sclpls

Knowing what we know about time dialation and the vastness of space I wonder how feasible a space empire would even be for humans who have such a comparatively short lifespan. It would be totally fascinating to see a game that grappled with those issues instead of hand wave them away... I haven't picked up EU4 yet because money is a little tight at the moment, but I can't wait to check it out. It sounds like they really fixed a lot of issues that have made me felt lukewarm about Paradox games. I'm not convinced this one will make me a convert, but it at least sounds like they went in a really cool direction.

Part of the problem with the portrayal of morality in a lot of RPGs that I think extends to strategy games is that the choice is tied to other game play systems that the player is trying to min/max. So the player doesn't make a choice because it's the more morally courageous action, but because that action improves your reputation by 5 points, which confers other kinds of bonuses (or whatever), or maybe behaving poorly nets you a new weapon or tool. What I found so effective in the Walking Dead is when a player faced a moral problem you simply had to make a timed decision, and live with the consequences. The impact of that choice existed entirely in the narrative, it wasn't tied to some other system of reward or punishment. That is a more illuminating exploration of moral behavior than the sort of Pavlovian exercises we see in a lot of games, especially strategy games. That lack of moral reasoning is also what I find compelling about strategy games too though. I don't ever want to disregard the horror of violence that happens in a war, but that doesn't mean there aren't interesting issues when you look at a game like Unity of Command where the war becomes this abstract intellectual exercise where you are simply trying to understand how to control your force's supply lines. In a way, it helps provide additional context for the barbarity that happens at a more zoomed in level. A show like the Wire is brilliant at showing the viewer these personal tragedies that occurs due to larger impersonal, macroeconomic and social forces. I haven't seen anything like that in a game, and it would be cool to see, but I tend to view these different scopes as complementary to understanding the world at large rather than as one being the right way to portray events, and the other as the wrong way.

One of the things I really like about tabletop war games is that the rule books typically have pretty extensive lists of works cited at the end so there is a lot of good historical research you can dive into to learn about the atrocities and barbarism of war. I'm not convinced that game mechanics have any natural way of stimulating the part of our brain that engages in moral reasoning. One of the important aspects of a moral or ethical quandry is once you have made a decision you have to live with it. A game, on the other hand, allows for constant iteration. The iteration of an event drains it of its weight.

These are both excellent points. There have been a ton of books that I read in jr. high school/high school, and didn't appreciate at the time, but felt really deep to me when I went back to them in my late 20s after having gained a little bit of life experience. I also think it is really easy to dismiss some of the criticisms because of how inarticulate so many of them are, but ultimately if someone didn't have a good experience with a game they should feel free to say so. The other day I got chewed out on another message board for linking to an AV Club article that expressed a lot of my dissatisfaction with the show Breaking Bad, and of course I was called an idiot in a dozen different ways. It's okay to not like some critically acclaimed work, and it doesn't mean that person is an idiot for not liking it.

I'm going into this with the same sort of expectations that I would going into a game like Alpha Protocol.

Did you back that failed Police Quest reboot Kickstarter? I believe the selling point for that was that the procedural details were going to be very accurate.

Danielle wrote another piece about this game for Polygon that really gets into her personal experience, and is all the more powerful for it. http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/19/4627606/opinion-finding-someone-like-me-in-gone-home

Timely Gamasutra piece on the topic of how games subtly influence us. http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RohanHarris/20130816/198423/Developing_Ethical_Games.php

Three Moves Ahead is good that way. They can be discussing the most obscure tabletop war game that you've never heard of, and you will still be following along totally engaged.

Dave Sirlin is a phenomenal designer; picking up one of his games is definitely a good idea. Puzzle Strike is my personal favorite.

Haha I did this too...

I gotta say I really dislike the idea that blink becomes even more powerful in the Dishonored DLC. I'm clearly in the minority opinion on this because anytime I see blink mentioned it's because people are talking about how much they loved blink, but I found it allowed me to get out of nearly any bad situation with total ease, and it drained the tension that makes a stealth game interesting.

Damn, the podcast I downloaded is busted, and stopped playing at the 50 minute mark. Bummer.

I had this issue when I started the game. I couldn't see a thing. It turns out the default brightness setting was all the way to the left of the slider at the darkest setting. Super annoying! Even after I adjusted it to something reasonable where I could see stuff the lighting in the game definitely felt off, but I think that is more of a Unity issue than anything else...

There are some really good Idle Thumbs references in this game! I kinda feel bad for non-podcast listeners who play this, they are missing out on some of the best moments! The writing for Gone Home is very effective. The game design for this is weird though. I was looking at a piece of writing Steve did on Idle Thumbs many years ago about the over reliance of amnesiacs in games, and how that is lazy writing (which is true). Gone Home's solution to having an amnesiac protagonist is to have an intense voyeur come back home to a conveniently empty house where it is easy enough to discover pieces of writing that reveal secretive aspects of each family member's life. It is a very specific contrivance to avoid the amnesiac cliche, and the way you comb through the house is just as crazy as Booker Dewitt eating all sorts of cotton candy and hot dogs out of trash cans if you think about it. I'm not trying to knock the game, which I very much enjoyed, but I'm just noting that it is such a common argument these days to say we need more non-violent video games, but I think the unusual qualities of Gone Home's design underscore why it is a really difficult design challenge. Props to Fullbright & co for releasing this game with a cool vibe.

Dude, Phaedrus

Haha I was about to say the same thing. The vinyl market has a fair share of hip labels/bands producing artificial scarcity.

Interestingly, if you ever happen to go into an Office Max or some store like that, chances are Paradox's catalog will be well represented among the PC game titles there, along with a bunch of Bejeweled clones. Kinda weird to think how that is part of their market.

A.K.A. Far Cry 2ishness

Polygon did a great story on the Fullbright Company: http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/8/13/4568900/the-fullbright-company-gone-home

Yeah the local co-op is pretty great. If there was online co-op I would definitely pick up the PC version as well.

So for people that have picked up the new PC version of Spleunky, is there any co-op version available?

Totally. The thought that popped into my head as soon as Sean said that was, "clearly he hasn't watched Barcelona in La Liga"!

Thanks for the link! I was wondering about that...

I've played both versions, and I disagree that the XBLA version is harder. It's different, and I think the changes made were for the better.