Gaming

Thoughts on Multiplayer and Matchmaking More streamlined matchmaking equals a less meaningful social experience. Matchmaking allows for a much higher number of unique inputs, but many games that use it lack any meaningful social aspect, since there’s no actual teamwork required. There’s no real strategy, just general patterns to follow. There are no real shared stakes. Show up and hit Triangle to win. Playing alone together. Multiplayer solitaire. Maybe these aren’t the goals of matchmaking systems, but matching only for the sake of increasing the variability, and therefore the opportunity for a unique experience may not necessarily increase the quality of those experiences....

Monster Hunter World removes a lot of the tedium of previous titles in the genre Capcom did a wonderful job addressing complaints about gameplay elements from previous installments that didn’t add value to the experience. This host of improvements makes the gameplay much more seamless and lowers the barrier to entry for new players. No more tedious utility item management You no longer have to keep track of, and use up inventory spaces on, whetstones, pickaxes, or bugnets....

Earlier today, I thought: “Man, Terraria sure is a great game. I should make a clone.” Then later today, I thought: “Wait, somebody probably already did that.” And, lo! An open source Terraria clone: Terrarium! But man, I have to install so many dependencies. This kind of thing is a drag. I just want to try it out. Fortunately, the instructions were pretty good. Following the instructions in BUILDING.md, first I installed MinGW and Allegro....

I find myself in a barren landscape, with a strange fellow staring at me. I guess I’ll… build a house? Deforestation, Pillaging, and Explosives! Your First Day Target Items wood wooden sword slime torches rope workbench wood walls wood doors Extra Items mushrooms sand clay stone (20) furnace cobweb (20) Environment Control 101 We begin with your everyday deforestation. Hack down all the trees in your immediate vicinity....