End of an Era

October 21, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I just heard the news that EA shut down the Bioware studios.  They made Baldur's Gate long ago.  I remember playing that D&D game years ago, a brand new kiddo sleeping away on my lap.  Years later was Neverwinter Nights, followed by ten years of modding and brief Internet fame.  I remember when Bioware flew me up to the Edmonton studio and being able to meet a bunch of the big names at the time.  Most of them had already left to go to other studios or make their own.  I still have some Bioware swag - a backpack that's turned into my library book bag, and a coffee mug I break out occasionally.

I suppose all things must end, but I'm taking a few moments to reflect on all the memories I have around the studio.

Making Games

October 11, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I continue to have fun making games for my own amusement. The latest batch includes a vehicular combat game inspired by Car Wars of my youth, with destructible cars and terrain that falls apart as machine guns, missiles, and lasers blaze across the battlefield. At this point I'm just playing it for fun - I like the tiny little fights that are over in less than a minute. That's how I remember most of our Car Wars games going - we spend an hour designing our cars and then it's over in a few seconds.

The other game is far more of a prototype. I've played way too much Slay the Spire and love the genre. Jason mentioned an idea for a game months ago and I wanted to see if I could at least get the general feel what he was looking for. It turns out getting animated 2D characters is surprisingly hard, but I cajoled all the various tools to put something together and hand edited a few frames myself. It's not perfect, but there's something about the 80's city scrolling by that brings out the nostalgia in all the right ways.

Wayfarer

September 14, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I've been on a scifi game building kick lately, inspired by the old Traveller games of my youth.  With the latest ai models, it seems it's possible to do things it couldn't do a week ago, especially around 3d animation and construction.  I'm currently working on different pieces for a game - system and planet generation, ship maps and designs, crew spacesuits and outfits, and voice generation and lipsync animations.  They're all coming together really well and my team of agents cheerfully builds away.  Occasionally they do silly things like fill up my hard drive with files, but mostly they behave.

I thought I'd share the player ship for the game - the Wayfarer.  It's an armed cargo vessel with some spare rooms the players can use for passengers, more crew, science, or other future endevors.  The exterior fades away to show the interior, which is full of assorted objects from animated crew screens to working doors and lights.  Little details like the exterior ramps are very cool, extending out to the ground when deployed.  Plus the engines look amazing when firing.

I have a few details to tweak, but it's coming along nicely.  The plan is to extend the system to even more ship types, space stations, and planetary structures.  Lots of fun things to explore.

Uncle Dungeon Master

August 16, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I got to play the cool dungeon master yesterday to Sadie, Greg, Simon, and Francis.  As somewhat expected, we only made it through the first one shot - A Most Potent Brew.  It's the traditional "clean out the basement rats" adventure, with some fun twists and a small puzzle.  Everything took longer than expected, but I think it turned out well and everyone survived the rats.

Makin' Games

June 29, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I seem to spend a big chunk of my time playing around with AI to see what I can get it to do.  Last week I discovered some pretty good systems to take images and turn them into 3D models.  It's rough around the edges, with some turning out better than others, but it's really impressive that it can do it at all.  I remember back in my Neverwinter Nights days how we modders would dream longingly for the day we can ask the computer to make a dungeon for us and give it a particular theme, and it would spit out all the creatures, structures, and so on.

It turns out we're quickly getting to that point.  I'll tell copilot to generate 2D images that fit the theme of the dungeon, pick the ones I want, and then have it generate 3D models for me.  Now I'm working on a full computer roleplaying game around the idea, making dungeon tiles and miniatures to move around the boards.  It's based on the open source Basic Fantasy rules, so it's very old school similar to early D&D.  We'll see if I turn this into something more real, but it's been a blast to play with.

Impossible Landscapes

June 16, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

The Delta Green agents got together last night for another Impossible Landscapes campaign session.  They'd just escaped from the surreal Night Floors (similar to the Backrooms), staggering around trying to figure out what to do next.  The stumbled into a mysterious bookstore that appeared outside, finding all manner of odd books that they immediately wanted to read.  My favorite was the King in Yellow play that Emma and I made months ago by hand.  It was cool to finally see the players get into it - Jordan was reading it and explaining how everything was connected with metaphors and symbology.  It was a great time.

Fighting a Dragon

June 03, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I ran my first ever dragon fight in Dungeons and Dragons last night.  Our brave adventurers went up against the fearsome foe, who was far more powerful than the group.  I gave them a bunch of advantages but when I rolled 12 d6 for damage before they even got a turn, they looked like they were ready to throw in the towel.  But they mostly survived and through some lucky rolls and their orc friends' actually decent battle plan, they immobilized the dragon with nets, Jason used his bardic magic, and the rest of the crew wailed on the dragon until it died.  I had an "everyone died" image all ready to go, but instead the brave adventurers got the victory one.

D&D Videos

February 12, 2026 by Adam in Adam's Games

I've been having a good time making little video clips for the various NPCs the players meet in my Dungeons and Dragons game.  I've got still images for them, but it's getting easy enough to make videos with lipsynched voices that I've made a half dozen in the last couple days.  I'm really liking the way they're turning out.