mfontana

All I want for Christmas / 2026 is the opportunity to get paid to make virtual worlds. May the level design gods look favorably upon me.

U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY CMX-7500 IMGU RETINOGRAPHIX® DISPLAY MANF BY TEXAS ELEKTRONIKGRUPPE, INC.

When the water caustics keep spreading 🫨

So we don’t forget… Melissa Hortman was the ONLY Democrat to vote against healthcare for illegals in Minnesota. She was the deciding vote. Then she was assass*nated.

Reject corporate Halo and support grassroots projects like mods, fanart/fanfic, cosplay, and so on.

Basically there are 3 paths to getting VR software to reach 100M people: - pray that younger kids will wear them more as they grow up, maybe that will work. Wake me up in 5-10 years, after all the existing studios die waiting even longer - magical new headset that everyone wants to wear is just around the corner (this has been the rake we have stepped on the last ten years) - find a new modality for the same medium that doesn’t suck and lacks the friction of headsets so millions of people will actually use it (my approach)

Durable attention spans in VR makes sense. That's actually one of the things I love most about it. Almost impossible to attention-split between apps, which is commonplace with desktop now. Part of my question is about the immersion that is established from the art direction though. When I mention the changing context feed, I'm talking about how art from different 'worlds' becomes co-mingled, or that the distinctions disappear. Cowboy hats next to futuristic laser guns, etc. It seems that these artistic distinctions no longer matter and that immersion is now characterized exclusively by flow--as you pointed out with the tunnel. I'm curious if the artistic content matters at all in your experience.

I absolutely think they care about immersion! I think VR is an excellent proof against the trope of all kids having a 10 second long attention span. For example, gorilla tag’s tunnel system between maps was a step in the right direction away from portals, and is beloved - lots of games doing that now. Also, I think what we’ll see increasingly is that games like UG that don’t value genuine social interaction much will be more flashes in the pan. Those games also have a weaker moat compared to community worlds. UG is already falling in the top charts.

I think VRChat has stuck to solid VR software principles reasonably well. For example, social interaction unmodified by game loops or objectives is something it has maintained over time. VRChat has remained a collection of worlds more than a platform of games and activities. I think this is what strong VR-first software looks like. It puts the power of VR in front and keeps interactions genuine, rather than wedging a bunch of game incentives in between people talking. Of you compare that to something like UG or Yeeps, the direction has been to put people in social games and hope that meaningful connections spring out of that. It happens sometimes, but most interactions between players can be transactional and brittle. The biggest gripe I'd have with VRChat overall would probably be that they are cross platform, though, being a social-first experience, is less of a problem than it would be for other sorts of game-y VR apps. VRChat is also directionally correct in their platform's content being almost entirely created by its inhabitants, though the execution here leads into the issues with VRChat. The most glaring one is the economics and social expectations that have been set. VRChat certainly makes far less money per user than RecRoom did and what Gorilla Tag, Animal Company, and UG ($14 ARPU) are. I don't think this is because their users can't spend more or don't demand it enough to - it's a problem with expectations. Most of VRChat's users are used to it being effectively completely free. Free avatars, free worlds, etc. But that doesn't work for a company to not only continue service, but also scale. Second, VRChat's general premise of instances, isolated worlds, portals, extreme levels of customizations, etc. I think is very misaligned from what is intuitive, what makes VR special, and what can likely grow far beyond VR today. I'm very convinced that instances and portals of isolated worlds break immersion more than developers care to admit and prevent full plausibility of VR spaces. Humans have an amazing evolutionary sense of geospatial presence and instances/portals break that. On extreme levels of customization: VR's most potent and most mainstream user group is 12-16 year old boys. The hoops required to make custom avatars is missing what Gorilla Tag and others have correctly picked up on: cosmetics as a social device are more important than unlimited customization. The last point I'll make is that VRChat's user base today is very, very different from the average teenage boy (or average person more broadly). Without going into specifics, I think its hard to position VRChat as a mustard seed for a more mainstream platform when it's culture is so greatly at odds with and drifting further from the mainstream. I've observed similar issues in games with complex creation tools, like BlobTown. That being said, VRChat definitely has its place as its own world in the future and is safer than most VR apps from Meta's active retreat from VR. But, I find it unlikely that VRChat is the fertile ground for whatever comes next.

Someone tell me if I'm crazy, but what's going on here with modern game environment lighting? Game lighting rarely captures the tones and color grading of concept art. All of the beautiful details in the shadowed cliff faces and trees are crushed. No golden radiance in the clouds and distance fog. It has the hallmarks of stock UE5 atmosphere system. Is this done for convenience to solve changing time of day and weather? Is the atmosphere system just too obtuse to tweak or is something else going on in the rendering calculations?

No Kings, but we are taking away your historic right to elect the chief law enforcement officer for your county

When I watch the old CE demo footage today, it feels like something a small indie team with a niche fascination would make. My belief is that the next 'Halo' game needs to come from these types of creators who can channel those particular subgenres. Microsoft would never take that kind of risk.

@uncle_deluge @Gamer_Reckoning The only way to save it is to draw from what it drew from; anime, y2k and Marathon

I believe Halo is cursed. It might actually be impossible to make a good Halo game now, to adapt it to film, to write another good book. It just can't be done. Something is occurring metaphysically, beyond the realms of men. The wellspring we draw from for "Halo" is polluted

It's clearly a game whose design pitch was "let's make a game that merges the free-flowing feel of parkour with the elevating, aspirational spirit of frutiger aero aesthetics" with a simple 'evil corpo-police' story stapled on for convenience, yet these people have to believe it's some 8-layer treatise on the subversiveness of fascist aesthetics.

“You HAVE to accept the moral premise of my argument and you CAN’T interpret the art in any way without being SILLY and STUPID b-because…..BECAUSE YOU JUST CAN’T!”

On the subject of Japan 🇯🇵 In 2018 I lived in Seattle, was miserable, completely disillusioned by leftist culture, addicted to alcohol, and depressed. I needed to escape Seattle, geographically and spiritually. So I travelled to Japan. But it wasn't what I expected... It was even better than I imagined. The people, the culture, the food, the history. It's an amazing place. I met my wife there and I now have a wonderful family. I quit drinking, and found true meaning in life. We return to Japan often and I'm always grateful for the perspective it offers. If you visit, do your research, learn a little Japanese, be respectful, and represent your country with dignity. My time spent there was life changing . Results may vary, but Japan is a place that every civilized person should experience at least once.

@KeenKolo @SteveChillGame I still remember the palpable feeling of abandonment around the MLG scene from this one feature alone, as if everyone secretly knew the momentum that had been built with Halo 3 was just totally over. Still one of the most baffling game design decisions I've ever seen

@SteveChillGame For me the bloom in Reach is the hardest change to get around. The armor abilities never really bothered me that much.

The downfall of Halo: Halo Reach - gameplay spoiled by armour abilities, fractured fanbase 4 - uber COD-ification, died in months 5 - not even close to Halo, killed off Halo fanbase Infinite - nostalgia baited fans back, but everyone left after realising it was superficial

Pitch: Offer euthanasia to the criminals not the victims

This story is the saddest. And revelatory. Suicidal empathy as described by @GadSaad led us here. We don’t cull criminals anymore, we don’t even jail them, instead we “unalive” their victims to help them cope with trauma caused by our cowardice. Total moral failure.

Marathon would do well to follow this example, though I highly doubt there is any overlap between avant garde fashion enthusiasts and extraction shooter players. The art direction does not deserve to be locked up in the confines of a game product.

@LuckyVeruca @poellll Very little middle ground left in fashion these days unfortunately. Either it caters to the new-affluent class, or it's Temu fast fashion garbage.

@poellll Acronym is cool but they’re overpriced even for techwear

KOJIMA x ACRNM goes hard (again)

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