mvu.one

Tutorial: PSX-Style Pre-Rendered Backgrounds in Blender & Godot

I recently had a game idea. I have a lot of these, some of which I've been letting fester in my head for years and years, but this one was both a novel idea and realistically achievable with a single person. So of course I had to go and scope-creep the hell out of the idea.

Without making it sound too exciting the premise was a classical RPG that the player had already almost beaten, then left at the final save for many years. The game loads up at level 99 with maxed stats and all the items with a single battle left to go -- however the game has many incomprehensible systems in-and-out of battle that the player "no longer remembers" how any of them work.

The player then traverses through the game world where the story has already played out -- there's no more enemies left, the towns all have people thanking the player, all the chests are empty -- but the player needs to go and find NPCs that drop the classic game hints. "Hold select and mash square to boost" type of stuff. The last battle effectively becomes a puzzle rather than an RPG battle.

Anyways, all I needed to make this game, in theory, was some pixel art asset packs and a few weeks in Godot, but actually making games isn't my jam, I'd rather spend all my time over-complicating things. In this case, I had an itch in my brain telling me "No, you cannot make this a pixel-art game"

"It MUST be PSX-style pre-rendered 3d backgrounds"

Thoughts: Learning Music

So, lately I've been getting into learning music.

This is a big deal for me, as it's kind of the final stat in my attempt at a hobbyist-game-dev build, and I've never point any points into it.

Game dev has kinda been a meta-hobby for me for as long as I can remember. I've never actually developed any games (except this demo), but the drive to make games has been a guiding light that has fostered hobbies and interests intended to build up the skills I would need to accomplish the task; despite never having made games, these interests have very much shaped my whole life:

• Visual Art has led me to dabble in pixel art, photo editing, a touch of blender, and character design
• Programming led to my current profession (though it's web dev, not game dev, that I do for my day job)
• Math, which I knew I would need for physics / shaders / logic ultimately led me into getting an undergrad physics degree
• Writing led to a hobby in world building and story crafting
• UX/Interaction Design has led me to a hobby in exploring game design in board/video games and an interest in human interfaces (a lot of UX in web design too!)

Aside: I do want to point out that with such a varied set of interests and hobbies, I've never become particularly good at any of these things. Passable, but not good. Such is the curse of the generalist.

Music, however, never saw any progress. Every attempt at beginning an exploration into music failed -- I tried to learn guitar, piano multiple times, cello once, and LSDJ more times than I can count. None of it ever got off the ground.

Game Thoughts: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

A few months back I was hearing a lot of praise for Lorelei and the Laser Eyes; I finally grabbed it and finished it in a couple sittings.

The game's basically a long, artsy, self-aware escape room with some psychological/horror elements. It was pretty damn good!

In fact, it may be the best "virtual escape room"-type game I've ever played. While a few puzzles fell into the "way-too-obvious" or "I would have never figured this out without a guide" categories, the vast majority were in the sweet spot (for me). Even the optional book of puzzles to open shortcuts in the game (which amounts to 20ish pages of pure number / pattern puzzles) was super fun. The few horror elements were tense, but never over the top.

The overarching mystery of "what the fuck is going on" was also satisfying to slowly piece together -- while it felt a little too avantgarde at the beginning (which is on purpose and part of the theme) everything clicked together by the end of the game.

Unfortunately the game really sucks at UI. For some reason someone decided to make this a game where you just have directional input, the menu button, and a single action button. No back button. This seems fine on paper until you're manipulating hundreds of documents and interactive puzzles with no "back" button, quick-restart, or "jump to next page" controls. You will need to manually navigate to the close icon literally hundreds of times throughout a playthrough, which adds nothing to the experience but frustration.

That's the only stain on an otherwise great experience, however, and you do kind of get used to it after a few hours.

It's definitely a must play for escape room and puzzle game fans!

Game Thoughts: Animal Well

As a hobbyist game developer (theoretically, anyways) I have been warned many times "don't idolize one-person indie developers". Most one-person indie titles never make it, and realistically any indie title that does make it ultimately has a production team, a QA team, and all kinds of other people that make "one-person" less true.

I can't help myself, however. There's something about games crafted painstakingly by a single mind that just makes the ones that float to the top special. Early Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Undertale, Cave Story, Iconoclasts -- these are games that execute a vision and they do it so well I can't help but idolize. If not the creators themselves, then the process and the drive.

Animal Well is one such game, created by Billy Basso. Eventually picked up by Bigmode Games which brought it into the spotlight, the game presents an eerie metroidvania world full of puzzles, charming graphics, and horror vibes.

I absolutely loved my time with this game. The bosses were wild, exploration was a blast, and every puzzle was fun. The game elicits a kind of joy I've only experienced playing one-person games. It's full of weirdness that would have been voted out in a team-built game. Everything's connected and lovingly thought out, everything feels coherent. It's like getting to know somebody without ever meeting them.

The game has several "layers" to it, and despite loving the title I tapped out after layer 1 -- beating the final boss and rolling credits. You can continue on to find all the collectibles in the game to unlock more, which usually isn't my cup of tea. I did shoot for getting all the eggs but decided to tap out at 50-something, as I was starting to rely on guides and having less fun.

Does this title belong on the shelf with Undertale and Stardew Valley? I don't think it has the same impact as its peers, each of which generated massive fanbases and countless clones -- yet I'd happily categorize this as another one-person masterpiece and proudly shelf it with the others.

Book Thoughts: Piranessi

Looking for something a little more fantastical to read after Slaughterhouse-Five, I reached for Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I read "Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norell 1000 years ago, and while I couldn't tell you a single thing that happens in that book I remember it fondly.

Spoilers after the jump

Book Thoughts: Slaughterhouse-Five

Occasionally I actually get around to reading some literature (I mean to do this more, but I can't stay away from my darling scifi/fantasy). After my last read I got my hands on a copy of the Ethan Hawke-narrated version of Slaughterhouse-Five.

This is a novel you can't really criticize; not only because it's globally recognized as a fantastic piece of literature, not only because anything there is to say about it has probably already been said, but because it's weird, and due to it's level of unorthodoxy it carves for itself a special untouchable place wherein any flaw could easily be intentional.

It was a thoughtful and thought-provoking slow burn and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am glad that I didn't read it earlier, as I only recently binge-listened to a couple of WWII history podcasts. Knowing more about the gritty details of the war helped color in the edges of this loose collection of time fragments, and definitely resulted in a more fulfilling experience.

Book Thoughts: Embassytown

Some authors you just can't vibe with, no matter how on-brand their subjects are. For me one of these authors appears to be China Miéville, the writer of such famous works as Perdido Street Station and The City & The City.

I've previously tried to read Perdido Street Station and fell off halfway, the strangeness of the setting never quite settling in my head. Perhaps it's due to my weak mind's eye, or perhaps it's just their writing style, but of the two books I've attempted, both felt as if I was only skimming the loose details of a much deeper world.

Embassytown is the second of their works that I've attempted, and I nearly gave up a few hours into the audiobook version. Everything felt slow and dreamy (in a boring way) despite the complete alien-ness and wonderful creativity of the scifi setting. I ultimately finished the book, and really did love all the ideas on display in the story -- but the writing or the pacing or something kept me from getting in deep, and I found myself avoiding the audiobook more than reaching for it.

This is a scifi book about language, and it takes a very interesting approach, giving us aliens that are incapable of understanding human speech and communciation. The ways humanity works around this, and the sheer curiosity around the ways these aliens comminicate and interact with humans was fascinating in ways the story sadly only ever hints at.

I was left wanting to know more -- more about the strange alien lifeforms, more about their language, more about the strange dreamed-up form of space travel. More than anything I wanted to see more of the other alien lifeforms hinted at that communicate in bizarre and creative ways. I almost would have preferred a documentary format than the story and characters that were presented, which were ultimately vapid and boring on such a vibrant and curious backdrop.

Game Thoughts: Abandoned 09-2024

Despite my best efforts I've got yet another pile of unfinished games. Just stuff that I didn't have the patience to get through or wasn't clicking with me. For the sake of preventing future me from repeating my mistakes, here are the reasons for putting them down:

(Sekiro, Mother3, Void Stranger)

Story: A King De-Phoned

The following is a short story / writing exercise I'm titling A King De-Phoned. It's a fairly mundane tale of first-world problems involving relatively privileged individuals and occasional hyperbole. That said, this stuff actually happened and was pretty shitty.

Book Thoughts: The Saint of Bright Doors

Thrusting out blindly for my next read, I ended up settling on the most recent Nebula winner: The Saint of Bright Doors. The audiobook version is superbly narrated, and the whole experience was a very fun departure from my normal fantasy/scifi reads.

The setting is a modern-tech alternate indo-inspired continent with very different takes on magic. Where I frequently enjoy fantasy that provides clear constraints on it's magic system, this book leans heavily into a more mystic world of vague demons and inexplicable occurrences -- such as how any door left closed too long in the City of Luriat will seal forever.

The author brought the city to life, painting an extremely vivid and interesting world with which they tell the story of Fetter, a man with strange powers trained from childhood to assassinate a spiritual leader.

Spoilers below.