121–130 of 254 posts
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These concerns are back for VR. Also, remember that Crash Bandicoot was made at a time when devs weren't sure how mouse-look should work.
Well, mouse look was already in use with shooters at that point; it was well known. Maybe you mean behind the character third-person camera? Or just the concept on consoles?
I am waiting for Mr. Baggett book on the Lisp internals of Crash Bandicoot. I don't care about the game, I never liked it, but the Lisp code of this man should be on par with PG's.
That would have to be Andy. I'm really kind of a hack when it comes to lisp programming. :) But yes, Andy's lisp code is certainly great -- all the more so because he also wrote the lisp compilers that compiled it. :)
If you haven't read the "Making Crash Bandicoot" blogposts, you're in for a treat. http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-ban...
Nice read. I really like this part: "But we worried about the camera, dizziness, and the player’s ability to judge depth – more on that later." It's interesting that they were concerned with dizziness and the camera, concerns which seem to have unfortunately evaporated in most 3d games made since, to their detriment.
> and this had to be paged in and out dynamically, without any "hitches"—loading lags where the frame rate would drop below 30 Hz. This is what gets me. Modern game development seems to say "eh, a little hitching won't hurt anyone", and then we wind up with games that run like shit. Even on consoles.
The worse thing that ever happened to game development was the on-demand updates. There is nothing worse than buying a game on release day only to wait for it to download a patch.
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ND still seems to be concerned with it. I did not personally play The Last Of Us, but it's cinematic nature (I did watch a movie recut) makes me feel like they put a lot of work into those aspects.
Actually, "The Last of Us" is a pretty bad offender as far as camera and motion sickness go. For first person games, there's probably no solution, but third person games like "The Last of Us" could use some camera management that would eliminate or greatly reduce motion sickness. It doesn't. It's all manual and needs readjusting constantly. Which is better than the camera rotating constantly, but only slightly as the…
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Just try to code for mobile or embedded platforms. Yeah they might get bigger storage every year, but the reason why Google, Apple and Microsoft do talks about package size on their developer conferences is that size is number one reason for people to avoid installing apps, or to chose which one to remove. Also given how the app life cycle works on mobile platforms, big apps are being killed all the time they go into…
Yes, the PS1's 2MB of RAM are pretty generous compared to some embedded platforms. A typical engine controller ECU in a car might have 256KB of RAM (and maybe 2-4MB of flash).
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It's the same. All iOS devices except the iPad Air 2 have less than 2GB RAM (most 512 MB). Android 1-4 devices have often less than 1GB RAM. It's common that only 1-3 apps can stay in RAM depending on the platform and the apps memory usage (foreground apps, not background services). Applications/games in the Win95/PS1/N64 era were coded a lot more efficient. Back than, a common Win95a PC had 4-8MB RAM, (highend was 3…
Win95 machines with 4 MB RAM were exceptions, not the rule. It was very painful to use such machine, as it was swapping all time time, otherwise doing nothing. Any realistic setup had 8 MB RAM or more. Application at that time also didn't support i18n, didn't anti alias fonts, had low-res, low-color assets, that were enough at 320x200(240)/640x480 resolution.
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I get the sentiment (they should have tested more thoroughly), but I for one appreciate the on-demand update mechanism. Would you rather play a game with previously unknown bugs, or have them smashed on launch day and get a patch to make your experience more stable?
I'd rather play a game that, if I should want to play it 20 years from now and there are no update servers - which I do still do with my old consoles - I can pop it in and not worry about bugs I have to figure out how to get patched. Games will inevitably have bugs, but developers have become too reliant on the update mechanisms and games have shipped completely busted.
Dave Bagget could write a book on the making of crash and I'd buy it in a second. There was something very special that went to making that game and I was just the right age to appreciate it.
Biography of the guy who did the R-Type port for the ZX Spectrum, it's a riot of a read and has a lot of the old info.