Problem Machine

Didn't WoW kind of dabble in stuff like that? I don't know if they ever did anything very interesting with it, but I do remember there being some things you could see as a ghost you couldn't normally.

There's actually quite a few games now that get around the narrative obstacle of death by writing a curse of undeath into the story. Most prominent among these is Dark Souls, but of course there's also Planescape Torment and a not-very-well-known Genesis/Game Gear game called Chakan: The Forever Man. Some time back I wrote some thoughts about how death tends to be a disappointment in games, and why new approaches to death have successfully dodged these issues. I also wrote about The Swapper -- didn't really get into the death mechanics much there, but if you're interested in The Swapper you might enjoy my thoughts on that too.

I'm not saying that this sort of criticism shouldn't exist, I'm just saying that a lot of people approach it as though if you can level a criticism about a work it devalues the work in some fundamental way, makes it less art, and I find that frustrating. This is actually kind of related to the heros/idols discussion that happened on the January 15th episode: Appreciate what a work/person brings to the table, understand where it/they falls short. I think being able to do both of those at the same time is a super important skill, rather than trying to just slot them into 'good' or 'bad'.

After a year of monthly tracks, I've taken those tracks, polished them up, and I'm releasing them as an album. Well, 1.5 albums more like, since there were a few odd tracks out I decided to take 8 of them for the main album and release the other 4 as a free mini-album. From Spare Parts and Parts Unknown Please Don't Make me Leave If you dig either of these, please consider supporting me on bandcamp and/or spreading the word to anyone you think might also enjoy them. Thanks!

Could just spell it out. Ellyuyukayee, which sounds like a star wars name anyway.

It's a cyber diablo!

Going back to old Final Fantasies, and when i try to replay Chrono Trigger, I feel like the core gameplay is still interesting but the density of it is just extremely thin. Like, I never have to grind in most of those games -- except final fantasy 5, which is why I don't think 5 is a very good final fantasy -- but I think the actual tactical combat decisions are interesting and putting together the equipment and materia/relic/sphere grid whatever loadouts for the characters is fun. It's just that it takes so damn long to progress the game, and there's so much fluff in between the decision making. This isn't specifically a JRPG problem, I tend to get frustrated by this a lot trying to play western RPGs too. I replayed the first two Fallouts recently and it's fine for the first one but Fallout 2 is such a time hog.

I think I was aware of it but didn't let it bother me. It's getting to the point where writers are getting awfully clever about setting little logical traps to destroy the brain of anyone who tries to deduce what's really really happening within a meta-narrative. Eventually you just kind of have to take it as it is. The MST3K mantra is useful here.

I think it's always useful to consider why one likes the things one likes, it's just the anxiety about liking the 'wrong' thing or liking something for the 'wrong' reasons that frustrates me. I think that approach often bothers me for the same reason the Hotline Miami thing mentioned above does: People take a piece that's engaging and inventive, apply standards that don't fit it, and then find it wanting by those standards and dismiss it. It too often becomes a practice of breaking art down into elements and calling those elements good or bad rather than looking at the purpose they serve within the overall intent of the work or what the meaningful impact of the work is on the audience. I'm not trying to call anyone out on this, I may just be being oversensitive, but when I hear worries like Rob's concern that Limitless might or might not be a 'good' show or Danielle's concern that despite finding Fargo S2 compelling there wasn't anything underneath I hear a performative desire to like the right things for the right reasons. That's fine, everyone's subject to those pressures, it just bothers me when used as a metric for media in a way that occludes the unique qualities of the work itself.

I remain utterly mystified by where these interpretations of Hotline Miami are coming from. I can't think of a single line in the game moralizing about violence being wrong. As far as I can tell, people just take the line "do you enjoy hurting other people?" and just mentally insert "because if you do that makes you a bad person" because it's so expected, then criticize the game for not following through on the thing it never said. Am I missing something here? This is an approach to entertainment I find a bit frustrating. This whole idea of guilty pleasures, of deliberating on whether something is actually good or just pandering, feels like such an unnecessary exercise to me. Obviously, if we as audience find something compelling it's because it feeds some need or desire within us: Isn't it more useful to try to understand that desire and the role it plays in our personalities than to feel bad for trying to feed it?

Oh okay. You're welcome. Thank you. I just realized I could have just reread your post three posts above this one, thus rendering my post two posts above this one redundant. I now realize that creating the post two posts above this posts requisitioning a copy of the post three posts above this post which you posted one post above this post was unnecessary. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Could you repeat that?

New Errant Signal on The Beginner's Guide

Oh man Bushido Blade, my brother and I played the shit out of that game. I remember we ended up coming up with special names for some of the most useful attacks -- in particular it was I think the naginata's mid-stance high attack that was christened the 'can/bottle opener', which involved stepping forward, jamming the blade into your opponent's face, and lifting up. It tended to end fights very reliably. It was a cool stage but I didn't like that it made the sledgehammer and naginata useless

How do I delete this post?

Aw man

What, never? I mean three lefts make a right so what's the exchange rate here?

If I post the wrong post in the wrong thread then is it right?

A Machine For Pigs Kentucky Route Zero

I think it may also come along with a few tools to manage having a lot of followers and/or notifications, but mostly a status thing yeah.

Glad y'all liked it

I wrote some thoughts on Dropsy

I'm not sure I understand the criticism. What way could there be to speak of non-speedrun play specifically which wouldn't draw a boundary, and what is the special problematic significance of that line?

Heights. Stuff like the Anor Londo cathedral in Dark Souls is pretty obvious and unsurprising, but I've noticed that even in 2d platformers if a level is presented as a bunch of jumps over a void it will make me a lot more nervous than if it's exactly the same platforming challenge presented as spikes or something.

I'm surprised Dropsy didn't come up again in the discussion of best game music of the year. It's pretty amazing and does a lot to set the tone of the game.