Mike Tipul

@tipul

Independent Game Developer Previously: Pandemic Studios, Bungie, Theorycraft Games

214 Following380 Followers121 Posts

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Mike Tipul@tipul· 7d

Superconductor carapace flushed with condensed superfluid helium. Quantum stasis system. One occupant. Permanent seal. House of the Dying Sun is 70% off this week! store.steampowered.com/app/283160/H...

Mike Tipul@tipul· 10d

Finding Crawl's curses version extremely elegant and clean. Everything the game needs is right here, but not more. Even the seemingly small tilemap is just the right amount of tactical information to move quickly through the spaces (and a full map is still available on 'X').

Screenshot of a roguelike called dungeon crawl stone soup, with an adventurer on level 2 getting into a fight with a worm, rat, and kobold.

Mike Tipul@tipul· May 31

Souls does similar sorts of Utility-AI, but theirs is all done via Lua scripting where they're managing goals/tasks depending on light logic. It's a little messier since you're writing functions for each branch is annoying but the power is greater. ~524 individual AI scripts!

Mike Tipul@tipul· May 31

The State Tree engineering in Unreal 5 is kind of crazy. Being able to pipe data around to any parameter or task input/output/context seems really hard to do. Really powerful stuff.

Unreal state tree example from Epic's documentation

Unreal state tree details example from Epic's documentation

Mike Tipul@tipul· May 16

These views being filled with legit level geometry IS pretty cool though.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Mar 30

Vagrant Story's hand-painted shadows weren't new at the time, but damn did they did it so well. Pinnacle game art for the PS1 generation.

Library area from Vagrant Story with wireframe showing how it follows the shadow forms

Overhead view of the area, showing the long shadow casting

Mike Tipul@tipul· Mar 16

Yes! I've loved their music since high school and I finally got to see them on this same tour. I know their AV was always highly rated but I was not prepared! Amazing set.

Nine inch nails on the satellite stage during their latest tour.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Feb 10

Being able to add custom data for the save/load in any blueprint is also insanely useful. It just works. Or this function can be used to post-process the serialization.

Unreal graph showing the SerializeItem nodes that handle custom blueprint-centric data.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jan 23

Angel's Egg (1985)

"Oshii recounts that his mother said upon watching the film that nobody would watch his films anymore."

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jan 11

I am REALLY down this rabbit hole now. Chrome gets angry about some of these downloads so be careful. But the screens are really something else. krishty.com/acecombat_en Their terrain tiling workflow and art is so good.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jan 10

Not sure how I missed this but a player named Vezeto made a sick lego version of the Executor class interceptor from House of the Dying Sun. It's CRAZY close to the in-game model. Damn. steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/...

Lego version of House of the Dying Sun's main shit, the Executor fighter.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jan 5

First victory as a summoner build. It basically turned into an auto-battler by the end. I've been addicted to these builds since Diablo 2's Necromancer class.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jan 5

Highly recommend Path of Achra if you're into focused roguelikes, mysterious Wolfe/Vance-styled setting, and deep and connective combat sandboxes. It generously delivers broken build fantasies while remaining challenging. It's 50% off for a few more hours. store.steampowered.com/app/2128270/...

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jan 1

It's so magical. Just watched it again too. That entire era of De Laurentis filmmaking is so foundational to me and my brother, mostly the edited for TV versions that played constantly.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Dec 15

My space revenge simulator, House of the Dying Sun (narrowly) made the RPS top 100 PC Games list this year! 🙏 It's conveniently ON SALE at a 70% discount. Profits are directly funding whatever dark, weird, indie thing I'm working on next. store.steampowered.com/app/283160/H...

Rock Paper Shotgun blurb about House of the Dying Sun:

Not one to let bygones be bygones, the final order of your murdered emperor in House Of The Dying Sun is a punchy one: hunt the traitor lords and bring ruin to their people. So starts your short rampage through the solar system, blasting away fighters, frigates, and capital ships with vengeful abandon.

House Of The Dying Sun is a space combat game built in the mold of Wing Commander, Descent, and Star Wars: X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter. Each battle in its short campaign sees you warp into a map littered with asteroids and other stellar clutter, and a target you must terminate before their backup arrives and outguns you.

Played on a gamepad, your little fighter feels both nippy and powerful, able to pull off maneuvers that would be impossible in gravity. By holding down the left shoulder button, you can shut off your rear thruster and spin round to fire on enemies chasing you, all while retaining your forward velocity. It's the closest I've come to feeling like Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica outside of the demo for the (sadly cancelled) Beyond the Red Line Freespace mod.

While there are larger and more complex space fighter games, they overstay their welcome and run out of ideas. House Of The Dying Sun is an adrenal shot of moody cool space shootery. And, if you've a VR headset, it's one of the best games to play with a screen strapped to your head. – Julian

Mike Tipul@tipul· Dec 12

ROUTINE! After all these years! They nailed the Aliencore aesthetic with (I think?) a very tiny team still. I'd LOVE to see a breakdown of how they got Unreal to look like this.

Creepy hallway in an abandoned moonbase.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Nov 1

These are the earliest screenshots I have, one of which is just called ai.png, and I'm assuming it's when I got my first ever steering behaviors working. The other is a simple camera/controls test. 3rd person!

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jun 30

My combat-drifting assassination simulator, House of the Dying Sun is 70% off this week thanks to the Steam Sale. Check it out if you haven't. Be the Dragon. store.steampowered.com/app/283160/H...

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jun 25

I should watch this again soon to forget about this INSANE heat. $15mil budget! The casting is insane. The effects still got it. Focused scope and locations. The lighting is on point. (Split diopter alert?)

Mike Tipul@tipul· Jun 13

Some old #Procreate toned paper tests

Charcoal-ish sketch of a costumed priest

Mike Tipul@tipul· May 8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgJv... "I can't separate the sense of expansion from the horizon. The horizon is where we want to be. It's where we want to go. It's where the whole of the human heart is aimed, and beyond." Solid interview with John Harris. Does not embed, have some art instead!

Mike Tipul@tipul· Feb 7

Looks like it's not? I can't be 100% sure though and I hate this timeline for it.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Oct 31

Happy Halloween!

Mike Tipul@tipul· Oct 19

Tried pastel pencil in moleskine sketchbook -- not really the best for this kind of stuff. Too messy, not enough tooth.

Mike Tipul@tipul· Oct 19