Scattered Thoughts

Babylon 5b?

There’s an article on  Ars Technica today about Babylon 5 likely getting a reboot as a “big-budget film.” Apparently J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) is going to work on a script soon and then start production in 2016. I love the TV series. Like most science fiction series it took a few seasons to real get comfortable with itself but once it got rolling it was really great. Interesting story lines, amazing characters, and cool special effects (for the early 90’s, I haven’t watched any recently but I don’t think it has aged well).

I’m trying to decide how I feel about this news. Babylon 5 getting a reboot is cool. Having JMS handling the reboot is very cool and gives me confidence that it will be done well. But a movie? I don’t see it translating as well. Even focusing on just the primary arc of the show I think would make a better trilogy than a single movie.

Delta Rising

I was surprised to see a news post from Cryptic today since the big announce post was just released yesterday. After reading it though it’s not a dev blog like I initially assumed, but instead a message from the Executive Producer Stephen D’Angelo talking about the new Tier 6 ships. More specifically it’s about what happens to Tier 5 ships in the expansion, which makes me wonder if there’s more drama on the forums than usual (I don’t get paid enough to wade in and find out) or they’ve seen a plunge in C-store purchases while people wait and see what the plans are.

Unfortunately I don’t see it helping since the post just reiterates the information already circulating. Which Cryptic does’t want, or intend, for players to have to ditch their Tier 5 ships if they don’t want to, and they do have a plan but they’re not ready to share it yet. All of which the community knows already and apparently isn’t satisfied with. I’m so glad I’m a corporate software developer and not a game developer.

Broken Age, Part One

I backed Broken Age on Kickstarter half because I wanted to play a new adventure game and half because I loved 2 Player Productions documentary on Minecraft and wanted to see more. It only took me about four hours to play start to finish, but it was a wonderful four hours. Even if Part Two wasn’t coming out, I’d still be totally happy with the money I kicked in. Actually I’d have been happy even if a game hadn’t come out as the documentary episodes have been excellent.

The art in the game is amazing, it’s like playing in a painting. The story is just as excellent, the dialogue, the voice acting, and the humor are all pitch perfect to me. I’ve heard some complaints that the puzzles were to easy, but for me they were about right. I think having Part One skew toward the beginner end of the puzzle spectrum is good, hopefully it has brought some new fans to an old genre.

I got nothing. Day 8 of Blaugust