this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
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Gaming

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It seems like every other week a game studio is massively laying off employees; sometimes after years of development. What I'm reading is that it's a quick way to lower expenses and pad the investors' pockets, flooding the market with developers and reducing their value, to then hire them back a few months later at lower salaries.

So, what's holding back gamedevs from banding together to either unionize or start their own companies with better conditions that the purely money-driven studios? Why aren't they trying to be better? Nobody willing to invest in them? Does starting a company together mean they will now be the bosses who have to answer to the investors, ensure returns, and fire employees? Is the world just an entire shit-cake?

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[–] millie@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Tryin'! I gotta put out a tabletop RPG first. Smaller market, plus I need to finish the rule set to use it in my games!

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Can you give us the gist or is it under wraps?

[–] millie@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

The tabletop system is intended to be modular, with subsystems that can easily be added, removed, or tuned for different genres. The initial playtest I did was in a zombie survival setting, currently we're doing a campaign that's got a bit more of a Shadowrunny type feel, mixing technological dystopia and magic. The idea is to put out a core book in those settings as well as a fantasy setting and a space opera setting, so people can mix and match subsystems and do whatever they like with it.

I applied programming concepts to the design of the mechanics themselves in a way that I hope makes them more intuitive and tries to maintain a steady flow of tension and release without a bunch of pausing to check stuff once you know the system.

I don't want to give too much of the details away, but I do plan to release a system resource document along with the actual books. And it'll be released under an anti-corporate license, so other small creators can make modules for it, but big companies will have to shell out if they want to play ball.

Once that's ready to go I have a couple of video games planned using the same system. One of them ties heavily into themes of abuse and autonomy, the other is about time travel. I have some of the early stages of the art and some shaders and stuff done for these, and have set up a few mechanics, but they're still kind of on the back burner. I've been teaching myself music theory and composition so the soundtrack doesn't become an afterthought, and I feel like there's still something conceptual I'm missing at the core of the visual design. I'll get there, though.

[–] mynachmadarch@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My gaming groups (both tabletop and video) are leaning into experimental phase of trying new stuff. Count me in if I ever come across your release in the wild.

On the music and visual side. If at all possible I highly recommend finding or hiring someone to at least review what you have and advise, if not doing all the work. There's so much to both that it takes ages to get right but they can have such a huge impact as you seem to know.

[–] millie@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm going for very specific look of stylized visuals that'll play well into my animation experience with Flash. I've got the shader for it pretty much nailed, I'm just working on my actual like body concept stuff and I'm not fully sold on the actual perspective angle I've been playing with. I definitely have a lot of artist and animator friends who have seen it and I've gotten good feedback.

But yeah, on the music side of things, I honestly think I want to try to find some folks to play with some time soon. I'm still shoring up my performance end of things, but playing some bass and/or keyboard and/or guitar with a band would probably help my ear a lot and also give me some folks that I could have a musical understanding with who could help me with the soundtrack.

I'd honestly love to release a sort of grungy album. Most of what I've been composing seems to lean into experimental guitar stuff, but it's all still pretty raw.

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