This last weekend, I was looking at a few of my new Trials weapons and thinking, “Huh, I wonder if these have good rolls. Who do I trust to give me a weapon review with multiple points of view that could help me come to a decision?”

I think it’s only right that this cool guy gets a bit of spotlight in our Community Focus series. Maybe you’ll find a few weapon reviews to help you understand perks, stats, and more! Enter: CoolGuy.

So, CoolGuy, what makes you so cool aside from these weapon reviews? Who are you, what do you do for a living, and what inspired your callsign? 

CoolGuy: Hello everyone, I am CoolGuy. I am a Radiologic Technologist. I have worked in emergency rooms, operating rooms, clinics, and more. In 2014, I came across a game called Destiny, made by one of my favorite developers, and I liked it so much I made a YouTube video using my Xbox. The thought of making a video hadn’t crossed my mind until Destiny, so initially I was just making content as a hobby. Fast forward five years and add an awesome community who supported me and helped me see this as a possible future, and now content creation is my day job.

The CoolGuy moniker was given to me back in high school. I always got along well with everyone, regardless of their hobbies or backgrounds. I played videos games, varsity golf, pool, enjoyed all kinds of music and concerts, etc. One day somebody called me a “cool guy” and it stuck. I first got on Xbox Live in 2009; naturally, CoolGuy was taken. Hundreds of other variations of CoolGuy were also taken (MLGCoolGuy, SnipeMasterMLGCoolGuy, C00LGuy, XI CoolGuy IX, etc.). After a while, I decided to let everyone know that “I am CoolGuy” (the one and only).

What brought you to start doing weapon breakdown videos specifically?

CoolGuy: I ended up having a passion for it. I was fortunate enough to be included in the early days of Planet Destiny with Patrick Casey (Holtzmann). For me, his breakdowns really set the bar and, like many now look to me, I always looked to him to help me improve my game. Like we all do, I imitated the style of content I gravitated to as a player so, when I started creating my reviews, I based them loosely on how he broke down weapons.

The goal with my channel is to put out unbiased information. I always share my opinions throughout, but the ultimate goal is to educate the player and help them understand what something is doing and how it works so they can then apply that knowledge to their game. From day one, it was incredibly important to me that my channel and the comments section provided a judgement-free zone. Your skill level doesn’t matter; we’re all improving daily, and when you better understand the mechanics of the game, it really opens up what’s possible for you however you like to play. At the end of the day, we all share the same passion for games and they’re a hell of a lot more fun when we’re doing well in them.

It’s been awesome seeing you and your channel grow with each Season. Two weeks into Season of the Worthy, what’s your favorite loadout? 

CoolGuy: I’m a bit of a weapon wayfarer, meaning there aren’t too many I find myself solely attached to. I really do use them all—one of the perks of my job I guess – because I’m always hunting to review the new weapons and gear, I’m constantly playing the game in very different ways. If I had to choose, my favorite way to play is as a Hunter with Oathkeepers. Le Monarque and a rampage Duke is the combination. That unlimited bow draw guarantees you always get poison damage. Just hold the bow draw and, when you see an enemy, aim down sights and shoot. With how the total damage works out (poison included), if you land a headshot with the bow, all you need to do is land a shot with Duke. If you land a body shot with the Bow, you need a headshot with the Duke. After you clean them up, Duke will be at Rampage x1 doing 100 damage to the head, allowing you to two-shot your next opponent.

I can tell you no one suspects the Le Monarque/Duke – I take it all the way to Legend in comp.

A close second favorite is probably anything Chromatic Fire on the Warlock… because explosions.

Season of the Worthy did bring me something I will forever be attached to, though. It’s what my friends call the “CoolGuy emote.” I love that it says “CoolGuy looks Cool.”

Ah, good ol’ Duke. One of my coworkers loves it so much, it’s their call-sign. Of any weapon in Destiny or Destiny 2, which is your favorite?

CoolGuy: My favorite weapon of all time is Ace of Spades. For all of us, there are certain aspects of the game that define what Destiny is for us and how playing it makes us feel. For me, Ace encompasses everything a Destiny Exotic weapon is. It sounds cool. It looks cool. When you land a headshot, you get that fast reload and a cool animation. The headshot final blow makes explosions and then you get to hold extra damage in the magazine after you get a kill. The whole shooting experience is just top notch. I feel like a gunslinger with Ace in my hands.

Cayde would be proud of every single word you just said. Brings a tear to our eyes! Where do you find yourself most active in Destiny right now? Favorite Crucible playlist?

CoolGuy: I spend most of my time in the Crucible, the Mars Core Terminus lost sector, and the Tribute Hall. Okay, the last two aren’t by choice, they are just really good testing areas. I am glad Season of the Worthy has taken steps to really address PvP players. Trials of Osiris is something I can’t get enough of. I am already back to refreshing Twitter every second to see what the map is on Friday afternoon. Seeing a high-stakes 3v3 game mode like this come back gives me hope that this is only the beginning and a great foundation for future possibilities.

Do you have a Last Word to share before signing off? Hah! Get it?! I made a weapon pun! You make weapon reviews! But seriously, any words of wisdom before you go?

Thanks for stopping by. Don’t be a stranger, and we’ll be watching for your next review. Cheers!

We hope you enjoyed this week’s Community Focus. If you’d like to follow CoolGuy, here are a few places you can find their content:

Cheers,

-dmg04

I hope everyone is enjoying the latest snapshot!  If you’ve been experiencing some issues well Mojang has come out with a snapshot to fix a few bugs.

• MC-175177 – Exhausting, breaking or obstructing the respawn anchor creates ghost blocks in the overworld when breaking blocks
• MC-175988 – Dying without a valid spawnpoint causes a softlock
• MC-176004 – Cannot interact with the world after dying in the end or the nether without a valid spawn point

Happy crafting folks!

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Westminster, Colorado​

Health Scholars is looking for a talented, driven, creative Technical Artist to help design and build the next generation of interactive VR educational training applications. The Ideal candidate would have demonstrable experience working with the Unity engine and 3D graphic art production pipelines. This role is for someone that not only has great technical production depth, but also has artistic chops and an interest in research and development of new tools and in engine features and content.

About Us:  

Our mission is to advance healthcare education through virtualization, making experience-based training scale-able, accessible and affordable to both Healthcare and Public Safety providers. Health Scholars is a cloud-based, Virtual Reality (VR)-ready clinical training platform with VR Simulations, Simulation Management, and Clinical Readiness Reporting solutions for the management, delivery and analysis of clinical training. Our VR simulations extend physical simulation beyond the simulation center, enabling repeatable practice of proper workflows as well as critical soft skills like communications, situational awareness and critical thinking.

  Responsibilities  

• Develop and streamline tools for asset delivery from Maya into our game engine and Unity (including models, animations, FX, and shaders).
• Improve art and animation implementation in Unity by writing tools and establishing automated workflows.
• Solve visual issues and enhance fidelity within Unity with script and tool creation.
• Responsible for collaboratively developing the production pipeline to ensure efficient asset creation and delivery, and a streamlined process for artists and engineers.
• Develop shaders in Maya and Unity, and collaborate with engineering for parallel development in the game-engine.
• Contribute and assist in other areas like character/environment rigging and FX for creating, debugging, and streamlining asset production.
• Build, maintain and troubleshoot production pipelines.
• Help to drive and direct overall character and asset pipeline for future project needs, with tool/workflow development geared towards extensibility and flexibility for upcoming needs.

  Required Skills / Experience  

• 3 to 5+ years experience as a technical artist – or equivalent capacity – in 3D game development.
• Strong art skills with experience and deep understanding of modeling, texturing, animation, and VFX & lighting for games.
• Maya: in-depth knowledge, experience with the API (Python or C++), strong scripting skills in Python/PyMel.
• Unity Shaders: in-depth knowledge of real-time shader implementations, limitations of shaders in VR, strong understanding of PBR pipelines, and subsurface shaders.
• Strong understanding of asset integration in Unity including importing models, rigged characters and animations, sprites and textures, and audio. Ability to write tools to standardize and automate these processes.
• Specialty in one or more of the following highly desirable;  
  
  • Shader pipelines and Shader tools
  • Character Rigging (Body and Facial) and Animation pipelines
  • Art creation Art asset pipelines

Desired Skills / Experience  

• Passion for playing and making VR and AR VFX productions.
• Proficient with profiling tools in the examination & diagnosis of performance issues.
• Interest and capacity to work with proprietary toolsets
• A portfolio / reel submission – including a detailed breakdown of your work in each section – is required with all applications
• Experience shipping multiple games or applications, and have a good understanding of software development lifecycles.
• Understanding of Unity visual effects such as particle systems, VFX Graph, and post processing.

Bonus Points:  

• Familiarity with the following Software: Motion Builder, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, ZBrush, Photoshop,
• Experience with creating VR or AR games or applications
• Profiling and performance optimization of applications
• Experience with project tracking and version control tools

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

“Though they are different genres, Mario Kart and ARMS are like siblings,” said Kosuke Yabuki, Game Director of Mario Kart 7 and 8 and producer of ARMS at the 2018 Game Developers Conference.

While there may appear to be few surface-level similarities between the games, Yabuki argued that lessons learned on Nintendo’s long-running racing game series informed many aspects of Nintendo’s new fighting game IP.

It was while chatting with a designer on his team, that Yabuki began to consider the possibility of creating a fighting game where the camera was position behind the player’s character, as in Mario Kart, rather than from the side.

Fighting games typically use a side-on perspective because it makes it much easier for the player to judge the distance between combatants, he said.

What if it was possible to position the camera in such a way that players could have the same sense of spacing and control from a Mario Kart-esque behind-the-character perspective?

Yabuki’s team prototyped the idea using rudimentary 3D characters whose arms extended across a boxing ring, to give a clear sense of distance and space. As in the final game, players could switch apply different weapon-like fists to their characters’ hands, and bend the arm as it extended in order to chase its target.

“It felt like a shooter in a way,” said Yabuki. “Even at this early stage, you could have a tactical battle.”

“Very few of the prototypes that the R&D teams design at Nintendo blossom into commercial games,” Yabuki said. This is because Nintendo expressly looks for game ideas that deviate from existing game styles and fashions.

“If [Shigeru] Miyamoto asks me the question: “What’s different about this, and I don’t have an answer, then I’m finished,” he joked.

As Yabuki’s team added art and animation to the game, at first only the fist extended. They found that the action on screen was too slight and unsatisfying. When the team changed the animation so that the entire arm extended, ARMS found its essential and defining novelty. “Flicking the Joy-Con made it feel like your own arm was extending into the screen,” Yabuki said.

Extending arms also felt like a Nintendo-esque conceit. The team did not feel that the extendable arm function needed to be explained in the game’s fiction. “The answer to the answer to the question: ‘Why do these characters have extendable arms?’ is,” Yabuki joked, “Because Nintendo.”

“Using a behind-the-back camera allowed us to flesh out the 3D stages, something we’d been doing all along for Mario Kart,” he explained. The team put “a lot of effort and thought” into the characters’ clothing in order to get across that this is a serious sport in the ARMS world. “When working on Mario Kart 8 we made a lot of fictitious brand names and logos, and we were able to use that experience in ARMS.”

ARMS also drew inspiration from Mario Kart in the way in which it introduced the element of luck into the competitive arena. “The luck element in Mario Kart is huge,” Yabuki said, in reference to the race-upsetting role that shells and other items present in the racing game series.

“That element of luck is also present in ARMS”, specifically in the sense that players don’t know precisely where the punch will go, or whether it will land dependent on the opponent’s actions.

With such a variety of different character and arm permutations in the game, Nintendo used AI matches to ensure that no one particular combination was significantly better or worse than another. Balance has continued to be tweaked post-launch, he said.

“We also spent a lot of time considering the characters’ athletic bodies,” he said. “That is, admittedly, a little different to Mario Kart.”

In pursuing the art and technique of good game design, no experience is wasted, said Yabuki. “Good game design is universal.”

This resource is meant to be the ultimate collection of Python One-Liners. If you have an idea for a one-liner to be published here, send me a message at chris (at) finxter.com.

Find All Indices of an Element in a List

Say, you want to do the same as the list.index(element) method but return all indices of the element in the list rather than only a single one.

In this one-liner, you’re looking for element 'Alice' in the list [1, 2, 3] so it even works if the element is not in the list (unlike the list.index() method).

lst = [1, 2, 3]

indices = [i for i in range(len(lst)) if lst[i]=='Alice']

index = indices[0] if indices else None

print(index)

Ahhhhhhhhhhh. #KillingEve returns two weeks early, Sunday, April 12 at 9pm on @BBCAmerica and @AMC_TV. pic.twitter.com/lNJlfjCoPr

— Killing Eve (@KillingEve) March 27, 2020