Author | Lightnews

Dan Schmidt

@dfan.bsky.social

780 followers 340 following 280 posts

Co-creator of Ultima Underworld, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, et al. Lead singer & songwriter of Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer-Incentives. These days I mostly play the piano and Go.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 5h

The musical form is bananas too!

1 3

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 19h

I love a lot of these albums and never noticed they shared a producer! New Patricia Brennan coming in a couple of days will further extend the list.

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 1d

I had to nope out of a Haydn symphony cycle (don’t remember which one) because they weren’t taking repeats. It’s like chopping off your second arm because you already have one perfectly good one.

1 1

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 3d

This is probably basically what cfront would have produced from my code.

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 4d

A long chat with Łukasz Ściga of the Wookash podcast about my career at Looking Glass Studios and Harmonix Music Systems, making games like Ultima Underworld, Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, and Guitar Hero: www.youtube.com/watch?v=II9L...

Behind Great Games | Dan Schmidt

YouTube video by Wookash Podcast

www.youtube.com

1 1 20

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 6d

Crash course, apologies if you didn't want it!
Augmented sixths are IV6s that all resolve outward to scale degree 5 (Ab-C-F# -> G-G in C major)
The fourth pitch goes up as you go north (It. C / Fr. D / Ger. Eb in that example)
Neapolitans are different: ii6s that have been twice flatted (F-Ab-Db)

1 4

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 8d

Each home run by Gorman Thomas could be the last

1 1

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · 27d

"People who have different brains from me are just faking it" reliably gets my goat. (Often it takes the form of "anyone who claims to like this musician/author is just pretending for cred")

1 13

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Sep 21

"Wrong number scam". You tell them they have the wrong number, they keep chatting with you because you seem nice, eventually they deploy the actual scam.

1 4

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Sep 19

Caught the first set in Cambridge last night and it was super! (I'm also really digging Ye Olde 2.)

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Sep 4

11/16 bliss www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le1k...

Palm - Parable Lickers [Official Audio]

YouTube video by Saddle Creek

www.youtube.com

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Sep 1

I love every Tree House beer I've tried and I can't tell any of them apart.

1 2

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Sep 1

I love the way that time both passes and doesn't over the course of their career.

1 2

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Aug 27

I would pay handsomely for Pedro Pascal's voice in my GPS as long as after informing me of the optimal route he would always add "This is the way".

3 15

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Aug 22

Yes, gotta love working through Messiaen at the piano and running into something like G Cb D E#.

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Aug 12

The way I would put it is that they're perfectly competent at doggerel, and I really don't mean that dismissively.

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Aug 9

He kinda does though!

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Aug 8

Before that, the giants' entrance is pretty metal! I wish it lasted more than 15 seconds.

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Aug 3

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z6B...

1 8

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Aug 1

When I was 8 years old a friend's dad took a bunch of us to this as part of a birthday party because he thought it was a documentary?? We all started crying at some point and he hustled us out. The rest is history.

1 2

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Jul 31

I just had some fun times reading through a score from 1817 where the dots in dotted notes don't come until after the original note length runs out. I had no idea this was a thing.

1 1

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Jul 30

For sure! I mentioned Power Grid in particular because there it's fundamental to strategy, not just a way to boost laggards. Being "in first" has such a big penalty that players actively avoid it. (Callback to the "what does 'leading' actually mean?" question I started with.)

1 2

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Jul 30

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the other games you mentioned either! But the basic mechanic is that whoever is "closest to victory" on the board has the worst position in the turn order.

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Jul 30

Pretty much (I think there are some VP cards in expansions that are also functional, right?), but you generally have a choice of different engines with different curves (otherwise the game would be trivial). And randomness forces you to make some decisions you might not make in a perfect world, etc.

Dan Schmidt @dfan.bsky.social · Jul 30

But if you want a better example, take Power Grid, where the "catch-up mechanism" is really fundamental to the strategies of the game.