Kodewerx

So I attended the Game Developer's Conference, earlier today. I held a 3DS, stared deep into its soul, and I am now confident I will be importing one from Japan. I even took a picture. After that, I found the indie games section, and spoke with a lot of the developers there representing their games.

Jens and Jakob from Mojang were hanging around the Minecraft display, and I took a few minutes to chat with them about development on the game and got a little insight into their just-announce game, Scrolls. The highlight of the discussion was Jens' response to my question about how they manage bug-tracking; "Reddit."

I also spoke with one of the developers of Amnesia, from Frictional Games. This is a game that I played only briefly after downloading the demo on Steam. Much different from other horror games that are out there, and it's made by some great folks.

Bohm was there, which I have not played, but caught my interest a few months ago when I first heard about it. I didn't get a chance to talk to the developers.

Also on display was Retro City Rampage, previously known as Grand Theftendo. I didn't stick around to talk to Brian, although it would have been interesting to know why the NES version was ditched. Intuition tells me money was a deciding factor...

And then I found some totally new games that I hadn't heard of:

Octodad was explained to me as a game where you play as an octopus pretending to be a human, who you must guide, incognito, through a normal mundane day without rousing suspicion and being detected. The control scheme is really bizarre; you move Octodad's left leg by holding the left mouse button, and his right leg by -- you guessed it -- holding the right mouse button! You can change to arm-mode by clicking the middle button, which then allows you to move one of your tentacle arms to grab and release stuff with the left button, or move up and down (Y-axis) while holding the right button. There's a great deal of slapstick humor involved. For example, banana peels that will fuck your shit up if you step on one. Especially the peels that are on the stairs. D: They gave me a shirt.

The last one I'll talk about is Tiny & Big, which was a pretty game, but I didn't "get it" until I had stared at the screen for like 15 minutes. Basically, everything in the world can be cut. Big fucking mountain in the way? Cut it in half with a laser, and pull it over with a rope! Then attach some rockets to send it on its merry way! Konami is doing the same thing with their new MGS title (I guess they were inspired by Little & Big!) Part platformer, part puzzle, part sandbox... This series looks very entertaining.

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I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

You have toes on your thumbs. o.o

Why import a Japanese one when the American one is being released like this month?

Also, did they make the touch screen and top screen any more durable, or are they just out to rob me out of my money for screen protectors again?

I have been dying to go to something like that (E3) forever, but I live too far away.

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deathspawn.net

Not my thumbs.


I kind of want one right now. Kind of.


Durable, as in, scratch proof? You're not going to find that on any device.


I don't. It was an interesting experience, but you have to be a really big gamer to really get anything out of it. I'm not much of a gamer; I just like fiddling with stuff.

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I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

Whats the 3D like?

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If you don't want your screen scratched don't scratch the damn thing. Screen protectors are a waste of money that cause more problems than they solve.

I am also interested in the quality of the 3D.

Also apparently the 3DS has been hacked already which sounds very promising~

...except I don't have any fucking money. >:{

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If you're talking about the workaround used by R4 to boot, it's the same one used for DSi. That means it's specifically NDS-mode only, not even DSi-mode (and certainly not 3DS-mode). If you are talking about another hack that I am not aware of, I would be interested in learning more!

So far as the quality of the device, I think it feels more like the DSL than DSi. The three buttons below the bottom screen (Select, Home, and Start) are clicky buttons, which made me sad. I was kind of hoping they were touch sensitive. The actual clicky buttons are covered by a thin plastic film with labels. The wider top screen is really sexy, and the 3D effect is impressive. Don't expect it to be "popping out" at you though. The 3D depth effect is designed to travel "away" from the viewer, and "into" the device. The high pixel density is not very noticeable because of the parallax barriers. Moving the device perpendicular to your eyes while in 3D mode causes horrible double-vision, similar to the polarization problems with LCDs manufactured 15 years ago.

The IPL screen has some awesome visuals, accented with depth. The lower screen during the IPL looks a lot like DSi.

3D movies can only be "3D on" or "3D off" ... the slider is essentially useless. Games allow a smooth transition between full 3D and 3D off. The slider itself feels a bit shoddy.

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I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

Yeah... I gave up on them after getting one pack and the damn things lost their stick in the process of getting them on. One actually got on successfully except for bubbles on the bottom. They suck. Scratches are sort of inevitable... My DSi touch screen has a lovely gouge in it from playing Diddy Kong Racing and spinning around the propeller... (I didn't even touch that hard, but apparently it was hard enough to scratch it.)

I just wish like the top screen was more durable, like the PSP's bullet proof screen. Bottom screen you really can't do much with...

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deathspawn.net

DSi? There's your problem.

Get a DS Phat.

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Oh, I don't know the specifics. Damn. :/

In any case it was the one announced the day of the 3DS's release in like, Japan or something. I don't even know

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Yes, that would be the "NDS-mode on 3DS" thing. I must say, I'm not impressed. :\ NDS-mode has been fully broken for 6 years. There was a short period where DSi-mode was cracked, but Nintendo quickly pulled the offending game from their online shop. So even DSi-mode is still relatively unscathed.

Oh, and I have 3 DSis. I bought them so I could do some fun hax. Never did get around to it.

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I have to return some video tapes.

Feed me a stray cat.

I'm a little jelly right now. The 3DS looks awesome, but I rarely ever play portable games anymore. Really, what's the point anymore?

Speaking of GDC... I saw where Crytek showed off the tech behind CryEngine 3 in Sandbox form. Not only that, but Battlefield 3 has made me a happy man. I love Bad Company (1 & 2) to death, but I'm really glad Dice is going back to pre-Console recoil on weapons.

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WWDD? - What Would Dale Do?

DS Phat has no brightness settings... and it is huge... DS Lite was awesome, but it was so fragile, and there were 2 parts to it that pissed me off.. 1) the R&L buttons would get something in them and not work at all.. then you had to blow them out or something. 2) if you moved the screen back too far till it made that little cracking sound... you would lose a little plastic thingy that holds the screen in the little nooks and then your top screen would just flop around. (Black tape helped this a bit.)

DSi hasn't really pissed me off... except software wise. Out of like the ~$180 I've spent on points cards, about a quarter of it was wasted on games that suck. But, they are ridiculously cheap. Plus it has a music app (AAC/MP4 only, but it works.) and a camera (I now have a better one on my shitty phone.).

@Smalls: Depends on who you are. I like portable cause it is hard to take a Wii/CrapBox/PS3 with you everywhere you go, e.g. the shitter, the car, outside, in bed, etc. Also, portables run a bit cheaper than consoles.

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deathspawn.net

Yeah sounds like a complete waste of money.

The keys on the Phat actually worked, the things were built tougher and looked nicer.

The DS Lite D pad is a piece of shit. R and L buttons sucking is unacceptable.

I would go insane trying to play mario kart on a piece of junk like that

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Honestly, I have hated portable gaming for a while now - specifically DS, PSP, and now with all that new shit coming out such as the 3DS, NGP. I still keep up to date with latest tech but they really don't have any meaning at all whatsoever now. Don't have that same old urge to say or even think, 'I absolutely must buy it; I have to have it because I'm a retro gamer at heart; That's fucking cool!' It's like when you get old enough and get past that phase, all you want to have is a simple, nice laptop or a desktop computer that can handle anything and everything.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, computer gaming is the best way to go and will always be alive.

Laptops. It costs a lot of money for a gaming laptop, but there is so much I can do with it.

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WWDD? - What Would Dale Do?