https://github.com/YACReader/yacreader

https://www.artstation.com/zoh
https://www.instagram.com/zohdraws/

@scalzi (23 déc. 2018) :
« Honestly, why the fuck is every video game "update" something like 15 goddamned gigabytes? Did you guys fuck up the original release so badly I have to download the equivalent of a new game every time? Signed, a person in the boonies for whom your "update" takes six goddamn hours »

@codemonkey_uk (23 déc. 2018) :
« Since the 90s games have been working around slow OS file systems by basically writing their own ones.

File systems are complicated and show so game developers started putting most of the game assets (sprites/textures/meshes/etc) in one huge file, keeping that file open to seek and read from to load stuff. It’s much much faster then opening and reading individual files. It also lets you do compression across assets.

Now big file compression is interesting. But a consequence of how it works is a small isolated change to the source content can result in a radically different compressed file out the other end. So how games were built was optimised for fast loading, patching wasn’t a thing in the 90s, and we are still building games like that.

Add to that, building huge asset sets into game ready content can be very slow, so asset build pipelines tend to be heavily use concurrency to spread the load and that often means the pipeline is non-deterministic. That means even with 0 actual content changes, two concurrent builds of the same game could produce radical different WAD files (just based on chunk order compleation).

DLC/Patching is usually implemented as replacement whole files. But even on PCs where you can patch bytes in files, the diff for a small change (or even no change) could be almost as big as the whole game.

And that’s how you end up with a 15gig download to fix a spelling mistake. »

« this project was my personal nexus of nightmare hours, inept management, industry realisations and heroics achieved with a small team under unreasonable conditions, so it's an odd feeling to see it surface eight years later without context, credits and with a joke title sequence

it exists because @SanatanaMishra and I had delivered the Castle of Illusion prototype that was maintaining the studio

A producer we trusted asked us if we could make a 'polished gameplay prototype' for an internal Golden Axe pitch in about two weeks to land a second project

we agreed because we were assured management wanted us to develop it 'our way' (ie another miracle please) but did mandate a darker, bloodier Golden Axe, with splatter and decapitations and two button combat

So we tried to combine all that with the spirit of the original game

this would have been a difficult line to walk at any time but we had two weeks and no time to iterate

So we made do, just really attacked the design knowing we wouldn't be able to course correct much, but luckily we had a talented team of artists, animators and sound designers

much less luckily we also had the lead designer who thought he was designing it, and sometimes @SanatanaMishra would have to physically block him from reaching my workstation or he'd start explaining insights he'd received playing the mobile port on the train on the way to work

he took to inventing arbitrary challenges like "management want to see an attack animation playing in game by the end of the day or they'll think the project is in trouble" while I was busy coding enemy ai and the soft lock combo system simultaneously

a week or so in, the lead campaigned for branching the prototype and making a Streets of Rage pitch concurrently because to him they were the same game

It took me sending a 2am email to the studio head and a "lets go for a coffee and a chat" the next morning to get that stopped

but the biggest gut punch came a week and a half in - combat was working, it was all on track! I was called for a meeting in the big room, so I put the latest build on the network and went to see what was up. All of management was sitting around the big table

I showed the game

grave faces

There was a pause

"where's the wow factor" someone asked

The lead designer once again complained it wasn't a God of War-like 3D brawler like he wanted

Someone said maybe it'd have been better to have made a prerendered video where the barbarian fought a monster

I experienced a moment of clarity

Either they couldn't see what was in front of them or wanted me to feel bad because it's the only way they knew how to manage

I was 'the guy who makes playable prototypes', I had over delivered and if they didn't want that, THEY had screwed up

I had been working 14 hour days but I went home on time that day

I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling. They didn't want it. They wanted something else entirely

I came to my conclusion - they didn't matter, I would continue doing exactly what I intended to do and try to deliver what @SanatanaMishra and I had planned in the beginning

So I did

Effects and polish was added. More sounds implemented. Combat timings sped up and input windows widened to make combos executive friendly

The finished build was revealed, and the same management team that negged me earlier lined up to tell me how good it was now

I felt dead inside

Not just because of a couple of long 7 day work weeks and start of the RSI in my right arm that would go on to jeopardise development of @AndroidCactus , but because I had no trust left in the people who ran things

from the Steam Page:

"Golden Axed may be janky, may be buggy, may be an artifact of its time, but it offers a unique glimpse into the prospect of a project that could have been"

go fuck yourself, parasites »

Pour référence : https://www.pcgamer.com/sega-celebrates-its-60th-anniversary-with-some-free-stuff-on-steam
EDIT : https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/10/15/sega-releasing-a-cancelled-golden-axe-prototype-stirs-unpleasant-memories-for-some-of-its-makers/
https://twitter.com/SanatanaMishra/status/1316636383818125312

« Ça fait partie du jeu Twitter mais j'ai l'impression que c pas souvent que ça dépasse le constat de "l'incohérence".

Ils sont incohérents mais dans les faits les incohérences co-existent parfaitement pcq'elles font partie de leur logique, c'est pas une faiblesse. D'ailleurs bcp des discours libéraux, fascistes et racistes précisément (pcq je my connais mieux) reposent sur des tas d'incohérences et continuent d'exister en devenant de + en + rependu.

Le but des discours c les effets, pas d'être fondé par des principes de cohérence/vérité.
Ça leur permet tout simplement de pouvoir jouer sur plusieurs tableaux : asseoir leur politique tout en prétendant faire autre chose.  L'incohérence sert la propagande. »