Problem Machine

I saw the first episode of Northernlion's let's play and thought the game looked pretty sweet, but 20 is probably more than I can do right now. Dang.

This is a good idea for a thread but the execution is terrible.

The thing is, politics which agree with gamergate worldviews don't count, since by their understanding such views aren't political. This is why Bain, as a voice of white privilege, isn't really targeted for injecting his own opinion. While this is a contradiction with the stated worldview of gamergate, it's perfectly aligned with their views as put into practice.

Hm, makes me think of the CRT filter that's on You Have to Win The Game. Still, that's a fairly minor reconstruction in the grander scheme of things. Still still, you can never completely recreate that which has been lost, so every little bit counts.

Yeah, the "nice mask" was such a perfect punchline that I kind of suspect he was sitting on it all week waiting to make that comparison

Shit. I can't tell if you're serious or joking.

Dishonored Ludum Dare

I think you mean 'W' for wature. Chrono Trigger had a developer ending as well, though it was only accessible once you basically maxed your characters since it required basically walking right into the Millenial Fair and fighting Lavos right at the beginning of the game, when you have at most two characters. I'm not sure when I began to conceive of games as something designed. I wish I could point to a specific moment like you guys could. When I was pretty 12 or 13 I became friends with a guy who wrote music for games, so my conception of them as something constructed with intent may have been seeded then, rather than by a particular game.

I respect Jon Blow a heck of a lot but he is not the person I look to for informed opinions on feminism.

If the game had 300 different doors with 300 different colors and 300 different effects, I would be very surprised indeed if none of them damaged me. In fact, in Binding of Isaac there are doors that do a point of damage, and you seemingly don't have a problem with this. They look very obviously different, very spiky. So you can say your analogy is different, because there's no visual difference between the doors -- but, as I said, there were plenty of clues as to what those items did before you ever took/used them.

Well it looks like a magnet so it's not like there was NO way you could have guessed, but okay whatever. And the tower card says "destruction brings creation" when you pick it up, plus if you know anything about the symbolism of tarot cards the tower is generally Not A Happy Card, but okay whatever I guess. The emperor says "Challenge me!" when you pick it up.

Yes, it puts you at a disadvantage, but it no more instantly kills you than a boss does. And, again, almost no single item puts you at a disadvantage except by it being difficult to get used to: Strange attractor is a difficult and dangerous item, but can be incredibly powerful in tandem with others, and you'll never find out what those combinations are if you're too scared to take it. The same is true of tiny planet and soy milk. And yeah sometimes fate will frown upon you, but part of the satisfaction of the game is surviving until you find that one item that ties it all together and lets you destroy the rest of the game. Yes. Yes it is.

...no? The only time I get annoyed by Isaac is when it doesn't give me anything to work with. Isaac is a chore if you get zero damage/tears upgrades. The rest of the time, I'm content to be along for the ride. Being able to drop items would add a massive UI clusterfuck for a marginal and obnoxious benefit. Really, the only difference between getting screwed over by items and getting screwed over by bosses/enemies is that you've been trained to think that items are unconditionally good and bosses are unconditionally bad. Every item you take is a risk. If that scares you, don't take it.

Strongly disagree. Also that's not what that item does. I think it's a fallacy to assume that a game is improved by removing unpleasantness. The Walking Dead would not become a better game if no one died in it.

Fair enough I guess. She might not be engaging with the criticism in the spirit in which it was intended. I just really like reading about why artists make the choices they do.

Well he already played him in GotG so okay

I don't think it's necessarily fair to read an artist addressing criticism of a work by explaining the intent behind the choices as being defensive or dismissive

It's not possible to carry both between floors. If you get starter deck it replaces all pills that spawn with cards, and if you get little baggy it replaces all cards that spawn with pills.

That's a great piece. I've been very impressed with Arthur Chu's writing over the last few months. I'm sure Edmund must be thrilled at it too, since from what I've heard that same kind of upbringing was very much the inspiration behind the game.

If you count rolling into items using d4 as getting them I'm pretty sure you can easily get every item in the game if you get the d4 early on. If you get the paperclip or a gold key, jera rune, blank card, and a couple of 48 hour energy pills you can probably get them all legit on the chest.

Well they're obviously not exactly the same, but the analogy holds. In both cases, you start out not knowing what they do, and in the case of self-damaging moves or moves with a very long recovery time you can lose a match for not knowing. But, going in, you know that your character has lots of moves, each with their own strengths and drawbacks: You accept it as a potential consequence, each time you use a move you don't know, that it will fuck you over. And that's how you learn. In Isaac, every item has an application, except for those which basically don't do anything at all. You're just complaining about not knowing what all of the applications are beforehand. As I said, even if I tell you that mom's knife is one of the best items in the game and you should take it whenever you see it, you still might die the first time you take it just because you're not used to how it works. That's what learning the game is. That's what learning anything is.

Okay, but how is that different from coming to understand any other game's systems? Like, say, in a fighting game, until you understand what each move is good for, you're going to get your ass kicked without understanding why.

Yeah. According to what were recognized as best practices in game design 8 years ago, the success of Spelunky and the Souls games would be pretty unthinkable.

Well it is, but it's also a matter of what we've been trained to think games are. Like, I have no problem with people saying they want to play a game about personal empowerment, but I do have a problem with people saying that's what a game is supposed to be, which is frequently where that conversation goes. Similarly, there are a lot of game design tropes that have been commonly accepted has 'good design', very much along the lines of never disempowering the player, and I feel that uncritical acceptance of these tropes leads to a whole lot of boring and mediocre games.

For some reason I find people complaining about Crystal Skull, a movie I've never seen, very compelling.