Sign in

loren schmidt

@lorenschmidt.bsky.social
12K followers 5.1K following 29K posts

i make art, mostly with computers. currently working on an open world RPG with roguelike roots and an experimental bent. cat mom. she / her or they / them.

PostsRepliesMedia
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 5m
thinking, in the middle of moving boxes: there's a spectrum between having all structures be just-in-time generation/sim (to sync with world sim population) and having world sim actually manage construction. and theoretically you could have /all/ buildings be in the world sim, and spatialize jit.
000
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h
i am helping a friend move today but as of yesterday, the "historical window" village generator is largely first pass functional, ready to be calibrated and hooked into some other moving parts like world sim events & NPC routines! this opens doors. i am thinking about uses for the technique a lot.
190
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 2h
6 days until dark arisen II. i really played this at the worst possible time haha. i am happy to be doing 2 runs though! it'll be neat chasing quests i missed and changing my very weird routing based on things i have learned.
120
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 5h
a lot of folks have expressed to me that they have fears of one sort or another about accessibility options making a game a polymorphic object. these usually orbit around intent.
5150
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 5h
oh this is such good news! i have been looking forward to this for months. if a beautifully made game with a unique feel, quirky enemies, and roots in king's field sounds good to you, do try the demo!
0201
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 16h
the dd2 character creator is so good. i'm just constantly impressed with how alive the characters feel.
1390
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 17h
7 days until dark arisen II
060
Reposted by loren schmidt
Rando Chrontendo @randochrontendo.famiconsumer.com · 22h
Chrontendo Episode 39 (00:08:27)
0366
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 23h
dragon's dogma 2 players- do you think it's better to /not/ know where the 12 new trials dungeons are, or, given that they have specific levels, it it a case where you want to know locations so you can plan an itinerary?
140
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 23h
i'm moving on to calibration now. if you place n houses at the beginning, exactly how long does it take for entropy to take them?
1100
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
this might be a new house in the middle of one or more previously rested regions. because of procgen weirdness they ended up with two wells right next to their house. i wonder why? maybe people didn't like one of them and dug a new one, only to find it was the same.
2310
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
that's an improvement! and i do think it helps. the shapes are talking to the house + field shapes. but if anyone has good approaches for rectilinear cell noise i'd love to hear about them.
2181
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
unrelated, but could you make your desktop computer into a partially enclosed anechoic chamber to (directionally) reduce noise? tricky with this generation of highly ventilated, hot hardware...
280
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
i was talking with a few folks about this recently- does anyone have any good recipes for cellular noise with rectilinear edges? this is max(abs(dx), abs(dy)), which has ortho and diagonal edges and maybe could be modified (or postprocessed?) to be rectilinear...
2182
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
i got nothing at all done yesterday for health reasons, but i'm fine today, and am doing more generative work. i have the "crop rotation" idea working and next, i want to refine it! + more nicely shaped regions + calibration of entropy rates vs. rest cycles
1150
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
tormenting myself / creating desirable anticipation by booting up the dragon's dogma 2 character creator to make my new characters over a week before i can play dark arisen. this time i'm going to not accidentally make everyone incredible short.
4380
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
this ended up with some really interesting thoughtful discussions in the replies, and ends up reflecting a lot of different experiences and perspectives. i wanted to add a few things here which are important to me as a designer.
3151
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
this new marathon shell looks great
0461
Reposted by loren schmidt
”Dizzy Yet” Pam, a Scrivener𓋇 @sesheta.chipchirp.digital · 28/09/2026
Test flight around GSV. Things need fixing still (plate terraij too simple, clouds are currently fixed, but its got a nice sense of scale and ability to manually or autopilot to a spot. I need to think up more greeblies. #rasdFastwalkerLeague
1233
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
ty for all the interesting conversations about difficulty and accesibility- i love this topic and it's always so interesting to hear everyone's thinking about it.
1200
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
i made a mistake when i first got into PJ Harvey. i got into her early albums (especially Dry) for the texture, and i think it made it quite a leap to get into anything else! then later, white chalk was a gateway: i have realized over the years that she's incredibly special as a songwriter and poet.
2110
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
i have my first pass implementation of the "crop rotation" idea working! it makes (for the time being, square) numbered regions at the top (these will have rectilinear puzzle piece shapes, i think). periodically it rotates which region is resting. i have to do a tuning pass so things fully decay.
1200
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
so for a simplest possible case, you have n regions, and periodically you run this and flip on and off parts of the screen so they can rest.
090
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
ha this is such a rabbit hole of related nonstandard techniques, i'm sure it's fairly opaque from the outside. but work on "crop rotation" is going well! the idea is that the screen is split up into numbered regions, and we periodically rest certain numbers. and that lets causal chains reset!
1120
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
does anyone have any recipes for rectilinear cellular noise? i know you can get really nice noise with ortho + diagonal region boundaries. maybe postprocess that?
380
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
the idea of games with a single difficulty level is so weird. it just doesn't make sense. how are devs supposed to magically target you, perfectly, sight unseen? people have all kinds of individual strengths and habits and weaknesses and accessibility needs? that's just not how it works.
4613911
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
i'm going out today but i want to try a technique for generation before i do- rotating regions and "resting" some of them. it's kind of like crop rotation, but for houses: and the thing i am resetting is causality, not soil depletion. bsky.app/profile/lore...
2140
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
kingdom come 2 thread in which i get further into the design and technical art for forest and wetland areas, demonstrate once again my intolerance for stealth mechanics, obsess over more foliage, and murder a priest for saying things about women.
2170
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
i think, because i really don't like the combat in kingdom come, my goal will be to be as unfair as humanly possible.
1150
Reposted by loren schmidt
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
oh that's another good modern example! may i repost?
121
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
ok i'm waiting for food to cook, time for more of the repugnant kingdom come 2, which is still repugnant but also still has really good forests and a lot of interesting details and mechanics.
6400
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
ok i think i'm done working for the day. starting to slow down. i found some fun notes while doing code archeology.
0170
Reposted by loren schmidt
葉いろ @hairo-iroha.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
おはようございます。 9月27日 日曜日 22℃ 雨 最高24℃ 最低20℃ 花も実も なんと可愛いこと。。。 #植物 コミカンソウ @botanical.bsky.social
316515
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
propagating
1251
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
what are some games you have played which have good forests? the game doesn't have to be good at all.
18161
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
doing archeology on my own project to figure out the architecture for the world sim / screen interface. it's how i remembered. agent array, then an actively maintained reverse spatial lookup for pulling entities currently in a screen (so you can eg run into a group of merchants traveling a road).
0100
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
other great examples: ossuary, by Cyningstan cyningstan.itch.io/ossuary
3736
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
this is a sort of bold, unabashedly large color blocking that i'm really into and am doing some of in my game.
3451
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
structure idea for a roguelike: 1 town, 1 dungeon, and there is a palace with horrible nobles in it up on the hill. you can try to murder the nobles at any point but it's probably not feasible unless you level some first. and then after that, there's the rest of the dungeon.
2395
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
village [[0,0,2,0,0], [0,1,2,0,0], [1,1,2,0,0], [1,2,1,1,2], [0,1,1,1,1]] #CA-turday
2325
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
this well ended up as a crossroads
2371
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
i got road hookups working. there are aligned with the roads laid down during world generation, and are guaranteed to connect to adjacent screens.
0240
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
the well is working! i am thinking about architecture- these both have a stored plan, and schedule repairs over time if eg walls crumble. that's actually very similar to the structure of rooms in some generators, so maybe i should merge those structures.
1160
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
well
3291
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
in this state, this village generator does feel pretty purposeful, and it does feel settled into the place. there are a few significant ways time is palpable. i have some more technical things to work out, but i think this is a good foundation! i'm going to add wells and road connections now.
1220
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
trying to diagnose a quiet rattle i hear sometimes at low CPU activity. my best guess is is it's my fan cooler, a decently reviewed but budget option. i took the fans out and dusted. nothing obviously visually wrong. i looked fan and PSU cables too. maybe one of them flutters at certain speeds?
7141
Reposted by loren schmidt
Aura/Moom @moomanibe.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
thinking about this again today, and not even in the context of procgen. The thing about systems design is that it's so easy to get excited about making little sandboxes for yourself that you forget the player needs insight into it, lest it simply appear the same as complete randomness.
8578126
Reposted by loren schmidt
Chris Perry @perridot.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Spending this #ScreenshotSaturday fixing bugs and enjoying the launch of my first game Oh!Ware. So close to 10 reviews store.steampowered.com/app/4121430/...
22313
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
i'm playing some more kingdom come 2 while waiting for dark arisen to come out. i'm currently sneaking around a group of highwaypeople and trying to get to a location where a pack of wolves has been sighted.
1270
loren schmidt @lorenschmidt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
while i was working on other things today, i had a thought about causal chains + options for dealing with them. when i'm generating things, i often add empty spaces on purpose- one technique is to place blockers which ensure things don't overfill.
150