markymarg2.bsky.social
A perfectly harmless box. Game dev, half of Dark Roast Entertainment. Games criticism at http://jmargaris.substack.com
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Yeah from what I've seen image quality doesn't look much better in general (as opposed to framerate etc) and in handheld mode it might even look worse in some games with the different screen res and bigger screen on Switch 2.
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I'm pretty impressed overall - results are highly variable, and framerate improvements seem far more common than image improvements, even for variable res games. But Nintendo's back compat strategy is often very literal with no improvements whatsoever, so this is substantially better.
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I also tried Xenoblade 2 and it seemed....basically the same as the Switch 1 version. Maybe it's improved in some way if you do scientific measurements but the impression is the same.
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(I do like a calzone sometimes, gif notwithstanding)
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Bro scroll up and actually read the thread you responded to lol.
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Figure out what you're making with a small team then hire up a large team works for movies - you can hire a professional crew that knows your process, lingo, equipment, etc, and can be immediately productive. You can't do that in games unless you can re-assign employees from within your own company.
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Seems like they were staffing up to make a game without having much idea of what they were making. Which on hand is clearly "wrong", but on the other hand what choice do you have? Figure out what you're making, then pause 2 years while you hire up?
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The "principal game designer" only worked there for a year and the Principal Narrative Systems Designer started in March.
On the other hand they had a LOT of employees considering they hadn't produced a vertical slice yet.
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"After 4 years they were still in pre-production" is a little different from "they did pre-production for 4 years." It's not clear how much of the time was "incubation" (whatever that means) and how much was earnest work on the game.
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A vertical slice isn't proof that you can make the game, but if you can't make a vertical slice that probably *is* proof that you *can't* make the game.
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7th Saga fans unite!
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It's a crime that Gigginox and Qurupeco haven't come back (AFAIK)
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Trying to build and run the standalone app version for the first time in a while, not going great!
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1. Lapras
2. Penguinor the Merciless
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They haven't been specific about what they're doing regarding possible compensation of the artist, but have vaguely alluded to doing...something along those lines.
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Why go through the effort of giving Sonic that idle foot-tapping animation when there's not much reason for players to idle and the animation has no gameplay ramifications? I dunno but people like that animation! You can psyche yourself out with "bang for the buck" analysis.
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"The boss was absent for large stretches then would swoop in and demand changes."
Yeah that sucks but at a smaller studio that boss might be absent because they're trying to secure funding, that, among other things, keeps you employed.
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...and the art team keeps using muted colors that's very much worth mentioning! For all we know this is a back-and-forth they'd had for months. And being detail-oriented is good!
These reports also sometimes take advantage of how little the readers know about game development.
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Similar to Steam in that I imagine they don't want to be too transparent about how it works because then people would game the system, but the result is you're at the mercy of some digital whim.
I also miss writing more for devs than the general public but where is a place to do that?
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It's possible it's an old wive's tale - it's hard to find an actual source. It's usually attributed to "Neo Geo Freak"
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Robert Garcia from Art of Fighting was partially "inspired" by Seagal - not sure if Capcom leaned into that any more.
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TL;DR - western game development has real woes (in a non-doomerism way) and you can't just shrug and say "bad management" about everything.
(After this I'll return to technical breakdowns, game design criticism, etc, if that's what you care about)
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There were a few moments where they were very clearly in on the joke and those ruled though.