Ross Scott

The Postman isnt spying on you Freeman, you're just being paranoid

 

 

I wish Kevin Costner would spy on me sometimes.

Like in Mr. Brooks?

So Freeman has a body count of 174 people so that means he would be one of the biggest mass murderers in history the disturbing part is there are still a few in real life that have him beat.

Not really, I think the majority of his kills are justifiable homicides in self defense. I would argue almost all are, but if you wanted to give the soldiers the complete benefit of the doubt, you would have to count every kill where a soldier has fired his weapon at him FIRST as justifiable homicide and everything else as a murder. There are iffier situations where the soldier laid a trap, but you're not sure which one. (like the pipe explosion trap).

 

EDIT: You could go farther and argue every soldier point his gun AT Freeman could count, given his circumstances thus far.

gotta agree with RandomGuy on this one. This whole series Freeman has been bumbling around trying to save his own skin. I was hoping Freeman would finally have an 'I have to save the earth!" epiphany, but it was just more of the same. Though 'the same' is still very good, I think there was a real missed opportunity for a change in Freeman's character and an even more dramatic finale.

While I added a lot of flavor, like egomania and paranoia, my thoughts on Half-Life, Xen, etc. mostly mirror what I thought when I first played it. I feel like so many people look backwards through a lens on what Half-Life with the benefit of lots of extra information. I haven't read much additional lore, I haven't read "raising the bar", I'm going by JUST what the game gives me, and it's not all that much. How does Freeman know he's really saving the world? The scientists have been wrong before. Can he even get back? The ending is just bizarre, abrupt, anti-climactic, not some victory moment aside from killing a large creature. Evem Randomguy said before that he didn't fully understand what was going on the first time he played. That's exactly what I wanted to stick with.

 

(who would think that the G-Man is just a regular CIA agent?)

Well he refers to government property, implying that he already has knowlege. Besides the vibe he gives off, "g-man" is a term way older than Half-Life.

 

I wasn't really expecting him to suddenly want to save the world. I just expected him to change his demeanor a bit as he grasped the situation.

There just wasn't enough time, I definitely would have said more, but I had to cherry pick what I wanted to say most given my time gaps.

 

Overall, I think it'd take a lot to actually mess with him, if anything can at all. In a way, you can say his lack of empathy or surprise is what makes him so good at killing aliens.

I had this thought from the beginning, believe it or not. I realized someone paranoid with some psychopathic tendencies might actually be able to survive that situation better than a well adjusted person.

 

That brings me to point two: I would pay cold, hard cash to have this continue into HL2. I'm not joking here. I don't care how you do it, launch a Kickstarter with no prizes whatsoever except cans of beans, set up a Patreon where people get a video plus a smack in the face per month, whatever you need to do.

My answer to the HL2 question is complicated, that's partly why I'm saving it for the video. It's not really a yes / no thing for me, more like a combination lock.

This falls squarely under the category of "this isn't a problem until it becomes a problem" for me. So if you want to host a twitch streaming event on twitch TV, that fine. If it becomes so successful you have it on a non-stop loop, my traffic falls on the Youtube channel 50% and you start getting hundreds of thousands viewers, then it's not so fine. That's not a very likely scenario, so I'd say for now don't worry about it.

I'll add the downloadable videos once I've recuperated some.

 

Regarding the torrents: I don't have a problem with people doing it, though I'd like to keep it more on an "enthusiast" level rather than advertise it everywhere. If people only find out about it from doing a torrent search or coming to the forums, that's fine. People watching the videos on Youtube still helps me out tremendously and while I want people to enjoy the videos, I want to strike a balance between giving people the best viewing experience v. not shooting myself in the foot.

Hey for the record: While I don't have a problem if you want to edit together the video and share it with friends or something, I'd appreciate people not weaving it together and posting it on Youtube, that siphons traffic away from me that I still depend on. I don't mean to be a jerk about it, but that sort of thing actually would create problems for me.

I have to get some more sleep, but here are some replies so far:

 

That being said, I am crying right now. The completion of the long journey, reading everyone's sentimental stories about how they were in middle school or high school when Freeman's Mind started, and are now out of college, some even married with children, able to see the series end.

It almost feels like some kinda chapter of my life has come to a end considering i have been watching this since it started its going to be kinda odd but well done Ross well done enjoy the rest while it lasts Lol

I'm not sad that the series ended, but It feels weird that FM, or atleast the HL1 part, ended, like there is a void of emptiness in my free time.

The best 1/3 of my life is over. Time to end it all.

Ugh, where's that 10 hour Sad Violin video? I think I need it right about now.

 

Everyone will have their own opinion of course, but I can say with confidence I really think my best work is ahead of me. A lot of people are talking as if I'm retiring, but I hope to be making videos decades from now, it's a matter of figuring out what to focus on where. And I can't resist, for anyone getting too affected emotionally by the ending, I recommend checking out this link for testimony from someone who's been affected EVEN MORE than you (contains audio)!

 

http://tiredgamer.ytmnd.com/

 

It is difficult for me to find something entertaining these days. Most shows, movies, games, even Youtube videos are largely just recyclings of the same stuff I've been seeing my whole life. Barely anything interests me anymore.

It's going to take time, but this is a problem I want to continually address.

 

Take what time you need to recharge and not go crazy on us.

This is going to be a CORE THEME of the video for January.

 

I think most of us here on the forum knew that you went the extra mile, but I didn't know it was THAT bad.

To be honest, what I showed isn't even the most consuming part, it's mostly doing many takes, editing it down one line at a time, then trying to position that within the timing slot for the game that eats up everything. Like if I have something funnny to say for 8 seconds, but it needs to be within 6, I have to rethink it and start over on that.

 

Off Topic: You're over 100K subs, doesn't youtube give you a silver trophy for reaching that amount?

Beats me, they haven't told me about anything.

 

It took a while but you stuck with it and we all appreciate your perseverance despite technical difficulties, trolls and others who shall be politely referred to as 'negative influences'.

Most of that doesn't bother me, I do feel bad when people are frustrated when the videos aren't out faster, but something like Civil Protection would never exist if that was my only focus. The only comments that were bugging me were the ones trash talking about me not making it in time and breaking my promise, when it wasn't even the end of the year. Challenging people to bet against me and put their money where their mouth was took away ALL frustrations with that.

 

 

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for the positive comments, and I plan to address almost everything brought up in this thread in the video later.

 

 

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

 

Behold the final episode of Freeman's Mind! I think most people will agree it ends on a pretty strong note. This episode ended up being pretty grueling to get done due to all the finale content. I originally meant to have this a day early, but the number of fixes was so massive I'm coming in just under the wire here. This is my own fault, since I tried to squeeze in Game Dungeon episodes also. That's really the story of Freeman's Mind: it would have been done a long time ago if I hadn't been working on other things this whole time.

 

Freeman's Mind is complete! The curse has been lifted! Now I can turn back into a human! On that note, sometime in January I plan to make a video appearance and try to answer all the biggest questions people have and lay out all the

 

plans for Accursed Farms for 2015 and beyond. I'm having a video camera sent to me as a late Christmas present, so I'll start filming as soon as it arrives. My guess is it could be mid January before it arrives, so you may have to wait until then. I've found that video is far more effective at communicating to the entire fanbase than just posting information here (or in the credits, as you'll find out once you watch the episode). So if you want answers, you're just going to have to wait until sometime January, sorry.

 

Right now I'm pretty burned out, I was neglecting just about everything in order to make the episodes in time, so I have a whole bunch I need to catch up on. After I've recovered a little bit and dealt with more urgent things, I'll start updating the website and replying to many emails and donators I've gotten lately. I seriously was putting off everything in order to make it to this point. If you're wondering what the "secret" was to getting so many videos out. It was simply, do NOTHING BUT Freeman's Mind for MONTHS.

 

I saw a lot of comments about people feeling saddened that the series is finishing, but I plan on making tons more videos, just not necessarily Freeman's Mind in the near future. I don't really have some huge epiphany about the series, to me it's one project that just seemed to never end. I'm glad I did it, but there's a whole bunch of other stuff I'd like to do also. There will be many more videos coming for 2015! I just need to go into one of those medical tanks like Luke Skywalker for a while first.

 

- - -

 

ADHD version : Freeman's Mind is complete! Ross worked hard on it. Questions will be answered later!

 

LINK TO COMMENTS

It's going to take a little longer, the volume balancing alone on this one took over 6 hours. I really hate volume balancing.

Don't forget - we won't appreciate a so-so video AND a lost bet, but everyone would love it to see an awesome video AND win a bet.

You say this like this thought hasn't occurred to me. I will be surprised if anyone is disappointed with the last episode.

 

Don't forget, Ross said that with the last episode there'd be a load of announcements and such. We'll know exactly what he's gonna do afterward!

That is coming, but I plan to make a video out of it, so it won't be right away, but definitely in January.

 

11:56 PM in Poland.

 

He said he would like to get it out by the end of today, but the way he worded it, I don't expect that outcome.

Yeah, it's several hours out still. I'm estimating 3 to complete the editing, then another 2 for encoding and uploading.

It's a great feeling knowing that Ross is on a deadline. Any hour he could release the final(?) episode of the series. So I'm just sitting here refreshing away.

It won't be any hour, there's a still a hell of a lot of editing for this one. I'm going to try my best to get it out later today, but no promises.

Thanks to everyone for all the positive comments

 

Did you use 60 fps to simulate dizziness, or am I imagining things?

No, it's 30fps, but I used a temporal soften filter for that part.

 

Personally, I'm excited about that dark-comedy fantasy movie idea you were talking about forever ago - hopefully that sees the light of day when your engine woes clear up.

Yeah, the short version of the announcement video later is that I really want to focus on the movie with easier-to-produce videos that will keep coming out in the meantime. I plan on covering a lot of questions though.

 

stoked/devastated to see the end of the series coming soon...

 

Though I can't wait to see it, and your other projects have been just as good, got hooked on game dungeon before I even watched it. lol

This may sound counter-intuitive, but I hope to have even MORE videos out for 2015, the workflow for FM can slow things down a lot.

 

Game Dungeon continues to be entertaining, and wonderfully UNIQUE in terms of YouTube content -- I love the quality of your work, and your ability to subvert popular YouTube tropes.

I think it mostly has to do with me not being aware of what the tropes are to begin with. While I find the internet incredibly useful, I can't say I'm the biggest fan of mainstream internet culture. I like that "I am disapoint" guy though

 

Ross, i had to register to warn you - you forgot to add thumbnail for this episode.

I didn't, Youtube apparently just didn't care. I tried to re-enable it again.

 

Whatever Ross' next project will be, I'm sure it'll be great, though.

I intend to have my next big project (game dungeon and other ideas being smaller ones) blow everything else I've done away by a large margin

 

What was the point of not having Freeman be affected by Healing pools or Healing showers?

It's impossible to play a normal FPS and even resemble a realistic experience because of magical healing, so I passed it off like the suit protects against everything since I was trying to have Freeman treat things as believably as the game allows.

 

 

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

 

The end approaches for Freeman! I don't have a whole lot to say since I've been spending so much time in the game it all starts to blur from one area to the next for me. Freeman Freeman Freeman. This episode was a bit of a break, since areas that don't involve constant shouting tend to go much faster than ones where he's under constant attack, and there's a fair amount of cooldown time in this level. I still intend to make good on my promise to finish the series this year, but I'll need a few days to finish things off, as there is some bonus stuff I'm adding.

 

See if you can spot the hidden body falling in the episode! I didn't notice it until late in editing.

 

LINK TO COMMENTS

Also, "Precious Burden", the menu theme song, came out 5-6 years after the game, no joke.

 

How did you even recognize the game's soundtrack as Point Defiance?

 

He probably listened closely to what little lyrics are left and then searched up the words. It's 2014, so the song already came out AND we have technology to help us with that.

It's in the credits of the game.

Yeah, I mentioned that in the post above in the added notes. By the time I noticed mobygames didn't have all the information I was practically done and didn't want to cut out that part anyway. I will say Mobygames shows the Windows USA copy coming out in 2000 however:

 

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/polaris-snocross/release-info

 

It also shows the infogrames copy as not existing, so go figure. Also, the Wanadoo copies came out before December. I swear, there's like 10 different versions of this game. Also, "Precious Burden", the menu theme song, came out 5-6 years after the game, no joke.

Should make one about a older RTS Strategy game its already kinda a niche genre to begin with but there are some great games out there for it thou and i really just hope to see something i have never heard of to play it lol

Oh I plan to, and I have a perfect one lined up, though it's going to take more time since it's more involved. Time has NOT been in ample supply this year.

I registered here specifically to make this comment (long time lurker here).

 

I think you found the right balance between video content and cut content with this episode. I specifically think this because ~20 minutes is a nice length, and also because I got to read all the content you almost put in the video but didn't. It's like an extra bonus just for those of us who care, while everyone else can go back to work (or whatever people do when not watching internet videos). Kinda like alt-text on webcomics.

I'm pretty happy with how this one came out as well. It's not about the length I'm aiming for so much as trying to chop down the episodes to just the best parts instead of every last fact about the game.

 

You might want to check out DxWnd to get better legacy DirectX emulation. It sells itself as "...intercepts system calls to make fullscreen programs running in a window, to support a better compatibility..." but it's really much more than that. It's a DirectX hack program that gives you a bunch of rendering and legacy DirectX emulation options, the kind of complexity you'd see in a console emulator.

I will definitely look into that, I hadn't heard of it. My guess is Polaris would still crash on launch under 7 anyway, but I might be able to use that for other games in the future.

 

I'm just curious, why not just have a second partition be a WinXP SP3 x86 install? That typically would allow for a lot of things to work properly.

I TRIED THAT. IT WON'T WORK. The game is a BASTARD. I had it running that way 3 years ago and the only thing that's changed hardware-wise since then has been my motherboard. I guess that was enough! I didn't even use a second partition, I just hooked up an extra smaller hard drive and installed XP that way.

I don't think you should focus too hard on making game dungeons concise. I can't speak for everyone, but one of the things I like most about these videos is how it's just some guy rambling about a years-old obscure and forgotten game. And the more rambling = more fun!

This is something I want to bring up for my announcement video after FM. I want to get a better idea of what the audience is looking for (I plan to cover a ton of stuff).

 

The big question is has the effort of this video cost you the deadline of finishing HL1 on released video by Jan 1 2015?

 

Only time will tell...

Hey, I'm still taking bets if you think I can't do it. I give you my word I'm not just sitting on the episodes, I still need to finish them off. I'm not starting from scratch though.

 

Yeah Im starting to think Polaris sno cross was a rip-off, it looks very similar, the tricks, the upgrade system etc.

Sled Storm one of the greatest games made (not blinded by nostalgia, I still play it)

It very likely is a ripoff, but I say there's no shame in creating a good ripoff. I'm not sure Snocross was that exactly. As for Sled Storm, I took a look at some footage of it, but it looks like they were pushing the draw distance too hard. I may be a bit spoiled now of being able to see the horizon.

 

tbh for some reason i was quite suprised to see xp as o

I run Windows 7, I couldn't go earlier than Windows XP and still have Direct3D support for emulation.

 

I kind of can't believe you used a hex editor to modify the game

I was following this guide:

 

http://www.wsgf.org/article/hex-editing-tutorial-simcity-4-example

 

I've actually gotten a game to work like this before.

 

Six days left...

 

The clock is ticking...

I don't want to see any more comments like this unless you've already made a bet. (if you have, I lost track).

While Civil Protection could return eventually, scenes like this are one of hundreds of reasons I'm abandoning the Source engine for future projects.

 

Anyway, I'm still working on the second part of the Christmas surprise. It should hopefully be out sometime later today!

 

- - -

 

ADHD version: Outtake from Civil Protection! Another surprise coming later today!

 

LINK TO COMMENTS

 

 

That was...Interesting. God damn, you jump through a hoop-and-a-half for every video. What engine/software do you plan to move onto, if you don't mind me asking? Considering Source 2 will no longer be a tower of duct tape, I think it's safe to say there'll be many, many less bugs.

 

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I need more time to research, I'm definitely leaning toward Unreal 4 though. Any modern engine will look great, whatever lets me get the most done animation-wise is the key.

Enjoy the first Christmas episode of Ross's Game Dungeon! If you're like me and you get sick of overly-sentimental content around Christmas time, then I think you'll like this episode. You're not going to get lots of heart warming affirmations for this video, instead, you're going to have some intense snowmobiling in a game loaded with enigmas.

 

Besides recording a racing game, it was a serious race for me to make this on top of finishing off Freeman's Mind this month, but I wanted to make a Christmas episode and didn't want to miss my chance two years in a row. At first I had massive problems getting it to run and almost considering doing a different game, but didn't think I had time for my other candidates. Also despite being shorter than some other episodes, this one might have taken the most editing work so far. No worries though, I wouldn't have made this if I didn't think I could finish Freeman's Mind in under a week. Even if the assistance I'm getting disappears and my computer catches on fire, I'll still get it made. I'm not prepared for a meteor strike, but anything less and I should be alright.

 

I think I'm slowly getting better at cutting down Game Dungeon to just the best parts as there were several parts I left out of this one to try and make it more concise. Here are some extra notes you might want to check out after watching video.

 

Extra things I could have said, but didn't :

 

-The game is actually capped at 29.1fps, this isn't a standard framerate for anything.

-The menus default to 640x480 and can't be changed.

-I considered having a slow motion snowmobile wreck set to "o come all ye faithful"

-I love the body language of the real life snowmobiler shown in the video. He gets off the sled like a cartoon character.

-This is a game that really would have benefitted from ragdoll physics.

-At one point I caught the computer teleporting ahead of me, but didn't have it on video. I also spotted the computer teleporting outside the track briefly.

-An alternative theory to Point Defiance's timeline is that Mobygames doesn't have enough damn information and I got confused since they don't even acknowledge the existence of my copy of the game. That still doesn't explain the 6 year gap in between the song release.

-I may have been a little hard calling Point Defiance's music generic. It's good, just not mind blowing (though Precious Burden is particularly good).

-Point Defiance actually Photoshopped out their old band member in their promo photos. It wasn't me!

-The files also had a "concept sled" model, but they would crash the game

-There was one additional track I didn't show, but it was just an indoor stadium. It probably would have added about 3 hours to the total processing time.

-I had an idea for game developers. Make a knockoff of this game, but in addition to normal racers, have lots of Christmas or winter themed snowmobilers. I would add Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, an elf, Frosty the Snowman, Jack Frost, a reindeer, a moose, a polar bear, and the old "New Year's Eve" man. I would make the graphics semi-believable for the full effect as opposed to going a cartoon route. It would also be awesome if Santa could do a biker kick.

 

- - -

ADHD version: Snowmobiles!

 

LINK TO COMMENTS

Hey everyone, I have TWO Christmas surprises coming! Here is the first one:

 

 

 

This is an "outtake" from the

for Civil Protection. I meant to release this years ago, but hadn't gotten to around it. While I've dealt with countless bugs with the Source engine, this is the only one that was actually entertaining to watch. I was so surprised by it at the time I recorded a quick videoclip of it here. What's interesting is you can see Mike's head still tracking the location of the cameraman. You might think this bug is the result of me doing something wrong or experimental, but no. I was giving it basic instructions and the engine just decided to do whatever the hell it wanted. While Civil Protection could return eventually, scenes like this are one of hundreds of reasons I'm abandoning the Source engine for future projects.

 

Anyway, I'm still working on the second part of the Christmas surprise. It should hopefully be out sometime later today!

 

- - -

 

ADHD version: Outtake from Civil Protection! Another surprise coming later today!

 

LINK TO COMMENTS

So we have a basic 3-day gap for episodes for now?

You can damn well bet I can live with that!

Cornwaffle is going to be out for Friday - Sunday, so sound editing work won't start on 67 until Monday, so no. Only deadline I'm promising is before 2015 on the series.

 

 

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

 

 

More Freeman's Mind! This episode, like many others, is pretty much more of the same, except in an alien universe. This area of the game might be my favorite in terms of the color and lighting. As a bit of a spoiler (watch the video first if you don't want to read it) I am disappointed the conveyor belt was unable to kill the controller. In one practice playthrough I got the barrel to shove it out of the room entirely. I'm not sure if the physics can kill it or not. I don't have a lot else to say about this episode except I was quite satisfied with the explosion sound quality.

 

I'm currently behind on reading comments and VERY behind on giving proper replies to donators and general emails. The same goes for updating a lot of the website links + adding video downloads. My plan is to catch up on all that after the episodes are over. I have seen some comments of people who suspect the bet was a ruse and this is done already, I promise it is not. While I was able to push ahead on a lot on the voicework, I'm going to be extremely busy between now and when I finish FM. I'm quite confident I'll make it, though I have some special stuff planned for the last episode, so it's going to take longer. More videos coming!

 

LINK TO COMMENTS

For the record, this episode took me longer than 3 days to make, but I had a queue built up while I was waiting for Otto. The other episodes aren't ready to go, but I have been working ahead as much as I can.

 

As for people getting depressed by being close to the end: I plan on having an announcements video (probably sometime early January) after I finish FM that will lay out all my future plans and answer a bunch of questions. The short version is while FM is kind of up in the air, I promise to make many, many more videos. I really don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that I think my best work is still ahead of me.

 

 

(Downloadable copy will be up later)

 

Freeman's Mind returns! This episode was almost a break compared to some of the others, since the screaming ratio was much lower than the past few episodes of Xen. Because of that, I anticipate people may not like it as much, there's usually a correlation between popularity of the episode v. how much screaming occurs. Also, some may be disappointed that this level does not play out quite the way it normally does. I don't know why this is, but I tried recording it 3 times and it was the same each time. Normally one of the tentacle monsters emerges and there is a flier overhead, but it simply did not trigger for me. So for those that notice their absence, it's nothing intentional on my part. Speaking of tentacle monsters, while practicing the level, I actually manage to blow up and kill one of the tentacles, which uprooted it out of the ground and caused it to flip upside down. I wish I had been recording a demo when it happened, as I absolutely would have put it into the video if I had. I have not been able to recreate the event however. More episodes are coming, though the only deadline I'm promising is still completion before the end of the year.

 

LINK TO COMMENTS