The Pixel Prophet #09
Gaming industry layoffs continue and Steam opens up to generative AI.
Dearest readers!
I am very happy with this issue; some fine nuggets I dug up for you here. The Prophet’s subscriber count is increasing, we’re at almost 80 now! Thank you for your interest, for subscribing, and your support!
— Phil
News & Updates
Unity, Twitch, Discord… Just a few weeks into 2024, the trend of layoffs in the game industry continues, if not increases. Kotaku reports that already 3,100+ layoffs had been announced; Christopher Dring, Head of GamesIndustry.biz estimates 2024 to be even “worse than 2023 when it comes to layoffs, and (specifically) business closures. Much worse. And things will stretch into 2025, too.”
Screenshot of what’s trending on a games news site. What a roller coaster! Steam announced a change to their AI rules and many feel it will open the floodgates of the cesspool of cash grabs, asset flips, and scams. Up until then, generative AI was strictly prohibited but as of January 10th, Steam softened their stance a little. The Verge reports on the details, if you want a digest of Steam’s original announcement.
The next streams take place on Sunday, January 28th at 23:00 CET
(► here’s that in your time zone), and Sunday, February 3rd at the same time.
Games
Big and small, old, and new, indie and very indie.
MOD • Now You’re Thinking With Mods — Portal (2007) and Portal 2 are two extraordinarily well designed games. Just imagine what a mash-up of those could look and play like! Granted, it’ll play a lot like either but if you’re a portalist(™) that’s precisely what you want. There have been many mods over the years, even some very good ones, but getting your game design to be on par with Vavle’s is a different matter entirely. But somehow, Viennese developer Stefan Heinz did the impossible. It took him over eight years but with ►Portal: Revolution, he and his small team succeeded. To play it, all you need is to have Portal 2 in your Steam library (just wait for the next Steam Sale); add the mod from its Steam page and you’re set!
Huge congratulations on finishing and releasing this massive mod (the playtime is to be 5–8 hours) and the overwhelmingly positive reception. Overkill also published Chris Brandrick’s interview with Stefan on the project.
INDIE • Burning Chrome — At its heart, cyberpunk is criticism of the power corporations hold over us, enabled by technology; the erosion of government and communities contrasted against the hustle of the masses, struggling to retain their individual autonomy.
Back in 2017 Silver Spook Games released their take on this relevant genre with ►Neofeud. Its distinctive, eclectic visuals and the plot’s “overlay of Game of Thrones-like political intrigue” and intricate storytelling makes it stand out of the crowd of neon-washed Blade Runner pastiches whose understanding of cyberpunk begins and ends with the visuals. Pssst: Neofeud is on sale until 1st of February!
INDIE • The Breach is You — Subset Games’ Into the Breach (2018) and Arvi “Hempuli” Teikari’s Baba is You (2019) are two extraordinarily well designed games. Just imagine what a mash-up of those could look and play like! Now you could keep imagining it, or instead head over to Hempuli’s itch.io and get ►Mobile Suit Baba for the price of a latte — soundtrack included (with the game, not the latte).
INDIE • Sleuthing Fox — You might remember my quick list of games featuring animals with investigative duties back in issue 06. I forgot to mention ►Detective Foxglove, Wannibe Studios’ first game that’s in the making for the past years. Started by indie dev Manisha W, the team grew over the years and it looks very promising. Just follow #detectivefoxglove or Manisha on Twitter for the latest screenshots and videos. (And let me know if you need a character voiced by someone with a weird German accent!)
INDIE • EGAdventure — I’m not gonna lie, folks: I love a good looking EGA game and Powerhoof’s ►Telwynium Book 3 art is among the top 1%. It looks incredible, every room is a pure joy to behold. Also the accompanying adventure is quite alright, I’ve heard. The game is on itch.io for a very affordable “name your own price”.
INDIE • Fan Mash-up — You know Robocop (1987). You know Predator (1987). And of course you know the SNES game Alien vs. Predator (1993). And now, Italian artist and indie game dev Oscar Celestini brings us … (dramatic pause) … ►Robocop vs. Predator a PC game that looks, feels, and sound like the best of hat Ocean Software put on a GameBoy in the 90s. Okay, that’s a bit unfair. It’s better! The game has ten levels, 5 bosses, and 4 (yes FOUR!) video filters in store for you. I’d buy that for a dollar! But I don’t have to because it’s free!
Programming & Game Dev
Tools, resources, wisdom, humor.
DOCUMENTARY • Little Bobby Tables — Many of us know the classic xkcd comic about a boy with a name that effectively is an SQL injection to delete all records of students in a database. While we chuckled, imagine how life for Bobby Tables would be. In fact, there are actual people who are cursed with names that our prevalent technology can’t handle. New York’s public radio’s Radiolab did an episode on their stories, aptly titled ►null. Give it a listen (and support NPR!)
DIGI-ZINE • Side Scroller Magazine — For quite some time now (= since 2020), Skull Commando Labs from El Salvador has been regularly publishing their ►Side Scroller Magazine, a digital magazine highlighting current indie games. Sadly, there seems to be no central site to browse previous issues as the new magazine always drops via Dropbox link (here’s the latest issue), so be sure to follow Skull Commando Labs on Twitter for a treasure trove of new games to check out!
RETRO • Assembly of Empires — In a recent article on PC Gamer, Matt Pritchard who optimized the graphics of Ensemble Studios’ Age of Empires (1997) confirmed that most of the drawing code was written in x86 assembly. This made drawing the sprites ten times faster than competing games in the same genre such as Blizzard’s StarCraft which was written in C++. This shows again that optimizing the right parts can lead to massive performance gain.
FUNNY GAMES • Such lol — Game historians such as Kate Willaert (not to be confused with Cracked contributer Katie Willert) were asked for their input on a list of the ►50 funniest games ever made. The result feels historically and genre-wise well balanced and I saw some titles I’ve never heard of but need to check out now.
Kate also “research[es] and write[s] about forgotten geek history, with a focus on playable female protagonists aka #VideoDames” and I can very much recommend her YouTube video titled Samus Aran Origins: Metroid’s Influences Beyond Alien on YouTube!
GENERATIVE THEFT • DRM for Your Art — BlueByte’s The Settlers III (2002) is remembered for its legendary copy protection. The game is centered around creating and managing econimic chains of goods; a woodcutter cuts trees, the wood gets planked in a saw mill and then used for construction of advanced buildings, for examples. But players of a pirated version experienced a curious and progress-blocking curiosity: Their iron smelter would not produce ingots but pigs thus rendering advanced productions requiring iron impossible—and the game unbeatable.
If you are an artist and (rightfully) worried about the art you post online being stolen to train generative AI models (such as Dall-E, Midjourney, etc.), ►Nightshade might be the tool just for you: “Nightshade transforms images into ‘poison’ samples, so that models training on them without consent will see their models learn unpredictable behaviors that deviate from expected norms, e.g. a prompt that asks for an image of a cow flying in space might instead get an image of a handbag floating in space.” Let’s turn their iron into pigs!
RESOURCE • Map-Making Assets — Even if you’re not running a tabletop RPG, you might be interested in a ►pack of “400 images of hills, trees, mountains, towns and cities” that David Stark extracted from a 17th century map. Get it and recreate Westeros, Middle Earth, or the fabled Nether Lands with it. And don’t forget to thank David!
TOOL • GameMaker Packer — Probably not many of you use GameMaker but it’s my personal favorite, probably because I’ve been making games with it for almost a decade at this point. But what never changed was what a built game on Windows looked like. Even if you didn’t include files of your own you’d end up with a zip-file containing the game’s .exe, win.dat, and the crucial options.ini. At long last, developer and keytarist (!) Topher Anselmo took it upon himself to create ►GMPack, a tool that “allows you to turn your game into a single executable file without needing the extra files next to it.” Thank you for your service!
WEBDEV • CSS and Jokes — Developer Avocado (@dev_avocado on Twitter) has been sharing both useful webdev nuggets and programming humor alike. Here’s a helpful CSS Flexbox vs. Grid overview they posted on Twitter (which I also put on imgur for your convenience) and a little bit of silliness.
MORE WEBDEV • CSS keeps on <div>ing — Long-time web developer Pratham Kumar also shared “5 CSS things that will blow your mind for sure”. A bit clickbaity, granted, and my mind wasn’t outright blown; nonetheless he named some very handy tricks in his ►thread on Twitter. Again, for those who shy away from Twitter these days, I put it up on Pastebin, if you want to copy/paste the code. Oh, the things I do for you!
DESIGN • Game Design Knowledge — Game design veteran Tim Cain, “best known as the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of Fallout (1997)” (Wikipedia) shares his years of expertise designing games in short, entertaining, and inspiring videos on his ►YouTube channel. To whet your appetite, these are some of his video titles:
Design: Committee vs. Collaboration
Game Lore
Pacifism in Games
Loot Tables
How To Pick The Right Project
INTERVIEW • Sam Barlow — Game designer and creator Sam Barlow whose games Her Story (2015) and Immortality (2022) made quite the waves, was interviewed on Feed4gamers in which he “shares his transformative journey from major AAA franchises like Ghost Rider and Silent Hill to emotionally engaging FMV games.” (via Konstantinos Dimopoulos on Twitter)
GAMES WRITING • Interactive Storytelling — Exiled Russian narrative designer, writer, and game designer Zhenia Puzankov published the ►schedule for his upcoming interactive story-telling courses. You can sign up for all three and get a discount if you apply early.
Art & Inspiration
Art, science, and other inspirations that left an impression on me
Untitled works by Hirō Isono (磯野宏夫) (1945–2013)
You might know his art from the title screen / cover art of the SNES game Secret of Mana (1993). ►More of his art.
ni:ko is creating amazing CGI and graphics, especially this piece reminds me heavily of the best of Tsutomu Nihei (you might know his BLAME! manga).
Hull Breach
More of Nikolai on his website, ►4696 DIGITAL
Pixel’s Mixed Bag
What I’ve been up to, posts, random thoughts, and stuff that doesn’t fit in anywhere else.
◾ I’ve started a Tetris clone as a pet project to distract myself from lots of actual work that needs to be done. Needless to say I make good progress on it. For example, at any time you can switch the graphics back to PDP-11 / Elektronika 60 ASCII characters.
◾ Finally got around playing Super Metroid (1993) and am absolutely blown away by the game’s quality. It’s delightful seeing so many core pillars of the Metroidvania genre already fully formed in this seminal work. If you haven’t, I strongly encourage you to play it.
}
