John Romero Returning to FPS… Just Not As Soon As Thought

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 29, 2016

So… in case you missed it, there was a Kickstarter campaign to help fund a new venture by id Software alumni John Romero and Adrian Carmack. Their new company (brand) is Night Work Games, and their project is kind of a catch-all genre (!!!???) First-Person Shooter called Blackroom. They launched with a really cool parody […]

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The Awards are Dead. Long Live the Awards.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 27, 2016

So… um… the Hugo finalists were announced. Apparently they were announced early and secretly to certain people so they could get a news article out doing spin control ahead of the public announcement. It’s… bad. But first, the good. This was a year for Retro-Hugos, to back-fill for a year when the Hugos were not awarded. […]

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GOG.COM Bundle Sale

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 26, 2016

GOG.COM is having a “Bundleopolis” sale – several bundles on sale, with new bundles added every six hours. Right now – there’s a bunch of LucasArts adventures (already got ’em all…),  id Software classic first-person shooters, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. / Metro series, the Fallout series, and the X series available for sale in a bundle. Still great […]

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Book Impressions: Caretaker, by Josi Russell

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 25, 2016

Caretaker, by Josi Russell, is an unusual science fiction book. The story is about Ethan Bryant, a man designated to the sole conscious person – the “caretaker” on a very lonely 50+ year colony ship. He was the last of the passengers to be put into hibernation stasis, but before that could happen, the actual […]

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Games as Art: Communication Required?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 22, 2016

I recently read an old essay (we’re talking pre-WWW!) discussing what makes art, and the author suggested that for a work to be art it has to engage the audience in a conversation… inviting them to mentally and / or emotionally contribute, interpret, and invest something of themselves into the work to derive meaning from it. […]

Filed Under: Art, Geek Life - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

Extreme Guitar…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 20, 2016

I’ve been waiting for this song to his Rocksmith since launch. If you need me anytime in the next three months, I’ll be learning to play it… holed away in some monastery of rock up in the mountains… Rocksmith may be pretty good, but it can’t work miracles, especially when my average lately has probably […]

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Game Dev Employees vs. Hobbyists vs. Entrepreneurs vs. Old-Schoolers vs. Everybody Else

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 19, 2016

A few days ago, Alex St. John enraged the game development community with an extremely tone-deaf post about game development working conditions. A gazillion articles have been written lambasting this article, so I’ll actually sidestep that pile-on just a smidgen. I’m not going to defend him, because he’s wrong, but I would suggest there’s a […]

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Thoughts on Vive VR

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 18, 2016

I had the chance to play with the HTC Vive VR, the product of Valve’s partnering into the wild, wonderful world of virtual reality. While the experience wasn’t quite up there with The Void, it was still a pretty cool experience. The person giving me the demo was Bryan Livingston of Legend Studio, maker of A […]

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Book Impressions: Pwned

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 15, 2016

Pwned, by Shannen Crane Camp, is a story about Reagan West, the co-captain of the high school cheerleaders. She’s beautiful. She’s popular. She can be kind of mean. But this is all to conceal her terrible secret… her secret identity: Reagan is a gamer. A full-on uber-geek and MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) addict. […]

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Why Do We Bother?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 13, 2016

Sometimes, the whole authoring gig & indie game dev thing gets me down. The hours are long. I’m rarely current on any television shows. My list of unplayed games and unread books grows. I get stressed. There’s a crapload of work. We have deadlines to meet which are rarely convenient. I’m not getting rich or famous […]

Filed Under: General, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Unity Asset Store Community Sale: ProBuilder Advanced On Sale

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 12, 2016

Unity’s community sale is going on for the next 3 days (as of this post). One of the assets on sale is ProBuilder. I have high recommendations for this one. We’re using it in Frayed Knights 2: The Khan of Wrath (actually, we’re taking advantage of much of the ProCore Bundle Package… which sadly isn’t part […]

Filed Under: Game Development, Tech - Comments: Comments are off for this article

League of Utah Writers Spring Conference

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 11, 2016

Over the weekend I attended the League of Utah Writers Spring Conference (Workshop) held in Taylorsville, Utah. My friend John Olsen went into more detail (and took way more pictures – my two didn’t turn out well), and has a write-up of his experiences here. With so many different classes packed into a little under […]

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What Am I Playing / Reading? That’s a Complicated Question!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 8, 2016

When people ask me what video game I’m playing or book I am reading, I tend to stammer a lot. I mean, if they are pointing to the screen or the book in my hand, then sure. No problem. But if someone asks it as a more generalized question, like “What have you been reading […]

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story? Yeah, I’m excited.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 7, 2016

“It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.” That’s […]

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Dragoncon Awards

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 6, 2016

There’s a new awards thingy happening, and you can get involved! DragonCon is launching a new set of awards, the bulk of which are going to novels of many different speculative fiction categories. Sadly, there are no categories for shorter works of fiction (or poetry), HOWEVER… there are several categories going to GAMES! And it’s […]

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Create Something New

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 5, 2016

Dave Farland, fantasy author, writes about “Dream Making.”  This hit home: “But several times in the past few weeks, I’ve heard people describe the basic ideas for their novels, and felt that the basic concept was so weak, that I had to wonder, “Why would you write that one?” In each case, I was talking […]

Filed Under: Design, Writing - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



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