#development industry

[muffinlance]

Consider: Post-canon Zuko wakes up in the body of his childhood self, the morning of That War Meeting. Would he still speak against the plans, knowing his fate? What do you think he would do differently the second time around?

"Turned away at the doors, Zuzu?"

"Shut up, Azula," her brother sulked. But sulked weirdly, after staring at her too long and too wide-eyed, not like she'd surprised him but--

But like he hadn't expected her to be there. At all.

He turned away. ...He turned back. "Hey, Lala? Do you think you could help me practice that one set?"

He didn't meet her eyes.

She narrowed hers. "Which set?"

"The one I'm bad at."

She scoffed. Pushed away from the wall she'd been leaning against. "That's all of them, Dum-Dum."

He didn't shout or stomp or yell about the nickname. His lips twitched.

"It's okay," he said. "If you're afraid you won't be a better teacher that my instructor..."

It was the most obvious manipulation ever.

Perhaps if he proved an adequate firebending student, she'd work on his courtly survival skills next. Honestly, it was good that not even Uncle Gets-Cousins-Killed had been fool enough to take Zuko into that war meeting. She could only imagine how terribly that could have gone.

"Keep up," she said, and turned her steps towards the training grounds.

He did. There, and during the katas she ran him through.

Azula kept her eyes narrowed.

"Hey," he asked, "do you know how to bend lightning yet?"

As if he could have missed it, if she'd been able to get more than sparks. "I will soon," she said.

"You will," he agreed, and flowed through his next set. The one she'd only just mastered.

Father didn't notice how weird Zuzu was being. Uncle never noticed anything. Zuko ate dinner and asked a servant for seconds and didn't stutter or flinch or lose his appetite when father asked, coolly, what he'd done with his day. Azula's shoulders tensed, because one mention of how she'd squandered her own training time teaching him--

"Azula hogged the training grounds. For hours," Zuzu scowled, exactly like a petulant thirteen year old.

Exactly like he hadn't been acting all day.

By the time Father was looking her way, Azula had her usual smirk in place. "I'm sure there would be room for both of us," she said, "you're not afraid of a little friendly fire, are you, brother?"

Zuko sulked. And ate his seconds, like he was enjoying each bite. There was something in his eyes, like a joke no one else was getting.

---

Father died that night. A heart attack. There were the faintest of burns to either side of the treacherous organ; the royal physician hypothesized that he'd grabbed at his chest, fingers burning hot in his final moments; so hot they'd only exacerbated the problem.

The royal physician would never have been brought any victims of lighting strikes. Those that occurred in the capital did not generally require a doctor in the aftermath.

Zuzu ate a hearty breakfast.

He didn't order seconds. Azula gave him points, at least, for not being tacky.

---

The sages named Iroh as regent.

They named Zuko as Fire Lord.

"No," the tiny Fire Lord in his perfectly miniaturized Fire Lord robes said, sitting at the head of his war council. "We're not doing that. And I'll be reviewing all recent battle plans, as well. What's this I hear about a division of new recruits being deployed to the front?"

He did not mention how he'd heard of the 41st Division. No one asked.

"Prince Iroh, surely--" one of the generals tried to appeal.

The young Fire Lord's regent was looking as startled as the rest of them, for a moment. Then he sipped his tea, and smiled.

"Your Fire Lord is correct, of course. A change in our leadership--a change the other nations may mistakenly view as weakness--will necessitate a change in our strategy."

"Now," said their lord, "what, exactly, is our overall objective in this war?"

War, the new Fire Lord decreed, was not an end unto itself.

---

The new Fire Lord continued to have time, to pretend to be trained by her. Azula watched him. Adjusted her footwork. Did not tolerate, and was not offered, any commentary on who was teaching who.

"What did you do with my brother?" she asked, as they flowed from one set to the next. As her hands, poised to throw fire, just so happened to be pointed his way.

He missed a step. It didn't look like an act.

"I'm, uh. Right here?"

She didn't bother to dignify that.

He didn't bother to look worried about her hands, one movement off from a true attack.

He looked around, then grabbed her sleeve, and tugged her further from any walls that may hide ears. The royal family's private training grounds were wonderfully large, and wonderfully open.

"It's me," he said. "It's still me. Just. More of me? Longer of me?"

She narrowed her eyes. A familiar expression, by this point. "Explain."

"...I found the Avatar," he said. "And this is definitely his fault, but--but I guess it started at a war meeting, when I was thirteen."

Azula listened. It was a very Dum-Dum story.

[heartspark]

Have you ever wanted to play a cute monster taming game with lots of love and heart put into every inch and corner of it by a Team of fantastically talented artists?

Me too!! Too bad it got cancelled literally a few weeks before it was going to be anounced!

Artist Nicholas Kole on twitter along with many other talented artists have been sharing their work of nearly 4 years on this game. I cant imagine the heartbreak of working so hard on this project only for it to get canceled right before Release and everyone on the Team to get laid off.

It was meant to be an open world, minecraft inspired builder, with all sorts of unique creatures with various skins, variations depending on biomes, and even petting animations. That you could tame! It also had a large amount of beautiful and unique character customization. Here's some of the art ( NOT MY ART ) for the project!

Apparently alot of this game was near finished, coded, etc! ( ART ABOVE IS BY NICHOLAS KOLE , JOHANNES FIGLHUBER, INES MARSAL, AND MARIA LOBANOVA )

I dont know if the artists can look into crowdfunding ( the Studio still may own the IP ) , but myself and a few others have been trying to get the hashtag #bringbackprojectdragon get some traction on twitter! Maybe if the internet raises enough stink, the Studio might pay attention. Im not sure how likely that is but I desperately want thus game to exsist, it would be a dream game for me and many others im sure. So please consider joining in if you have a twitter.

[10001gecs]

one 100 word email written with ai costs roughly one bottle of water to produce. the discussion of whether or not using ai for work is lazy becomes a non issue when you understand there is no ethical way to use it regardless of your intentions or your personal capabilities for the task at hand

with all due respect, this isnt true. *training* generative ai takes a ton of power, but actually using it takes about as much energy as a google search (with image generation being slightly more expensive). we can talk about resource costs when averaged over the amount of work that any model does, but its unhelpful to put a smokescreen over that fact. when you approach it like an issue of scale (i.e. "training ai is bad for the environment, we should think better about where we deploy it/boycott it/otherwise organize abt this) it has power as a movement. but otherwise it becomes a personal choice, moralizing "you personally are harming the environment by using chatgpt" which is not really effective messaging. and that in turn drives the sort of "you are stupid/evil for using ai" rhetoric that i hate. my point is not whether or not using ai is immoral (i mean, i dont think it is, but beyond that). its that the most common arguments against it from ostensible progressives end up just being reactionary

i like this quote a little more- its perfectly fine to have reservations about the current state of gen ai, but its not just going to go away.

[girlwiththegreenhat]

team fortress 2 finally getting rid of the bots after 5 years

work on the team fortress 2 comic continuing after 7+ years

half life 3 development looking more likely than ever with legitimate code, file, and voicework leaks referencing a new non-VR single-player game from valve featuring a HEV suit wearing protagonist and Xen creatures and concepts

shoutout to the valve fan that found the genie lamp. you a real one

[nyaa]

北へ。/ Kita e. White Illumination (1999) Sega Dreamcast

[koboldfactory]

It’s tragic to me that the video games industry could be unfathomably successful and provide so many jobs if CEOs took a pay cut and executives stopped pushing for multimillion dollar budgeted hyper realistic 400 gameplay-hour 10 year dev cycle games. No devs ever need to be fired for a higher ups mistakes. Devs need to start unionizing or do something else to execs that if I said would probably get me banned.

It’s very clear that the AAA industry is in a death spiral, and as much as I would love to say “this means devs can find success in the indie space!” That just isn’t gonna happen on a large scale because indie companies cannot afford to give jobs to the mass swathes of AAA devs being laid off. And those AAA devs in general do not make enough money to just go found their own studio and take a risk developing a game with no income for years.

[theabigailthorn]

I just read a pilot for a TV show that two incredible people are trying to get made and HOO HOO! OH HOH! I can't tell you who either of them are or what the show is about but DAMN! I hope this gets made! I hope I get to be in it! HAHA, EXCITING! SICK, EVEN!

[unbfacts]

[xannador]

[TURN SOUND ON]

In Chai’s own words; What a fight!

I mean, if your game doesn’t let me fight a giant mecha werewolf with a guitar inside Scrooge McDuck’s vault, then honestly what’s even the point?

[k0libra]

"RK Industrial Heavylifter gen 3" is a Cyberlife-developed cobot that is set apart from other competitors by using famous RK-series preconstruction module in its work, minimizing any accidents during the collaborative process.

I wonder if small RK line feels any familial feelings towards it, or are they horrified by a creature so similar to them being encased in a moving tomb. And what even goes through the mind of the creature? How present or out of it is it?

What other atrocities are there to witness at Cyberlife's R&D.

[talism4niac]

Actually you know what, here's a Megathread of the folks behind Project Dragon / Everhaven

I figured the least I could do is highlight as many people as I can that had involvement with the project and has posted their work. If there's anyone that I missed please DM and I'll be sure to update this when I can! Go and show these folks some love! </3

Nicholas Kole : Portfolio | Twitter | Instagram

Airborn Studios : Artstation | Twitter

Ines Marsal : Twitter

Camille Peyrebere : Twitter

Leslie Van den Broeck : Artstation

Chloé Labbé : Twitter

Janneke Bruijnes : Twitter

Malte Sturm : Twitter

Andrea Orioli : Twitter

Charlène Le Scanff : Twitter | Artstation

Julien Allard : Twitter

Lucas St. Martin : Twitter | Instagram | Artstation

Andy Hansen : Twitter | Artstation

Florian Coudray : Twitter | Artstation

Malwina Czech (Mawluna) : Twitter

Joey Vergara : Twitter -Game Designer

Mel Ramsden : Twitter -Game Designer

Shaan Joshi : Twitter -Game Developer

Bethany Higa : Twitter -Narrative Designer

Dave Huddleston : Linkedin -Lead Animator

Cris Velasco : Twitter -Composer

Hunter Howe : Twitter -Director

Michael vicente - Orb : Twitter -3D Artist

[chronurgy]

It's the modernization it's the mechanization it's the way the old world has to die for the new world to be born and by killing gortash you've slowed it down but you haven't stopped it because ideas can't be stopped and the industrial world that will destroy your way of life is coming and you can't stop it by killing him any more than the luddites could stop it by smashing up a few factory machines

[heartspark]

Last thing about project dragon / everhaven. If you wanna see more art by these talented artists, please go to nicholaskoles twitter or instagram. He is uploading bit by bit every few hours daily. Theres tons he has not posted yet. This game had a whole 4 years of development behind it, and if you want to see even MORE work regarding it, look at the projectdragon hashtag! There are so many talented artists who got fired who were apart of this incredibly project! They are posting pets, background work, models, animations, etc.

I really urge you to try to use the hashtag #bringbackprojectdragon or @phoenixlabs on twitter if you have one. Its a very small chance this project could be revived, but if there is one nicholas kole said it would be due to groundswell and people talking about it!! I really urge you to consider even just posting the hashtag alone and nothing else to just Show that there is support for this game! 🫶🏽💖

[madame-helen]

[ranaroy]

the best girl failures