The Winners of 2025
So with the year 2025 over, and a new course in progress. I don't really have much to talk about. The work is going slower than I'd like. I accidentally deleted my entire Fort project, so things aren't amazing. They are so much better than they were at the start of the year. It's no longer do or die. It's just do.
In fact that's my problem. You shouldn't rely on negative thoughts and emotions to propel you in life. Even if it does produce good work and high art, using negative shit kills you in the long run. The work needs to be from dedication and routine. But man is it hard to set a routine when you have everyone coming to visit and it's the holidays and travel and gifts and and and all of it.
So in a pitiful attempt to keep the routine, I'm writing this blog post, and turning it into an end of the year list. I used to do this every year after the year ended, and tell people about the games I played and loved. So here it is in written form.
My game of the year is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. I don't think it is a perfect game by any stretch of the word. It is arguably worse than the first game. But what it does do so much better than the first, is make itself approachable through its wonderful graphical design, streamlined combat, new perks, and systems that invite the player to interact with the game. Instead of being a lightning rod for things to happen to you, which is prevalent in the first game. There isn't a time where you don't have a royal quest or some clear duty to be performed.
In fact, it's when you lose sight of those clear objectives that the game begins to drag. There is no thieves guild, no legendary animals to hunt, or gwent cards to collect. Pretty much the only content in the game ties directly into the main story, which makes it more impactful, but if you are making a medieval simulator, then you should let players enter churches and open shops outside of paid DLC.
This disconnect can be felt in the crime system most of all. It's the best in gaming, bar none. If you steal something from a chest, an NPC will notice and hunt for you. They use player sounds and things like checking if doors are open to find the player. It never feels unfair, even if you are found out days in game time later. You will interact with this system throughout your play through. Basically anytime you need to get an item for a quest, you will have the option to steal it instead of buy it. It's incredibly well done. Which makes it hard when the rest of the game doesn't feel as well done. For example, the crime system makes these NPCs feel very aware of the world, but then instantly lose that awareness when you pass a skill check with the same guard, using the same skill, playing the same voice line. Making the skill check harder, changing the voice line, making the guard recognize the voice line if they choose the same skill check, these are just a few of the ways around this problem, and not terribly hard to implement.
So far it sounds like I'm very negative on the game, but this kind of criticism is only possible on games that attempt to raise the bar and make no mistake that KCD2 has raised the bar for what an RPG can be on its crime system alone. But then you have an adult, well told, historically accurate-ish game that dares to ask the player to listen and use their fucking head. Simply listening to directions, and trying to find locations based off of them, is more difficult and more rewarding while being far more enjoyable to play, compared to Skyrims "turn this dial" ass puzzle where the genre is currently stuck at. That's a low bar, but this game kinda teaches your real world skills by asking these players to follow navigation directions. I'm hardcore if you wanna find north, you have to look at the sun and find it from there. This gets easier, and of course there are ways around finding your direction, like asking a local NPC for directions. But what game in today's world, dares to ask the player that. Granted this is hardcore, but if you want the challenge of finding chamomile for a potion without map.markers, you can choose it. If you don't, then you can play regular mode and it will feel a bit more guided but still, ask the player to use their damn noggin. Not to mention the lore of this game is just real life. When you pick an herb, the sage looks like real life sage. When you ask a priest about the local politics, it doesn't launch into some horrible analog for real life religions that feels so antiquated. It tells you about life in that region as it really was and that is just great. Because you aren't a noble, some dialogue choices are best not responded to because your opinion doesn't matter. Which you would only realize if you were paying attention. Not paying attention penalizes you, does it really affect things in the long run? Unfortunately no. But it does penalize you, and encourages you to pay attention and not just skip the dialogue, which elevates the dialogue and your connection to it. There's ways of talking out problems that don't involve the skill checks I knocked on earlier, but rest assured they are pretty and cross-relative. As in sometimes having a super high drinking skill will help you when talking to a priest. Sometimes being book smart will help you avoid a fight. It's wonderful, and feels like there are no wrong moves when picking perks and paths, just different play styles. This is the historical fiction game that Assassin's Creed could be if they dropped the modern day setting.
My thoughts for improvement would be allowing us to role play in politics more. I wish you could pick which king you truly support in this game. Even if the quest stays largely unaffected, implementing a choice such as the witcher 2s choice in its civil war would play out so nicely in this world, as well as encourage multiple playthroughs without blocking too much content to one playthrough or another. But this is just a wish. The game is truly amazing as it is, and the type of game that will raise the bar with other big studios. It's shown there is a real appetite for these style of games.
That is why it's my game of the year. It doesn't pander. It feels fresh and new and like it's challenging what a game can be, even if it does fall short in some areas.
Now I'd like to talk about my movie of the year 28 Years Later. Again this is not the best movie that came out this year. This is my movie of the year, the one I liked the most. But to tell the full story of the 28 years later you have to go back to 2008 when a movie called Doomsday came out. Doomsday is a bad movie. You shouldn't watch it. But if you did you'd find out it's basically 28 Years Later but bad. So just watch 28 Years Later. But you need to understand that I loved this bad movie as a kid. So seeing it done right, was just amazing.
So why do you even make this movie? A sequel to a movie made over a half dozen years ago. A franchise that has technically ended twice. What story is there really to tell? Well to me, the story of these movies has always been about rage. It's "the rage virus" after all, and its infected don't move like the slow moving dumbasses other zombie shows reach for. These guys are fast, and hunt and one drop of blood is enough to kill you. Contrast this with shows like walking dead where they can wear the skin of zombies and not get infected. It's not zombies, and it's not a series where "the real monster is people," no it's the zombies and these are people with serious flaws just doing their best. Even if they do become slightly monsterish. People do good and bad things and in the end they carry on.
So the first movie takes on the digital era, and the rage that comes with living life in the modern world. For the first time everything is being recorded. Every interaction people have is starting to become important, and it's driving everyone mad. The movie has a general theme and it resonates the most out of the three, probably because it's trying to say the least. We wake up with Jim, wondering where all of the noise and people are. He wanders through the normally busy streets of London, with them empty. That's scary. You don't need 10,000 zombies muddling about and dead bodies everywhere. The chaos of modern life has gotten so normalized that its absence frightens us as much as any infected chasing someone through the street. That does happen and it's thrilling and wonderful, but what draws us in is the lack of society. The rest of the film builds on this through the volatile nature in which the virus spreads. Everything Jim does will get him killed now. Simply touching blood, something all over the place in most zombie movies, will infect him. He goes on to meet a woman, a man struggling to raise his daughter in the hard world, and then soldiers who decide to get crazier than the infected themselves which comes close to "humans are the real monsters," and becomes less effective as it goes on and gets more generic. Then we have 28 Weeks Later and boy, does this have a lot to say. It's the war on terror baby, and you better believe that now, for some reason, America is nation building in England instead of Afghanistan. It goes full on zombie movies, and feels like a bland and uninspired sequel that was made to cash in. I think its treatment by the third movie, and the fan base, towards the second movie shows how much it failed to resonate with people.
28 Years Later leans towards the first movie. As with most media these days, years are all about fascism and its rise. But it goes out of its way to first show the appeal of racism and machismo. The world is a terrifying fucking place. There are things in the woods that hunt in packs, and will run your down and eat you. All the creature comforts you're used to are gone. Not only that but your mom has fucking brain cancer. It's the real antagonist of the entire movie. Shockingly relatable and human within a movie that has a pseudo medieval society that could be described as junkpunk. I ADORE how there are a bunch of idiots out there who will think this movie is about zombies. People who can't realize why they would make an infected pregnant. How actually the society on the island could be morally grey. That a husband can love his wife, despite sticking it to the teacher when he is drunk. The opening itself highlights this hypocrisy with the church becoming an infection point. Jimmy's whole vibe is built to fit this theme of hypocrisy. Ralph Fiennes character is a Doctor who build a fucking bone temple and seems to love killing people. But instead of engaging with these characters on a human level, most people just say "how can the good guy do a bad thing? This movie is fake and gay." Which I love reading online.
Then of course there are the film bro intellectuals who hated all the weird medieval life shit, and thought the ending was a nonsensical mess. Which it was. The film deliberately suckers you in with the burning of Rebecca Ferguson and the wonderful coming of age tale. For both the boy and his father. So when the flipping jimmies start chainsawing infected necks open and jumping off cliffs, the tonal shift completely nukes any feelings of warmth you had for the picture. I think that is brilliant. In an age where every movie gets a sequel, it's nice to see a movie made with the forethought to set up a sequel. Even if it made the first movie worse, people don't care anymore. They want something to be so bad that the first will become a "cult classic," on reddit threads in two years. Perfect for discourse precisely because it is so divisive. Allegedly the sequel is good enough for them to green light a third movie before its release. Which is crazy, and I think it speaks to taking a wild swing. For letting things find their audience.
As film moves beyond film, movies will need new mediums and the public's relationship to it needs to change. In the same way that they used to be interspersed with news bulletins because that is where people got their news. In 2025, People want a reason to leave the house any a reason, they really just need to be able to afford it, and if you are smart enough to realize that 10 hour HBO show would work better as a movie or a series of movies, why shouldn't they film a movie and its sequel back to back under roughly the same budget? It would be cheaper than a streaming series. You can build hype by releasing the first movie on streaming, to a singular partner that will want the sequel simply because people are rabid for anything new to share with the community over. The result is a micro fandom that you can stand up in the space of two years, and my hope is that it will become more common as streaming shows become worse. It helps that 28 years felt new and different to go along with this new and different release structure. My movies end on cliff hangers, many set up sequel bait, but they've always relied on a promise, a promise that has been broken so many times audiences have given up. 28 Years Later can't break its promise. Its cliff hanger and response are a part of the same package. So now every fan of 28 Years has spent the last year theory crafting and hyping the sequel, which from the studios eyes, is the same line item as the original movie, and that is HUGE in the business. They did have separate budgets, but instead of giving a director 100 million dollars for a movie that demands studio interference, runtime reductions, and character development to be cut. You get 2 $50 million movies that synergistically feed off each other, released quickly enough to capitalize on hype of the instant-gratification culture of the go go 20s. The artists get more time to see what works and what doesn't, and let their stories breathe in a way that these 3.5 hour long epics deserve.
Update from Post Bone Temple: I was horribly wrong on the idea of bone temple doing well. It wasn't as good as the first, it was crazy and interesting and I think it will stand the test of time very well, but you can see the difference between a genius like Danny and Nia DeCosta, Danny did something different, Nia made a horror movie, at least stylistically. But this is coming from someone who really enjoyed the iphone bullet time shots, and infrared shots of the first. Moreover, I think that using modern music was fun and story relevant, but Young Father's soundtrack on the first really worked to elevate the whole movie. I still think Bone Temple was a better movie than Furiosa, which is a film it's getting compared to online, mainly because it cost 60 mil, and not 160 million.
The best retro game I played was Pokemon rocket. Man, I love this game. Again, I can find fault with the overtly edgy dialogue and gameplay, but it is simply a joy to play a Pokemon game that balances around a real human being in control. It's so refreshing to have to work to take down a trainer. Having a real risk when you lose a battle because you lose so much money. Then there is the story which is a wonderful satire at its best, and a bad Newgrounds forum post at its worst. There are always so many "what ifs?" when it comes to Pokemon. Something about the integration of these mythical creatures into cool Japanese life is idyllic to think about. So pushing these what if questions like, "Do they eat pokemon?" "What are people doing with Slowpoke tails?" etc. This game engages with all of them, sure it's not canon and shouldn't be taken as such, but it does keep you entertained during its story, despite its occasional edgy dialog. It also adds the stealing mechanic. It's an idea so tantalizing it's been there since the manga, and the hero even does it in Pokémon Colosseum. In Rocket it is wonderful to be able to straight up steal that shit. It has everything that you are looking for in a Pokemon game. An interesting mechanic/gimmick with stealing. A story that is passable, and at least has some out of pocket dialog like a child loving shorts or an old man spying on a gym full of women. You do a few double takes. But most importantly, the game is balanced for people that do not eat crayons. I'm not saying Pokemon is easy, Kanto in Gold, Route 110 May, and various Elite 4 members are pains. But this is consistently challenging that makes you think more. Item use, team comp, and move lists need to be changed in order to take this game on that feels great. Getting beat by Red at the start of the game is perfect, and such an unfair fight it makes you want to kick his ass. There is a reputation system that I think some people may hate, mainly because to play the game you have to get negative rep, but that bars you from some things So you feel like you are getting punished for playing the game, by the game. But it does do it enough to get you to engage with the bounty/rep regain systems so I ended up enjoying it. It's a game about being a bad guy, you are going to have to be a bad guy and suffer the consequences for being a bad guy. It's not a pirate game where you are "a freedom fighter," or some morally grey stance. You are team rocket, you are stealing people's cherished pets from them and using them to hurt other animals. You aren't good and unfortunately we had to leave it to ROM hackers to get this most simplest of spin offs. 30 years of pokemon and I'd say at least 18 of stagnation. Thank god for ROM hacks.
I meant to post this in December, then Jan, and now Feb. But hey, it's getting kinda more frequent right?
Entering The Grind Zone
I’ve reached my 30s, moved to another city, and in two months I’ll have a full year of Unreal experience under my belt. But now begins the slog. Over my time on this earth, I’ve realized that learning something can be likened to heating an object. For those who don’t know, most objects can be heated at a steady pace in the beginning. Slowly rising in temperature as the heat around them increases. But at a certain point, the matter needs to change form: proteins break, alloys melt, water boils. This makes temperature graphs look like this:
I liken this to learning because I think skills plateau at certain points, and I think I’ve hit my first one. The gains are getting smaller as the problems become more complex. Doing something like creating a working tracing channel doesn’t seem impressive or cool because it’s super basic, but you also can’t do anything cool until you master it.
For the past year, people have been like, “Aw look, he’s learning,” and that has been super helpful. But I know it won’t last. Motivation can’t be taken from outsiders alone, and I need to rely on routine if I hope to make it past the first plateau of “knowing enough to know nothing,” which is where I’m currently at.
I basically have the skill equivalent of a CS student who’s taken one game-programming class in their first semester. Not even that much skill, probably less, and I can feel it. I’ve never felt further away from becoming a game dev than I do now that I know everything that goes into making a game. Take art, for example. This key component of every game is something I have legitimately no skill with. But if I published the current Fight For Your Fort build, I’d need to spend hours working on just the UI and menu art. Then I’d need to make all of that feel good, and ideally add touch controls so I could bring it to people’s phones. And this is for a game I’m not even super passionate about, a game that doesn’t have a real selling point until I create a story for it. Even then it will be a time a waster at best.
So where does that leave me? Basically, I’ve just spent a year learning, and the only way to make it not a waste is to power through the next year of plateaued growth. My own inspiration isn’t enough to keep me going anymore, and the double-edged sword of having people look at my work will eventually invite mean comments, so that well of motivation may run dry too.
As such, I’m starting another course: “Unreal Engine 5 — Gameplay Ability System — Top Down RPG.”
The goal is to take what I learn in this course and combine it with everything I’ve done so far with Fight For Your Fort. As I’ve mentioned on my podcast, PissBerg, the point of doing this course is to free up my mind to work on a story that pairs well with the gameplay. Ideally it would be an ARPG where the player character is attacked in waves and has to survive a certain number of “Days” or “Levels.” The player would only have the original cast of characters to fight with. These being monks who have turned the old fort into a monastery and shelter the main character from the evil hordes. If a character dies, they turn into a vengeful spirit that can smash and drop enemies, basically ending the level. The ideal ending would be to keep everyone alive, using the cast’s combat skills to defeat the enemy waves.
If you read that and thought, “Well Tibs, that sounds great, but it feels like you need to create a combat system,” you’d be right. I’m hoping this Top Down RPG + GAS course will give me what I need to build one. But Fight For Your Fort is not a top-down RPG. It’s a defense game with 2D characters that don’t play nicely with the 3D nature of this course. Merging those two ideas will be a challenge. And that’s alongside staying consistent with writing, posting, and keeping up with the real responsibilities of everyday life.
I want to lose a shitload of weight in 2026, which means cutting back on a lot of fun. Not looking forward to that. But if 2025 was the “launch year,” then 2026 is going to be the grind year.
If you’ve come this far, thanks for reading. If you want to hear this instead, you can listen to PissBerg, which is basically a Cum Town refugee podcast where I talk about my more hair-brained thoughts and feelings.
“Tonight, On Top Guy.”
—Tibs
Next Steps
I'm going to take another course after I finish this defend your castle game. Or at least get the barebones of the game created. I still do not really know about unreal or coding to make anything truly ground breaking, or even all that good. But I am getting better at it. Learning simple things like simulate physics causing movement logic to not function is huge. Using the game mode instead of level actors is massive as well. I've learned tons about using geometry collections and probably most importantly, the limits of using said collections. But I'm still only scratching the surface of things. Like I just learned how to cut and alter static meshes using the modeling tool, which probably needs a full course load to master.
So what to focus on next? Well there are two possible things. The most beneficial, and probably what I'll do, is take another of Stephens Unreal Engine courses that focus around building a complete game that uses the GAS or Game Ability System. I personally think mastery of this system will allow me to create my ideas faster and more efficiently, but also learn things that real world teams use and interact with on a regular basis. I often find myself doing things “my way” like dropping an invisible ball on the door to get it to smash, but that just isn't the right way. Or even if it is, it's probably not the most efficient and bringing those “skills” to a team would be effectively useless. To get a job I need to master some part of the engine, and maybe GAS can be it.
But that being said I don't really just want to spend all my time working on a course to make something I can really even show to people. I talk about this on Pissberg but it's humiliating to be 30 years old and still “figuring it out” without anything concrete. I'm a writer who's never been published, a game dev who's never made a game, an artist who's never been acclaimed. Not that being perceived is the most important thing in life but it would be nice to say “yeah I've spent hundreds of hours on this, and here is what I have to show for it.” A course gets me further away from actually making something and that fucks me up. My hope was that there was a slightly more indepth course that covers the PaperZD/2D plug in, and focuses on how to make better 2.5D interactions. But the only course I can find on the plug in seems scammy and retreads what I already know.
Sure not having a completed project is tough, but the thought of wasting more time just to learn the basics again is unpalatable for me. But as I sit and write this, I realize the Druid Mechanics Ultimate GAS course is going to be the one for me. Its top down gameplay is something that looks pretty compatible with my earlier paperZD work, and I think it will do my best to get back into a course that is comprehensive. Because I do want to create that game, and I think if I can slap on a few more interactive systems, say an overworld, character dialogue, upgrades and castle defences, I might be able to really release something that people enjoy.
To anyone that enjoys reading these, I’ve stopped writing them regularly because most of the time I just use them as an excuse to get my feelings out or ramble about the current state of the video game industry. So to do that, I’ve created the Pissberg Podcast. It’s basically my answer to the cum town sized hole left in my life, but I go over my plans for my game/life/whatever in the cast. It’s only on my website for now, because I don’t really want people who don’t fuck with my to listen to it. But again, if you’ve gotten this far, welcome to Pissberg.
Short Story Summer
Sorry John Mayer, I’m No Longer Waiting on the World To Change
I’m about to wrap up my first game, and I already want to do a postmortem. This did not go well. I’ve learned a bunch, but I’m finding the problem with coding is that you can do things the wrong way and have it work. Unlike plumbing or cooking or just about anything else. If the game calls for certain things in a certain way, you can take any path you want to get there—even at the expense of things once thought to be working correctly.
I am so mad at my ladders. They are ass. Complete shit. Hard to use, easy to break, and genuinely not as good as the game they are based on. I’ve recently been playing Chained Together, and they simply made their ladders a climbable wall that plays the standard ledge climb animation. Who gives a shit if they aren’t grabbing the rungs of the ladder? It feels intuitive to use. My ladders feel like trying to cross a plank in an adventure game, and they give you a balance meter as they do it—not to challenge the user, but because climbing is a challenge in itself.
But they do work. They are functional enough that you can play a round of my game and be able to interact with them in the way I’ve more or less intended. But there are so many better ways of doing it. Splines, Chained Together methods, or a dozen others. So in a way, despite the fact that I’ve learned which path to take in the future, I spent a shitload of time doing something partially wrong. Which does have a negative effect on my momentum. And one thing I’m learning is momentum is huge.
The momentum I have with my learning is my best asset. I can’t deny that it feels great to know how to put together a simple UI, and how much more competent I’ve become with C++. These are small things that took far less time than dealing with that fucking ladder and make me enjoy the work way more. That is why my next course is going to focus on blueprint work. I do not deny that C++ is better to use and learn, because it teaches me a programming language, but also programming principles that are applicable in other engines and other industries. But I also can’t deny that working with C++ is costing me a ton of time at a point where every minute of free time is precious to me.
Life is not getting easier. Moving has been stressful. Work has been the same depressing slog as it has for the last five years. The sorrow of the past few months has given way to an intense fear. Again, I don’t want to make this a depressing devlog, but I’ve had to start meditating because of the anxiety and panic that is constantly in my life. What I wouldn’t give to have some breathing room. The amount of peace that even two thousand dollars would bring would be incredible. At the start of the year, I had savings. I was going to quit my job to reclaim my mental health and look for something I didn’t hate. A surgery and a rent increase later, I just look at my two weeks notice in my outbox, short and sweet, and regret my inability to send it.
It’s honestly worse now that people watch the videos. Everyone is so nice and supportive. It feels fake that I have a little community who not only watches my work, but gives helpful solutions and advice. I also get motivation from the other people letting me know they’ve started their own journeys to change their lives. There used to be a fear of solitude that came with leaving my job. It’s still there, as internet comments are not the loving support of my girlfriend. But now I know that even if I lost my job, my girlfriend, my ability to do things like go to friends’ weddings (incredible money sink), and had to move back in with my mom at 30, I wouldn’t be without people offering support. I know they were always there in the form of friends and family, and I will always prioritize my reallife friends over comments. But to say those same internet comments do not have a validating effect on life decisions would be a lie. And for that, I am thankful.
So at the end of the month, I move from Northern Virginia to Philadelphia. A move a role model of mine, David Lynch, made when he was ten years younger than me. He had this to say about the city of brotherly love:
"I always say, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is my biggest influence. There is something about the mood here. The fear, insanity, corruption, filth, despair, violence in the air was so beautiful to me."
My hope is that I can find the same inspiration. I only have one bro there, who I love and cherish, but he simply isn’t as interested in finding the same insanity, corruption, filth, and despair as I am. That’s not to say I’m living on Kensington Ave, but a retreat away from the world I know for fifteen months in a place that seems hostile to comfort is a great way to eliminate habits and gain the time to build new ones. My biggest one will be having a strict budget, alongside eating better and cheaper. I’m talking rice and beans piled. Build enough savings so that I can give myself six months of time to create, while also saving enough to put on a wedding somehow. Hence the removal of my friends and the reduction of my living expenses by moving to Philly.
Will any of this work? Most likely not. But my hope is that I can find another path forward with the momentum generated from this move that will at least help me find easiness. Find aloha. Find enough time to take a breath and read. I have the support of family, friends, and online strangers, which I smith into a pry bar to force open inner peace.
Now to talk about game news bullshit.
Is Xbox Joever?
No.
As my previous prediction of Xbox has proven correct, let me tell you how it’s going to go down. First, those mega studios are going to eat a bunch of shit. You no longer get ten million dollars and seven years for a AA game that doesn’t sell, like South of Midnight. Nor are you going to get one hundred million to make a demo like for Perfect Dark. People have been lamenting the overcosted bloatfest that causes modern studios to focus on microtransactions and infinite revenue to recover profits. This is why every game has skins. That is not to say Microsoft is some based chad trying to change game dev for the better. It’s just that you can’t say Microsoft has made nothing but ass for the last few years (outside of Bethesda) and then be like, “How dare they close these amazing studios!” Even Tango Softworks didn’t make its money back for spooky Tokyo game nor Jet Set Radio 3. Sega would still make Jet Set Radio if Jet Set Radio was popular enough to support a franchise.
I hate people losing their jobs. There is no “but” that makes it better. It is confusing to watch everyone enjoy these Xbox games eating shit because they hate Xbox, only to then become their most staunch defenders of the devs. Meanwhile, just about everything Xbox has been doing since announcing its games on PS5 has been pretty good, granted that is really just Bethesda being good. Elder Scrolls Remake is flames. Indiana Jones was great. Doom: Dark Ages was more Doom. South of Midnight was an unfun critical darling. Tony Hawk 4 seems to be Tony Hawk 4. What more do you want? To play a game called Everwild that you’ve never even seen? A Perfect Dark remake? Who is that for? The game came out twentyfive years ago and has been untouched since.
It sucks that this touched so many titles and so many people are affected. It is a shortsighted business decision to let that many people go instead of simply having less profit, and only a soulless corporation as big as Microsoft could do it. My hope is that they get a dummy thick severance and enough time to find something they like more. My hope for Microsoft is that they double down on Obsidian’s release structure with the studios they have left (leave Bethesda alone) and keep churning out AA games like Pentiment, Grounded, and even Avowed (if you’re into that sort of thing). I believe that is the only hope of seeing dormant IP like Spyro and Crash come back. Or getting another Crackdown.
Some people may ask the difference between wanting Spyro back compared to the girl from Perfect Dark. Or how is this different than wanting a Jet Set Radio spiritual successor? To which I will say, the last Spyro game came out seven years ago, not twentyfive, and wouldn’t cost one hundred million to make. Instead, they could make smaller, tighter games and release them on faster paces, with less risk due to only needing to get a certain number of players on Game Pass and make up the rest with sales across all consoles. Something even Sony will be doing. Horizon will come to Switch, and everyone will be like “such a smart move, Sony doesn’t compete with Nintendo,” not realizing that this means Sony now also releases its games on every platform after an exclusivity window, since computers run on Windows, and according to Sarah Bond, “Windows 11 is the future home of gaming.” No one will say this is the end for Sony. No one will worry about PS5s no longer being made. Nor will they celebrate the slow death of console exclusives (minus Nintendo). A company so anticonsumer they make Disney look like Mickey Mouse.
We have just passed the home video era for gaming and entered the streaming era. It will be an absolute gold rush for the right games. But big AAA games, while still good investments for the five studios that can pull them off, are not the right games.
Dark Days in Springtime, and What is Next?
I’ve been caught my monsters of my own creation.
I am writing this because I want to change. I’m writing this because I can take a week-long vacation, filled with memories, family, and friends, yet still feel that there is no hope that things are going to be okay.
I haven’t posted because I needed a break. This past week, I found out I didn’t get the job I interviewed for. There was a dream of weekends off work and enough money to continue on with my slightly above average quality of life, and that dream is gone. I know there is still hope of that life, but fuck man. I want out so bad. Working two jobs is absolutely miserable. It would be one thing if I felt like I was thriving, but I’m not. I feel like death. I know that the correct move is to channel the sorrow and pain I feel into movement; to use the anxiety of being a 30-year-old piece of shit at a dead-end job he hates to propel my next steps from behind me, instead of stopping me in my tracks from the front. But that is easier written than accomplished.
So what is next for the project?
Ease.
When I say Ease I mean the path of least resistance. After I finish my course, I’m going to make an insanely simple game using the project so far as a template. The game will have:
A meter that fills as enemies populate a set zone in the level, when the meter is filled, game over.
Use a HUD interface
Possible use of progress bar element
Create a counter of enemies that increases when one finishes climbing the ladder, and decreases on enemy death
Ladders that the enemies climb, and can be knocked down by the player
Need to find a tutorial
Need Climbing animations
Need kicking animations
A basic, -1 -2 -3 combo/attack animation
Edit current attack Montage
Break up Combo animation from mixamo
Timer that starts after the attack function triggers, that players the 2nd part of the montage only if the timer still has time, do the same for the third
Attacks stop enemy attacks
Find a Parry of Block animation
An enemy with a shield that breaks with 1 heavy attack, or 3 small attacks
Find a Shield Block Animation
Create a “Shield” child of the weapon class
give it a shield health int set to three
Add variables to heavy attack and attack called, “shield damage,” for heavy set it to three, for attack, set it to one.
When shield health reaches zero, swap in geometry collection in the weapon location, and destroy it.
Create a Start Menu
Play
Exit
Pause
Save
Load
This is it. I do not want feature creep. I do not want to spend my entire life working on this game. I do know I need at least something in my portfolio.
Nor do I think that I am capable of making anything that could support myself, even as an indie dev. The goal is still to get a job with a legit-ass company who can get me health care and enough on-paper coding experience that I could retire with a job doing IT for whatever locality I end up in. I’m going to quit my second job and make this my second job. Turns out I’m literally not strong enough to have three jobs, and that teaching myself to code isn’t something I’m going to be able to do half-ass. Because before the job, I will ideally have a sense of competence towards a skill that should increase my satisfaction with myself.
The reason I make so many posts talking about my lack of satisfaction with myself is that I want you, the reader, to hopefully be able to see that there are moments of doubt in everyone. In fact, it’s pretty much all doubt, at least for me. That faith in oneself or others is never flawless, despite how glossy or how edited the highlight reels are. If I do make it out of the rat race, then I want people to know that the uncertainty is a part of it. That anyone who claims they never doubted is a fucking liar. Regardless of how successful they are.
Positive Devlog
It's nice to be able to give a good update.
In a week or so, I will be finished with my unreal engine course. It took way longer than I thought. But I am proud of the work I've done so far. The question now is, what is next? There is so much I've learned, but even more that I still need to implement. For instance, one of my goals with this course was being able to have a game with a menu screen. Learning how to do things like load saves, and make checkpoints. Which this course didn't cover at all.
From what I gather, to get a job, I need four years worth of programming experience, several projects that are shippable with their code posted on github, and then something “masters level” , basically a mechanic that I think of and implement, which you could build an entire game around. I'm ⅛ of the way there, which seems daunting, but at least I'm making progress. So what should I do next? How do I get myself up to the point of being a master level programmer?
My thought is to stick with the druid mechanics courses, as I like the teacher. There is a larger top down rpg course that I could take. But I'm not interested in making a top down rpg. But does interest matter? If I was in school, I would have to program a bunch of things that I am not interested in. Afterall, this course does go over things like checkpoints, saves, and creating a start screen. Key things I'll need to learn if I ever want to make a shippable game. But that is three times as long as the course I just completed, and that will be a huge effort.
My plan was to follow another course from Druid Mechanics. A free one on youtube that taught devs how to add a bow and arrow to their third person character. I originally thought that was good next step, as building a third person shooter/bow mechanic would be good to add to the portfolio. It also would be way faster (4 hours compared to 140 hours). But is doing things because they will be easier and faster, a good idea?
I'm still undecided, but I'm leaning towards the top down rpg course, as learning about things like leveling up and basically damage/armour mechanics, would go a long way across all types of games. Where as a bow is just a bow.
But either way, progress is progress, and we are making progress, fuck yeah.
Doomer Rant
Now for my thoughts on the doomer state of the world. Shit is so fucked, so fucked. Not only is the economy heading towards a recession. But the switch 2 had to cancel pre orders because tariffs are about to be so high, no one will buy it! Which I think has less to do with the tariffs themselves, rather than the “winner” and “loser” mentalities that Nintendo alternates its console launches with. Nintendo has been in win mode since they realized they don’t need to try with Pokemon.
To me, the truth is that games are horribly undervalued, but Nintendo specifically overcharges for the vast majority of their games. I don't think many people have a problem with the switch at 449$ (despite it being expensive) because they know it is a great piece of gear. Nor would they complain (as much) about a new, mainline, Zelda game being priced at 80/90$. Because a game as good as Tears of the Kingdom is worth around that much(to some). As are most AAA bangers (elden ring, cyberpunk, etc.) because great AAA games are a great value to the consumer, due to their long run times and incredible production quality.
So is Mario kart a AAA banger? Not in the past. Sure it may be the game that sells the most, has the most play time, and according to all of Nintendo’s metrics, be a game people are willing to spend 90$ (or more due to tariffs) on. But it remains to be seen if it has the sheer amount of gameplay needed to justify the new AAAA tier that games are hurtling towards. Yes, GTA 6 can charge 100$. Because GTA six will be big enough to basically have Mario kart inside of it.
Where this NintenGap is really apparent is with Kirby. Kirby is not a AAA franchise. It has never been. It's been a side scroller saved for Nintendo's portable consoles, with a few rare spin offs on main consoles. Kirby in the Forgotten Kingdom should have been 40$. Instead it launched at 60$, and everyone online yanks their pizza over the unique and interesting ideas that Nintendo implements in a game made for children. I love Dunkey as a reviewer, but when you remove price from the equation (as he does), you start to lose track of the value of games like Kirby. A value that has gotten so out of whack, the switch 2 version costs as much as Tears of the Kingdom Switch 2 version. That just doesn't make sense when you compare the size of the games, and I doubt it makes sense when you compare the development cost of both games as well.
A game like factorio can, and should, raise its price to match inflation. Games like GTA 6, Cyberpunk 2, Elder Scrolls 6, and other God tiers can charge 100$ if they wish. But then everyone needs to agree that Yakuza never goes past 60$, and Sonic goes down to 40$. Avowed should be 40$. Astro Bot, 20$. Games like FIFA should be free to play. If a game charges you anywhere north of 60$ it needs to be unimpeachable. You really want to play Dragon’s Dogma 3 at 100$? At least with a rockstar game, it will run decent at launch. If you played an admittedly amazing and large game like Cyberpunk at launch, you would be so dissatisfied with your 100$ purchase.
But this brings us to the next portion of the discussion, is the switch 2 going to be as powerful as a PS5 pro? No, it's not. So Everytime you look at a game advertising itself as 4k, or see specs that the screen is 120 hz, do not believe it’s lies. “Most games will have a 40 fps mode,” or “this is when Nintendo finally gives third party devs the power they need.” Please know it is a lie. All of it.
To start, 4k 60 fps does not exist. I mean, factually it does. There are maybe 4 or 5 games that are well built enough to hit those parameters, and PCs powerful enough to do it. But the vast majority of games today aren't 4k. Especially on consoles. Nintendo has never chased graphics and they won't start now. I bet they will bring their benchmarks up from 30 fps to 40 fps for some games, but don't get it twisted, you are not getting the newest Mario kart in 4k 60fps. I will be shocked if it reliably runs 5 year old games like cyberpunk at 1080 fps without serious graphic limiters. Docked or undocked, Nintendo is never going to be at parity to modern consoles or PCs.
That is not to say this won't be worth it. Just that when Final Fantasy 7 gets announced, everyone understands that you are choosing portability or everything. That pokemon is still going to run like shit, and look like shit, because more power does not mean devs have an idea of how to use it. But do not fear, for none of this matters, a proved by the developers Panic Button. These guys have been churning out the good stuff on underpowered consoles for years now. They have shown you can play amazing third party experiences on underpowered consoles (which the switch 2 actively is, and will only get worse with the next generation). It has nothing to do with power, just about how you use the power you have, and the switch two will be able to give you a great cyberpunk experience, just no where close to the mythical “4k 60fps,” or the more godly, “4k 120fps” that so many pc players allegedly play at.
So where does this leave everything? It is a weird spot, as the switch 2 is just too expensive across the board, and is actively lying to consumers about the experiences that they will have out of the box. It will be supported by third parties for about 2 years before it can no longer keep up with modern specs. Gamers will claim it's okay that Nintendo does whatever Nintendo wants because only Nintendo can make something as magical as a Nintendo game, and they may even be right. But it does not change the fact that valuation of games is way off. Games like 1-2 Switch, the switch2 tech demo, and the wheelchair game should be free. Games like Mario kart should be 60$, alongside Kirby. Then Nintendo can charge whatever they want for DuskBlood, as that actually might be worth 90$.
But please do not think you are supporting devs by buying this overpriced and over valued piece of tech. The keyboard warriors who love to jump out of the woods and fight for Nintendo charging 90$ a game “because games were more expensive in the 90s due to inflation,” are straight up bad people. They do not care that greedy pricing strategies have hurt the industry as a whole. I sincerely wish them the worst, because they are the same people who will keep on buying pokemon, even though it's never been shittier. They are the same people who think Kirby should cost 80$ because they are more obsessed with IP than the product itself.
I have no caps lock, and I must scream.
I believe screaming is good for you. Go on, try it. When you read the next dot, screaming as loud as you can,
.
See? Didn't that feel good? Don't you feel just reset to your baseline? It shakes the heart in a way that should be mandated at schools, so that children learn the benefits for daily screaming. For me it forces our emotions and feelings I didn't even know I had. In the way sadness lumps in your throat when you talk about someone you didn't know you still missed.
I am missing a momentum. I have not gotten my movement to work. What's more, the diagnosis I conduct to find the problem, only brings about more problems. That alone is scream worthy, but what is a nice kicker, is that my impacted wisdom tooth has recently decided to erupt. It's so tight, I love waking up with blood in my mouth and pain in my jaw. The only thing I cherish more is talking with doctors and insurance companies, just to find out that I am a complete retard for even asking questions.I should have gotten this done years ago, and deserve the pain. Fair enough, I can see their points. I've never been able to get ahead of the curve, and for that, I need to be punished, whether it is through a stalling of my personal progres, or classically punished via the cruelty of the human body having too many teeth.
It's not unlike this new (to me) phenomenon of version control for my game.This is basically just figuring out how to put out a stable build and save it, so that when you fuck up and break everything, you can go back to working point. I wish I had done that more than I wish I removed this tooth when I was 18. When I can't get further with coding, everything in my life becomes stuck. Which flies in the face of the reason I started coding: to get unstuck. I need to hunker down and try to solve the problem. I've already gone back a bit, and just recently found I'll need to go back even further. It's demoralizing, and it makes the pressure on my overgrown gums expand to the rest of my jaw. Bubbling up into my eyes and my brain.
You can find some sympathy in that pain, people love to talk about what you should do. Or what you should have done a long time ago. Just do not expect them to help you do it.
So this week I must help myself. I have no other choice, I must advance at any cost. I got to do things I don't want to do. I have to go back even further. Wake up even earlier, swallow whatever pain may follow. So for the next 3 days I’m going to post on my channel at 5 when I wake up, to serve a covenant with you, reader and viewer. A promise that I’m working my ass off to get this right.
I’m Tired, Boss
It all begins with an idea.
I’m writing this because I feel I owe the internet an explanation for why I didn’t upload any videos in the last three days. A sentence I would have thought I was crazy for writing a year ago, and still sounds insane as I write it. There is no god of the algorithm that my prayers of woe and contrition will hear. No angels or saints to save me for obscurity and toil, because I do not need saving. In theory, things are great. None of this matters and everything will be okay.
So congratulations to diamonds that are still reading. You are owed an explanation: I have two jobs. Not “gamedev and youtuber” but Butcher and Software Salesmen. I’m not going to call Gamedev a job yet, cause it doesn’t make me dick for money, and as a result I need to prioritize the big stuff. It’s this prioritization that has cause me to not post.
Normally I can do it all. I’ve posted through vacations, funerals, and holidays, all within my first 100 days. But your family crisis won’t wait until you're ready. Your girlfriend may be okay with you working, but she will be lonely when you are at work. You can lie to yourself and say you aren’t tired. You’d love to see the movie, write the letter of recommendation, and find the time to call your dad once a week. You can do it all too, if you are strong enough. All it takes is a rigid routine and keeping your head down.
But within the rigidity of the routine, you lose the compassion that flexibility allows you. You aren’t crazy, you really do have that little time in the day, and everyone is wasting it. You will get mad when food you are bringing home after work takes 30 minutes to get ready. But what a horrible thing to get mad about?
It used to be these moments that didn’t matter, because there was always more free time. But now you KNOW that it matters. What is worse, you are the only one with the frame of reference to understand why each free moment matters. No one cares that because your dinner is late, you will have less time to sleep, because you need to stick to your rigid schedule and post.
I could have posted these last three days. I absolutely could have. I could have woken up 2 hours earlier before my shift at the butcher and coded then. I could have made a video on the progress I’ve made after my butcher shift Saturday. Or Sunday after the game, I could have kissed my girlfriend good night and stayed up to post a video for the same algorithm gods I’m writing to now. But I didn’t, cause I valued those few extra hours of sleep or food or freedom.
The annoying thing is, I’m probably wrong. Posting on those days would have helped me reach my goals far more than sleep would’ve. Sleep just made me slightly happy in the short term. I felt like I needed it at the moment, but now I’m writing this instead of working on more coding. I spend so much time with my head down focusing on the routine that I don’t see the light or why I’m working so hard in the first place.
But excuses don't matter to you, or anyone. Instead, I now offer hope. On Sunday, February 9th, 2025: I’m going to have a day off work. I am elated and have plans to hang with my bros all morning. I’m going to do all the cooking for the big game the day before, and clean the shit out of my house. That Saturday night I’m going to crack into Kingdom Come Deliverance II.
Only 11 more days off work to get there, and there will be a post for every single one of them.