Yesterday evening I finished Mass Effect 2 and I’m feeling kind of empty ever since. I really didn’t want this game to end.
I must say that I’m really impressed how mature ME2 is, both design and story wise. The target audience is not teenagers, entertained by one-liners burped by macho, hairy men in Gears of War. No, this piece of software is for adults, in spite of lacking alien porn and excessive gore.
This is how you make games in 2010.

I let this experience rest for a while and then write an article about it. What I’m certain of even now is that I have a new #2 best game ever. (Deus Ex is still #1.)

I’ve finished my programming task on schedule, a standalone Lua application which provides utility functions for processing data coming from Unreal. (More on its features in a later article.)

I also started making a custom animation tree and learned much about Unreal’s animation system in general. The animations will be outsourced, and since this part of the project is going to be the most expensive, I really need to get everything right on my end. I must ask for the right animations as I can’t afford redoing anims over and over again.

Fortunately - if everything goes well - I’m going to get help from a technical animator with this whole animtree thing, so there is hope yet that it will be done on time/budget and at a high quality.

Speaking of high quality, my beloved Dollhouse has ended. After 26 episodes split between two seasons, it was canceled. I’m not happy about it but it’s still better than overdoing something until it’s squeezed and disfigured but still sweats money. (I’m looking at you Stargate… )

Fortunately my sci-fi needs are still well fed: Mass Effect 2 is simply awesome.
Fun to play, looks nice, runs at 60 fps, has great music and last but not least, the story is interesting. I though as much after playing ME1, so I stopped reading any kind of news about ME2 to avoid the marketing machine and similarly retarded forum users spoiling the story for me.
Same goes for Bioshock 2 and any game from Bethesda Softworks. This article on Kotaku is about this is issue, and I totally agree with the author.
I mean, it’s really shocking when Shepard discovers that she has a Geth twin sister, but it just wouldn’t have the same impact if you knew about it beforehand.
Oh..erhm… oops…

My cat is hunting moths in the kitchen, which is one of her favorite activities. It’s about running, jumping, climbing walls, smacking bugs when they are in reach. Fun to watch and cuts back on arthropods living in the flour.

And because I’m feeling festive, I’m going to watch Die Hard.

Happy Easter everyone!

In the middle of the Christmas craze with all the AAA titles coming out at the same time, I found myself playing with a nice little puzzle/platformer game, called Archibald’s Adventures.

The game is simple: leave the room through the “EXIT” door. To do that you must avoid traps, transport crates, push buttons and use your brain.

The puzzle aspect of the game is spot on: the fundamental rules of the game’s world are simple, yet they can be combined to present interesting challenges. It’s not uncommon to look at the room and go “How am I supposed to do this?". Then after closer inspection of the game element comes the epiphany and when the plan works, one feels very clever. (And rightly so.)

The classic platformer sequences are a bit wonky, thanks to the control scheme which feels over-simplified for a veteran Mario player. Sprinting, jumping and climbing are performed automatically and while this mechanic is often convenient, it can also feel as I’m not in control.

So the game is fun, has bitesized missions (to kill five minutes or an hour), a not-too-easy-not-too-hard difficulty (with video walkthroughs helping out if necessary) and a very friendly price tag.

I’ve started working on GViz full time. The programming tasks are in the adept hands of Angelmapper and hopefully I can soon strike a deal with a talented character artist as well.

After sitting 8 hours in front of the UDK, I uncharacteristically enjoy some sport-like activities: 20 minutes on the exercise bike (sometimes spinning it) and 20 minutes of Powerballing for some forearm strength are preparations for the main event: the Sunday morning indoor bouldering.

I tried wall climbing after seeing the Mission Impossible 2 trailer back in 2000, and I fell in love with it instantly. (In spite that it was a small and dirty place, a cellar of a smokey bar.) I had no proper shoes or chalk, but I enjoyed every minute arsing around. I stopped going there when they closed the place a year later.

In 2004 the topic of bouldering came up and several coworkers expressed an interest in this great exercise. We found a newly built, clean, big place, so half the team started to go climbing after work.

Bouldering is fun when you do it, but 10x more fun when you do it with friends. I was very enthusiastic, I got carried away on several occasions and did stunts I shouldn’t have. The last straw(s) which broke the camel’s back were the stupid “who can hang on three/two/one fingers the longest” contests. Those really screwed up my fingers, they hurt for months and after that pain came back at the faintest hint of stress. I thought that that’s it, I f.cked up my chance to do the only sport I was ever interested in (well, aside of skiing).

A few months ago my brother asked if I wanted to climb again. I told him that I do want to climb (I literally dream about it from time to time) but I’m not sure if my fingers can take it.
I gave it a try and so far it seems to be working. I’m taking this slow and easy (that’s the only reason why my newbie bro is better at this already!), but it doesn’t degrades the fun.

It’s both a mental and a physical exercise: You have to plan the route you want to climb. By looking at the wall you explore different options, in your mind you do the moves which lead to the goal. This is crucial step before you jump on the wall, forget the plan and focus solely on not falling.