Nuclear Monster

  • Adi Robertson has a review up of the $200 Oculus Go, a VR HMD with a built-in old-ass (seriously, it’s from 2016) smartphone chipset for people without a Samsung phone:

    The Oculus Go improves on the Gear VR in one big way: you don’t need a high-end Samsung phone to use it, so the headset is convenient for people with iPhones or other Android phones. It also fixes a lot of minor annoyances that make using the Gear VR unpleasant. Its stretchy head strap has a comfortable split-backed design, and its velcro straps slide through plastic guides that make them easy to adjust. (If you have long hair, the split back also works better with buns and ponytails.) The headset doesn’t have a wheel for adjusting focus, but it comes with a spacer insert for people with glasses, and you can buy the headset with prescription lenses.

    I’m glad that VR is continuing to remove the tethers that make it cumbersome to use, but I’ll never buy anything from Oculus/Facebook. The Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) branded headsets sound much more interesting to me. Lower quality tracking with good screens at a lower cost compared to the big boy Vive and Rift.

    One more note, the website for this headset has this text:

    Screen Shot 2018 05 02 at 11 22 43 PM

    At first glance I thought to myself “Huh, this thing has surround sound? Why wasn’t it mentioned in the review?” which, of course it doesn’t. Give me a break.

  • Alex Pareene explains the first of May:

    International Workers Day is as American a holiday as there is. It commemorates, in part, the Haymarket Riot, a bloody 1886 clash between striking workers and Chicago police that was among the most consequential battles in both American labor history and the international fight for the eight-hour workday. A few years later, the International Workers Conference called for a worldwide strike in support of the eight-hour day on May 1, 1890, and from then on, May 1 was recognized annually…

  • The first time I ever saw a 3D printer in-person was at a robotics conference for software developers in Florida. That thing printed out a tiny little model of an intricate water jug and I was in awe.

    Imagine the look on my face when I woke up this morning and saw that ioquake3 developer Tim Angus had designed every 3D-printed part in this electric guitar.

    Here’s how Tim describes the project:

    When I was a teenager I made an electric guitar, because I couldn’t afford a real PRS. I fitted a Roland GK2A midi pickup to it, by taking it to bits and cramming it all into the body of the guitar, since at the time Roland didn’t make the internal version. I was never completely happy with it and for one reason or another I removed it after a few years, but after I got hold of a 3D printer, I realised I could do a much better job…

    If you want to keep up with the other problems that he solves with his ingenuity and a 3D printer, check out Tim Angus’ YouTube channel and follow his official Twitter account.

  • Getting Over It is Incompatable with all of my devices

    I’ve already written about how much I love Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, but I hadn’t written about the iOS version which has gotten much better over time and today there is an Android version on Google’s app store if you’d like to learn to master your frustration on a portable device. They’re both $5 and highly recommended. Although you might want to have a case on your device if something happens while you’re playing.

  • I love adventure games. Well, I love modern adventure games. They come in all shapes and sizes, but there’s a type that’s a sub-genre of the Walking Simulator style of adventure in which you get your narrative-focused Gone Home’s and your Tacoma’s and the occasional Firewatch.

    The news is that the developer of Firewatch, Campo Santo, is getting acquired by Valve. The good news is that they will continue to work on things they’ve been working on. This news won’t stop Firewatch from coming to Nintendo’s Nintendo Switch sometime this year. They’re also promising improvements to Firewatch on every other platform in the process of optimizing it for Nintendo’s Nintendo Switch.

    Campo Santo’s progresso on the new gameo In the Valley of Gods will also continue, that was announced late last year. Except now it’ll be a Valve thing, which is good for Valve because my understanding is that many of Valve’s writers have left.