P.A. Bat-stein
@pabastien.bsky.social
1K followers 180 following 3.6K posts
Formerly Animation, Now Game Dev Drew Cartoon Dogs Writes at Mischief
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pabastien.bsky.social
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My dad would have been 63 today...
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docseuss.bsky.social
If 130 people did $20 tips each, I would not have this massive stressor hanging over my head

If you think my article is worth $20 of your time, please consider PayPal.me/stompsite
Pay Garrick Burford using PayPal.Me
Go to paypal.me/stompsite and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.
PayPal.me
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docseuss.bsky.social
if you like my writing, this month is REALLY urgent, as I need to raise a TON of money to pay my tax bill, which the state is making me pay early because, I shit you not, I did my taxes. Apparently a change to the balance, like filing taxes/extensions is bad

paypal.me/stompsite would help a LOT
Pay Garrick Burford using PayPal.Me
Go to paypal.me/stompsite and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries.
paypal.me
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docseuss.bsky.social
GUESS WHO'S BACK

BACK AGAIN

DOC'S BACK

TELL A FRIEND

That's right. It's time for part 3 of the FPS series; this time, a lot of assorted thoughts on what makes for good enemy design. This one was fun as hell to write.

docseuss.medium.com/building-a-b...
building a better first person shooter part 3: enemy mine
So! First, we talked about a specific subgenre of first person shooter, loosely starting with Unreal and Half-Life and dying off around…
docseuss.medium.com
pabastien.bsky.social
errantv.bsky.social
"I once met a former bodyguard of one billionaire with his own bunker, who told me his security team's first priority, if this really did happen, would be to eliminate said boss and get in the bunker themselves.'

The techbros will be the first to be torn to pieces by mobs if society collapses
pabastien.bsky.social
They were literally warned it was gonna happen again if they didn't stop this shit at a conference like a decade ago. They still thought they can beat the odds
faineg.bsky.social
our current crop of techbros, like despots throughout history, are convinced that they've finally solved the Brutal Peasant Revolt Problem

i think they are absolutely wrong about this, to be clear
jonathanpierce.bsky.social
always funny that “hordes of unemployed show up at his gate with a battering ram and guillotine” is never a scenario they consider
pabastien.bsky.social
The plus was a cynical cashgrab to chase after Disney+'s initial success, now that basically... I think almost every disney film has underperformed for a couple years now, they're all dropping the + because they think it will get people to not associate it with disney.
Megacorps are superstitious
culturecrave.co
Apple TV+ has rebranded to Apple TV

It's their 'vibrant new identity'
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michigrim.bsky.social
This would be like me comparing a A24 film to an Avengers movie. Those serve a different ecosystem. And Memento was a pretty good success in its own way. It made $40m off of $5-9m
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michigrim.bsky.social
At one point he compares Christopher Nolan’s low budget darling Memento to a movie with about 7 times it's budget (I forget which). and claims because Memento less money because it was confusing rather than it being a low budget niche thriller not meant to compete with a blockbuster.
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michigrim.bsky.social
Snyder’s inherent value is prototypical of the way companies view AI.

By making an overly simplistic metric it makes it easier for them to justify their decisions.

The problem is. Snyder’s metric is deeply flawed and deliberately ignores things that don't fit his model.
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michigrim.bsky.social
The bidding war was because of the perceived value of the script. Schwarzenegger wanted the trades and Hollywood to believe that a garbage script had value so he could saddle Stallone with a career stalling role.
It's not a marker of quality at all.
pabastien.bsky.social
Yep. I've had it from producers at both a writing level and also storyboard level revisions that are basically rewrites I had to do with the director/AD
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michigrim.bsky.social
When your writing is so terrible that it’s literally being used as a landmine to sabotage the careers of rivals, you shouldn't be viewed as a story expert.

As Phil points out, Snyder lies about the structure of Alien and The Godfather to fit his structure.
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michigrim.bsky.social
I want to also point out that Stop or My Mom Will Shoot only got made because Arnold Schwarzenegger read the script, thought it was hot garbage and decided to trick Sylvester Stallone by claiming he was interested. Stallone took the bait muscled in to the lead and the movie got made.
pabastien.bsky.social
So here a some fun takes.
Save the Cat was written by a failure. He wrote a bunch of screenplays & only ever got 2 produced. Blank Check and Stop or my mom will shoot. Both regarded as some of the worst films of the 90s. But because of the bidding war attempting to con stallone, Stop sold for a lot
ddwardiswriting.bsky.social
So #WritingCommunity how do we feel about structure?

Do you use the 3 act structure? The 5 act?

Hero's Journey? Save the Cat? Super Structure Method? Story Genius Method?

Something else?

What have you got?
pabastien.bsky.social
Both books were published in 2005, a neck wound that's been bleeding over the art of cinematic storytelling for the last 20 years
pabastien.bsky.social
3) The hero's journey only makes sense if you apply it to the entire original star wars trilogy
4) The Journey in an entire film was pushed by a book called "The Writer's Journey" that came out roughly the same year as save the cat.
5) If you've ever wondered why films feel rushed now, it's that
pabastien.bsky.social
To the point writers had declared a sharp decline in quality of notes (I have personally experienced this) trying to fit within this structure.
NOW. Hero's Journey.
Campbell is a weirdo and used his theory to whitewash non white mythology.
2) Heros journey applies to entire cycles of work not 1 film
pabastien.bsky.social
A huge amount of his examples dont fit at all and he deliberately fudged their structure to say they fit in save the cat, Godfather 1 and Alien are the 2 most egregious examples.
From this point on though, his consultancy sold to WAY more to production staff than writers.
pabastien.bsky.social
He used the sale of Stop or my mom will shoot to claim he was the highest paid spec screenwriter (that's most likely actually Joe Esterhaz) and build a consultancy brand around his "award winning formula" Save the Cat.
He gives a lot of examples of how cat can be applied to the best movies. He lied
pabastien.bsky.social
So here a some fun takes.
Save the Cat was written by a failure. He wrote a bunch of screenplays & only ever got 2 produced. Blank Check and Stop or my mom will shoot. Both regarded as some of the worst films of the 90s. But because of the bidding war attempting to con stallone, Stop sold for a lot
ddwardiswriting.bsky.social
So #WritingCommunity how do we feel about structure?

Do you use the 3 act structure? The 5 act?

Hero's Journey? Save the Cat? Super Structure Method? Story Genius Method?

Something else?

What have you got?
Reposted by P.A. Bat-stein
pabastien.bsky.social
There were plans for a remake of 1 if I recall, but that became 2 as the project kind of expanded and went more meta
pabastien.bsky.social
From What I've gathered, Pathologic 2 was never meant to be all 3 playthroughs like 1.
2 was specifically about the haruspex
3 is specifically about the bachelor
and if there is a 4, I assume it will be about the changeling
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sean.zimmerit.moe
The 1/1 scale SAFS statue that appeared in Model Graphix in the late '90s and in various Maschinen Krieger events in the early 2000s is up for auction. You can see for yourself here: auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/d...