I have been holed up for 4 days with a celeron trying to get all my tools in order.
I have successfully changed images and textures in System Shock 2 while replaying it.
So fantastic. Especially with all the fixes and visual mods you can apply to make it nicer
A game people replayed even though it looked crappy, because it was the story, the hunt for things, so many things, and the neat little touches like the research, chemicals, pda's, combinable inventory items, nano augs, and tons of little story lines all with great spooky soundtrack that constantly makes you feel paranoid.
You may laugh and point to Skyrim. But that is 25 GIGS.
This game started a lot of it out more than a decade ago, and it's still replayable.
Unmodded it is 520 megs! With the eye candy applied its 1.2 G.
So much scarier.
That nice tense scary.
I study games that were big, ones we don't think of much now, Fallout 3 and Skyrim have made them into grand cinematic textural masterpieces with hundreds or thousands of ants building them bigger.
What gets me about a game like SS2 or deus ex, is the small tiny size
Really, all the flash is nice, but you only need a small toolset to create games.
Someone asked what I would do when I was sellingthem one of my instruments.
I lifted my hand and said
"It is in these, not that."
I spent 2 days importing static meshes properly into UnrealEd for Unreal Tournament 2004
Which I have modded on my machine to build single player maps and eventually a conversion of the game to a single player story that is not really about killing.
Games are affecting us strongly
we spend so much time in them
My personal mission, which I have had for many years amongst my bazillion other eternally broiling ambitions
is to make a game,
a 3D FPS with almost no shooting.
Not really any enemies
Just things to do and look at in order to progress.
I've talked to people about this,
people interested in game design
They thought I was nuts
everything is twitch these days
twitchy gibby blood spattered amigdyla spazzing shockfests.
Its exciting. For a while.
I remember Myst.
Not when it came out, later. I got into the 3D one not the mac hypercard bs.
It took 2 months without a manual.
I actually remember no personal computers of any kind.
I remember the startling joy of a 1 gig hard drive.
Not a terabyte. 1 Gig.
I remember computers with no hard drive other than the os and you had to have a disk or you couldn't save.
I programmed apple basic, pet, trs-80. Well. Actually I copied the instructions from the magazine letter by letter which was how people did it before you could buy floppies. Originally we used cassettes to record. Or we typed it in, and retyped it if the power glitched.
But now I bitch because I only have a celeron 1.4, 512 ram and an integrated 64 meg video card which feels like the stone ages. But I can play and mod Unreal Tournament 2004. I bitched at my Dad when the kid down the street got an atari with no cartridges, it was hard coded for pong, breakout, and tanks. You toggled a switch for the games.
Now I can build a landscape and meticulously plan the puzzles.
Searching for things.
That's what I like.
Not really murder mysteries
just mysteries
figuring out
what happened
You see, some of the most groundbreaking games, that made their creators rich and changed the face of our lives, they were made with 5-15 core people, sometimes starting with only one or 2 collaborators.
very intricate games, games that intrigued us for months
were made by very small teams.
Hollywood and its northern compatriots make movies
flash bang whiz
Big games are movies
Movies are about investors and money and action and gangsters and fabulous people.
Ugh.
Fabulous people.
Roll them in shit and wipe them off with money.
ahem...
I'm misanthropic.
These small teams made games that were films
Like Repo Man.
That's a film right?
Not a movie?
Or Tarkovsky...
I have no desire to make movies
I will make Films.
Science Fiction Films.
2001. Film. Definately.
Gattaca, Equilibrium, Brazil,
and I'd like to make games
like films
I keep returning to Myst, Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape Torment, Quake 1-2, Arcanum: of steamworks, divine divinity...
So many hours
looking for things, finding things, learning more of the story.
I will be writing a how to of 3D game modding. Maybe you'll like it.
Or not care.
You might find these interesting
Or these...
