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@weeklyfascination Thank you! Wish I can make cool videos like you one day :D

@geekjohn No problem man. Your video was very meticulously made. You put a lot of effort to make sure we don't screw up following it. I really appreciate it :D

Oh really? I didn't play it so had no idea I guess those were not bugs but features :p

Your book probably has some kind of forewords. Hagakure can be read in an hour. Trust me, I'm not the kind of person who likes to read, I wouldn't have been able to read that book close to a hundred times otherwise.

I see! I had no idea. Thanks for the clarification man :D

@@SLRModShop Some things are just so nuanced, right? Friends is fulI of slang and innuendos! Poor translators :p I tried showing the Japanese movie Nana to my friends with English subtitles. They didn't understand anything about the story, much less why Nana is cool XD

Thanks! And thank you for watching. I always appreciate it :)

@@Paris-STR Exactly. When a game is released without a long promotional campaign it feels odd to me nowadays. It's not bad, just unusual compaired to others. Tbh, gamers are so thirsty for quality games that the good ones will get shared regardless. Word of mouth is so powerful to us that traditional marketing could take a back seat

@@gusciousi1626 Να η πατρίδα. Ευχαριστώ, το κατά δύναμη!

Haha hello traveller! Thank you for stopping by! I really appreciate it

I'm glad you enjoyed it :) In fact, there was a whole presentation from UBI about how they used Houdini in Far Cry. Here's the link: th-cam.com/video/NfizT369g60/w-d-xo.html You also make a good point about who would use this software. People who just want to "draw" so to speak might find this weird. If you have some technical background tho somehow Houdini makes sense. We call people who can work with tools like Houdini Technical Artists in the industry, since they have both technical understanding and an artistic touch. This is a blanket term though, since two TA's might have completely different workflows, skillsets, and specialties. I've worked with TA's who only do shaders, lighting, VFX, you name it. Very diverse field. Because the nodes in Houdini can be used basically for everything it does, the knowledge you build with it compounds to other areas it can do. E.g. if you learn how to use boolean nodes to make a cage like you mentioned, you can use the same technique on clouds, terrain, textures, etc. And despite that, there is so much depth in all of these fields that some people just go crazy deep in just one area and become mad specialists of it. It's beautiful.

@@xanthosvouldis9065 oooh that's what Technical Artists are... I know the Senior Technical Artist from Guerilla Games, a brilliant guy. Now I know what he does ^-^ I never ask too many questions because I don't want to put him in hot water with NDA and what not.

@@SLRModShop Exactly :) Usually TA's know how to code or script too, and you can use that in Houdini as well. For complex operations it sometimes makes more sense to expose the parameters of w/e you're working with and directly manipulate those in code. Fractals, repetitive elements, or object placement rules are often done like that.

@@goblinman3010 Absolutely. Hang in there though, traveller! Hopefully this method makes it easy :)

The konami code is forever burned in my brain and fingers. Thanks for reminding me, traveller :) Loved hearing your thoughts!

That's a good point about solo vs multiplayer cheats, traveller. Cheats that modify stats need a lot of finesse I think. I want to share a good and a bad example of cheat-style stats modification. 1. Solo - The Laboratory in Total War Warhammer 2: It was a controlled solo environment where you could alter many stats of the units to a ridiculous extend. I personally didn't enjoy it that much, because I felt no purpose for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I didn't want that free update feature, but I felt no point about it. Conversely when they gave a single unit very high unit mass or absurdly long snipping range, it felt more fun because that's what those particular units were supposed to be good at to begin with. 2. Multiplayer - Versions of characters you can unlock in fighting games like Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, etc. : I loved those way more because it rewarded you for finding out how to unlock the character, and the character would tell a story with the absurd stats. Like a poisoned version that looked kinda purple, was losing health all the time, but was way stronger than the original character. Fun :) Anyway, thank you so much for watching the video. Hearing your thoughts on this means a lot :)

Haha really? Thank you, traveller. I only play a bit of drums for fun. Sometimes you can see the drumsticks in the background. I really appreciate you dropping by! Let me know if I did anything weird in the video. XD Rock on!

@@xanthosvouldis9065 aha drums! I knew you had to play something. When I see a fellow long haired dude it’s usually a sign. I subbed when you said so btw haha. Cool to hear your perspective

@@martinvannostrand8488 Omg you did?! Thank you so much! Anything you want me to cover, just shoot ;)

That's a good point, traveller. Players will always appreciate tasteful content, I think. Cheats are definitely part of that. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Good luck with your gamadev journey! Let me know if I can cover any topic that helps :)

That's true about the internet, traveller. I suppose that's the reason physical game magazines went away too. I'll say this, both as a dev and a player, people are not that dense. If there is something in the game meant to improve the player's experience, it will be appreciated. Cheat codes feel to me like an opportunity to reward the player for taking the extra time to find out about this. I see nothing wrong with that. I really appreciate that you watched the video. It means a lot. Rock on!

Your intuition is spot on, traveller! :D Well said, games are products these days. I wonder if it's so hard to find a happy medium...

Greetings, traveller! Thanks for dropping by :)

@@minimumwrist3546 Yes! @slrmodshop was mentioning Golden Eye cheats too. Such a timeless game. Thanks for stopping by, traveller :)

Cheating with what the devs give you is usually more fun than modding in cheats. It feels like I have the green light to cheat.

@@thepeskyone Excellent point, traveller! It feels so much more purposeful, doesn't it? To me, that kind of stuff is for all intents and purposes extra content :D

Haha thank you, traveller. Glad your journey brought you this way :)

@@weeklyfascination Thank you! All thanks to your interview :)

Yeah, I see what you mean. Physics in games is always great for fun. I remember playing one of Trials games on the PSP for so long. Mind you, this was the demo with only 1 bike and stage. The physics and ragdoll behaviour of the rider when you crashed provided just endless entertainment XD Nowadays I think those fun easter eggs come mostly in the form of extra art. When I was working on Star Ocean 5 I remember seeing random doodles of chibi versions of the characters on the whiteboards. I specifically told the artists these had to go in the game. They said "oh, don't worry. We'll make sure they will!" Hmmm perhaps there is happy medium here where the game slowly rewards you with the knowledge of how to unlock the easter egg. I think it was in NBA Jam 2 for the mega drive, the game would every so often give you the codes to unlock all these secret characters and effects. Big fan of that approach

@@xanthosvouldis9065 I didn't know that there was a Trials game on PSP, I was a big fan of them on Xbox 360. (then they got bought by Ubisoft... :/ ) GoldenEye did it very well, they're basically a reward for your higher scores. Not only the cheats could make the game enjoyable longer, but the hunt for the cheats did as well. Halo cheats are great, too. You're rewarded for exploration (in case you don't know, there are hidden skulls) and they provide modifiers/cheats. You can make the game a living hell for yourself with these modifiers.

@@SLRModShop Haha yes! that's what I'm talking about. That approach is the gift that keeps on giving

@@ioanniskyriazis7307 Ωωω πατρίδα. Ευχαριστώ! Ό,τι θες ρώτα

@@SLRModShop Hehe, good to know! Actually the game engine has a lot of native tricks to deal with latency. It can do some predictions too, since it was made to work with such a fast paced game to begin with. I'll make something for Houdini too. Thanks for the suggestion!

@@SLRModShop Glad you liked it! That's a great idea, I should do one on cheat codes too. A few things to say there for sure. Haha yeah, I learned that about interviews the hard way. All good experience tho :p Thank you so much for taking the time to watch, man. I really appreciate it

@@DudeWatIsThis An experienced traveler :) Well said. There is so much value in learning to save yourself before you call for help. Programmers' time is sacred.

@@xanthosvouldis9065 EITR. The Last Night. Ant Simulator. These guys would have been instant millionaires if they had had their shit together. All you had to do was finish the damn game, CJ!

@@DudeWatIsThis Haha that's always the battle, isn't it? There's so many games that would be stellar with a bit more love, but budgets run out. It's a place where we can improve just by thinking long term, I believe.

@@nicholask.5185 Lol don't let the appearances fool you. I am sick and twisted in my own way

There's a traveller who has experienced that effect! I'm so happy you discovered the power turning negative feedback into a positive effect. It is incredibly powerful for all types of games! I like the sideways running and teleport forward effect in Hell Runner. I wish you every success with the full release :)

@@xanthosvouldis9065 Apparently it really works well when you listen your players :D One of the changes i done was basically adding an option to settings to alter movement system because i dont like the play the way that guy wanted so i make it possible both of us can play the way we like it. Thanks. Hopefully i will finish the game in few months? Maybe? Hopefully. And after that i wanna keep making more games but first this need to finish. I used to cant wait to start something new so that why i had lots of canceled project but because hell runner already on steam it basically force me to focus on it only and i love it. So far i like hell runner a lot. It is mostly focus on speedrunning. Also it gonna have 8 chapters where almost every chapter player gain a new ability to play around with. You can even return old levels with new abilities XD This also allow me to slowly introduce stuff so it wont overwhelm people. I might need that experience more on my next games as well. So far i learn a lot because of this game We used to work on it two men team but like after second chapter earquake happen in Turkiye where i live so i'm solo now. My coworker is alive and well but financially he is well doomed basically so he cant really work on the game so that leave me responsible for everything. It was hard at first because i was normally just programmer but hey it force me to learn stuff.

@EnderElohim Wow, sorry to hear about your team. Seems they are ok at least, and you gained the ability to focus on one project. That is incredibly valuable. Can't wait to see how Hell Runner evolves :)

@@xanthosvouldis9065 Thanks a lot it mean a lot to me. Hopefully eventually when he start being financially stable and or after i make enough money to pay for him so he can work for me one way or another hopefully he can return to game development in future. I not only gotta keep grind for myself but for him as well. In the end i like my friend and i wish for him to do what he wanna do a.k.a game development and not trying to survive. For that gotta work more :D But yeah because of that it force me to learn much more vide aspect of game development. I think for next game i plan to make roguelike because it seems like one of the best genre when you dont have manpower to create lots of content and i love roguelikes games Also for that to happen first i need to make Hell Runner as good as possible because not only it is my first baby it also gonna be founding stone for my future games. If people say "look at hell runner what a sux game who cares what he developing now "that would be nightmare. Of course it not gonna be as good as i wish but it need tobe as good as it possible to make me proud of it

@@EnderElohim Absolutely. Good games get shared so quickly. Focusing on making each game good always pays!

Haha don't be so hard on yourself, traveller :) Price can exist on a continuum as the game improves. Also, a good question to ask early players is how much would they pay if the game had XYZ feature they want. They might surprise you with the answer!

@@pixelninjah Thank you for the suggestion, traveller! You have no idea how little these topics are discussed in the games industry. We need your guidance :)

@@ThePlayerOfGames I agree, traveller. We are so sceptical nowadays of any pricetag we see in games. Would it be so bad to put the players and their enjoyment of the game first?

@@SLRModShop I remember you. Thank you for your comment the other day about Blood west and how much you enjoyed it compared to its price. I feel this way for so many games. I think I can make a couple of videos going a bit deeper into what I do. The technical side of our current game is an interesting topic too. Thanks for the suggestions! Stay tuned next week ;)

@@Paris-STR Absolutely. What you get needs to make sense

Oh absolutely! Goods with a personal touch from studios are always special to me.

Thank you for taking the time to watch, traveller. It means a lot :)

@@Paris-STR This application of the 3 stage act is a bit different from the classic form, so I'm not sure if others have written about it in this way. I did another video where I talkw about world building in a similar way th-cam.com/video/43gs3l0tiVk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=jI8zGQUFaIFELo8F

That's an amazing journey... I'm so happy you are enjoying your life! You even took the time to write a paper about it. You are doing good work, traveller. I hope it reaches as many people as possible.

@@Paris-STR Oh absolutely!

@@Paris-STR There's a new spicy noodle place in my neighborhood. Delicious 😋

@@Metal-Spark Thank you for your kind words, traveller. I really appreciate you taking the time to watch. You make a fair point. If you can suggest an alternative I would be happy to take a look :)

@@xanthosvouldis9065I think just a simple cut put of your face with text on the side would feel more authentic and clear (maybe add some PNGs or stuff related to the topic)

@@VanceVibes I think I see what you mean, traveller. Maybe I can replace the graphic of me with a photo and keep the text as is... I'll do a thumbnail like that next week. Keep an eye out and let me know how it looks.

​@@xanthosvouldis9065 Good luck! By the way, the logo looks clearly AI-generated, which lowers the channel’s credibility. I recommend using a simple text logo or your face with a solid color background.

@@VanceVibes Yeah, that makes sense. I think I have a pic in mind of just me. I'll also update that for next week. Please let me know how it looks! Btw, I really appreciate that you took the time to tell me about this. Thank you so much for your attention!

I would encourage you to watch the whole video as he explains that even if you were able to accurately measure if some one, other than yourself is the best at something, relative to you, it has no value and you're better off not being discouraged from that fact and use that time to become better yourself.

@@Paris-STR An upside-down traveller! :D That's a good point about fresh game ideas. I think coming up with something new and then checking for quality of life things from other games is a pretty solid methodology. Thanks for putting together such a well formed comment!

Do they ever talk about the story though? How well executed? Like Final Fantasy?

@@Zelink108 Good question, traveller. Story is one of the lesser discussed ones. It still suffers from the same problem though, regardless from what the analysis says you can never know if it's on point or not. It's just words that won't capture the myriad of factors that played into the final result. That is not to say that these presentations are not entertaining or do not offer good anecdotes, of course. Just that there is no game design value, in terms of a how-to or a recipe for good results. If you are interested in story-making for games, perhaps you will appreciate these: Fun story #1 : I remember watching the devs of Journey say that it took them a year after the game was basically done to get the ending of the game right. They had to add a whole new "chapter" to achieve an emotional closure to the story. Fun story #2: I spoke with a translator from Square Enix back in the day about the quality of english translations for FF titles. He said that they have really been trying to give a better experience in English. But no matter how hard they try, they will always be limited by the fixed format cutscenes and time allowed for each character to say their lines. This will inevitably create an unnatural sounding dialogue pace-wise, even if the text itself is translated perfectly. And then there is the issue body language and gestures that makes sense in Japanese, but not in other languages. Fun story #3: I attended the presentation here in Tokyo of the guy who was responsible for the story of a game I truly love, Soul Sacrifice for the PSVita. He mentioned that he had to write most of it without really having the graphics or gameplay of the game as a reference (since those were not done yet). You can imagine how that is less than ideal :) I got this story double checked with Inafune Keiji san, designer of the game of Megaman/Rockman fame, when I attended his "Inafune Juku" workshops. Let me know if any of this is interesting to you and I'll make a video about them. Thanks for your comment!

You bring up a good point, traveller. There were plenty of interesting anecdotes in those videos, and of course there is the entertainment value too. Knowing the person better gives context to their opinion, for sure. In fact, I'm planning to do a video specifically on this. Thank you always for your words :)

@@SLRModShop Lol! Let's collaborate cooperatively through our mutual capabilities

@@jacquev6 So many options along those lines!

Glad you found it helpful, traveller!

Thank you for your words, traveller. It means a lot. Have an awesome day!

Traveller, your words are like gold. I didn't know the patent office background about funding, so thank you for sharing it. I'm sure it will enlighten others too. I appreciate your time watching and commenting too. It means a lot :)

The patent system is just fundamentally broken these days. It went from the idea of being able to protect an innovative idea until you made profit from it, to a system that allows big corporations to just shoot down the competition, be it through patent trolling (Aureal vs Soundblaster is a good read here) or because they manage to patent basic ideas. Take the recent Palworld vs Pokemon "patent infringement", which is invalid due to 3 reason: 1. Nintendo filed the patent AFTER Palworld came out 2. The patent they filed was for a system that already existed in gaming for over 2 decades 3. The patent is too basic, it basically says "a system where you can catch sth with sth" The EUGH generally just dismisses those patents instantly, like with Asetek vs Coolermaster, where they simply didnt view the patent as valid. But American and Japanese patent courts are sadly different here. Often these lawsuits are combined with a cease and desist order, so that the rival company cannot sell their product and then the case gets stretched for multiple years, until the rival company files bancrupty, even if they successfully defend themselves (this is what happened with Aureal vs Soundblaster).

@@xXYannuschXx Wow lots of important information, traveller. I didn't know about the Aureal vs Soundblaster case. Apparently, "1999: Aureal won a favorable ruling in December, but the legal costs were too high and Aureal filed for bankruptcy. 2000: Creative acquired Aureal's assets from bankruptcy for $32 million." Big fan of Asetek too, at least back in the day. I got their freezer box that kept my CPU at -4 degrees. Ah, good times.... You should have seen the rumours in this year's tokyo game show when everyone walked by the Palworld giant booth. Mad controversy. You make a good point about the spirit vs letter of the law. The more I see cases like this, the more I think the intention is more of the problem than the ruling.

@@weeklyfascination Haha yes that's exactly the point! Thank you for your encouragement. It means a lot!