filk

It's interesting you would say that. I've always considered 2D platforming a genre that I just would never like. I didn't feel like the range of movement was large enough to feel like I had some personal expression in addition to the need to execute on a critical path. Somehow, Spelunky ended up being one of my favourite games. I love how it brings decision making to 2D platforming, and actually makes use of the 2D space instead of being strictly horizontal. I'm sad there have been no rushing water levels in recent dailies.

I quit Metro 2033 after about an hour. Mr Remo's poignant tale of mortality made me want to play it, but I'm just not up for another corridor shooter right now, esp without buying into the narrative. I actually also quit my first ever playthrough of Half-Life a month ago because I thought I'd expended its breadth by the time I launched the satellite. Sometimes I feel like this boredom with FPSs is more motivated by the fact that I'm told they are linear and derivative than any personal dislike.

That's a really good point. It's a perspective you don't get in high school or early college. Everyone is so concerned for your ability to sustain yourself that your prospective career becomes your identity.

I'm not in games, so I'm sorry that this is not exactly the perspective you are looking for. I just turned 24. I am finishing a Master's in Computer Science (I also have a Bachelor's in it). I chose CS because it has a unique intersection of job security and the possibility of games work (also I passionately love theoretical and practical CS). When I finish this April, I fully intend to get a job in the mainstream games industry. I love games and have always wanted to work on them, and have enjoyed game jams and short-term projects I've worked on. I would rather do indie development, but having some financial independence is more important to me than immediately following a dream. So what I'm saying is, CS is a great place to be if you're someone who is both passionate about games and values security. You strike me as someone who is similarly pragmatic. Also, the advice I would give my 19yo self: Realize that you are a talented, intelligent being and that it is impossible to completely optimize your path through life. Pick a thing you will enjoy; don't worry about it being the thing. There are many paths that will make you happy - it's not settling to keep walking on one once you find it.

I really hope so. Nothing on footage has really articulated it well yet I think.

I have to finish my thesis, and I'm considering leaving the stream up on the other screen. Somebody destroy me. *edit* Oh thank goodness, the stream is just re-broadcasting day 0.

Wow, my votes were 3/4 what the final results were. I guess I'm mainstream.

I'll be very sad if Extra Terrarium doesn't make it. It's close to an idea for a game that's been floating around in my head for ages. My other votes were for Dear Leader and Steed. I admit the former is just because I can't get enough of that patriotic Soviet music. *edit* Oh yeah, and I also voted for Little Pink Best Buds.

Well, got the 500k achievement in a night of attempts. All that's left are completing the journal (I have finished it on the Vita, just need to do the fish again on the PC), 1000 plays, and co-op. Definitely going to do co-op legit with my girlfriend and not carry someone - we've already managed to get to Olmec, but got crushed. I tried to quit after getting Low Scorer, as that seemed like the last of the difficult/interesting achievements, but nothing could fill the Spelunky-shaped hole in my heart explorer's hat.

Yup. It's really quite unfortunate. All of us in the Fantastic club have just been talking about how Fantastic we have been lately. So sorry for your loss!

That livestream made me so sad. Playing Dark Souls with a person beside you to tell you exactly where to go seems a shame. Of course, to each their own.

I started writing this up as an email, but it got too long . Jake seemed curious as to the value of the item renting mechanic, so I thought I might chime in as someone who loved it. The mechanic adds a lot of value: First, it introduces a level of tension to the near-death experience. It encourages a planning aspect to the adventure - bring the right items, and try and have something to heal yourself. My favourite part of the game was exploring a hard part of death mountain very early and being terrified of losing my hookshot (I died twice and had to rebuy the hookshot each time). If you die and cannot afford to re-buy your items, you can explore a different area (more on that later). Second, it allows for omnipresent alternate solutions to puzzles. For example, in the dark dungeon, you can use the ice rod to circumvent the primary path to a switch. There is huge value in puzzle solving in feeling you have options instead of unseen directives. Third, once you get to the dark world, it obfuscates puzzle solutions by removing the clear item-to-dungeon link, encouraging you to experiment. I was certain I needed the Pegasus boots for turtle rock (but I didn't). Fourth, it increases your agency over exploration. Unlike in other Zeldas, you can encounter an item gate and immediately go and get that item (or you may have it with you). It simulates the place to place feel of most Zelda games but gives you more ownership over that journey. In fact, it simulates it so well that I think some people underestimate their influence over the path in the back half of the game. As a consequence, like Broken Age, it allows you to make progress in many orthogonal directions, switching between regions and dungeons as progress is impeded due to puzzle difficulty or rupee woes (I left three dungeons in progress at various points). I think most Thumbs readership understands the link between systematization and narrative, and ALBW has a narrative unique among Zeldas because of this slight systematization. I don't think that the mechanic is a clear win for every player. But I loved it, and that's why. I do think that it would have been helped if the purchase option was made available earlier on, but that purchases were also more expensive. It would be nice if you finished the game having only ever had the rupees to purchase half the items. Alternatively, if you earned "tokens" from dungeons that could be exchanged for permanent items, again with a hard cap encompassing less than all items.

In the last week, I've put 250-300 deaths into getting Low Scorer. It's much harder than Speedlunky, which I did not expect. Some highlight losses: On 4-3 with jetpack, shotgun and 20+ bombs, dying while jetpacking over a lava pit when a lava man spawned and took me out in mid-air On 4-1, spawning within attack distance of Anubis, a mummy and an alligator man, only to make it successfully to the exit - except hitting an invisible gold nugget behind a corpse In the ice caves, after opening 9 crates (24 ropes and a pair of climbing gloves) still managed to fall into the abyss

I definitely fumbled. But I had been sitting there farming health for quite a while before the locust hit me (all the others went over), which it did right before the ghost appeared. If that RNG had happened any time earlier, I would have been fine to just leave. If it had happened any time later, I would also have been fine to just leave - my plan was to farm until the ghost came. But the extra time to recover and pick up the scepter again really threw me for a loop.

On the topic of horrible deaths... can't believe the timing of that random locust (Sorry, I don't know how to embed) I must be better at Spelunky now though, as watching the video today I can't understand why I didn't kill the mummy with bombs earlier.

Got Speedlunky yesterday! Finished the game in 6.11.102, which kind of proved to me that I was going way faster than I needed to. Now I have one more character to unlock, and I can finally go back to doing daily challenges. I wish you could find coffins in them.

I got so close to Speedlunky last night. I was in 4-2 with cape, shotgun, compass, a handful of bombs and ropes and 5:12 on the rope. I ran into a bomb shop, which made me ECSTATIC, as I could afford two big bomb boxes. Then I stupidly threw a bomb from within the shop to kill a tiki trap, which (despite not actually touching anything in the shop) angered the shopkeeper and ended my run. At least I successfully unlocked the Robot last night. I only have one coffin character left, plus the big fish to finish my journal.

I finished this game a couple weeks ago with 200% and no guides. I absolutely adored it, but agree that it's biggest weakness is probably that it pretends to be a mediocre platformer with a gimmick rather than a Myst-style puzzle game. The latter is where all of the games enduring strength is, supported by visuals and a soundtrack that exude mystery. At this point, I find myself wanting to just re-enter the game world to walk around some more.

I can't help you, but congrats! Did you have to ghost to do it, or was the city of gold + previous money sufficient on its own?

I can confirm that you can't unlock characters in the daily! I went back to the castle level in a regular run and unlocked Van Helsing. Now I'm going to replace my daily Spelunky daily with a normal run until I get them all.

I suppose I am! Can you not unlock characters in dailies?

Has anyone had an issue where characters are not unlockable? I haven't seen a coffin in hours and hours despite still missing Lime and Purple. Worse, when I go to the Castle and break the coffin, I always just get hired help, even though Helsing isn't unlocked.

I think I've giving up on SpaceChem. I put an hour into a level the other day and only managed to put together 3 out of the 5 reactors I think I need to solve the puzzle. And I'm not even sure if the 5 I envisioned would work, or are possible! Plus, SpaceChem feels so much like programming that it makes me want to just work the same brain circuits out and actually code something useful, instead of a fictional molecule [dis]assembly line. This is actually the first game in ages I feel at all guilty about quitting, as I think it's brilliant and would be productive to play through but the monumental scale of the task ahead of me is too terrifying.

I think escapism can in some ways be engineered - at least, you can make a product that is better at inducing catharsis for certain people. For example, a lot of the choices in a game like Skyrim facilitate escapism for me. I'm not sure where I fall on the debate of whether escapism is something that should be engineered for. On the one hand, you are not solving someone's problems if you just help them forget them. On the other hand, like with many other things that are "bad for you", video games for escapism can be a) used responsibly and may serve an important need in the lives of people who have no other means of escape due to physical, social, economic, etc pressures in their lives. Personally, there are times when I just want to go to games for some escapism. This is pretty synonymous with going to games to "relax", "unwind", "stop thinking", etc. I also go to a lot of games for reflective experiences. On the other hand, my girlfriend really dislikes her job right now, and can't really quit until almost a year from now. For her, video games are very much a regular mood kick, and if you told her that games should not be made to facilitate this she would get pretty pissed off. I think I may have veered pretty far from the original point. I think you definitely conflate the points of escapism and realism/immersion. A game like EVE online is highly immersive and "real" but has never helped me forget my problems. There are lots of reasons to not strive for the latter two, however. Video games fill a wide spectrum from simulation to completely transparent rule-based systems. Simulation serves immersion, even if it is only to show the physics consequences of bumping your head on something. You can also have simulation in a fictional universe. A game like Deus Ex is often called simulation even though none of the things really exist. Mario (modern, 3D Mario) is in part so great because it does an excellent job of letting you explore the full range of consequences of the actions Mario can take. But what about games that don't gain from simulation? A game like Dys4ia which explores gender identity uses a really simple set of rules and interactions, as well as incredibly low-end graphics, to communicate a basic sensation and experience. I think most games like this that focus on expressing themes through gameplay could reasonably argue that increasing immersion also introduces obfuscation. With a thousand rules going on at once, the important consequences of a single rule are no longer clear. This is without even mentioning abstract games that don't require any kind of representation of a physical world, like chess. Like with any design dimension, the question of immersion ends up impossible to summarize with a specific "this is the right choice for all games". There are so many reasons for and against it.

I finished this the other day. I love the economical prose (and the choice of "economical" as an adjective by some posters above). The trip to Spain in romantic in the way of romantic British expeditions of the 19th century, which is to say also lightly disturbing in an invasive and unequal way. I cannot help but relate to Jake, particularly in how his physical condition affects his relationships (I am not so bad off as Jake, but let's just say I have physical limits) and his interactions with Cohn. I have known a Cohn-alike for many years, a kind of nice person fatally unable to interact or accept being ostracized. I have always tried to take the tack of defending this individual, but I have seen these situations and more. I actually did not find the depiction of Paris mundane, but I may just have such a different lifestyle from their cohort that it seems exotic to me. To have a set of spaces that are travelled between by taxi cab, frequenting restaurants, cafes and clubs every night and chancing upon familiar faces. To know the service people and to be known in your community. It seems very different to me!