Weekly Links #95

O hai there. The long-awaited second edition of the Procedural Generation Jam started on Friday, but this year I don't have any suitable project lined up. Been doing some 3D art in POV-Ray, maybe something can come out of that. Until then, here's an article about generating stories about images with a neural network. It works surprisingly well; in fact I've seen much worse fan fiction out there written by human beings. And I can easily imagine all kinds of playful applications once this becomes mainstream.

In unrelated news, I just stumbled over a personal blog post about participating in a two-hour game jam. What jumped at me was the bit about small, single-color sprites. I'm no pixel artist, but when you're working with 8x8 bit-maps there is only so much room for mistakes; that's how I was able to make the art in Escape From Cnossus, still one of my better looking games despite being a literal 8-bit title. So yeah, let me say it again (and again): embrace constraints, they are your friends.

Last but not least, a link from last week but too good to pass up: the making of Duke Nukem 3D. My favorite bits were about the dangers of changing engines mid-development (which is akin to changing horses mid-race; remember what killed Daikatana?) and how the biggest problem with Duke Nukem Forever was that the tone and attitude just weren't acceptable anymore by the time it came out; the world had simply moved on.

Never mind tech; is your game's message able to withstand the test of time?