pickassoreborn

I'm still playing this - there's a relaxing factor to it which I enjoy although I do think the space combat has improved to the point where it's actually enjoyable. There's still something special about getting stuck into a battle and visiting a freighter to get your reward for helping out - although it still is easy to cause a friendly fire incident and have the whole battle turn against you. I've been super-careful with that stuff recently and think I'm onto something.

The terrain manipulator is also a nice addition - I've fallen into caves in my Roamer and have that thing save me multiple times. Digging out cargo from crashed freighters is also a novel use for that thing. I've spent more time exploring my home planet with the Roamer and grabbing Nanites where I can. As mentioned, the game still looks fantastic - sounds fantastic too. The sound design in this is still quite the achievement, and the new stuff recently added by 65daysofstatic only makes the whole thing even more atmospheric.

It's definitely the marmite of videogames although I have to continue to respect Hello Games and their support. I think the constant updates are helping to push the game with folk buying it at sale prices just to see what's up.

I'd personally would like to see more Dredd-type stuff happen. I was disappointed by the Sly movie even though there was some exceptional production design of Mean Machine and Hammerstein with a helping hand from Mr. Chris Cunningham. The Dredd movie was much better - I think Urban being a fan of 2000AD ensured there were no hijinks like helmet removal and the like. Plus I saw that thing in D-Box when I was in the US and only added to the bombast of it. I'm sure that Mr. Urban was in talks to be part of the show. Fingers crossed. Also fingers crossed that one day we'll see the Dark Judges being realised...

42. Been playing videogames since I was 6. To paraphrase Jeff, it would be insane to stop now...

Finally bit the bullet and started my game again. First thing is how fresh and new it feels - fixing your broken ship feels a lot more logical and your starter ship looks a touch cooler than the original one. Sounds like 65daysofstatic have created new audio for this starting process also. I complained in an early blog post about the Atlas Stones but now they are things you can create rather than objects that can be mistakenly sold. The new story mission has already uncovered a surprising reveal early on - which is pretty satisfying - and it feels more like there's an actual purpose to what you're doing in the galaxy.

Other things to note - you get money when you scan stuff straight away (the scanner screen itself is now excellent in the details it gives) although the structure of cashing in discoveries via the pause menu is still present. Dogfighting is a lot more satisfying - even to the point where the combat feels a lot more confident and less slap dash. Many a time I would accidently shoot friendlies and have them attack me - this doesn't seem to be an issue any more. There's more meaning and possibilities with factions in the game - you can give gifts to increase standing as well as exchange money/resources to learn words from races. One nice touch is you can contact pirates and bargain with them so they won't attack you on sight - be interesting to see how the faction stuff plays into this.

One of the nicer things is you can now fly your craft pretty close to the ground when navigating a planet - which means less fighting of controls and easier landing on platforms, although you do have to be careful not to hit stuff accidentally. At one point a bunch of pirates chased me to the planet's surface and stuck around as they tried to take me out.

Negatives are mostly UI - still. There's been some improvements although when playing on PC, I was stuck on the Galatic Map in my starting system until I tried RMB to cancel out of that system - something missing from the legend on-screen. Navigating and selecting destinations to warp gets a bit of getting used to, but perfectly fine once you get it; I think I prefer it to that rotary selection path tool of the original.

Currently hooked on Slime Rancher. Something relaxing about it but at the same time it can be pretty crazy when you get into later areas of the game. Also reminds me of old ZX Spectrum games I played where the absence of a map meant a better memory was required to navigate. The game has a lovely vibe about it too - great soundtrack and a lot of heart and soul missing from a majority of games out there. I recommend this!

Not sure what's happened but my once lush home planet is now an arid planet and thus looks totally different. Not a great start...

Never forget. <>

@wcarle: Fixed - although I had to turn off both ABP and Kasparsky web filtering to get it to work. I'm on Premium so the ads shouldn't be an issue due to the lack of them. Cheers for the help!

Currently in Firefox I'm getting a constant "loading video" message on Premium vids. Doesn't even want to pay any :(

Hello, hello

My current role is a UX Designer/Developer although the path to that role was through many different roles to get to it. Started off in game dev as an animator (also tidying up mocap, not fun), before working on concept art, 3D environment art, 2D animation which then led into UI and then UX. People sometimes get UI and UX confused though UI is the pretty stuff on top of the UX. If the UX doesn't work, no amount of pretty UI will save it.

In terms of certificates, I've got a BA in Animation (Design) though I wonder these days if you could get a job with a killer app design which impresses interviewers. It goes without saying that user research is essential for a UX designer and can often be the deciding factor in decisions. I've also worked on some games where we've used heat maps of where candidates were actually looking when playing those games - great feedback if you want to test a particular UI element in a HUD, for example.

Good luck with your UX adventures!