/Has no idea what this is - goes off to Google..
First Time Custom Build. Looking for some advice on current spec.
That does look good.
One of the best co-op experiences i've had was Never Winter Nights - an overhead RPG - with my brother when i bought my first house (He virtually lived there as he was still a debt ridden student.). Before i had kids so I had a dedicated room for LANS - fun times.
That game looks like an updated/quirky version of NWN - with vibrant colours and backdrop. I think i'll buy a couple of copies as it probably would be suitable to play with my son - need to check gore/language etc...
Yes i loved NWN, don't even want to think how much of my teenage years i spent playing that game, used to play constantly on a server called Dasaria, so yeah if you liked NWN you'll love that, it's probably the closest i've seen a game get to NWN in recent years. I actually still go back and play it every now and again because it's still a stand up game, remember i was so annoyed when my dog chewed the original cardboard box it came in.
*edit 1* Very jealous of the LAN you would have had set up for that though
They've added an entire dungeon master mode into the Original Sin 2, where one person can basically be the dm and control the entire pace of it while a group of people can play along with a custom story and everything.
*edit 2* And i can't think of any bad language in the game off the top of my head, it's a bit more comical than that, death is generally handled in a more entertaining way as well. The second one is a little darker theme wise than the first one. But i guess it depends on how your son deals with certain themes. Will look into that myself for you, played the first one through a couple of times but yeah really struggling to think of any.
*edit 3* http://www.pegi.info/en/index/globa...forms=&countries=&submit=Search#searchresults
Pegi rating puts it at a 16 due to violence, there doesn't seem to be any mention of profanity on the first one at least.
*edit 1* Very jealous of the LAN you would have had set up for that though
They've added an entire dungeon master mode into the Original Sin 2, where one person can basically be the dm and control the entire pace of it while a group of people can play along with a custom story and everything.
*edit 2* And i can't think of any bad language in the game off the top of my head, it's a bit more comical than that, death is generally handled in a more entertaining way as well. The second one is a little darker theme wise than the first one. But i guess it depends on how your son deals with certain themes. Will look into that myself for you, played the first one through a couple of times but yeah really struggling to think of any.
*edit 3* http://www.pegi.info/en/index/globa...forms=&countries=&submit=Search#searchresults
Pegi rating puts it at a 16 due to violence, there doesn't seem to be any mention of profanity on the first one at least.
Last edited:
That's really useful to know - thank you.
I still have one of my original copies out on my shelf - along with some other old classics - just for the nostalgia. Like you i wasted a lot of my evenings/weekends playing that game - my wife actually enjoyed watching us play. Must have been like a real time Game of Thrones soap opera for her
Thanks Elith, really appreciate the effort.
From a brief look at YouTube clips the deaths seem more cartoony than real and the general feel of the game seems to err on the side of bravado humour than glorifying killing. It seems pretty age appropriate for my son - i'll surprise him with a steam gift as he's been unwell the past week.
I may even get my, now working but still a big kid at heart of a little brother, a copy too - but may be hard coinciding out schedules to play (no fun being a grown up sometimes).
Great stuff - glad i asked
No worries, hopefully you all enjoy it, I feel your pain with schedules. Used to hang out with friends at one of our houses with all our pcs set up playing guild wars or wow, but even trying to find time to play something less time consuming now is pretty tricky. Hopefully your son feels better soon!
If you ever played icewind dale or baulders gate you might like Pillars of Eternity, relatively recent game with the same steep learning curve/art style rpg, haven't played loads of it's but really good, if you're into that.
If you ever played icewind dale or baulders gate you might like Pillars of Eternity, relatively recent game with the same steep learning curve/art style rpg, haven't played loads of it's but really good, if you're into that.
Last edited:
I certainly did play Baldur's Gate - but must bow my head in shame as I never got around to playing Icewind Dale even though i owned it.
/goes off to look at Pillars of Eternity - rings a bell - but so many games get released i can't keep track of what would be of interest to me until passing conversations like this
/goes off to look at Pillars of Eternity - rings a bell - but so many games get released i can't keep track of what would be of interest to me until passing conversations like this
I think I was too young to ever understand those games when I owned them and never get any distance at all, so I never finished either, I do have the "hd" version of baulders gate though that I need to try get back around to with my mate.
I will go back to Pillars at some point too i just never had the time for it when it released.
Oh tell me about it, making them seems to have generally put me off playing most of what comes out now, a solid rpg always makes me happy though.
I will go back to Pillars at some point too i just never had the time for it when it released.
Oh tell me about it, making them seems to have generally put me off playing most of what comes out now, a solid rpg always makes me happy though.
Doobly-what-now?
There was a slight hint of this during the build, with the software you were using, but i'm always discrete and don't enquire too much to keep a respectful distance when speccing a build for members.
But now i've got an acceptable foot in the door - what have you worked on?
(Don't feel you have to answer - i'm always interested in this as it's a career i missed out on by about 7 years.)Oh it's never too late, one of my friends never got into doing games until he was in his mid 30s so there's always time granted he was a sculptor for 10 years or something prior to that so he had a bit of a headstart in terms of making characters. All depends on what your skillset I suppose on how easy it is to do the transition
No it's alright to ask I've worked on the remake of abe's oddysee - oddworld new n tasty, couple of vr games for the Samsung gear, assassins creed chronicles and currently I work at travellers tales on the lego games.
granted he was a sculptor for 10 years or something prior to that so he had a bit of a headstart in terms of making characters. All depends on what your skillset I suppose on how easy it is to do the transition No it's alright to ask
I've worked on the remake of abe's oddysee - oddworld new n tasty, couple of vr games for the Samsung gear, assassins creed chronicles and currently I work at travellers tales on the lego games.Thanks for that Elith - and kudos with respect to your CV of games that you've worked on. I envy your cores skills and the opportunities it's giving you - i hope it's as enjoyable as i imagine.
It is too late for me, unfortunately, my money and skills intertwine too much - plus i think my wife would kill me if i downed 'tools and retrained
However, i have a certain young son who is already editing/administrating wikis and starting to learn HTML/CSS and bits of of java. At the moment he thinks he wants to follow me down the maths/science path - but i think he may have a natural aptitude for code and perhaps game design (in whatever form that may be) as he's asked me to look into how to mod 'Unturned' (Nelson is his idol) and 'Rim World' so the urge to learn is there. Do you have any words of wisdom of areas he should be perhaps looking at/concentrating on?
It is too late for me, unfortunately, my money and skills intertwine too much - plus i think my wife would kill me if i downed 'tools and retrained
However, i have a certain young son who is already editing/administrating wikis and starting to learn HTML/CSS and bits of of java. At the moment he thinks he wants to follow me down the maths/science path - but i think he may have a natural aptitude for code and perhaps game design (in whatever form that may be) as he's asked me to look into how to mod 'Unturned' (Nelson is his idol) and 'Rim World' so the urge to learn is there. Do you have any words of wisdom of areas he should be perhaps looking at/concentrating on?
This has sent both my kids into an excited tailspin - they own all of them. And my wife and I take it in turns playing with them in co-op mode with each new release - family tradition now.
Hey Plec, no worries at all. It has it's ups and downs to be sure, but for the most part yeah it's an enjoyable thing to have as a job
Yeah that is fair enough, it gets to a stage where starting over isn't just time it's financially a pain.
Oh that's awesome your son is getting into that already, if he hasn't checked it out yet look at https://www.codecademy.com/ I have made occasional attempts at trying to learn some python every now and again so i can write my own art tools. It's a good site, there's a level of gameification to it all so you get points for completing courses, loads of different languages to choose from and i think generally a good place to start for anyone looking to get into some form of code. He's never going to go wrong being good at Math/Science
Code Academy covers C++ i believe as well which is more what you'd be looking at for game scripting, that's not true for every game engine but anything commercially available is going to be C++ or a tweaked version of it, the Unity engine uses a tweaked version as does Unreal (I'm pretty sure that's correct).
If it's game design he is really interested in a great starting place would be Game Maker https://www.yoyogames.com/get it has an endless free trial it just limits you in certain places, it's node based, so instead of having to understand the coding side you can focus more on linking different pieces of pre built code together to get something working, great for getting ideas out quick, it has nodes that allow you to add your own custom scripts as well so if he was inclined to try write some of his own code then it's an option. But yeah really good for prototyping ideas, and just seeing what you can make, and to remove the restrictions it's $100 if it was something he found he was really getting into.
There is an art package not quite as good as photoshop but it is free and that is GIMP https://www.gimp.org/ so if he was interested in creating 2D sprites for Game Maker this would be the best place to start.
And there is also Blender for a free 3D modelling tool which I've never properly used but it's pretty powerful for a free tool, and i've worked beside people who sing it's praises. https://www.blender.org/
I dunno how old your son is so i wouldn't want to overload him with info, but if it's code he's interested in, then as i said Game Maker (which it turns out uses it's own language) link here https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Game_Maker_Programming with tutorials. There will be tons of stuff online outside of just that wiki too. Same for design as well Game Maker, and just work out what's fun, to be honest one of my old lecturers now teaches board game design in the university course he runs, because you get to throw away all the code/art to it all, and can purely focus on the mechanics of what is happening and coming up with rules etc etc.
Hah that's great you all play them, the Ninjago game should be out soon too, so if you're kids like the Ninjago tv show i'm sure they'll get a kick out of that
Sorry that is a long post, sorry if there are spelling errors or bits don't make much sense. Don't take my word 100% for the code thing, I am an artist so my knowledge is limited. But i'm sure i can find a programmer and find out how they started out
Cheers,
Colin
Yeah that is fair enough, it gets to a stage where starting over isn't just time it's financially a pain.
Oh that's awesome your son is getting into that already, if he hasn't checked it out yet look at https://www.codecademy.com/ I have made occasional attempts at trying to learn some python every now and again so i can write my own art tools. It's a good site, there's a level of gameification to it all so you get points for completing courses, loads of different languages to choose from and i think generally a good place to start for anyone looking to get into some form of code. He's never going to go wrong being good at Math/Science
Code Academy covers C++ i believe as well which is more what you'd be looking at for game scripting, that's not true for every game engine but anything commercially available is going to be C++ or a tweaked version of it, the Unity engine uses a tweaked version as does Unreal (I'm pretty sure that's correct).
If it's game design he is really interested in a great starting place would be Game Maker https://www.yoyogames.com/get it has an endless free trial it just limits you in certain places, it's node based, so instead of having to understand the coding side you can focus more on linking different pieces of pre built code together to get something working, great for getting ideas out quick, it has nodes that allow you to add your own custom scripts as well so if he was inclined to try write some of his own code then it's an option. But yeah really good for prototyping ideas, and just seeing what you can make, and to remove the restrictions it's $100 if it was something he found he was really getting into.
There is an art package not quite as good as photoshop but it is free and that is GIMP https://www.gimp.org/ so if he was interested in creating 2D sprites for Game Maker this would be the best place to start.
And there is also Blender for a free 3D modelling tool which I've never properly used but it's pretty powerful for a free tool, and i've worked beside people who sing it's praises. https://www.blender.org/
I dunno how old your son is so i wouldn't want to overload him with info, but if it's code he's interested in, then as i said Game Maker (which it turns out uses it's own language) link here https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Game_Maker_Programming with tutorials. There will be tons of stuff online outside of just that wiki too. Same for design as well Game Maker, and just work out what's fun, to be honest one of my old lecturers now teaches board game design in the university course he runs, because you get to throw away all the code/art to it all, and can purely focus on the mechanics of what is happening and coming up with rules etc etc.
Hah that's great you all play them, the Ninjago game should be out soon too, so if you're kids like the Ninjago tv show i'm sure they'll get a kick out of that
Sorry that is a long post, sorry if there are spelling errors or bits don't make much sense. Don't take my word 100% for the code thing, I am an artist so my knowledge is limited. But i'm sure i can find a programmer and find out how they started out
Cheers,
Colin
Hey Elith,
Excellent - thank you so much for the comprehensive reply.
I’m bookmarking those links as I type – I can’t believe I forgot about CodeAcedemy. I think I registered for that a year ago, but felt he was a fraction too young. But I think it’ll be perfect for him now – thanks.
The YoYogames, from your description, sounds a great tool as it will give him tangible results and is probably one of the best ways of learning and - at $100 for permanent access - if it looks as good as it sounds, it would be money well spent. Just looked at a couple of video clips on the site – looks like a perfect resource to get his teeth into. I may have a play too…
Yay, C++. I have 3 giant TYS tomes filling my bookcase gathering dust – I’ve forgotten more than I ever knew (which wasn’t a lot). But it’s good to know that it’s still the go to code – I may have some ‘limited’ use after all…
He’s already quite familiar with GIMP - a name which has caused more than its fair share of raised eyebrows when talking about it in front of friends and family who have no idea what it is.
If he really show’s an aptitude/interest, I’ll get him his own copy of Photoshop as that’s another interface that I’m familiar with so that may be another area I could help him with.
Blender looks amazing – I’ve got a basic understanding of SketchUp but this looks something else. He will love the look and idea of creating 3D models.
Again, I really appreciate the time and effort in your response – really very helpful.
They both said ‘the Ninjago Game’ in unison when reading that you were working for TT/Lego – you have hero status in my household right now. Any particular model/background you’ve worked on? My little girl will freak if she spots one – apparently, it will have to be called Elith!
Oh, and my wife has put in a request for another Lego Lord of the Rings – she’s on 97% completion, it’s very sad… (although they are strangely addictive especially the stud collection).
For an artist with ‘supposed’ limited knowledge you’ve given me a lot to work with and my son will be thrilled with the software available – thanks Elith.
Glad that was of some help, infact i've said C++ but C# would be equally useful, if you are scripting game engines you would be more likely to use C++ because of direct control over memory management, but the actual inner workings of the game are normally C#.
Yeah i really got on with Code Academy it wasn't too heavy going with what it was trying to teach you but it felt like you were making some progress.
Yeah i used Game Maker in uni in the first year was an interesting tool to play around with, just didn't have enough time ontop of everything else to really get my head fully around it. Yeah $100 and the ability to then publish the games to the desktop means he can share it around with friends as well to try out or even publish them online somewhere. There's been some relatively big titles made in game maker as well, Hotline Miami was one (not a game for your son though).
Hah yes every time i've recommended GIMP as a good free tool i'm always met with confused looks
Yeah Blender is the way to go over sketchup, there's ways you can used the 3d models to render out individual animation frames and piece those together to create an animated character/item opposed to doing the pixel art route, because pixel art is so hard unless you have the patience for it.
But yeah no problem at all
Haha that's fun, my sisters little boy is the same, everytime i speak to her on the phone i'll hear him in the background asking when it's going to be out I can't say too much right now because it isn't out yet but there is one specific level i done a fair bit of work on, so once it's out i can point it out to you.
I'm in your wifes camp i keep going on about getting another one as well, The Hobbit game was great. Oh and don't worry, not sad at all, my girlfriend has 100% on who knows how many of them
Hah clearly spending time around the programmers has paid off in some respect.
Is there anyway to direct message you by the way? *edit* if that's not too cheeky to ask
Yeah i really got on with Code Academy it wasn't too heavy going with what it was trying to teach you but it felt like you were making some progress.
Yeah i used Game Maker in uni in the first year was an interesting tool to play around with, just didn't have enough time ontop of everything else to really get my head fully around it. Yeah $100 and the ability to then publish the games to the desktop means he can share it around with friends as well to try out or even publish them online somewhere. There's been some relatively big titles made in game maker as well, Hotline Miami was one (not a game for your son though).
Hah yes every time i've recommended GIMP as a good free tool i'm always met with confused looks
Yeah Blender is the way to go over sketchup, there's ways you can used the 3d models to render out individual animation frames and piece those together to create an animated character/item opposed to doing the pixel art route, because pixel art is so hard unless you have the patience for it.
But yeah no problem at all
Haha that's fun, my sisters little boy is the same, everytime i speak to her on the phone i'll hear him in the background asking when it's going to be out
I can't say too much right now because it isn't out yet but there is one specific level i done a fair bit of work on, so once it's out i can point it out to you.I'm in your wifes camp i keep going on about getting another one as well, The Hobbit game was great. Oh and don't worry, not sad at all, my girlfriend has 100% on who knows how many of them
Hah clearly spending time around the programmers has paid off in some respect.
Is there anyway to direct message you by the way? *edit* if that's not too cheeky to ask
Last edited:
Sure - i've done it once before while helping someone do a first build - a step-by-step walk through. It was an epic experience - i've gone on to do a few virtual builds now but the first was entertaining.
I think it's done via trust. That will give you access to my email - i think. I'll activate it now and see what happens (you may need to do the same). Although, i'm very active on the board you can probably tell from my 'user info' i don;t really give any info away
Will attempt now.
Try clicking on mine?Oh bugger, it won't let me login to the trust thing for some reason, well that's stuffed that as an idea. Let me have a play around and see if i can get it to work
Jeez, that is very kind, Ethan. I'm going to be the Dad of the year - perhaps even husband given my wife's reaction>My kids will get to see this text tomorrow
(I thought perhaps you had computer issues and needed direct help - so a very pleasant surprise.)I've always turned down gift offers in the past as i pick choose who i help - and i never expect anything in return.
However, i think my kids (and my wife) would kill me if I turned down this unique and very generous gesture. And we'll definitely be getting it.
Thanks you - the answer is yes please. If my email doesn't appear in my trust i'll put it up briefly on here if needed and then edit it out again.
Last edited: