogame industry, and that most developers stick to the usual formula, just because they know it works and it profits. And I can understand his point of view, and even support it, that's why I always try to find something good in his games, even when the dialogues are bad and some acting leaves much to be desired – that happens in every game, in every movie, in every series.

Detroit Become Human is, by far, the best work by Cage. I can say so with full confidence: it's the first of his stories whose plot seem cohesive, coherent, whose characters undergo a visible and palpable development throughout the whole game, whose decisions and paths actually cross-impact later chapters and your choices do shape the way the story unfolds. I stress this because, for example in Beyond, your choices didn't matter much – even the QTE's were pretty useless. You just decided how the game would end in the last ten minutes of plot and that was it. Detroit, on the other hand, is so well planned that things you've done in the very first chapter have repercussions later down the line, and it's not like there's just two endings, but a lot of them, and lot of combinations that I'm still discovering. Your choices affect the during of the story, not just the ending. You can have good relationship with someone, or a bad one, and that will affect each scene those characters are in. You can have a good reputation with a group, or they can hate you, and so you will be ejected from the team. You can act irrational, or stay forever a machine, and the last big choice regarding that will depend of your actions across the whole game.

Just the decision making is a huge step up from previous works. And I can only compare this game to Until Dawn, but even in there, there are less decisions and less impact. Detroit is overwhelmingly huge when it comes to different paths and different versions of the same story. So much so that I told a friend who was also playing it about a scene, and she said 'wait, when does that happen? I didn't see it!'. It was as if we were talking about different games.

Detroit is about androids. It's the year 2038 and androids have flooded the market. They're like your usual vacuum but, hey, they can cook, take care of your children and even satisfy you sexually. They are such a common thing to see in the city that people ignore them. Most families have at least one android in their household, becoming completely reliant on their features. This is a future not so far away from our present.

But, lo and behold, because this game will explore the idea of 'freedom'. And, as you could've expected, some androids suddenly realize they don't want to work for humans anymore. Some androids are mistreated by their owners and suddenly they know they're in an unfair situation. Some androids have ambitions, dreams, ideas – some androids have the desire to be free.

And so, they become deviants. An artificial intelligence, capable of billions of simultaneous operations, young forever, and with conscience. Afraid, yet?

We will follow three main characters who happen to be androids: Connor, Markus and Kara. Connor is a prototype designed to assist investigators and police officers with cases, and he comes with many features that will facilitate all the analysis of clues. Markus is an android designed to care for an old man who has lost his mobility, and lives with him and cares for him as if he were his son. Kara is a housemaid android, who specializes in cleaning and taking care of children, but her owner is a drug-addict who forgot what it means to be a father.

Markus and Kara realize their unfair situation pretty early in the game, so they become deviants well at the beginning. Connor, on the other hand… well, it's in your hands to decide his fate.

Their stories will be intertwined: Connor will investigate cases involving deviants, alongside his sidekick – I mean, his partner, Lieutenant Hank Anderson, an old, anti-android human whose past is yet to be revealed; Markus will be falsely accused of aggression towards his owner or his son (depending what you choose), and he will come back from the dead, ready to lead a revolution against humans, demanding androids' rights; Kara will realize she wants to be a mother, and she will save the daughter of her owner from that hellhole they live in, only to travel from one corner of the city to another in search for an escape route. While Connor's and Markus's stories are well entangled, Kara's always felt a bit separated from them, which can be a huge let down. Personally, Kara's story was the one I enjoyed the least, but it has to do with something that happens at the end – that stupid plot twist – besides, it's more than clear in Kara's plotline that all the BS Cage loved from his previous games makes a return in here. Sometimes it felt like he left blender open and all the disastrous ideas he had for her story were spilled all over his kitchen. I can't think of anything else for that, because her plotline is a Frankestein of a story – uneven, irregular, although it has some touching moments, and Valerie Curry, the actress who plays Kara, delivers some guuud acting and lines.

I know the main message this game is trying to send is that androids are equals to humans. This is the most controversial aspect of the game: Cage, whether he says he did purposely or not, has compared the androids' struggle for freedom to that of African-American people, mixing together slavery and segregation. It's funny because Cage stated it wasn't his plan to allude to actual historical events that did happen not so long ago, and still we can see the segregation of androids in public transport, in public places, and the fact that Markus, with a bunch of other androids as well, demand freedom and the end of slavery from the humans. I like it more when he asks for fair compensation for their work.

And I say it's controversial because it's sending a wrong message. Slavery and segregation weren't contemporary, one came after the other; and the fact that they make a clear comparison to that social movement is criticizable. I'm not the most expert on US history – hell I'm from Argentina, guys – but even I know that the bloody history behind the fight for equal rights is far from over and has put the country on the brink of breaking down many times. That someone deliberately compares the android's fight that took only a few months to develop to that monstrous side of US history is, uhm, questionable in the least.

BUT let's just say that it's an awful coincidence (I'm looking at you, Cage) and leave it aside for a moment. That's the main message the game tries to send. But I believe the game actually sends another message, that is better executed, better fleshed out.

Androids and humans can love each other.        

[SPOILER scroll down until you see the end of the spoiler section]

This is obvious at the beginning with Markus, if you decide to endure Leo's bullying. Carl, Markus' owner, dies from a heart attack, and Markus, crying, desperate, falls to his knees and embraces the man who's been acting like his father for years. He yells Dad, no! in front of the real son, provoking a reaction in him and in the player. Just in this tiny moment, which I think most people slip by without paying too much attention, is enough message. It explains everything.

If you decide to push Leo, the scene plays out differently, and we learn this message towards the end, still in Markus' branch. Later in the story you go back and visit Carl, who doesn't die, but is instead stuck in his bed, connected to cables and such. He regards Markus with love and tenderness, and holds his hand, saying You're my son, Markus. Your blood is a different color, but I know that a part of me lives in you. Thank you, you made me cry.

This message is also well developed in the friendship you can form with Connor and Hank. And notice the 'you can' because you can also make them hate each other. But why on earth would you make Hank mad, if not only for the trophy? Because I can't bear the idea of disappointing that good old man. I need him to be proud of me – I mean, of Connor! Their relationship is wholesome, with some instances in which Hank calls him his son, which melted my heart obviously. Knowing that Hank had lost his real son prior to the events of the game makes all this even more touching and moving.

This message is not well conveyed with Kara and Alice, and you might guess why – yes, the fact that towards the end we learn that Alice isn't a human but an android too, utterly destroys the whole concept the game has been trying to build up for this moment. I don't know why Cage thought this was a good idea – maybe trying to explain that androids can love each other as family just like humans do, but that kinda breaks the rules here, because the idea was an android discovering they can love thanks to a human, who has all the real feelings whereas the androids have this emulations and… alright you get me. How can we truly know if they love each other for real if they are two androids? How can we make sure it isn't just some emulation and chemicals inside their metal bodies? Alright I'm going too deep here? Maybe?

[END OF SPOILER SECTION]

All in all, this is the message that stays with me after playing the game. I don't know if Cage did it purposely (suddenly all his messages are casual), but this is what I can save and treasure from this story. Oh, and also, save your fucking planet, polar bears are going extinct.

Characters are really well created. Their interactions are believable and natural, the acting (specially Bryan Dechart as Connor and Clancy Brown as Hank) is flawless, and you can appreciate when they become deviant and when they start thinking for themselves. Some lines delivered by Markus felt a bit forced, but I've heard the actor talk and he talks like that so maybe is the way he speaks. There are some secondary characters that became my favorite really quick, like Luther, Kara's companion in this journey; Simon, one of the first members of the revolution Markus meet; Hank, of course, although I deem him as a main character at this point. Others, well… Gavin is your well-known bully, whose lines are so stupid I can't believe his character made it into the game. Like really, he's taken straight out of a 90's high school movie. I could hear Henry Bowers from It laughing at his attempt of being a bad boy.

On the technical department, this game is stunning. Visuals are a delight: sometimes you couldn't differentiate if it was filmed or if it was CGI. Hint: it was all CGI! Faces, expressions, animations, I can't complain of any of those. The character's eyes, which are the only thing the motion capture can't record, were all added digitally, and I'm bound to say that they're perfect: they make each character feel real, alive. You know when you're staring at something, that your eyes regard everything and your pupils have these tiny, micro, slight movements? That was in the game, and I loved it. Clothes get wet when it's raining, they get frozen when it's snowy, and lights reflect every surface so realistically that you can tell the texture of each object and piece of cloth.

Music is also a great asset in this game. Each character had a different composer, which brought a distinct and unique aspect to each of their stories. I know I've been hating on Kara until now, but I must admit her theme song is the best out of everything in this game. Even when I watched the cutscenes back when the game was released, I had her theme buried under my skin, for it's melancholic, it reminds me of rain, and it makes me wanna cry.

Another aspect I want to address is the gameplay. You know Cage loves his daily doses of QTE's. But this time, though, they're well executed. I recommend playing the game in Experienced difficulty (which is the normal difficulty), because it truly offers a more immersive experience. The use of the controller in all this was clever, and they used everything they had at their disposal to make you feel you're there in the story. For instance, the use of the vibration system of your joystick: when you pet the dog at Hank's house, you can feel a very slight vibration in your hands, as if the dog was breathing, what you would feel when you pet a dog, of course; but when you're driving a truck that leaves the sidewalk and falls into the street, you feel the sudden rough movement and the way the engine is speeding up; or you can feel heartbeats when Markus is trying to repair himself. All these instances of breaking the fourth wall to make you feel part of the story are implemented in such an intelligent way that it works wonders.

And speaking about breaking the fourth wall… In your main menu you'll have an android that will be your hostess. She will comment on the discoveries you'll be finding in your storyline, but she will also play some tricks to you or talk to you all of a sudden. And if you reach the good ending… well, there's a surprise with her. Let's just say that she's a great addition to the game and a fan favorite.

In conclusion, this is by far Cage's most polished and well thought game to date. And I've been hiding my obsession with Connor up until now so you wouldn't think I'm crazy but, I can't believe Cage created a character like this. I love him. Protect this sweet summer child. Don't make him a machine, please :'( Connor Army here I go.

If you have doubts about this game, buy it on sale. You will at least have a good time playing it and discovering the different paths. But if you like heavily narrated games, and you have at least enjoyed some of his previous works, don't miss on this one. It's really better. And it's really more worth it.

#detroit become human #detroit #dbh #connor #hank #connor army #hank anderson #hankcon #gavin #markus #kara #alice #luther #david cage #beyond two souls #heavy rain #videogame #videogame review #review #quantic dream

[dorothydelgadillo]

WebDev Chat: Lessons for Marketers & Complex Web Elements

One of my favorite "perks" of working at IMPACT is that I am privileged to work alongside some of the smartest people -- who are genuinely experts in what they do -- every single day.

But how often do I go out of my way to learn more about what others do? Not very often.

That's why I've set a challenge myself to learn more about the area of expertise under the IMPACT roof that is the most foreign to me -- web development. To achieve this goal, I'm going to sit down with IMPACT Senior Front-end Developer Tim Ostheimer once a month to talk to him about what he does and why, and what us marketers can learn from his background and experience. 

Because, for two groups of people that need to work together a lot -- marketers and developers -- I think we could do a much better job bridging the divide between us. 

Enjoy!

Can you tell me about your background and how you got into web development as a career?

Tim: I have a bachelor's degree in Interactive Digital Design from Quinnipiac -- that's what they called it -- which was mostly digital graphic design using Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign -- pretty much all of the Adobe tools. We studied typography. We did some animation and 3-D modeling. We did print design, and we did some web development.

I enjoyed all of the classes I took at Quinnipiac, but within the first few semesters it quickly became clear that there wasn't a specific medium or direction that the major focused on. Instead, it was more of an opportunity for students to experiment and come to their own conclusion of what they wanted to gain from it.

This was the perfect environment for me to learn in.

I started experimenting with image editing and HTML when I was young, but it wasn't until around 9th grade that I started challenging myself to learn more and take the hobby seriously. I spent a lot of time building websites about video games I was obsessed with and I wouldn't stop working on them until I was satisfied with the way they looked and functioned, even if the only person who would ever use them was myself.

We had a few elective classes in high school so I made sure that I took every class that had anything to do with computer science, photography, graphic design, and web design. These were very introductory classes, but it was a time in my life when I was starting to think about college and further education and these helped reassure me that some kind of digitally-focused career would be appropriate for me to pursue.

At that time, I was too inexperienced to know what kind of options there were. I knew that I enjoyed working with websites and code but I also had a lot of interest in everything related to design and I didn't want to pick a major that focused too heavily on one thing.

While looking at colleges and majors, I had a lot of trouble finding one I was confident about. I ended up specifically ruling out art schools because I still needed time to explore my options and wanted a more well-rounded experience. Quinnipiac's program was appealing to me because it had just that -- a little bit of everything.

I started with what I thought I wanted. I chose Quinnipiac and began my first semester with a predeclared minor in Computer Science. Unfortunately, I didn't really know what I was getting into. The course focused heavily on object-oriented programming which was different from anything I was familiar with and I struggled with every assignment and learning the material. So, I decided to drop the minor after completing the second course in the curriculum.

Instead of choosing a new minor, I decided that I was going approach my education in the same way that had gotten me to that point.

I filled my elective courses entirely with classes in related subjects that I'd be able to use to support my major. That way I'd have a better understanding of the processes and would be able to apply that knowledge regardless of the industry I ended up in.

I took classes with the film students and learned a lot about something I knew nothing about. In addition to filming, each of the courses focused on video editing, motion graphics, special effects, and/or sound design, and all of it was interesting and exciting to me.

So, I didn't stop there. I took classes in game design and development, and learned about mechanics and all of the different roles that are involved in the industry -- from the world-building aspect of the storytelling to the specific code that's written for the interface to ensure the experience is immersive.

Sometimes there might be an entire company that's focusing on just one piece, and that realization helped me to understand that it was okay to not be talented in every area of the design process.

Each of these courses gave me a different perspective on visual design and enabled me to apply what I had learned in everything I created from that point on.

During my third year of college, while I was taking courses in game design and animation, I ended up revisiting object-oriented programming. I had decided that I wanted to create a functioning game as a combined final project for these two classes but I couldn't do it without learning some new code. I spent countless hours outside of class and on weekends to learn the very thing that I struggled with the most.

But this time, it didn't feel overwhelming. Instead, there was a point where suddenly everything made sense and I became passionate about it in the same way I was about everything else I had learned.

The code now had a purpose, and it encouraged me to spend time learning what I wasn't able to understand the first time. I ended up spending more than 50 hours on this one assignment and combined all of the knowledge I had learned from my classes in different majors.

I wrote an elaborate story on which my game was based, drew every frame of every character's animation and the world around them, designed an interface which supported my theme, and coded all of the functions that were needed to make it all work.

The result was an amateur game and my favorite portfolio piece from college that I will forever be proud of. I still occasionally dig through my folder of creative work every few months just to play it for a few minutes to appreciate and remind myself of how much I learned from it.

In case you're curious, this is what it looked like:

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Because I had so much fun building that one, I ended up taking part in a challenge called Global Game Jam that same year. The task was to design and build a game using any medium within the span of a two-day period based on the theme "heartbeat."

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Before Quinnipiac I didn't realize there was a development side to design. I didn't think much about that fact that most people specialize in one part of the process and the designer of something like a website or a game is usually different from its developer.

What interested me the most was how each of these roles overlap and contribute to combine their work into a single unified experience. Rather than being concerned with the fact that I may not be pursuing the same career path as other students, I challenged myself to learn from every major that had anything to do with design and the various forms of digital media -- and it was the best decision I've ever made.

In the end, I decided that web development was the most appropriate career for me and that choice ended up leading me to work at IMPACT building great experiences for our clients and the users of their websites, but I can confidently say that working with students with entirely different career goals ended up teaching some of the most useful lessons I've ever learned.

Are there challenges to people not understanding what it is you do as a web developer or your processes -- how they're built or why they're structured a certain way?

Tim: Yes, we see a lot of confusion regarding development concepts or specific functionality, just because it's so technical.

With design, a marketer who's not a trained designer can still talk about specific elements of a design and understand their purpose. There may be things that they may not know are best practice -- like some of the principles of typography or user accessibility. But, for the most part, they can look at something like a Photoshop mockup and envision that as a page. When it comes to the intricate parts of functionality, determining how difficult something might be to build, potential drawbacks of an adjustment to a design, or the technical side of how their website gets built, however, those are things that marketers have a lot of trouble talking about.

This matters a lot when scoping a website redesign project for a client because it's difficult to try estimate something like timelines or effort involved for a particular task without knowing the full context. Without having a design available where we can specifically reference an exact example, it's hard for us to estimate how long something might take, because it usually comes down to understanding all of the individual parts that are combined to build it.

If I look at a design, I can tell you about how long it might take me to build it. But it's really hard for me to provide general guidelines that always apply for scoping because even a minor change to a design could drastically change the way it has to be built. 

Moving something over just a couple pixels could sometimes require an entirely different code structure, and adding in one small feature might mean that the rest of a page has to be built so it doesn't interfere with it. Sometimes a small request can end up being a lot of work, and it can be hard to identify those even if you are a developer.

What would you say are some of the most common tasks or website elements that, may seem to someone like me that would take a short amount of time but, actually take a lot time?

Tim: In certain situations, one would be changing things on mobile.

Developers don't determine what content is written on a page, so we have to balance flexibility with structure. Depending on the way the page needs to adapt for different screen sizes, it can be very difficult to ensure the layout is indestructible without infringing on the marketer's freedom.

Usually, for a responsive site, you want to adjust the layout at different screen sizes to ensure the page always looks great.

If it's a very important page -- like a homepage or pricing page -- it's worth spending as much time as you need on mobile because it's a very important user experience. Even if that means the template can't be structured in an intuitive way because the marketer managing the content will be using the page less than their end users will.

But, for other pages, completely changing something on mobile just for a minor adjustment could end up taking a lot of time if it doesn't share the same content structure as it does on desktop.

Sometimes it can also result in a poorer experience for the marketer if the template can't be structured in an intuitive way. Keep in mind, developers are building templates for both the users who view the page, as well as the marketer managing the content.

I would say the other thing is sliders and things that move.

An example of a website slider built by Tim.

It's rare that any two are the same. We have a couple that are somewhat standardized and we'll use those in situations where a custom one isn't required because we're able to make some adjustments to their design.

But, often, a custom slider is needed to achieve a desired layout or functionality. The content organization may be different, or the slider controls may be in a different spot, or it's full-width instead of within the grid. Maybe the amount of slides per active state changes at various screen sizes.

Maybe on desktop it's not a slider at all.

Maybe you have three columns but on mobile it becomes a slider, where there are three slides that you have to swipe across. That actually takes a lot of work because we tend to avoid using unnecessary code when possible, even if prewritten code or a plugin has the options we need.

Another example would be sliders that look like they're on an infinite loop -- where it appears that you can just keep swiping forever. Even if looks like there are only three slides, there's usually not just three slides.

For this kind of design, usually what has to be done is duplicate the first two and last two slides and then put them on the ends of the slider. Then, when a user gets to the point where the slider would loop, we actually just move them all the way back to the clone of the last slide and then transition forward. This all happens in a single frame.

So, what's specifically happening is we're temporarily disabling the animation, moving the slider to the clone of the last slide, enabling the animation, and then moving you forward to the first slide in the group. The result is that it looks like you have transitioned seamlessly and the slider never ends.

Because we want them to be perfect, sliders can take a lot of time to build just because there are so many moving parts and we'll often have to code them by hand. 

If you could give marketers and business leaders one piece of advice that would transform any conversation they have with a web developer going forward, so they're more productive and positive, what would it be and why?

Tim: This isn't a simple response, but the answer is learning basic HTML and CSS. You have to understand what a website is and how it works. If you can even just right-click on your page and click on "inspect element" and understand mostly what it is that you're looking at, or at least be able to identify what it is that you don't understand, that can help a lot with any conversations with a developer. It will also help give you the foundation you need to learn more over time, even if you aren't building anything yourself.

It'll start to make sense how pages are structured and how that structure is determined by a design. If you at least understand that part, you can begin to predict what might be involved in changing a page to fit a certain type of content or allow for a more flexible layout.

Well, even if someone like me doesn't take the time to learn HTML deeply, just looking at the complexity of it and understanding that something that seems very simple on the surface has thousands of moving pieces, and pieces of code that you have never seen before.

It sounds like that's, at the very least, a first step toward bridging the divide and being able to acknowledge -- as a marketer -- "I don't know what I don't know, and my web developer isn't trying to ruin my life when he's telling me that something's going to take longer than I originally anticipated." 

Tim: Yes, absolutely, and another benefit of it is that you then also start to understand the technical SEO part of your site.  Because, for the most part, it's not the developer actually doing the technical SEO implementation -- it's most likely going to be the marketer. There are certain best practices that the developer definitely needs to adhere to. But when it comes to the marketing side of SEO -- meta descriptions, titles, headings, proper formatting, etc. -- there's only so much that a developer can ensure is done properly if they aren't the ones entering in the content themselves.

If you know some HTML, it will help a lot when you're trying to either troubleshoot or fill in that information and that you're not breaking your site -- or you at least you'll know what to look for if something goes wrong or seems wrong.

Just knowing a little basic HTML will help a lot, even if you never have to write it yourself. It will help give you a better perspective of what your webpage is doing. You'll start to understand the behavior of your templates, what the robots from search engines are seeing, what technical SEO is, and how to use the page to its full potential.

And, most importantly, you'll be able to have better conversations and continuously learn from the people around you.

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/web-development-for-marketers-misconceptions