sclpls

It's-It is one of those things that makes living in the Bay Area the best thing.

The dude who did the soundtrack for the menu screen, Sun Araw, is pretty great. He is playing at the Chapel on New Year's Eve in San Francisco which is right by where I live. Although I'm generally reluctant to go to shows on NYE (and pay the exorbitant cost that goes along with those events) I'm really pretty tempted to check that show out.

Oh yeah, also playing Spelunky while intoxicated, I know what Chris is talking about. I recorded, but ended up not saving a daily challenge I did after a night of heavy drinking. My reflexes were fine, I wasn't making any mistakes in that sense. The problem was that my ability to evaluate risk was impaired, so as the game progressed I kept making worse decisions... so the game caught up with me eventually, and I even recognized that was what was happening on the level I died in (somewhere in the jungle I think). But cough syrup will seriously fuck you up.

Good list so far! I'm not sure I have much to add off the top of my head... http://jonshaferondesign.com/page/7/ (This is Jon Shafer, the lead designer for Civ 5's blog. Note I linked to further back on his blog because these days it is mostly updates about his Kickstarter game - At the Gates, and updates with new episodes of his game design podcast. The link here takes you back to the time period when he was writing a lot more general game design articles although the At the Gates updates are always fascinating as well, and the podcast is a good listen if you want to get into how game designers consider making various kinds of trade-offs when developing game mechanics) http://www.portfolio.debacle.us/ (Robert Yang's blog, I especially like his writing and criticism of the immersive sims genre)

Minecraft sales are nuts! I think the numbers really hit me when I was visiting my sister out on the East Coast. My 3rd grade nephew was showing me the world he had made in Minecraft, but before he even did that he looked over his Xbox friends list, which was like everyone else from his school, and everyone that was logged on was playing either Minecraft or BLOPS 2. It occurred to me that most likely this is how it is for other kids across the country, and that made me realize that all the games I play are just like this weird, niche thing that has nothing to do with what most people experience in video games. For most people its just Minecraft and BLOPS 2 (and what a funny odd couple that is). It was one of those things that on some level my brain probably already understood, but just the sight of that friend's list made it real for me, and it was a really humbling experience.

Huerco S. - Colonial Patterns Just discovered this record a couple of weeks ago (I think it came out in September?), but it is like the most interesting electronic stuff in a long while. This dude got a rep as making "outsider house music" whatever that means, but that is definitely not applicable here. This one is way too atmospheric to really work in a dance floor context it's just cool, weird music.

A collection of interviews with former Looking Glass studio developers! http://gambit.mit.edu/updates/audio/looking_glass_studios_podcast/ Note: I literally just found out about this so I can't vouch for the quality or anything, but I'm excited about this and figured I would share it here since I'm sure others will find this fascinating.

I wasn't actually saying anything different. I specifically mentioned that the guests on Tone Control are all exemplary on the point of interpretive agency. Far Cry 2 is a good example, as is the Walking Dead which is a tightly controlled narrative experience, but one where the player is given the room to express her experience within that narrative.

Someone pointed me to the BW: K kickstarter page, and I backed it. I played the game briefly in late beta, but I ended up bouncing off of it. It did not help that the English translation was poor. If that didn't get fixed by release that could explain why it has only been making a splash in Germany.

Oh, sorry BigJKO, the link is here: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2013/12/read_the_stomac.php

I don't think of genre as a problem at all. To quote Idle Thumbs podcast network operator Nels Anderson: "So why should we care about genre? Because it's a way for creators to communally explore an idea and a shorthand for the audience to help make sense of those new ideas. It's something that stretches across all matter of art forms, from impressionism in painting, to art deco in architecture to neoclassicism in sculpture. Simply, genre is one way design can explore and evolve ideas/styles rapidly. I'm certainly not going to prescribe that it's the only way, but it can be a tremendously effective one" Genre fiction can be derivative and dull, but so can non-genre fiction.

The Knife of Dunwall - The first time I played Dishonored I didn't bounce off it, but I don't think I was enamored with it the same way a lot of people talking about the game were. Where other people thought the blink ability was a brilliant touch that more games should incorporate I saw it as a device that drained all the tension out of a stealth game. Recently I went back and started replaying the original Thief game, and have re-fallen in love with that game all over again. However the other thing doing that allowed was for me to revisit Dishonored with a more charitable perspective. Whereas previously I basically disliked all the things about the game that made it stand out from Thief, having actually gotten my fix of Thief (relieved that the game holds up much better than I imagined) I feel like I can now better appreciate all the little things that make the game unique and interesting. So I'm finally coming to the DLC expansions. The Knife of Dunwall was good! I wasn't really feeling Daude as a character when the game started out, but I gradually got into the hard-boiled noir vibe he exudes. Another aspect that I really liked was the plot twist at the end, I really didn't see it coming even if I should have, whereas in the original Dishonored I saw the twist coming from a mile away. I also thought that the ability to spend money in-between missions that would alter the world somehow by creating extra supply caches, runes, or other effects was a really nice touch.

Also Rob mentioning that Newfoundland mission in XCOM induced a shiver. It is all kinds of fucked up-ness.

I love Tom Bissell's bit about the importance of respecting a player's interpretive agency. Not only is it incredibly disappointing when you see developers try and take that away from players by beating them over the head with some sort of moral lesson or whatever, but it also sucks when you see video game critics engage in polemics that attempt to narrow the scope of discourse about what a game is supposedly about... this in a medium where the person engaging in the work has so many opportunities to change the tone! Although there is an interesting thread here because all the guests on this podcast have made games that are really good at respecting that interpretive agency.

Not games related (but then, this is in the idle banter section), but I do encourage everyone to read this conversation between Jessica Hopper and Jim DeRogatis about DeRogatis' lonely effort to cover R. Kelly's sexual predation on teenage girls that has been making the rounds. Aside from being an eye-opening piece, it was making me think about just how truly gross the phrase "white knight" is.

Winter of Wargaming sounds rad. Time for Blizzard to step aside, there's a new WoW in town.

Fullbright Co. tapped by Nintendo to produce Where's Nintendogz!?

Why are there two of three's?

I saw some links to the comments section from twitter. It is a ridiculous thing to flip out about, and a lot of dudes really are flipping the fuck out over it.

Also you can get the game on GOG for $5 right now...

Yeah, Machinarium has one of my favorite art styles I've seen in a video game. I like the game's puzzles too, which always felt logical to me, and were typically challenging, but not too challenging.

I was listening to the Idle Thumbs podcast where you guys talked about Machinarium (I adore that game) because I was revisiting the podcast where you guys talked about calculator Mario games. It was funny that you guys, while clearly positive about the game, were disappointed by how it was this really short, contained experience. I suspect you wouldn't have that reaction today.

I'm inclined to agree. While I understand why the conversation covered the topic of the puzzle-like nature of Unity of Command, to me it's not a particularly interesting question. To score a brilliant victory there is generally a correct solution, however if you're willing to settle for a normal victory there are typically multiple solutions to a particular scenario. Calling a strategy game a puzzle is perhaps valid criticism when you have a strategy game that creates the impression that there are multiple approaches to a strategic problem, but in fact that is a single, correct approach. However when you have a historical war game that is attempting to represent the problems facing commanders in particular scenarios, this criticism sounds more hollow. A designer in that space is considering the question of what range of possibilities could occur in a particular scenario. Depending on circumstances there could be a wider or narrower band of possibility, or the designer could fudge the historical facts to alter that possibility spectrum. So at that point calling this sort of strategy game a puzzle is simply complaining that a designer felt a narrow band more appropriate. Maybe there are good reasons for such a criticism, but on its face there isn't any. I also find criticisms about whether a scenario is too hard or too easy to be not particularly interesting. I'm not particularly good at Unity of Command. My experience with a lot of the scenarios beyond the early ones akin to beating my head against the wall in terms of my ability to make progress. Typically I then take a break from the game, come back to it later, and I either then suddenly figure out how to accomplish the objectives of the scenario, or I fail. At no point in the game have I felt like the game was wasting my time, or that I was having a bad experience, and that's a far more important consideration than the subjective experience I have with the difficulty of the game. I should be able to enjoy a game even if I find the game too difficult or easy. That is certainly the case with Unity of Command. I'm glad you picked the developers thoughts about what they might do next. The idea that there next game might try and tackle information asymmetry sounds promising!

I think my spam filter must have eaten the email. Yeah, that must be it, and not the astronomically low odds.

That would be way too sensible!