#feature creep

[assembly-official]

>"If I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter"

>"It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove."

Lies, deception, give in to the feature creep, add those requirements, your application can do more things, just one more function bro.

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

Letting the Features Creep

It actually takes quite a long time before a game gets to a point of being less accessible for new players due to feature creep.

The regular problem with feature creep/scope creep is Not Getting Launched. Imagine you're an indie dev making a JRPG and then you're like, "but FFVIII had that thing where one dude had a quicktime event to go nuts with the trigger button, and the other had a fighting game combo and another had timed swings for auto-crits. We could have little quicktime events to keep combat interesting!"

What you've got to understand is

a) There is no limit to the number of features like this you can include in your game. I learned this when I saw the feature in Bravely Default where they had a social element and you could bring in copies of other players' heroes if you'd passed them on the train, and also they could speed up your town reconstruction, like, wtf.

b) Quicktime events are coroutines. Coroutines are literally a whole region of programming you won't need in order to make a JRPG unless you decide you want quicktime events. Like, they're a skill! Your programmer might not have that in their repertoire already, and if they don't you're looking at having them learn a new coding discipline so you can have triggered attacks.

BUT.

On the OTHER hand.

I really don't have a problem with feature creep (ha, misspelled it "feature crepe" and I'm imagining that meaning you keep on adding delicious ingredients. Peanut butter? Sure! Strawberries and syrup and whipped cream? Chocolate chips! Is there even a crepe under there anymore?) in live-service games. Warframe has one of the wildest cases of feature creep and honestly wouldn't have survived as a game without it. It's a better game for it - multiple of the currently-understood "core features" of the game did not exist at launch and features, ya know, crept in and then they were great, and became core features that stuck around. Similar deal with Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. Some players have a problem with new features like Seasons (in spite of them literally just being an overlay that hands you more free stuff for doing what you were doing already), but I very much do not. I think the game has some pretty clever gating to keep players from encountering material before they're ready, so that they don't get overwhelmed (I think doing something similar would help Warframe a ton). A lot of levels only appear after you've gotten close to the power level necessary to actually do them. Good stuff.

The point is that both games do varying levels of work on keeping the original problem I mentioned - the game getting confusing for new players - under control. Considering achievement stats suggest something like 95% of potential players drop off without unlocking a second planet I feel like Warframe could profit from working harder at this, but they didn't ask me. But what they don't do, and I'd argue they don't really need to do, is avoid feature creep due to the problem of never releasing. Because, like, they're released.

The Adventure Quest Model has proven successful for loads of games: You make a game, you release it, and then you patch it almost every day with new stuff for people to look at. Sometimes this will eventually result in a jumbled mess of a product but a) sometimes it won't and b) in the meantime you've gotten something onto the shelf to buy so who cares?

[alianoralacanta]

This does not decrease certain types of bloatware. This is because the classic method of solving the compatibility issue is to allow both preferences to have what they want in the same package. For example, providing the option to either use or not use ray tracing in the options menu, or have the program scan the computer at runtime for appropriate ray tracing drivers and gracefully fall back onto not ray tracing if the absence of such drivers is detected. (In the latter case, there's usually a switch anyway, in case the user finds ray tracing too slow or just plain dislikes it). Since it costs more hard drive space to have ray tracing + no ray tracing than to opt for either, this leads to bigger programs. (Not including the ray tracing gets a lot of complaints from the people who spend the most money on the sort of program where ray tracing gets considered in the first place). That said, I do have my trusty airgapped (no network or internet) Windows 7 Starter PC to reality-check my visual novels. 2 GB RAM, exactly as requested by OP, integrated chip, just about manages to have 2 cores in its processor. The one luxury is it does have a fast hard drive in it. A visual novel should not absolutely require an i5 and 8 GB of memory to run at low detail levels. The only DRM it should require is whatever is forced by the delivery mechanism (good luck trying to get Steam to not include its own DRM in the game!)

My solution for bloatware is this: by law you should hire in every programming team someone who is Like, A Guy who has a crappy laptop with 4GB and an integrated graphics card, no scratch that, 2 GB of RAM, and a rural internet connection. And every time someone in your team proposes to add shit like NPCs with visible pores or ray tracing or all the bloatware that Windows, Adobe, etc. are doing now, they have to come back and try your project in the Guy's laptop and answer to him. He is allowed to insult you and humilliate you if it doesn't work in his laptop, and you should by law apologize and optimize it for him. If you try to put any kind of DRM or permanent internet connection, he is legally allowed to shoot you.

With about 5 or 10 years of that, we will fix the world.

[eishtmo]

The Story of a Cat Door

This is my cat:

We've had her for almost 7 years now. This is her last Christmas, under the tree. She had been caught as a stray and we adopted her sometime after. She's fixed. She likes to go outside, and given her past, she can take care of herself. If it were up to her, we'd leave the back door open and she could go in and out at will.

The issue is we live in Texas, and if you didn't know, it gets stupidly hot here over the summer. And it's been getting hotter, but that has NOTHING to do with global climate change caused by human action.

Our back yard also opens to a wide ditch that is the home of a variety of animals including other cats, possums and skunks. So we generally don't want to leave the back door open, and installing a cat door is impossible as it is a sliding glass door.

But we have an alternative: The garage. It's not "outside" but it's close enough that the cat is fine with it. But the garage is on the otherside of the house where we spend most of the day. If it were my choice, I wouldn't let the cat into the garage at all, but I have been vetoed by the rest of the family. So they open the door so the cat can go in and out of the garage at will.

Except it's a garage, in Texas. It's not that it isn't insulated, there is some, except for the giant metal door at one end. Yeah, it gets warm in there, but not as much as outside. Regardless, it let's heat into the house, and given the last couple of years of record heat NOT CAUSED BY GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE STOP SUGGESTING IT IS, it's been straining the AC.

Okay, so a month or so ago, they open a new farm supply store, Murdoc's, in the north of the city. It's a large Tractor Supply, basically, with all the same kinds of things, but they had a deal where you got a percent off of anything you fit into a bucket. And you get a bucket! Anyway, in the pet area there was a cat door for something like 17 bucks, and with the discount it was like 15, and I have tool, I can install a cat door in the door into the garage.

So we get it home, I read the instructions, and yeah, it's not that hard. Just have to measure the cat and line it up.

I'm just about ready to go when I start looking at the door and realize there's a problem. The garage floor is about 3 inches lower than the house floor. Getting out, no problem for the cat, getting back in might be a bit harder. Oh, she probably could do it, but she's going to get older.

Okay, that's not good. But it's also an opportunity. My mother mostly uses a wheelchair. She can stand for short periods of time and walk with a walk for short distances, but mostly she's wheelchair bound. If she wants to get into the garage, she has to get out of the chair, step down into the garage, then pull the chair through or grab a spare walker we keep near the door. Putting in a ramp is probably the a good idea for her anyway.

Yeah, I could build a ramp. I just got some concrete bits for my drill, and a trip to the hardware store I can get all the parts to build a ramp. But I can't make it permanent as right where the ramp is sits the dryer, which will have to be moved at some point, right into the path of the ramp. Okay, I can work around that.

Wait, the water heater. It's right across from the dryer, in small closet with a standard door. So I have to remove that door or cut or. . .

Luckily the door isn't in a proper frame, so I take that out and get a cheap according door. But the screws it comes with are too damn short, wouldn't even get into the wood above the drywall of the door frame. Go out, get longer screws. Install the according door.

Then build the ramp. I stack a 2x2 on top of a 1x2, screw them together then anchor them to the foundation step. Then build the ramp with a couple pieces of plywood (36" long, btw for every 1 inch of drop, you go out 12" for a proper wheelchair ramp). Put in a few spars to support the middle of the ramps, then cover it with carpet tiles and screw the thing into the support step, and that's all that holds it. I then need to put bricks on the ramp because the plywood is warped just enough.

Okay, now to install the cat door. The only hitch is that the door is VERY heavy. It's a proper exterior door going between the house and garage, as it should be! But it's heavy as hell. Still, with my sister's help, we get it down, cut the hole install the cat door, and put the whole thing back. And we're done!

So this is the point in the story where I tell you the cat refuses to use the cat door, but not so much. She hasn't opened the flap on her own, no, but she has used it to get in and out of the garage, so I'm calling this a damn win.

That's the end of my story. All so the cat can go into the garage anytime she wants without destroying our electric bill. Just in time for the 100F days to stop.

[ewanspence]

Google’s YouTube Is Testing an Online-Games Offering - WSJ

...because obviously I would go to a video player for a little but of gaming.

[champion-of-love]

i can't remember what interactions they had in the show or books but in my head maddie and dexter are the best of friends. maddie's the one who decides this (and dexter just goes along with it) and it starts because she sees dexter crushing hard on raven and decides that he has good taste and this automatically made him her friend. and whenever dexter sees maddie coming his way he thinks "ah what new sisyphean hell am i gonna go through today"

[birchbow]

Chapters: 6/17 Rating: Mature Relationships: Gamzee Makara & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Characters: Karkat Vantas, Gamzee Makara, Lord English (Homestuck), Doc Scratch (Homestuck), Homestuck Ensemble, Calliope (Homestuck), The Felt (Homestuck), It's really a 'everybody is around doing things' fic I genuinely don't know how to tag this Additional Tags: Winter Soldier Pastiche, with everything that entails so read carefully!, Humanstuck, Urban Fantasy, Home-Brew Magic System Shit Don't @ Me, Time Shenanigans, Karkat Vantas Makes Bad Decisions This Is A Forewarning, Polyamory Negotiations, Hurt/Comfort, Lord English's Fun-Time Brainwashing Time-Travel Torture Gang, Aftermath Of...... Everything....., Past Torture(physical/psychological/spiritual/emotional--largely inexplicit but not entirely), Past Brainwashing, Possession, implied/referenced past rape/non-con, (sexually not described in detail and more explicity nonsexual Cal-flavored intimacy/tenderness), God Finds It Funny To Hurt You But Also Won't Let You Die, Let's be clear: plotty gamzee whump with a, Happy Ending

Chapter 6: Vessel Of Rage

The Host says, “Once we take you back from them, our Lord will have you forever.  You won’t have to feel Karkat look at you anymore.  No one will lie to you and pretend you’re something you’re not, or ask duties of you that you don’t understand.  You’ve spent so long away from his light, Disciple. Does it hurt?”

[n4rval]

the stalker

[somegrumpynerd]

Outer Kitty sure is a popular kitty so far outta the batch he got 2321 people to pet him!!!

Oh my god you're right!!

Get wrecked winter kitties lol

He might be second most petted of all time actually, I can't remember what Dream got up to but it might be close!

As is customary, he gets a bonus petting pic

[b0tster]

god fucking dammit i gotta do a snake ball bowling bonus stage dont i

[pumafysketch]

I had the honor of appearing on CreepCast’s CreepTV a few episodes ago, it makes be giddy with excitement to share this with everyone

This was the second Marble Hornets video :D

[evildeadboy]

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986) DIR. FRED DEKKER

[whmp]

Whumpdev=alive?????????

Just askin :3

yes!

chained in my basement, malnourished and mistreated, but not forgotten, and still very much alive.

unfortunately, college has been kicking my ass lately, and will continue to do so until i finish my master's thesis. the good news is that this will continue for only about a month before i have more time to work on the project! the bad news is that i have only about a month to finish the entire paper. :' )

here's a little screenshot from a story sequence to prove that the project has not been completely neglected and forgotten!

[pepsicoughdrops]

shakily smokes my cigarette as i hand this to you

(click for better quality)

[cchanticleer]

i dropped FE:H for good months ago but i love love love that they just won't stop making alts of Shez

seven alts and counting.... legendary. they deserve it. i think they should get more actually

[redgemwink]

bluesky is so heartbreaking to me bc when i first made an account it was so active and felt unique and i made so many friends. but now just after two months it feels exactly like twitter in most ways, except there's no privs so i get random replies from men acting like they know me (they don't) and most of the friends i made left already :[ i'm not deleting it yet bc i still have some friends there that aren't on here but for me tumblr is better in every way possible. tumblr feels like my quiet space where i can scream into the void and share my creative endeavors and passions and have like minded people (LOVE LIVERS) that actually care interact with it. sure i technically have more followers on bsky, but idc abt that, tumblr is where i feel at home and feel a lot more loved