@signalsandlight
Senior Combat Designer @ Notable Game Studio 🎮 Video essays on game design and media Opinions are my own | He/Him 👾 | Gay 🏳️🌈 YouTube: http://youtube.com/@signalsandlight Socials: https://linktr.ee/SignalsAndLight Portfolio: https://www.isaiaheverin.com
Spent a whole issue of @aiandgames.com last month ripping these surveys apart.
Everyone from AI providers to GDC like to pretend they represent the voice of the industry. All of them talk out their ass and over-inflate their worth.
www.aiandgames.com/p/separating...
You know, I'm so neurotic that the fact that Steam reviews require text makes me not do them because I don't always have time to write something real, and I do wish we didn't have to write something to mark Positive, but I suppose this is valid advice, and I can do that more.
I just watched 3 seasons of Industry in 2 weeks and now I'm caught up on the two new eps and, uh. What. The. Fuck? This show is crazy. Unbelievable how much it's changed and also how under the radar it's gone for having some of the best TV performances in the last 5 years.
Looking into why they break so often and actually seeing the components exposed in this video has me utterly baffled that making a spout exude thick, semi-frozen cream requires this much machinery. I would have assumed so much less.
Just moved and I have a box that's occupied 75% by cables sorted by category in re-used bags, and I had to label one "small ethernet cables" to remind that despite it having ethernet cables inside of it, they will never be of a length that I actually want. Also, the USB bag is horrifyingly swollen.
As a dev who's worked in AAA, the impact it has on the entire gaming market and console sales and how saturated of a point that is and how every lead/director/etc references that makes it impossible for me to not take seriously even though on no level do I or will I ever care about Grand Theft Auto.
Discord wants to know how you feel about AI.
Go tell them: discord.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
📌 Post
🎮 I made videos about enemy combat in games.
📺 I'd like to make more videos about game dev and media one day, hopefully something in '26/'27.
☠️ I worked on the cancelled KotOR Remake and Perfect Dark.
⚔️ Now I do combat design on a new game that people actually already play in closed alpha!
I am tired of Earth. These people.
A drawing of a trucker with a mullet and a mustache, in front of a truckstop, saying "how boutchu take a picture? it'll last longer." and he is wearing a hat that says "I dug a tunnel straight down in to the center of the earth, and therein, found hell itself, set out to kill The Devil, but when I got there, sitting on that abyssal throne was my own shadow self, and had to confront that true evil is something that lives inside us all, not an external force upon us, and if i killed him in anger, I'd just be acting out that perverse will, and all I got was this lousy hat."
take a picture
(rerun)
I pay so much attention to this stuff, and some games are so unreal good at it. I'd say this is taken for granted, but also literally all of environment art as a field of expertise is taken for granted. The average player can barely tell the difference between masterwork and just okay.
Others: sPoRtS aRe JuSt AnOtHeR hObBy.
The Smug Sports-Hating Preteen Still Inside Me: Video games don't actually cause violence, but sports literally do.
Genuinely had a really enjoyable time watching this one.
Fantastic narrative analysis (from a creator that admittedly doesn't usually even like anime). Also this is just also secretly explaining why The Stormlight Archive is so good (because it builds emotional themes and character arcs into this concept so perfectly).
OK, I don't think I'm gonna play a new game that'll end up here in the next 12 days. Top 10 plays of 2025 for me on @backloggd.com.
1. Silksong
2. Doom: The Dark Ages
3. Dispatch
4. The Alters
5. Peak
6. Zenless Zone Zero
7. Sultan's Game
8. The Seance of Blake Manor
9. Hades II
10. Blue Prince
Absolutely impeccable narrative analysis. Have I played the game? No, I'm a baby with horror games and nothing aligned for me to watch a friend play. But this is SUPER good.
Vic Dimension 20 100 years Vic hell yes I love Vic.
The GenAI stuff is stupid, but also a lot of what's being said is silly. A game does not need to be more ambitious than Baldur's Gate 3. And a game more ambitious than Baldur's Gate 3 cannot be made in 4 years. Especially when moving to a new game engine. Baffling claims. See you in 2030s ,Swen.
Huh, I think this is the best criticism written about TLOU and TLOU2 I've ever seen? Such a good analysis of all aspects of what the games are doing and how those features synthesize with each other. Also, it says a lot that doesn't feel like regurgitating things I've already read scores of times.
It's good to know this important cultural tradition has not been stripped from our golden society. Do kids still even have quarters on hand? It doesn't matter.
"Wake Up Dead Man" was pretty good.
I think this is maybe the most overly-optimistic cringe thing I've ever written about technology (that wasn't me just reading Hyperion and being hyperbolically hopeful for post-human technology). Sorry, bud, VR isn't that good, lmaooo.
Lastly, I hope this is good. An action game where you play a D&D bladelock sounds awesome.
It's hard to not be bitter about anything The Old Republic related after being part of the team that KotOR was taken from (and it really would've been quite good), but Idk hopefully this turns out. They should hire some of the former KotOR devs who recently need jobs.
I don't like Control or Alan Wake 2 on any front other than art direction, but they've got me hoping they'll finally win me over on gameplay here.
New Frictional game looks awesome, glad to see them return to SOMA vibes.
