Jason Thor Hall / PirateSoftware / Maldavius Figtree / DarkSphere Creations / Maldavius / Thorwich / Witness X / @PotatoSec - Incompetent Furry Programmer, Blizzard Nepo Baby, Lies about almost every thing in his life, Industry Shill, Carried by his father, Hate boner against Ross Scott of Accursed Farms, False Flagger

[TrainWreckWatcher]

• Cook for yourself instead of getting fast food
• Use as much basic ingredients as possible instead of kits and pre-prepped ingredients
• Buy in bulk
• Use a deep freezer, they're cheap and efficient
• Don't let food go bad
• Meat is almost always the most expensive component in a meal

This is information any functioning adult should know by the time they're the age of 21+ Devastating people don't understand this.

Ross has made it abundantly obvious he’s happy to clear anything that couldn’t have been put into the limited word count the Initiative requires up

And this again is why Jason loses all credibility. He immediately acted like anything Ross did was murder his family, piss on their graves, and salt the land.
Ross: "Well you're an expert lets talk it out explain things and make it a better bill."
Jason: "YOU MONSTER."

E:
I think the reason he doesn't say this about Asmongold or Louis Rossmann is he KNOWS they have a much larger audience pool than Ross. And he is terrified of acting this way towards them. Cause he knows its not punching down.

 

[Nabeshin]

Don't remind me of Theo. He's such a pretentious dick case on Twitter.

I began to hate that guy after his dickriding for Epic.

He loves to criticize Steam/Valve while he glosses over Epic problems, he more than once criticize Steam for it's lack of curation and the amount of Slop while "forgetting" that Epic habors way worse cryptoscam slops. He also loves criticizes the steam tax which while I think it's too high it's not mobile platforms(Google Play/Apple Store) where it's basically a monopoly, on computer you have GOG(which is 30% too), itch.io, EGS and more that charges less or devs like starsector who sells the game by themselves.

While I think that Steam tax is high, there's no way in hell that I wouldn't publish or complain from selling the game there, even more that I can sell it on other places for cheaper(if is not activated on steam) and profit more

 

[Hooked on phobics]

And this again is why Jason loses all credibility. He immediately acted like anything Ross did was murder his family, piss on their graves, and salt the land.
Ross: "Well you're an expert lets talk it out explain things and make it a better bill."
Jason: "YOU MONSTER."

I gotta admit though, its been highly amusing seeing the backlash. Ross isn't the type of person to get into huge fights with people, but I KNOW he did not appreciate being treated so shitty.

Fortunately, his fans aren't so conflicted about calling someone out for being a piece of shit. So Jasons getting tons of shit, and ross just goes about his day.

 

[LovisXVI]

While I think that Steam tax is high, there's no way in hell that I wouldn't publish or complain from selling the game there, even more that I can sell it on other places for cheaper(if is not activated on steam) and profit more

Reminds me of this great video by the late Shamus Young addressing most of the points people bring up, and how Steam provides a service that is so much better than the competitors that most of the complaints about it vs Epic are moot when actually looked at.

 

[TrainWreckWatcher]

I began to hate that guy after his dickriding for Epic.

He flipped on this and talks about how steam can do no wrong despite taking a 30% cut of everything cause they're the only real market.
Cause shitting on EGS is the safe thing.
He talks about how you can generate infinite steam keys to sell elsewhere with no tax from steam...
Wish I could find the damn clip.

 

[Nabeshin]

Reminds me of this great video by the late Shamus Young addressing most of the points people bring up, and how Steam provides a service that is so much better than the competitors that most of the complaints about it vs Epic are moot when actually looked at.

I watched that video when it came out and I totally agree. No other platform has forums(except GOG and Blizz), communities, stream capabilities, trading, mod support, reviews and more. Other platforms could do the same that Steam does but because they would angry their investors, they refuse to do it

 

[Lost Stylus]

From what I recall about the game, the story seems to parody Jason's own life.

Spoiler: Story spoilers if it even matters

You start as a child who is neglected by his parents. His dad of which is focused on quite heavily.
Act 2 has you go to what I believe is your dad's office building,
and Act 3 has you go to a land of furries. Perhaps like Second Life.
From the way it's going I wouldn't be surprised if the final act has you develop a game, and the boss is your shit code collapsing in on itself.

Perhaps it's a stretch, but it's funny to think about.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

This is information any functioning adult should know by the time they're the age of 21+ Devastating people don't understand this.

You'd be surprised at how many people don't know the basics of things related to food.

 

[complete freak]

His food advice reeks of someone who doesn't actually know how to buy food cheap and just knows some truisms that he thinks can make him more relatable to randoms on the internet.

Real poverty food homies know about rice, grains, and potatoes as household staples. Everything gets bought on sale, even better if it's end of the day 50% off sale item is on its best by date. Stock up whenever possible, on whatever is cheap enough. Fruits and veggies are often more expensive then the meat thats on sale, and you have to make sure to not let them go bad, so you can't bulk buy them unless that's all your eating for the next two days.

As for buying half or a quarter a cow, that's an expensive luxury for people who want meat they know the source of or higher grade meat. All the small slaughter houses and abbitiors I know of shut down, butchers are all some bullshit artisan thing now for people who can afford to spend more on meat. Cheaper cuts on sale are always cheaper, and you'll never find a quarter beef for $1.78-$2.66 in 2024.

Fucking fake faggot pretending he knows his spending habits at all while he's rolling in grifter money.

Taking advice from rich people shows how disconnected from reality they are.

"Guys if you can't afford a home, just buy a smaller home bro!"
"If you're a 3rd world Indian getting paid 0.2 cents an hour invest in some crypto scam bro."
"If you can't afford to eat good, then just wait until it's on 99% sale bro or something."

His advice only applies to people who have a lot of money and are not beholden to a single store. How can you buy in bulk if you can't afford bulk? How can you search for the cheapest prices if the next store to look at is a 3 hour drive away? How can you spend time to "Cook for yourself" when you work a dead-end depressing job that takes all your energy and motivation away? How can you preserve food if you might not have a fridge or pantry? And adding on that, how can you wait for sales if you need to buy food to actually eat then and there?

It's very easy for the rich to see problems the poor face as "choices" rather than symptoms of poverty. They think that if they were some homeless dude in the middle of a desert then they could use some strat to get rich again as if life were some shitty GTA Online server. I'd love to see these people not even be poor, but to just work some retail job in full time and see how they cope with not being able to splash thousands into food every week while giving their broke fans useless advice.

Part of me wonders if Thor's "Anyone can get into game development even if they make garbage code" grift is mostly because of his own incompetence rather than any sense of encouragement. As if the gaming industry already doesn't have a problem with frauds and "imposter syndrome".

It is obviously easy crowd to entertain They don't know better and rarely produce anything even closing to quality. Just look at amount of rpg maker games and engine tutorial copy pastes... People are desperate for validation and to get in on all that. Thinking they might make something, just like this guys...

He tells everyone to do it because it helps his grift. He's created the image of the helpful know-it-all when it comes to coding and developing, of course he'll want a fanbase who wants that. Game development is one of the worst things to pursue if you're doing it for financial gain: 99.99% of gamedevs don't ever finish shit, and if they do, only 0.1% of them end up being played by more than 2 people on a site like Gamejolt or Itch.

He damn well knows that if all his fans tried game development, most will crash and burn, but that doesn't matter because that's not the point. He wants a fanbase full of over-ambitious copers who feel the need to watch him to feel better about themselves and their doomed projects. He'll get more views, more paypigs, more praise and once the copers realize it's over, Thor will be there to gaslight them into thinking they're just not doing it right or that they need to try harder (I'd guarantee that Thor probably has less skills than a lot of the fans who seek his advice).

A shop isn't going to tell you to shop frugally, they're not going to give you a reasonable budget for shopping: they're going to want you to splurge as much shit as possible, you're just a cash cow to them. This is why shops will pretend to have sales on everything, so people feel the illusion of saving money. This is similar to how Thor only sees his fans as ad revenue and paypigs; he just needed to give them a motive to stick around, hence this "Anything is possible bro, just listen to me bro and you'll get there bro!".

 

[nukebot]

Jason made a video on being frugal with food, filled with different tips:

• Cook for yourself instead of getting fast food
• Use as much basic ingredients as possible instead of kits and pre-prepped ingredients
• Buy in bulk
• Use a deep freezer, they're cheap and efficient
• Don't let food go bad
• Meat is almost always the most expensive component in a meal

Can confirm. He's always been able to keep himself afloat. Always had enough money to "buy a new prius outright with cash" in the bank. By the looks of the house he picked up for 300k it's already paid off with the amount of money made from Heartbound and Breakfast of Champions (over 600k). He had a 4 Story Loft in Tustin for a short while but his brother moved out of state and dad moved out of country and Tacoma Washington is where is "Furry Clique" is located and allows him to be a hop-skip-jump away from his old Second Life Pals in Canada.

 

[Oddity]

Can confirm. He's always been able to keep himself afloat. Always had enough money to "buy a new prius outright with cash" in the bank. By the looks of the house he picked up for 300k it's already paid off with the amount of money made from Heartbound and Breakfast of Champions (over 600k). He had a 4 Story Loft in Tustin for a short while but his brother moved out of state and dad moved out of country and Tacoma Washington is where is "Furry Clique" is located and allows him to be a hop-skip-jump away from his old Second Life Pals in Canada.

Explains why he's a lazy fuck...

 

[Shekel Puff]

I see OP has the bits about him "coding his own raytracing". How recent are those screenshots? I bought Heartbound years ago, not even knowing who Maldavius is. I was just intrigued by the artstyle and was looking for games that could potentialy scratch my post-Undertale itch.
If those screenshots aren't very recent I can hop into the game to see if anything has changed.

 

[Spud]

A spook.

I have a feeling that he's lying. Yes the feds would hire someone to do that but they would also make them sign paperwork that forces them to keep quiet about what exact activities they wanted them to do decades after the fact.

 

[Ducks Sorted in a Row]

I see OP has the bits about him "coding his own raytracing". How recent are those screenshots? I bought Heartbound years ago, not even knowing who Maldavius is. I was just intrigued by the artstyle and was looking for games that could potentialy scratch my post-Undertale itch.
If those screenshots aren't very recent I can hop into the game to see if anything has changed.

I believe he took those from lets plays he found on YouTube, so they're probably pretty old. @Black Willow Lurker did later manage to get his hands on the game and found the raytracing.

 

[Hooked on phobics]

did later manage to get his hands on the game and found the raytracing.

Unless these lights move around maybe I'm pretty sure these are prebaked. I saw a short of his on it, where it was basically just a section of gamma / brightness boost, boosting the floor, and character walking into it. So not ray tracing, just basically a gamma boost sprite for light sources, and a deboost sprite for shadows on like people.

For a good benchmark of ACTUAL dynamic lights in a 2d game, intravenous is a very good example.
-line of sight has a slight light effect, based on what physically in the players line of sight. (purely aesthetic of course)
-Light from bulbs propagates more if a door is open to allow the light out, and the light updates in realtime. (light also effects stealth)
-despite being 2d, theres 3d effects, like overhead bulbs casting a shadow longer and longer the further away you are from the bulb.

You can see the lighting here is on another level, actually deserving the title of "dynamic lighting"

So yeah, I haven't played jasons game, but the most im seeing is "see?! we have lights! therefor its dynamic and raytraced!!" but it seems little more than sprite based, similar to how rimworld does it.

 

[Musashi's Son]

For a good benchmark of ACTUAL dynamic lights in a 2d game, intravenous is a very good example

The chad Intravenous

VS


The "20 years in the industry game dev"

EDIT:

According to the creator's linkedin, he worked 2 years as a programmer at a company, another 2 on a smaller game project and started developing Intravenous with 4 years of experience under his belt . So this guy which had 4 years of experience and released a game in 2 years out shined Jason who has "20 years of experience" and who is working on his game for 7 years.

 

[Muttley]

Oh hey this guy was defending Once Human's hilarious EULA

 

[Shinkai]

Unless these lights move around maybe I'm pretty sure these are prebaked. I saw a short of his on it, where it was basically just a section of gamma / brightness boost, boosting the floor, and character walking into it. So not ray tracing, just basically a gamma boost sprite for light sources, and a deboost sprite for shadows on like people.

For a good benchmark of ACTUAL dynamic lights in a 2d game, intravenous is a very good example.
-line of sight has a slight light effect, based on what physically in the players line of sight. (purely aesthetic of course)
-Light from bulbs propagates more if a door is open to allow the light out, and the light updates in realtime. (light also effects stealth)
-despite being 2d, theres 3d effects, like overhead bulbs casting a shadow longer and longer the further away you are from the bulb.

You can see the lighting here is on another level, actually deserving the title of "dynamic lighting"

So yeah, I haven't played jasons game, but the most im seeing is "see?! we have lights! therefor its dynamic and raytraced!!" but it seems little more than sprite based, similar to how rimworld does it.

This intravenous game looks sick thanks for bringing it to my attention

 

[Canard]

Fun fact on Intravenous there is second game releasing in series this week. Only 3 years after release of the first one... How long did it take Thor to finish release his games again?

 

[Ducks Sorted in a Row]

You can see the lighting here is on another level, actually deserving the title of "dynamic lighting"

Spoiler: sperg

That's pretty neat, I suppose my only issue is that all the light sources are still points, which means you get no penumbra except what you get from the soft shadows (there are ways around this, for example, in Path of Exile they use a mip chain, lowering the resolution of the shadowmap the further the pixel is from the light source, which gives a nice penumbra effect). Though even for lighting this good, you don't really need raytracing. You can draw the lights the same way you do in 3d, scale pixel brightness by the function of light properties and distance (inverse square law or something, I forget), and for shadows you can use the GPU to render out a 1D depth map of all your occluders, when rendering, unproject and reproject pixels back into that light's 1D depth space and test the z value against what's in that 1D depth buffer at that pixel. The nice overhead lighting effect is something special though, I'm just spitballing now but you could probably achieve it by placing a maximum difference on the depth buffers and ignoring it if the difference exceeds that, and scaling that by proximity to the light. Not sure how I'd get that to affect gameplay though... probably through a compute shader or something. There are also really nice 2D GI shaders that work in post-processing you could throw over the top to make it really pop.

THAT SAID, for simplicity's sake, I'd probably still just do raycasting on the CPU, because it's also then easier to have it affect gameplay (imagine each tile has a light value, when rendering you can soften it by interpolating these values, like Minecraft's "smooth lighting" option but with much smaller blocks). Maybe also toy with giving the lighting a single bounce, for a bit of indirect lighting (this squares the time it takes to compute, mind)