Robert Kist

Technical Director, Tech Art Manager, currently at Riot Games. I play obscure games, mostly RPGs, and try to make one myself in a Sisyphusian effort.

I worked in AAA gaming for pretty much my entire career. I also lived in China for 11 years. Happy to share advice and help aspiring artists and game devs to get their foot in the door. Cheers!

Public Key

npub1g9ek0vzq5m22eu6ur3m5a9n8q5nqlclpzr7xjtw3ga9paq7zwams6ytdpe

NIP-05 Address

kwramm_at_mastodon.gamedev.place@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsyzum8kpq2d49v7dwpca6wjens2fs0u0s3plrf9hg5wjs7s0p8wacgz2q6q

Author Public Key

npub1g9ek0vzq5m22eu6ur3m5a9n8q5nqlclpzr7xjtw3ga9paq7zwams6ytdpe

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Last Notes

2024-09-25 05:29:17

Hot take: if you have regular meetings with your team on Zoom, everyone is a lot more relaxed if the camera is off.
No need to "behave" all the time. Don't like something? Just make an unhappy face. It's okay. we can talk it out.
Want to walk around while you're talking/listening? go for it!
You're in your pyjamas? Cool. Hope you're comfortable.
Really, this video-on being glued to your desk, that's the stuff that makes Zoom meetings suck so much

2024-09-18 06:58:30

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I was thinking the 1900's had the Great Depression, so we could label the same era in our century "The Great Enshittification"

2024-09-15 02:50:34

Anyone need an Original Mac Radeon 7000? (better than flashing your own)
https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/c1150950936?conversionType=YahooAuction_DirectSearch
#VintageMac #vintageApple #retrocomputing

2024-09-04 09:57:52

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 plz bend the laws so we can satisfy our corporate greed, plz, k? thx
...oh, and we we'll only pay tax in the tax haven our company is registered lolz

2024-08-10 11:32:10

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 slightly OT: what's more worrying is that Apple still hasn't arrived in a timeline where right clicks exist (ctrl+click = right click)

2024-08-04 02:58:49

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@npub1esg…qfua a common trait of most populists and autocrats seems to be that they have a hard time laughing about themselves, even in the most harmless circumstances

2024-07-28 08:34:35

Today isn't a good day for computing...
For some reason, my new DB25 BlueSCSI reliably corrupts (repro'd 4 times, so far...) the entire SD card when installing BeOS onto a .hda image on a PowerMac 6360CD, so that it's un-mountable in OS X. Anyone run into something like this before?
SOLVED: ...
EDIT: still a problem :/
#BlueSCSI

2024-07-24 11:05:09

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 needs to be bigger (A4 size?) and mounted on a wall, i.e. your "2000's digital mini stereo tower"

2024-07-16 13:35:15

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@npub1jne…qvla
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/112/796/428/592/065/497/original/f0a94904ec4c35af.jpg

2024-07-11 08:21:26

Good, finally a scientifically backed excuse for staying up late
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/11/night-owls-cognitive-function-superior-to-early-risers-study-suggests

2024-06-26 12:34:15

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@npub17lg…9uux Given that AI isn't quite working for anyone other than Nvidia, and AI not being on any MBA curriculum, I wonder how they'll be in the position to advise anyone

2024-06-21 01:19:51

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@npub1te6…zc4l I'm moving and packed my adapter - it has a little guide. But I think first 1 or first 2 DIPs up forces a lower res

2024-06-14 09:49:37

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@npub17lg…9uux translation: "we'll delay a bit and quietly re-launch Recall when everyone forgot about the current brou-ha-ha"

2024-06-12 09:55:35

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 pretty much all Steam software that needs an account on top of a Steam account can fuck right off

2024-05-28 14:27:16

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@npub1up2…k6en I liked the days where the internet was just a brick sized black box with a red light on top of it and you could buy a book and learn everything about it

2024-05-16 11:03:01

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@npub1463…00qn so, the Western world is discovering 996?

2024-05-16 04:03:52

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@npub1mc3…nkdg who would have thought that randomly killing NPCs without cause is a good idea? ... unless they are annoying buggers that is

2024-04-17 10:07:07

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 makes you wonder why nobody thinks of replacing those guys with AI

2024-04-15 10:09:17

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 Cortana Reloaded

2024-04-09 01:54:13

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@npub1ykd…6j2y Thats why that 5k screen with ultra crisp text is the best thing I bought in the last 3 years

2024-03-12 02:18:28

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@npub1ykd…6j2y it also makes for a nicer impact crater

2024-03-08 08:29:35

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@npub1ykd…6j2y @npub15zq…3n5c I don't even know why they named it Dune "2" because Cryo's game was a quite different game - more adventure mixed with resource management

2024-03-07 01:48:45

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@npub1ykd…6j2y One time they got bold though and brought us "The Ribbon"

2024-03-07 01:40:53

After spending some time in Excel yesterday, I really feel the people who design the UI of this app think fundamentally differently than I do.
Why hide some of the most trivial stuff under 2 layers of dialog boxes? Why can't I click on thing X directly to edit it but have to press the tiny tiny "Edit..." button right next to it?

2024-02-24 14:44:34

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 gotta love those "special" Unicode characters. Although my favorite is still the "Chinese space" character. No idea how it's different. Maybe it's 1 pixel wider than the latin-1 one?

2024-02-08 14:32:42

Before I forget, Happy Chinese New Year everyone, and don't forget to decorate your doors for some good luck!
#ChineseNewYear #YearOfTheDragon
https://cdn.masto.host/mastodongamedevplace/media_attachments/files/111/896/340/932/272/271/original/2ce565ef85c661e9.jpeg

2024-01-30 08:15:55

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I already have 2 versions of OneDrive on my PC (I guess one ships with Win10 and the other with O365?!) - isn't that enough, MS?

2024-01-23 09:38:57

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 obligatory xkcd
https://xkcd.com/612/

2024-01-19 00:53:10

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 the only disappointment with minidisks was the storage. You'd think it could hold 600MB like a CD because it can hold the same amount of music - except that music was all compressed. I think the actual storage of an MD was like 250MB or so, and at that time ZIP disks were already everywhere

2024-01-16 08:33:54

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 we're already there though. Most DRM'd games from online platforms (Steam, Epic & Co) are tied to the life span of that platform. Notable exceptions being GoG and Itch. And even there - theoretically - you may just acquire a usage license in some cases.

2024-01-05 11:57:29

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I'm still on the fence if Star Citizen has one of the best monetization systems ever or if it's just a masterfully disguised DLC scam with a never-ending alpha product attached

2024-01-03 15:31:32

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 @npub1nlk…230r different blockers for different things - cookies, ads, tracking, etc. A 2nd adblocker might be useful for sites that know how to detect the popular ones, such as UBlock - just disable UBlock and rely on the other adblocker that the site doesn't know

2023-12-26 18:06:13

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I do love the fact though that I can use languages like Python, C# or Go these days. Back in "ye olde days" it was either Basic (very slow), C (sort of fast but tedious) or Assembler (very fast but slow dev speed) and neither was really a great choice for some quick programming

2023-11-28 07:38:38

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 maybe they should just look at the capital invested and draw a line there to separate big productions from small ones, so a 1-2 person developer doesn't have to compete with e.g. EA, Sony, or even Larian for that matter

2023-11-17 08:59:40

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 They're basically telling their investors to not pull the plug. "Hey, there's a lot of shit going on, but stay with us... we're still thinking of you!"

2023-11-10 13:53:18

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I have to add though, that it's Korean BBQ. Spicy pork belly and kimchi really make the beer flow... does that count at mitigating factor?

2023-11-10 13:39:19

drinking 2.3 liters of beer in 90 minutes. Is it reasonable? Just doing some mental gymnastics to figure out at what point you'll eat for free at a joint here in Singapore if you take up their free-flow beer promo

2023-10-20 15:27:29

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 >insert boromir meme< One doesn't simply program a node editor...

2023-10-15 11:29:30

I think the fact that Java is super verbose and explicit keeps saving my hobby game project... it's a lot of typing, but at least it's fairly easy to understand what I've been up to 6 months ago. I'm not sure if that would be the case with C/C++ and/or spending a lot more effort

2023-10-14 09:58:20

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 wait, games aren't software anymore?

2023-10-13 15:08:51

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I use Obsidian and PureRef. PureRef is nice if you have a lot of graphics - it's basically a digital collage board

2023-09-29 07:44:39

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 well the joke is that Maya, internally, keeps connections between its nodes, and in theory it could be really powerful. But it's not. You quickly reach the point where it becomes a mess for anything other than driving some simple things like animations. And then Houdini came along...

2023-09-29 07:40:10

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 Maya does this mess for free if you just pick a node and choose "graph from here" in the hypershade

2023-09-19 14:15:26

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I don't think I got smarter in coding. There's still language features I haven't used and constructs I'm not familiar (comfortable?) with. But I think I got more experience in architecture and keeping things maintainable. That knowledge is also quite transferrable

2023-09-19 06:34:36

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 When you're Elon Musk every day is 1st of April

2023-09-15 14:20:02

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 yeah, I haven't programmed it in a while, but it's pretty idiot proof. I abstracted away my sprite drawing class and audio handling, so now I'm mostly dealing with my own code and the basic language features, which just suits me.
I've been considering C (I might still port it later), but with pointers and memory management, there's just too much overhead and risk for quickly programming/prototyping when doing solo dev.

2023-09-15 14:15:26

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I picked olde unsexy Java for my 2D game. It includes an accelerated canvas and runs on multiple platforms. Maybe not as portable as C but it's a bit quicker for prototyping and trying things out

2023-09-13 05:35:42

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 just what the world needs: even more telemetry! /s

2023-09-10 13:12:53

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 good thing is that if you're doing anything remotely with 3D on your Mac you long have this mouse swapped out for something with a proper middle mouse button

2023-09-01 10:51:31

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 gotta mention that Jetbrain's subscriptions are a good deal, because if you subscribe for at least 12 months you'll keep access to the last version you were subscribed to

2023-08-29 10:25:36

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 pffft AI.. the Blockchain wants its hype train back!

2023-08-15 08:01:31

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I always wondered how in Idiocracy they have all those computers while everyone is so dumb. I guess that's where AI comes in

2023-08-15 07:52:28

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@npub1aw2…8vv5 I'm pretty happy with Jetbrain's IDEs. They can do a lot, but if I just want to code, setting up a new project is pretty quick and unless you ask for it, the IDE is doing a good job staying our of your way.

2023-07-12 21:14:04

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@npub1mc3…nkdg beside that taxi there was only one car in Lerisure Suit Larry 1, and that car was the car that killed you the moment you stepped on the road