Getting the story told

I know some folks are still more likely to see this here than over at the new site, so: There’s a blog post about writing plot and making sure it synergizes with gameplay, written from 9 years of experience (gosh, can you believe it) on there.

Oh and I haven’t had time to check, but if anyone posted anything under my old nicks again on some Quake related site, ignore it – I haven’t posted there for years. I wonder when it’ll stop being funny.

Kind regards.

Update

Grab the popcorn! There’s an update over at scoutsjourney.eu.

New SJ site kinda worth it (surprise)

New site layout, and update, at scoutsjourney.eu.

We’re moving

Scout’s Journey moves to scoutsjourney.eu!

Thank you so much for following Scout’s Journey development! Please update your bookmarks! See you on the new website!

On to bigger and better things!

Snapshots from Blenderspace

Large version

I’m not quite as rusty with Blender as I assumed. 🙂 I thought I’d post these.

I think I got a better grip on rendering with Cycles, especially roughness/glossiness and using a semi-realistic light setup of a sky sphere, sunlight and a “kicker”. I also remembered a lot of Blender camera controls. I tried my hand at an unusual snapshot:

Large version

I like it because it looks really dynamic.

Here’s another shot of the hilt:

Large version

Massive sword, always a winning motive in my book.

BTW here’s how this model looked three years ago.

Stay tuned for other stuff, such as new website and, hopefully, finally, videos. 😉

Don’t ask the game developer…

… when you can shoot something. (That’s wrong on so many levels.)

… why he is working alone. (You’re not asking Banksy that, and he may not actually be working alone, you never know.)

… when his game will earn money. (Van Gogh didn’t earn money, yet now he’s considered the father of modern art.)

… why it’s taking so long. (Gaudi’s “Sagrada Familia” is still under construction, even though he’s dead.)

… why he doesn’t just work a normal job. (Keith Richards worked as a postman once. Needless to say, it didn’t last. His tame mouse probably ate too many letters.)

In other words, the game developer probably just isn’t normal. Like all those other bums I named. It is a fact of life.

o/

 

Update

Dear readers,

this is where we stand with Scout’s Journey and otherwise:

• There is now Unreal-capable hardware available. I’m currently trying to install the Linux version of Unreal from git. The current development rig has 8GB RAM and a Nvidia 1050Ti GPU. This should do nicely for a while.
• I’m still polishing off the script. The plot has been finished for a couple months, I’m just editing and pulling in some stringers in a couple places. This is not a major effort, though.
• I’m seriously looking into C++ programming again. I am capable of it but I’m doing some reading and practice as a refresher. One thing I’m quite seriously looking at is to port my little curses-based RPG (roguelike), DSAHack, from C to C++ with classes. This makes a lot of sense and it’ll be a good practice project.
• As soon as things are running with Unreal, there will be renewed focus on Blender modelling, especially props and environments, and successively characters.
• I’m still looking at doing videos and I’ll probably have a server and domain at some point to host a lot more stuff than this blog ever could.
• I’ve been dealing with some personal upheaval in recent months but I’m looking relatively fine now.
• You want to help, you want to partner up, you want to collaborate, you want to learn C++ with me, you want to give feedback, drop me a line. I’m aware I didn’t answer all comments recently, that’s simply because I was busy.

In short, radio silence doesn’t always mean bad things.

Jonas

 

Oh please. Of course encrypted e-mail is still secure.

Various media have hyped a recently publicized paper about vulnerabilities of PGP encrypted e-mail, saying things like “e-mail no longer a secure method of communication“.

This is a load of BS.

Werner Koch, author of GNU Privacy Guard (GPG), has stated that such exploits have been known for almost 20 years and countermeasures have long been developed. GPG throws a hard error (since 2015) if the countermeasure is not detected upon decryption.

Enigmail, the Mozilla Thunderbird PGP addon, includes a fix (since February) that prevents any content being rendered to the user if GPG throws this error. This basically fixes the problem.

Claiming that PGP has been broken, the encryption itself has been broken, and telling users to not send encrypted e-mails anymore is WRONG.

I have to wonder if this is some kind of scheme or cyberattack meant to discredit email encryption as a whole. The use of encryption is obviously a thorn in the side of various agencies and third parties who would like you to stop using it.

In short: Use GnuPG and Enigmail, use the latest versions, disable loading third-party content from the web, or disable viewing HTML mails completely (if you’re paranoid, you probably did this already). Don’t panic.

 

Script excerpt.

Since I was asked for it, I decided to post an excerpt from the main script. Please understand that I can’t post the full script or the detailed synopsis with plot points.

Let’s just say what I’m linking here is the first ten percent of the main script. Most game projects don’t make this kind of stuff available to their community. I’m trusting you guys with this. Take note that this is copyrighted material, made available for informational and educational purposes only.

Without further ado, here is the first 20 pages of the Scout’s Journey main script! The PDF opens in a new tab.

You’re invited to join Scout (and some minor characters) as she begins her adventure! Enjoy!

Feedback always welcome!

Up Against

Quick two-player duel map, “Up Against”, for Command & Conquer 3 Kane’s Wrath.  Download available from ModDB.

Took about three days to make. It’s very fun for me to learn new tools of game making, including historical ones, so I do these little one-offs sometimes. Last time it was Torchlight, I believe, but I got bored with that before I could finish the map. Kane’s Wrath still has a player base, so perhaps this ends up in a map pack or something. That would be cool.

Got any suggestions as to what else I should try?