sneak100

joined 5 months ago
[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 19 points 21 hours ago

Braver than the troops rat-salute

[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 3 points 22 hours ago

I'm getting to a similar point as well where people just know that something cissn't is happening when they look at me, even if they can't quite place it. My boymoding days are numbered and I relate to this feeling a lot. Thankfully winter is coming, so I don't have to think about it too much and hide under a big coat for now.

I've also been dreading to go out clothes shopping, but like 4 different people have offered to come out with me by now, so maybe I need to do that soon and just embrace the femme look for reals

omori-afraid

The only thing I can think to look forward to are long dresses, but I'm too scared to wear that kind of stuff out because of bottom dysphoria.

[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 3 points 22 hours ago

That one is to me homespun on forums and chatrooms

Isn't it always doggirl-gloom

Then some academic picks up and writes down about 40% of it, and gets praised for revolutionising the field of whateverology #EgoTrippingThruLyfe

[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 6 points 22 hours ago

Missing my long distance friend doggirl-tears

I'm glad you have that connection in your life! cat-trans

[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 17 points 23 hours ago

Their smug "look at this loser causing a scene" reactions are so infuriating. Really makes you think

phoenix-think the-doohickey

[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah I don't think the cheerful part can come without massive societal changes, at least for me. So yeah, it ends up being pretty rageful sobriety, if I do engage in it. It's definitely good if you can harness it for the power of getting things done comrade-fly

[–] sneak100@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago

cuddle

The struggle is real.

Neopronouns mite b cool

Been thinking about neopronouns too, since they're cool as heck and neither she nor they seem to be quite right for me. But I totally get not even wanting get into that with cissies.

Must be a breeze being cis, couldn't be me

Couldn't be me ayeaye

 

Trailer (Invidious link)

Hey ya'll. This is Palestine Skating Game. You grind rails, shoot paint at tanks, and tag walls to win. The focus will be on Arabic electronic music, and plot and character-driven narrative. For now, at least 70% of the money we raise is going to go to evacuating colleagues in Lebanon. Probably more. Over 1000 people have been killed by Israel in the past 2 weeks alone; we've wired over $3500 in funds for travel so far. Our First Episode will be set in Bethlehem, Hebron, and Gaza before the war in 2022

We've been working on this thing for about 3 years.

We got here with 3 part-timers, and $7000. Most of the code is recent and from two guys, one who willingly took a very deep pay cut to work on this. A pool of volunteers and temps contributed bits and pieces, but we need more permanent team members. In normal circumstances, at least 70% of donations will go to hiring Palestinians and Lebanese who need it. Plenty of brilliant artists, musicians, and coders over there.

As an example: a Gazan refugee we met in Egypt needs $2k/mo for himself and his family back in Gaza. He's currently employed at $1200 per month. If we hired him he’d get at least 2.4k a month.

PC first, then Android, and iOS, PS4, PS5, Switch if we're allowed on those platforms. Multiplayer if/when we have money for it.

Yes, it's a genocide. The death toll could very well be ~100,000. Thousands under the rubble. Look up NYT maps showing the totality of the bombing, as well as their May 2024 piece, "How Extremists Took Over Israel," and videos of the intentional destruction of Gazan aid. We note Reagan got Israel to stop bombing Lebanon in the 80's, he literally called it "a holocaust." We don’t back Biden or Harris.

======== Plot and Episodes ========

We'll need Palestinian writers to flesh this out more, but we have some in mind. Here are some broad outlines:

Episode 1: set in 2022, Bethlehem, Hebron, and pre-war Gaza.

Episode 2: Oct. 7th, 2023 onwards.

Episode 3: Near future and Good Future--what if Palestine gets a state? Is a 2-State Solution viable? (It's not.)

Episode 1 will explore the West Bank and Gaza, before the war, and the ever-present ethnic cleansing and apartheid there. It was genocide, just very slow. We recognize this is a heavy subject to tackle, but Paradise Now did so effectively, and with slice-of-life/humor elements. Episode 2 will cover events unfolding today, set in Gaza, and likely Jerusalem and Jenin. Will require dedicated writing and scenario planning team. Episode 3: near future, we see the creation of a Palestinian state. We would like to show an idealized Palestinian state and victory, but a relatively realistic one. We would examine a futuristic Palestinian setting in 2030, 2070. Further episodes and levels could be set in Jericho, Yaffa, Cairo, Beirut, Istanbul, Amman, Baghdad, Sana'a, and beyond.

Characters: designs are not finalized, but there are a lot of farmers on the frontlines having their land stolen at gunpoint. There are also club-dwellers in Ramallah and Yaffa, and lots of Palestinians from political, legal, and negotiator families. It's not uncommon for any one of these groups to have family unjustly held in jail or killed by settlers or IOF.

[...] I'm having trouble uploading the rest of the images to hexbear, so please click through to the GoFundMe to see more of the art

========= Gameplay =========

It's inspired by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Splatoon. There'll be lots of grinding and shooting paint. To win you might do 10 tags per level--or simply explore rooftops, streets, markets in Gaza, say--get to a high place and tag it, race other skaters. Or you might knock over soldiers and paint tanks and REALLY confront the Occupation.

We did not plan this to be an ultra-realistic game prior to October 2023. The plan now is to make it more realistic as we go from episode to episode, and as we get more money to add complex gameplay systems. We've been advised by other Arab game devs that they see how making the first episode less realistic could help the West engage. Possible gameplay scenarios:

  • Shoot gun-mounted drones out of the air
  • Save kids from snipers
  • Stop bulldozers from demolishing village
  • Evade an helicopter with missiles
  • Escape a dawn IOF raid via rooftops
  • Sneak into a prison or into a Settlement

We like RE4, Skate, and Mirror’s Edge's up-close-and-personal cameras and combat. We also note how dense with obstacles their levels are. Luckily our Unity character controller already has vaulting, sliding, climbing, and ledge hangs, and Bethlehem and Hebron’s beautiful rooftop vistas and hillsides are full of elements to traverse IRL.

[...]

========= Art and Music =========

FYI: the majority of our assets were developed prior to the war. They tend to be low-poly and colorful; they're not final. What you see is essentially a tech demo.

As for music--we have a wishlist to license for the soundtrack, but we don’t want to say what will be in the game until we actually get the licensing agreement. It'll take some time. A music production group from the West Bank, called Hazy Noir, gave us a few tracks for free, for which we're very grateful.

But we do have rap, minimalist electronic, electro-funk, desert rock, trip-hop, jazz, and more to choose from, all from North Africa and West Asia. We could stick with Levant groups or go broader, there are options.

[...]

======= Budget ========

How are we going to build this first episode? Well, it took our part-time contractors 400-500 hours to code grinding, graffiti-stenciling, and paint ball reaction, and to implement tanks and car assets. (About half of this was done Feb-July.) Complete player and enemy mechanics could take another 400-500 hours. Modeling, rigging, and animation could take as much as ~1000 hours, while level design will probably be ~700 hours. Assuming $20/hr salaries,

Remaining coding, animation, and level design would cost, approx:

~2200 hours * $20/hr = $44,000.

Then, budget leftover to license music and pay for writers/VO’s would be:

$60,000 - $44,000 = $16,000

Raising more than our 60k goal would allow us to pay more workers and at greater salaries. That said 30 hours a week at $20 an hour is maybe 2x a livable income in Egypt (where most Gazans crossed over to), and will probably cover the needs of most families back in Gaza. Supporting extended family however may require 22, 25+ per hour. Our most recent Excel budget, not yet reflective of prior work, is here.

What happens if we go over budget? We’ll scale levels down and reuse building assets more liberally. Fewer animated cutscenes, fewer enemy types. But we also have a consistent supply of Western volunteers and 1-2 really dedicated ones, to fill budget gaps.

What about marketing? We note that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk relied on trailers and worth of mouth, was self-published, and made $10.4 mil on PC, in 12 months. We’ve also had articles in several gaming and mainstream media outlets without a prototype or trailer, so we're going to see how that works before doing ad buys.

[...] read more in the GoFundMe description

 

We chat with friend of the show Michael Richardson—author of the new book Nonhuman Witnessing—about the ongoing, deepening relationships between Silicon Valley and the US military. We check up on new activities from old enemies—Y Combinator, Anduril, Palantir, among others—and get into the changing cultures on both sides as they converge around defense innovation as a solution for Silicon Valley’s problems of needing another endless pool of capital and the Pentagon’s problems of needing to maintain a dying empire and beat China in an arms race.

 

Quite a good breakdown by Laura Kate Dale of Nintendo's handling of recent games featuring playable women characters from franchises usually headed up by men i.e. recent Peach game and upcoming Legend of Zelda game featuring the titular Zelda.

Featuring such Aonuma bangers as:

If we have Princess Zelda as the main character who fights, then what is Link going to do?

The triforce is made up of Princess Zelda, Ganon and Link. Princess Zelda is obviously female; if we made Link a female, we thought that would mess with the balance of the triforce - that's why we decided not to do it.

We feel like what takes priority is this idea of gameplay. If it turns out that particular gameplay we're trying to bring to fruition would be best served by having Zelda take that role, then it's possible that that could be a direction we could take.

i.e. Zelda has featured exclusively MANLY gameplay up to this point btw

 

Such a tight project, banging beats and rhymes from start to finish. One of my faves from the past couple of years

 

Nothing new for those more learned among us perhaps, but I found it to be a good write-up with lots of different voices featured throughout. I definitely learned more of the context around gamergate (esp good I think if you weren't plugged in to what was going on at the time). Probably the most shocking was to hear how black women were seen/treated by the victims of gamergate hate raids.

For a more game design focused take on racism in games, I've heard great things about Repairing Play: A Black Phenomenology by Aaron Trammell. I struggle with books, so if anyone has any videos taking on the topic from that angle, I'd love if you shared it

 
3
Jealousy, by Bikôkô (bikoko.bandcamp.com)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by sneak100@hexbear.net to c/music@hexbear.net
 

Can't get the chorus out of my head kirby-jammin

Production is sublime too, but the bandcamp preview is kinda low quality, so it doesn't come across as well imo thonk Still would rather share the bandcamp link than youtube

 

Incredible track

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