sclpls

Loosely related, but Soren Johnson, designer of Civ 4, is on twitch now, and has been streaming a game of Civ 4. He goes into a lot of details about how the game works, design compromises he isn't totally satisfied with, and other details that basically make the stream one of the most compelling post-mortems I can think of. Worth checking out!

Evidently locating your game development studio in Montreal is a terrible idea because people will only remember where the studio is located, and not actually who developed your game. I know I kept slipping up between Eidos and Square-Enix back when Deus Ex: HR came out...

I love having multiple audio options in games because if the English voice acting is bad then I switch to a foreign language that sounds cool to me, yet I'm unable to observe any flaws. Makes gaming way more pleasant! I've played a lot of games in Italian.

Oddly I remember listening to the episode about AirLand Battle, and despite the recommendation not really feeling like checking it out, but this episode is making me want to reconsider (AirLand Battle, not Red Dragon).

Philz is kinda polarizing I find, people either really love or really hate it. I'm more of an espresso guy, so it isn't my thing so much, but when I want a cup of coffee I think it's good. My favorite coffee shop is Grand Coffee which is a hole in the wall on Mission street. They make great coffee drinks without being hopelessly pretentious. It's such a small, cramped space you avoid people that are coming in to work on their laptops and talk about their new startups or whatever. So the culture and conversation there is really great. My experience with coverage with Verizon is mostly good, although at some people's places it is nonexistent so it always seems like a tossup. Doesn't seem so great on BART either.

Hahaha that's awesome

I have my fingers crossed for Volko Ruhnke/Mark Herman, but considering that their Vietnam game Fire in the Lake isn't out yet I guess the chances of that are really low.

This describes me as well! I must have played the GB version of Metroid a dozen times. Thanks for the link doodle_robot!

itch.io

Are the three parts all going to be about Vietnam? I'm not totally clear on how this is a distinct series, although since it's only one episode in maybe it will become clear later. Though even if it doesn't that's okay too since I'm basically fine with any excuse that results in interviews with game designers that have designed interesting games. I am definitely looking forward to the iPad port.

I land in the same place Chris landed on the last time there was a discussion about Civilization (and Civ 5 in particular) and it's optimistic tone - that although I don't want everything to be cheery and optimistic, and it's certainly not how I personally view and frame the totality of human history, I am really glad that Civ is there to simply celebrate human achievements. I think that's a valid and worthwhile artistic expression and vision even if it is necessarily partial.

"Guy at a bar called a hipster" is basically an Onion headline.

Yay settlement! http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/17/5624980/king-settles-trademark-disputes-with-the-banner-saga-developer

Enjoyed this game until I got to the super tank battle.

How okay are you with living with roommates? The average rental is in the $1.5-$2k per bedroom range.If that doesn't sound like something you can afford your only real hope is to move in with someone that lives in a rent controlled apartment, which will be below market rate. Or you could commute from the East Bay, which is easy enough although places near BART (the Bay Area train lines) tend to be quite expensive as well. It's a crappy situation!

It's funny actually, like because of how ingrained the term "race" is in fantasy settings you will sometimes here people talk about the different factions in a game like Master of Orion as different races* despite the shift to a science fiction setting. I have always very consciously referred to them as different species. * Pretty sure the 3MA cast is guilty of this in their Simtex episode!

You guys are the worst! This is how it starts. One of the articles about Beyond Earth has a quote from one of the designers talking about how the players are in a race to complete quests to achieve victory. Nick Breckon appears on the podcast and talks about how the designers totally talk about races in the game. Idle Thumbs listeners express outrage on Twitter. Twitter blows up. Kotaku runs an article on the weird racism of Beyond Earth. Neogaf complains about social justice warriors. IGN runs an article with an image of an Aryan looking dude punching a tentacle alien in the face. It is super weird. P.S. Congrats Nick.

Midway used to have a pretty large office in Chicago I believe, and like pinball manufacturers were based out of there too. Of course these days it seems like the only stuff coming out of Chicago is indie stuff like Kentucky Route Zero...

!!! I remember that. Also, Steve, you made a comment on twitter about Action Half-Life that brought back a flash of memories for me that I had completely forgotten about. That led to me recalling a Night of the Living Dead type mod for Half-Life as well that I unfortunately don't remember the name of.

Maybe I'm excessively cynical, but when they say they are keeping modding in mind, to me that reads like that's something they have decided to ignore. Most developers I'm aware of say that if you're going to let your game be modded that's really something you have to keep in mind from the beginning of the project.

To be fair to the designers though, they clearly are aiming for a different tone from Alpha Centauri (Rob Zacny covers this: http://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-goes-beyond-earth-not-back-alpha-centauri ) so it might not be so important that they have different fictional influences if they successfully convey a different idea about the future.

Indeed, haven't listened to the episode yet, but arguably the biggest point in Beyond Earth's favor in my book is the lack of designing your own units.

I'm not necessarily as down on the quest system as Gormongous (with the caveat that it could still be terrible of course!) Fantasy Flight's Eldritch Horror game has you solving mysteries that are dependent on whatever Ancient Horror you are fighting. Each Ancient Horror has four mysteries, and to win the game you have to solve three of those mysteries. Not surprisingly, it doesn't take many play throughs before you start seeing the same mysteries pop up. But that's okay, because what the mysteries actually accomplish is making sure your strategic priorities vary from game to game. Of course if it's more like the sort of requests that nation states make in Civ 5 then I will hate it. Also agree with Gormongous' complaint about the game's influences. Perhaps they will at least mine some less considered ideas from these sources, but it's not too encouraging that they just decided to check out the works cited in SMAC. Also, yeah, that it sounds like they're just sticking to Civ 5's diplomacy system is really disappointing. That they're doubling down on espionage is also worrisome. On the other hand, ditching unit customization for organically evolving unit composition is a really compelling idea. But TheLastBaron is right basically. We can look at any individual mechanic and say whether we like it or not. But the reality is with a deep strategy game it comes down to how all the mechanics and systems interact in totality, and that's impossible to evaluate on paper.

Yeah defense drones and/or a souped up cloaking system are pretty crucial to victory against the flagship in my experience.

There's an interview at PC Gamer that goes into more depth about the game: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/12/civilization-beyond-earth-interview-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-factions-aliens-technology-and-more/ I can't say it has reassured me that the game will be a resounding success, there are definitely a couple of points they make that are these flags for me that make me a little nervous about some of the design decisions, but some decisions could also be really cool if they pan out. I guess I'm just really curious about this game without having a positive or negative opinion.