Shawn Ketcherside

So sorry, Damion. That sucks.

@lizardcube.bsky.social -- I've only played about 30 minutes of Shinobi so far, but it's fantastic. I tried out of nostalgia, but had no idea it'd pull me from Hades II. So good.

Got a retinal detachment. 0 Stars. Do not recommend.

More thoughts on Dragons Dogma II. Getting picked up by flying creatures or dragged all over the ground by a wolf is annoying...
...
But ngl -- It's kinda cool too.

Started playing Dragons Dogma 2. So far, I've liked it quite a bit, but every time I get into combat, my gamer-muscle-memory wants a dodge and/or roll.

As a leader in #gamedev, I've learned it's important to verify & clarify assumptions. I just hope, at some point, I go from knowing it's important to, you know, actually doing that.

100% This. I would selfishly add to remind your producer-y/lead/director types you're gonna be out a week or so ahead of time.

I mean, not that > I < have ever forgotten someone was going to be out. And that certainly didn't happen to me last week.
Nope. Didn't happen.

So, after nearly 200 hours of BG3 across many MANY runs through Act I (and not getting far into Act II) -- I'm starting to think I'm getting stuck not because I haven't found the perfect build, but because I suck at it.

Got lucky with the Boon rolls for my weapon on my last #hadesII run and finally managed to beat it.

Evidently, there's not a clear origin for the phrase "get your ducks in a row". Compelling information only if, like me, it's one of many producer-y word slop you say on the daily.

And yes, every time I say or type "we need to align" - a small part of my humanity flees my body.

Been playing a good bit of #HadesII this last week.

I'm getting used to the cast mechanic, but still can't figure out why my character consistently seems to face "the wrong way" when I initiate an attack. Not sure if it's "me", my controller, or the game.

I sure am glad I didn't listen to this 3x in a row. Nope. That, um, that did not happen. At all.

I wonder if it has something to do with the SFX/VFX of the attack. Might just be a coincidence too, as no other game does anything like this to me. Shrug.

Weird thing has happened to me a couple of times now playing Vampire Survivors.

Doing an extended run with the evolved Victory Sword makes me near catatonically drowsy. Not bored, I'm having a good time - it's like a physiological reaction.
#gaming

All right. Had a long overdue self-realization today. I'm wasting way too much time doom scrolling on a loop of sites, and not enough time creating or, at a minimum, consuming better content.

It's soo easy to fall into that trap. Quick hits of dopamine and rage. #motivation

Fine, insomnia. You win this round. But just you wait. I got an important meeting in, like, 9 hours - you better believe the overwhelming power of sleepiness will be rocking your world at exactly that moment. This is not over.

Working remote for #gamedev - the slack outage today reminded me how critical it is to so much of my work. It's worrisome to be so dependent on one tool. May need to look at contingencies in cases like this, like "If Slack has outages, jump to discord" or something.

Steam says I have 6000 hours in that game.

It's been a hot minute since I've really gotten into a #game. Long enough that I worry something else is going on in the cerebellum. I've played many games since the new year that I like - but nothing has gotten me in that "tune-out-the-world" state. I might play an hour, and I'm done. Bleh.

1: Staying steady under pressure.
2: Staying adaptable and flexible in the face of change and challenge.
3: Bouncing back from setbacks when they occur and not letting yourself get stuck.

All together, these give a solid foundation for new leads to build on and develop their own meaning.

Trying to mentor new #gamedev leads in resilence is hard. It's hard because it's one of those nebulous terms that is much more than its basic definition.

I've taken to illustrating it with examples. There's likely better ones - but these do help convey the meaning behind the definition.

Hey #gaming. Couple of questions.
1: Anyone else experienced the phenomenon where you almost beat a boss, then when you reload, it utterly trashes you, like it's straight up offended you nearly defeated it.
2: If so, do you have a name for it?

I do NOT miss staring at my character while it gets dropped into the ocean at a zone barrier 15 minutes into a 20 minute trip.

That said, it did give the game a sense of scale missing in many games today. I have no doubt there's other ways to provide players with a feeling of scale and adventure. I miss that feeling. But...

Was thinking about old school Everquest the other day - Back in the Ruins of Kunark days, when you had to take a 20 minute boat ride from one continent to another.

It would be a laughable design decision today. I get cranky if a gryphon ride takes longer than 6.2 pico seconds.
#gamedev

It's (hopefully) not a willful slight. It's just a by-product of the struggle to balance everything we have to track. Stuff gets lost. Stuff gets dropped. Stuff gets misinterpreted.

Anyone who's lost time trying to find that "one convo, in that one channel, about that one thing" knows this pain.

I can't talk enough about the importance - and challenge - of communication in a dev studio.

A critical mistake (I still make) is the assumption that a message was received and processed. We have so many channels (slack, email, discord, telepathy, hieroglyphics) that it's challenging to keep up.

Been in a bit of out game drought since I broke my hyper fixation on Vampire Survivors. Hoping this will draw me in.

Diving into the game backlog and getting ready to play FF7 Interograde. Partly because I want to play it. Partly to try to get through some of my backlog pile. And mostly to keep me busy until Avowed has time to get a couple of patches out.

Dear Soundmixers - For the love of all that is sweet and pure, please increase the volume of the dialogue.

Signed
-Everyone, everywhere, in this life and all others, in every parallel universe, in all moments of time, and in every possible alternate dimension.