(h)EAD Games

SOPA Soliloquy

Edmund Dubois — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:02:09 +0000

Today numerous sites “blacked out” their content in protest of SOPA and PIPA, the anti-piracy bills in the House and Senate, respectively. Sites including Wikipedia, Reddit, Rock Paper Shotgun, and many others. The funny part is though that with judicious application of noscript or disabling javascript or various other ways, one can bypass the blackouts. The real genius of this however is that it serves as a metaphor for how useless SOPA and PIPA would be at stopping online Piracy. People who want to circumvent security measures will always be able to do so or will find a way. The real way to stop piracy is not by treating everyone like a criminal, but by making it so that the criminality isn’t worth being a paying customer. Steam has this figured out. Sure it’s DRM, but it’s not agressive and thus I’m glad to give them my money. They’re just an example. Anyway this was just a little musing of mine, nothing to read into too seriously.

Elevator: Source – Great SourceMod or the Greatest SourceMod?

Edmund Dubois — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:32:18 +0000

So I was browsing SA earlier today and saw a link in the Games forum for something called Elevator: Source. Turns out it’s a mod and gamemode for Garry’s mod that simulates a ride on an elevator. There’s a lot more to it than that as I found out but to do anything but show you this image from the start of my journey would be spoilers:

I’m serious. When I started it up I expected an elevator ride. I got that and so much more. It’s probably safe to say that one should take advantage of the mulitplayer option it has though, because truly this is an experience that should be shared with friends. I am being 100% unironic with that statement too.

If I had to really get honest about it though, this is probably more art installation than game similar to The Stanley Parable, only taking the concept in a different direction. If you have Garry’s Mod and Half-Life 2: Episode 2, you owe it to yourself to check out Elevator: Source. Download it here.

First Steps: UDK Progress Report 1

Edmund Dubois — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:27:41 +0000

I reneged a bit on what I said because for reasons unbeknownst to me I’m really liking how my forays into UDK are coming along so far. Granted it’s just a bunch of BSPs with some lighting and default materials, but I figure it’s better than not updating for weeks at a time like normal.

So yeah, nothing really special, but you gotta start somewhere.

Back from Hiatus

Edmund Dubois — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:54:57 +0000

Ok so I know I said I’d be doing some UDK stuff, and I still am, it’s just that the last month was taken up by another side project. I attempted to write a novel for NaNoWriMo, unfortunately only getting half done before burning out, but still it was fun to make the attempt. Now I’m back at work on my UDK map idea, and hopefully should have something worth showing soon. By that I mean something that isn’t just a bunch of deftault materials and has some actual substance to it. Watch this spot, I guess.

Coming soon, Some UDK stuff

Edmund Dubois — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 17:31:58 +0000

So I know it’s been a while again, I’ve mostly been busy with work and as part of that I’ve been learning how to use the UDK more and more. After following some tutorials I feel I’ve got a better grasp of things and am now ready to try branching out into making something without following a bunch of pre-set instructions. Hopefully in the coming days and weeks I’ll have some progress to show.

No I’m not going to do another sign pun, that’s too obvious

Edmund Dubois — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:46:32 +0000

So about a week ago I finished most of the signs for my friend, I’m not going to put them all up, but I think I will put up what I felt was the best of the bunch.

I feel this did a pretty good job of looking worn by desert weather without going too crazy. It’s one of the signs for the vehicle gunnery range as can sort of be inferred.

I had a lot of fun making the signs especially since I learned a few new techniques in the process. Anyway that’s all for me for the moment.

Sign, Sign, everywhere a Sign

Edmund Dubois — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 03:39:13 +0000

In between working and experimenting with Unity I’ve also been helping a couple friends work on ArmA II maps that they’ve been tweaking. One of which is a basic training mission with various firing ranges and whatnot spread out over the landscape of Takistan (the setting of ArmA II: Operation Arrowhead). I noticed that the firing ranges were missing something, namely signs regarding safety and proper weapon handling and what-have-you. My friend, half-jokingly said “You going to make them?”

As a matter of fact yes I am.

Stop me before I buy again

Edmund Dubois — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 18:52:16 +0000

I know I’ve been pretty quiet, mostly due to work, but I thought I’d talk about the wonderful QuakeCon promotion Valve is running wherin owning Bethesda-owned games (including of course stuff by id Software) gets you neat stuff in TF2. I think the neatest thing in there by far though is the rocket launcher based on the original one in Quake. They even made it so that when you have it equipped (it’s a Soldier weapon, natch), the weapon is in the center of your screen like it was in Quake. Where I think it was a bit odd though is that they tied it into owning Quake IV, instead of, oh say, the original Quake. I would’ve gone that route only because it would expose people to a classic like Quake, and because it’s less expensive. I’m not really complaining though, I now have a Genuine Original (Original being the name of the Quake Rocket Launcher in TF2), I’m thinking I’ll name it “7″ and give it the description “HUAH HUAH HUAH HUAH HUAH HUAH HUAH”

Shifting Gears

Edmund Dubois — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 04:00:41 +0000

So yeah I know I haven’t yet put up a gallery for Frozen Assets. That’s mostly because I’m not quite sure what to do with it. While the contest at TF2maps.net isn’t quite over it’s become pretty clear I’m going to be the one at the bottom of the list, and that’s ok. I made quite a few mistakes (especially in testing) and I definitely didn’t detail the map as well as I could have. So in theory I could spend some more time fixing it up, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it given the inherent balance problems that many reviewers mentioned. I guess they were right in calling it a first map as well, but spending 2 years learning Hammer only to make mistakes that I also made with Aleutia kind of stings a bit.

However if nothing else I can at least learn from this and move onward. With that in mind CTF_Server_Farms has been almost completely torn down with the intent to rescale and start over. Either that or I might try making another KOTH map now that I have a better grasp on 3D skyboxes.

Of course there’s other stuff that’s been taking up my time, namely learning Blender as well as learning Unity in an attempt to get back on the independent game development horse as it were. Now that I’ve found some good books and tutorials for both Blender 2.5x and Unity 3.x I’ve been making great progress and I really feel like I’m capable of doing something with both pieces of software. But time will tell of course.

And for the few who read this that don’t know yet, the biggest piece of news I have was that I got a job at Irrational Games for a contract QA position. Granted that means temporary work but it does mean I’m back doing work that I enjoy in the industry I love.

Contesting: Frozen Assets Dev Blog

Edmund Dubois — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:38:15 +0000

It feels really good to finally be done this map, and to have submitted it for the contest at TF2maps.net. It also feels good to have done so much that I’d as of yet not done before in this map. I’m not going to really go screenshot-heavy in this post because not much changed save for a few bits added here and there, but rest assured in the near-future I’m going to have download links up as well as a media gallery that will show off not only the map but also the custom content I created for it.