On a whim, I rented Uncharted Lost Legacy from the library yesterday and played several hours of it. Then I returned to Xbox One and played almost the entire first Gnomes Garden in one sitting. Mark was still playing Borderlands 3 trying to get better weapons. Further details follow. 

I've finally had enough of Minecraft. I'm totally sick of the incredibly annoying enemy griefing in this game. It's unbelievable. You gather resources for hours just to lose it all when a Creeper appears in the worst possible place at the worst possible time. Or, like today, when I went into The Nether very cautiously to scout for the Fortress, found it, and on the way back was absolutely bombarded by mysteriously appearing Ghasts shooting at the fastest rate I've ever experienced. It's total B.S., and in my mind, completely unfair game design. It's like, remember those monster closets game devs used by in the 90s? You'd pass through an empty room thinking your six was safe when suddenly you would be attacked from behind by a hoard of enemies that seemed to appear for no good reason and in no explainable way. That's Minecraft in survival mode.

I guess I’ll just do a short life update for this edition of BaD, since I have a few small things to talk about since the last blog.

Original post date: 2/13/13

“How do you get into the games Industry? I don’t know. How do you make a game? Make a game.”  Chet Faliszek of Valve offered this obvious but important advice to aspiring game makers during a QuakeCon panel on modding.  With the release of Steam Workshop and Skyrim editing tools, the modding scene has gotten a bit more attention lately, and with good reason.  Apparently the modding community continues to be an integral part of finding and training game devs. Nick Breckon and Joel Burgess of Bethesda along with Matt Scott and Faliszek of Valve filled an hour with plenty of advice for aspiring game designers and tons of appreciation for the existing mod community.