Competence

Ohai,

so during the last week, i had to choice a multimedia project for this semester.

I decided to stick with doing part of the programming work for a new upcoming educating game. Now I clearly didnt expect anything with the word "education" to be fun to play, especially since its a point and click adventure and it's a state funded project.

Neither did I expect it to be succesful or something.

However, what I heard and saw from people beign responsible for it is outragous and sorta sad. A trio was responsible for the project. Each of them is representing some sorta of data security or police department, but neither of em is a real programm, designer, writer or anything remotely fiting for a game designer. In addition each of them had the great idea, that apparently they have to teach kids of the age category "10-16" (I dont get how 10-16 can be one category by the way), the dangers of internet, privacy theft, the importance of firewalls, routers and how bad cloud computing, facebook and torrents are.

So they came up with some abstract concept of a "point and click adventure" (2 of 3 didnt even udnerstand what that term means), that would get going on a spaceship "protect privacy". Seriously, why dont we just call the nemesis "Book Face" and the protagonist "Cpt. Propaganda"?

 Some collegues and my minority suggested some alternative approaches that seemingly have blown their minds. But seriousy - I still dont get hopw such people just start asuming that they can make some random, not fun game, filled with boring material and asume it will be a hit o.o

Starcraft II - HOTS

Initially I was going to sum up a discussion about arts here, but after rereading it again I noticed, that I can't even properly sum it up, so instead I'm going to talk about the new Starcraft 2 changes, coming with heart of the swarm and complain to my hearts content.

Now I'm a Zerg player. So this whole post might be slightly subjective. The changes coming to starcraft are sorta strange.

The terran and the protos both got their early game and late game enhanced a lot, while the Zerg Swarm really doesn't feel that outstanding.

Terrans recieved a strong new mechanical walker unit, that can be produced early game called the warhound. Now, while I sorta agree that the terrans really lacked some straightforward unit that they can produce from their factory, this one seems overly strong.
It's fairly cheap to produce, while its one of the first units you can build, has formidable defense, high range, high speed and looks like a stronger version a maraudor. I'm not entirely sure what I'm suposed to think about this guy, but he's taking down a stalker with 3 shots.

At the same time terrans are now equiped with spider mines, helion transformers that offer more survivability and higher damage and some new researches.

In all honesty, this sounds like a nightmare for any zerg player. On the bright side however, it'll provide quite a bit of additional challenge and blizzard doesnt tend to balance its strategy games badly (as long as there is no paladin in starcraft 2).

Well at the very least terran mech play is a lot more exciting now.

Protos on the other hand, recieved midgame updates. A mothership core allows quick retreat and quite some gimmicks (for example a strong defensive weapon), to play the early and mid game more risky, the oracle provides a lot new harassing options, like entombing the enemy minerals and denying resourses, while the Tempest gives the protos a nice chance for lategame air superiority, without all the awkwardness of carriers.

To be honest I like the Protos changes most.

Now I'm really not sure what to make out of the zerg changes.... but I'm going to play SC2 for now, I'll finish later :p

Winter Mountain House