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Bob's Game

en.wikipedia.org

61–70 of 86 posts

Re: Bob's Game

#61

I had never heard about this, but my first reaction is that I feel bad for this guy, because if you consider that he was self taught he really was very talented. Checkout the gameplay videos. He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics with seemingly no training. I'm not saying it would've been a great game, because I don't know that, just that he as an individual could've been successful. I read the boo…

> One question we have to ask ourselves is what came first—the mental illness or the game development

Just watched the "Bob vs. Nintendo" documentary where they quote some weird autobiography he posted to his site where he admits to killing a kitten earlier in his life:

> "I got a kitten, named it Mew, and accidentally killed it the first night I had it. I was stoned, and it woke me up somehow. I got angry and put it in a big plastic bucket in the closet, half asleep and confused. In the morning it was dead - it had suffocated. [...] I shoved me further into a haze"

The thought of that is horrifying to me. This guy has clear impulse control issues and reminds me of someone who's BPD/manic enough that their actions killed an innocent animal. "I was stoned and angry" isn't a valid excuse for suffocating an animal - this guy is wired wrong. Assuming this event happened before the whole "Bob's Game" fiasco I'd definitely say the mental illness came first.

I'm going to go pet my cat now...

Re: Bob's Game

#62
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a better overview? The video did bounce around a bit but what was incorrect?

I'd have to watch it over again but here are some details I remember being wrong: - The "live video feed" on the homepage was not actually a live video feed for a long time - it was the same images on a loop. - The Nintendo World Store was partially faked, with some of the scenes being actually filmed at his home and then spliced in. It was not as egregious as it looked - in fact, one of the corny details was that a…

Agreed. I was there from the early days from one of the forums I was at. Probably something awful. He pivoted so many times, it was for the longest time supposed to be the most expansive and realistic (2D) RPG there ever was. Then the Nintendo drama and the pivots to puzzle games and at some point I stopped paying attention

Re: Bob's Game

#63

There's a lot of crazy in here, but I can relate in a way. When I was young (a teenager), I really wanted to be a video game designer. Well, more than a designer, I wanted to be a full on creator, a rock star like Sid Meier or John Carmack. So I started making a game engine. I didn't really know exactly what I was making, I just had various ideas that I was collecting and coming up with and attaching to this game eng…

ouch.. that hit home

Re: Bob's Game

#64
post #7

Repo: https://github.com/bobsgame/bobsgame/ (deleted, see edit below) I looked at it a few weeks back and it's really strange. It has really weird restrictions that don't make any sense regarding the license - I'm not even sure if they even are legal. The author claims he is sharing the source but that nobody else can fork it, unless they fork it on GitHub?! Anyhow, within a few seconds of reading the source you'll f…

I looked at it a few weeks back and it's really strange. It has really weird restrictions that don't make any sense regarding the license - I'm not even sure if they even are legal. The author claims he is sharing the source but that nobody else can fork it, unless they fork it on GitHub?! I don't know if the wording is legalease enough to be enforced, but of course a license like this is legal. Just because you can…

The first two clauses of the license are the BSD-2-Clause license, nothing weird or unusual there.

The third clause is... interesting. I suspect it's probably legal, but it may well have unintended consequences because it appears to be requiring you to use a trademark.

The fourth clause may fall afoul of First Sale Doctrine. It's something that I wouldn't trust without talking to an IP lawyer to work out what it actually means and how much is actually viable to be done in an open source license.

The fifth clause is nullified by the terms of GitHub, I think, as GitHub's ToS seems to require you to allow anyone to fork your repository without encumbrance, which the fifth clause tries to narrow.

Re: Bob's Game

#65

I had never heard about this, but my first reaction is that I feel bad for this guy, because if you consider that he was self taught he really was very talented. Checkout the gameplay videos. He wrote all of that himself in C++ and did the graphics with seemingly no training. I'm not saying it would've been a great game, because I don't know that, just that he as an individual could've been successful. I read the boo…

I bought Blood, Sweat, and Pixels because I want to support Jason Schreier and the sort of nonfiction he's writing, but I've been reading it after coming off Masters of Doom and it just doesn't hit the same.

Re: Bob's Game

#66
post #55

There's a lot of crazy in here, but I can relate in a way. When I was young (a teenager), I really wanted to be a video game designer. Well, more than a designer, I wanted to be a full on creator, a rock star like Sid Meier or John Carmack. So I started making a game engine. I didn't really know exactly what I was making, I just had various ideas that I was collecting and coming up with and attaching to this game eng…

Your description reminded me a lot of TempleOS. Another project created from scratch by a single developer (possibly with mental illness) that is going nowhere.

Terry Davis was diagnosed with schizophrenia; has passed away in 2018.

Re: Bob's Game

#67
post #55

There's a lot of crazy in here, but I can relate in a way. When I was young (a teenager), I really wanted to be a video game designer. Well, more than a designer, I wanted to be a full on creator, a rock star like Sid Meier or John Carmack. So I started making a game engine. I didn't really know exactly what I was making, I just had various ideas that I was collecting and coming up with and attaching to this game eng…

Your description reminded me a lot of TempleOS. Another project created from scratch by a single developer (possibly with mental illness) that is going nowhere.

You're thinking of Terry Davis[1]. No doubt about the mental illness. He died a few years ago, and I don't think anyone else is developing TempleOS.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis

Re: Bob's Game

#68
post #17

Interestingly enough, I bet the idea of staying in a room with a shower, and food delivery for 100 days doesn't seem like that big of deal to most people anymore.

It's the "no internet access" part that puts it outside of most people's experience still.

This was couple of years ago; at that time internet wasn’t that popular or practical (even though it was still extremely popular and practical). Perhaps today that rule wouldn’t be there.

Re: Bob's Game

#69
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description reminded me a lot of TempleOS. Another project created from scratch by a single developer (possibly with mental illness) that is going nowhere.

You're thinking of Terry Davis[1]. No doubt about the mental illness. He died a few years ago, and I don't think anyone else is developing TempleOS. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_A._Davis

There's multiple semi-active forks of TempleOS.

https://github.com/ZenithOS/ZenithOS https://github.com/minexew/Shrine https://github.com/tinkeros/TinkerOS

Re: Bob's Game

#70
post #25

Interestingly enough, I bet the idea of staying in a room with a shower, and food delivery for 100 days doesn't seem like that big of deal to most people anymore.

Isn't that basically solitary confinement, something we consider to be cruel and unusual punishment? I would actually challenge anyone to make it past 30 or even 50 days under those circumstances without losing it. I bet it is much, much harder than you think.

Most people did exactly that a year ago.
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