by doc on games

Looking back at the Obra Dinn [spoiler free]

In Lucas Pope’s newest game, “Return of the Obra Dinn“, you play an insurance adjuster who travels to an abandoned ship to learn what happened to it’s crew. It’s an insurance themed murder-mystery game at sea.

Christine and I just finished the game and loved the experience. The story is fantastic, but what really hooked us was the highly stylized graphics. Lucas wanted to recreate an old school look similar to what you’d find in older Sierra Online games. To recreate this look, Lucas takes a 3D environment, adds wireframe lines (to give 3D objects a 2D look), converts it to grayscale, then uses a dynamic noise effect to break the shading into a dithering effect.

I remember a year back when he was sharing some of his early experiments and some of the challenges that dithering created when used in a 3D environment:

A more detailed explanation of Lucas’s dithering technique can be found on this tigsource thread.

The Return of the Obra Dinn can be bought on Steam here.

 
by doc on comics

DIY “I Voted By Mail” Stickers

I was disappointed that the San Francisco vote-by-mail ballots didn’t include one of those “I Voted” stickers. So I decided to make my own using some paper and tape (for a laminated effect). I really dig the result. As a matter of fact, I’d love to figure out how to get SF to include something like this “I Voted By Mail” sticker included in the 2020 election.

DIY I voted by mail

DIY I voted by mail

 
by doc on comics

Part 1.5 of the 48 Hour Yo-Yo Project documentary

We are still working on part two of the 48 Hour Yo-Yo Project documentary, but here is an excellent clip of Shawn (from One Drop) and myself talking about how yo-yo design and the current state of the Weekender project.


Speaking of the Weekender, I’ve shared a couple short yo-yo clips where I’m using a prototype. You can kind of get an idea of the sort of “modern responsive” play we are aiming for.

 
by doc on video, yo-yoing

The 48 Hour Yo-Yo Project: Part 1 (of 2)

Last month I hopped on a train from San Francisco to Eugene, OR in order to spend a weekend with the One Drop crew. The goal was to design a brand new (and somewhat atypical) yo-yo. We ended up calling this the 48 Hour Yo-Yo Project and plan on making it an annual thing.

Thanks to the support of my backers on Patreon, I was able to hire my buddy Clifton B. to document this project along the way. I’m happy to share part one of The 48 Hour Yo-Yo Project:

IF you enjoy these videos, you can help support me on Patreon. This month I’ll be giving away one of the 48 Hr Yo-Yo prototypes to one of my Patreon backers, so don’t delay.