So when the news circulated recently that the Lutris developer was using Claude to help write the code (and the angry posts/articles appeared) I figured I'd reach out to Mathieu to hear the other side of things.

I chatted to him a little, asking for his side of the story. He goes into some depth on how he uses it as part of his work-flow, the transparency in open-source projects in general, licensing and ownership of code that A.I. writes, safety and so on. Plenty of answers from Lutris, if you're curious on the topic. As ever, you can find the link here:

https://gardinerbryant.com/mathieu-comandon-explains-his-use-of-ai-in-lutris-development/

Full post: Exact budgets of video-game productions can be tough to corroborate (more transparency from publishers would be nice!) but the numbers I've heard floating around AAA game dev these days are $300 million or more — sometimes much more! — which I think helps explain the current state of the industry

To address some frequently asked questions:

• These are US and Canada productions. If you're wondering why game X cost so much less, it was probably made elsewhere
• These budgets are almost entirely dev salaries + overheard and have nothing to do with executive compensation (which is mostly stock)

Today’s game is Halo Reach. I bought a friend a copy of the game while it’s on sale so he could join us for the campaign. So now we have a full 8 person roster for the campaign to pick from.

I’ve already talked about this game a lot, and I had a suggestion from someone to talk about things besides mechanics. And so far I don’t believe I’ve talked about the Art, both music and the design. So i chose to focus on that.

I’m a big fan of the art style with its soft and almost muted feel. It helps set it apart from Halo CE-3. The muted tone also really helps set the tone. It feels less bombastic than something like what Halo 3 is.

With Nightfall especially it makes everything kind of have this nice cool and dark tone while still being playable and not abhorrently dark. Plus i love the way things like the Jackal’s shield have a kind of soft glow to them.

Halo’s music is amazing too. It’s the first time a video game made me go “wow. This doesn’t feel like a side piece to a video game. It feels like its own thing”. It really makes it feel unique. Plus the way it’s not constantly playing helps keep it from getting old. Winter Contingency alone with the opening motif has definitely cemented it for me as one of my favorites.

Finally, I didn’t want to end off without talking a little about me messing around with my friends. This is Halo after all.

The entirety of the thing we kept killing eachother. It started when I got in a ghost and gut blown up by my friend who stole the wraith. In retaliation I air striked him and took the tank out. Our other friend joined in by running me down with a Ghost. This kept going until we quit and ended with a well placed sniper shot to a Forklift that killed all of us.

We (hopefully) will play some more tomorrow. I know I’ve played Reach a bunch but it’s one of my favorites and I love playing it. I do hope this playthrough doesn’t fall in the bin with the other games I’ve started and dropped.

Brief overview:

This particular hybrid genre is quite rare to find and very enjoyable for me. I think it can largely be credited to Ratchet & Clank for trendsetting and inspiring all the rest (even Jak 2 had used some of Ratchet's code after Jak and Daxter [1]: The Precursor Legacy didnt have any weapons). There are some older games that might have inspired Ratchet & Clank, such as Blasto, which will also be listed here. But mostly I'm focusing on games that replicate a similar style as the Ratchet and Jak series, sometimes on purpose. Please let me know if you have any additions to the list.

The List (main):

▪︎ Ratchet & Clank (series) ▪︎ Jak and Daxter (series) ▪︎ Protodroid DeLTA ▪︎ Akimbot and Pumpkin Jack (same dev as each other) ▪︎ Tamarin ▪︎ Automaton Lung (& sequel Automaton Heart demo) ▪︎ GearGrit (and the devs' other game Fadeout kind of) ▪︎ Cloudbuilt ▪︎ Onirism ▪︎ Metal Arms : Glitch in the System ▪︎ Ruff Trigger : The Vanocore Conspiracy ▪︎ Donald Duck PK (AKA PK : Out of the Shadows) ▪︎ SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton's Robotic Revenge (yes, this is really a 3rd person shooter) ▪︎ Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath ▪︎ Shadow the Hedgehog ▪︎ Spy vs Spy ▪︎ Blasto

I've heard recommended but can't verify if they fit the bill or not:

▪︎ Jet Force Gemini ▪︎ Stitch: Experiment 626 ▪︎ Smarties: Meltdown ▪︎ Insecticide ▪︎ Dr. Muto ▪︎ Destroy All Humans! (series) ▪︎ Robots ▪︎ One ▪︎ MDK (series) ▪︎ Earthworm Jim 3D ▪︎ Buzz Lightyear of Star Command ▪︎ Blinx : The Time Sweeper ▪︎ Cryght ▪︎ Mega Man Legends ▪︎ Fur Fighters

Similar gameplay elements either continuously or occasionally:

▪︎ Sly Cooper (series) ▪︎ Ty the Tasmanian Tiger (series) ▪︎ Rayman (the 3D games) ▪︎ Skylar & Plux ▪︎ Spyro the Dragon (series) ▪︎ Super Mario (series) ▪︎ Crash Bandicoot (series) ▪︎ Astro Bot (series) ▪︎ *Psychonauts (series) ▪︎ Futurama ▪︎ Family Guy Video Game! ▪︎ Jumping Flash ▪︎ The Gunk ▪︎ Splatoon (series) ▪︎ Sunset Overdrive ▪︎ Returnal ▪︎ ReCore ▪︎ Lost Planet (series)

What an utter dick.

• https://www.pcgamer.com/games/racing/the-forza-horizon-6-system-requirements-are-in-and-its-good-news-for-older-pcs-and-handhelds/
• https://www.ign.com/articles/forza-horizon-6-pc-system-requirements

Sintopia is a god sim parked on top of a management game - cleanse the souls of mortals so that they can resurrect on Earth without sparking a demon invasion.

Today’s game is The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark (which I’ll just be shortening to The Darkside Detective). I played the first one back in January after me and my friend did a game exchange. I gifted him Oneshot (which I absolutely fucking loved) and in return he gifted me this. I loved the original and he ended up gifting me the sequel (unfortunately there’s Oneshot 2 I could gift him).

This game is definitely more of the first one. The humor and art work both feel the same. This one kind of has a more poppy kind of feel though to the aesthetic. Though. I will admit I was in the first case only and that was because it was a 2 hour ordeal for me.

That’s my main gripe about this game. The puzzles feel far more abstract than the last one. Like. There was a cup of coffee introduced at the start and I had to take something all the way back from the end of the level just to dunk it in the coffee. There was no indication the coffee would do that. Legit if I didn’t have the thought “may as well try the coffee” I don’t think I’d have found it.

This game really reminds me of L.A. Noire if it was a Point and Click with a Supernatural spin to it. Especially this second one which had the explorable world segments returning from the first one. With how much time I spent on it really felt a little more explorable. The original just kind of felt like “go here. Solve this set of puzzles. Then go here and do these”. The sequel is far more involved.

After the first level was done I was ready to clock out. My friend told me this one is just weirdly long so we’ll see if that’s the case. I hope not because I like this being the kind of thing I can pop on and clear in an evening or two.

I am having a little fever with Ultima Underworld/King's Field dungeon crawling, so I guess I am pulling the trigger on Monomyth and Lunacid xD

Nintendo's Switch 2 got off to a roaring start but demand has started to sag, particularly in the US. Where are the big games to reverse this?

...in being the industry's vanguard we have taken a lot of bullets in a battle which is only in the early days of paying off for ourselves and all developers.

Look, at least a little bit of that is true, but fuck right off.

At least it's a good severance package. They owe their employees at least that much.