she/they/it // disabled personal trainer, luddite game dev, walking oxymoron
In the age of early access viral hits, optimization is just something no publisher wants to put resources into before they know the game’s a success or not.
True story, a game I worked on at my last job shipped on Xbox One and PS4, the PS4 version was not even built until a month before shipping.
not OP, but I’m in two minds about it. I don’t really care to step in on caitlyn’s behalf, she can kick rocks for all I care. and I don’t think the intent of the post was hateful, but whenever a trans person does something bad and newsworthy, deadnames start to come out and even if it’s directed at someone I actively despise it still sucks to read. revoking someone’s chosen name out of personal disgust is just something we deal with irl a lot. it’s a similar kind of ick as when a female politician does something reprehensible and the discourse gets flooded by a bunch of people crudely commenting on her appearance.
eta: with a very minor change this same exact point could be made without deadnaming her, so to me it’s uncomfortable and unnecessary.
probably the only thing that’ll bring me back to professional game dev. especially cool to see after how brutal of a year it’s been for the industry. hope this works out for them!!
like most engines, UE5 is whatever you hack it into being. I hate developing with Unreal but I do have to admit it’s solid in a lot of ways. and has pretty mature content/LOD streaming, one of the biggest issues I saw with Cyberpunk at launch.
deleted by creator
I haven’t played the witcher specifically, but I do think it’s worth pointing out that this is the usual experience for women playing mainstream male-led titles with romance arcs. women have been playing and enjoying the witcher for a long while, including its sexual elements. if it’s possible for us it could be possible for you too! I know if I’m replaying Mass Effect I’m actually probably more likely to play as male Shepard (because I can’t be gay with Tali 😫)
ultimately one of the coolest things a game can do imo is encourage you to step into the shoes of character unlike yourself in a situation you’ve never encountered and ask you to make decisions as them. If you’re uncomfortable roleplaying romantic enounters as a woman, there might be some value in trying anyway! you may find the experience to be more similar than you’d expect. I recognize it’s probably more complicated if you have more paternal feelings toward her, but telling her story from her viewpoint does mean including elements that conflict with how she’s seen by Geralt - it’s her story now and it’d be a disservice to only include what’s comfortable from Geralt’s POV.
In any case, sexual content may be in the game and referenced here and there, but if it doesn’t interest you I expect you’ll be able to not see it. correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that you could play Geralt as aromantic and asexual if you wanted, yea? I imagine the same would be true here too.
and for anyone who’s played the base game - make sure to check out the DLC, it’s essentially a sequel! and I found it even more fascinating and affecting. an improvement on all fronts to an already very special game.
Especially considering a lot of the creative talent behind Valve’s acclaimed single player catalog are no longer at the company. Valve is a different company now and so their games will be different too.
[Outer Wilds cycle end music intensifies]
Outer Wilds, to my estranged family. I think they could use a new religion and that game’s probably a better place to start.
I crunched like hell in my mid 20s on a live service game that I enjoyed playing, was well loved and consistently played by a few fans, and had a few unique ideas in its niche. I gave up a lot of life for that game to see the light of day, under extremely tight timelines and wavering support from a flakey publisher.
It lasted less than a year in release because of a few mistakes in early access and it inhabited a saturated market that seems near impossible to penetrate now. The console ports that caused the worst months of the crunch never even saw a release.
Me and the rest of the devs would love to just play the game again, but the game’s kinda just rotting somewhere in storage of a publisher that long ago tried to pivot toward NFT/metaverse bullshit, to predictable results. Outside of a few early playtest builds a few people have (and definitely aren’t supposed to) we have basically no way of playing it ourselves, much less letting others play it. We couldn’t even get much approved to show in a portfolio once the studio closed and the assets went to the publisher. It makes me really sad and I’m no longer in game dev / tech at large professionally for that reason. This story is not unique, this is pretty much just how the industry works and devs near-universally feel screwed over by it.