itsamoose

You actually bring up a good point here. When people think of feedback loops, or a loop of any kind for that matter, we typically think of them in terms of the start and the end of the loop. However I believe when examining feedback loops you can get much more information by examining the middle. The feedback loop in a game doesn't necessarily need to be a coherent whole--a lesson hard learned if my experience is any indication. Instead, each element of the loop should seek only to propel the player to the next stage of the loop rather than be a contiguous element within the whole. Also I would say that the loop's quality or allure will come not from it's completion, but it's continuation. In fact it may be better to allow this loop to abruptly stop in order for the player to learn to work within it's confines. Another example from my personal experience. In the game I'm currently working on we have a concept of item interaction. These interactions are distinct, in that 4 specific abilities will combine with a number of items to achieve an effect, such as one item which appears to do nothing but block enemies at first but can be used to deal massive damage to enemies and even kill bosses in seconds flat when combined with one of the abilities. Now there is no distinct feedback loop in mind here, but time and again when people play the game we find they will spend anywhere from 15-45 minutes just messing around with item combinations to see what happens. In this scenario, the feedback loop isn't prescribed--it is what the player makes it. Thinking about, and especially implementing, this kind of thing is easily the most frustrating design experience I've ever had but in the end I'm really happy with the result. Mainly the reason for this is that we allow the player to set minute goals for themselves that they can then adapt as they see fit. I think trying to institute flow in your game isn't so much about careful design as it is giving the player the ability to, in some capacity, design the experience for themselves. Also, thanks for listening to my ranting about things I haven't studied since college .

I suppose that's a matter of preference really. Personally I see the actions the player can do as mechanics, and all supporting elements as rewards. That would include things like sound fx, particles, time stoppage, screen effects, etc. I think when most devs talk about rewards what they mean are the things you get at the end of a level or quest, though a psychologist would likely consider all non essential elements as rewards. For example you can make a slot machine with just 3 spinning wheels, but most of these machines have lights, sounds, and all kinds of other stuff that has no effect on the simulation but are instead geared at motivating you to keep playing.

If you do decide to read up on flow, stay as far the hell away from game design focused books as you can. From my experience most game developers have a middling understanding of not only what flow is but also how it functions. This is true of most psychological concepts, where just knowing the name of the phenomenon and a description of it usually leads to a misunderstanding of it's function. Rather than be mysterious about what I mean, allow me to explain. Let me start by saying that flow is not a product of a physical interaction, but rather internal rewards as they are experienced by the one performing the task. In fact flow can be achieved without subject input at all, for example binge watching a television show. I hear a number of game developers talk about how their mechanics can help a person achieve a state of flow, but in reality this is the result of the game's reward system. Also, when I say rewards here, what I mean is any kind of feedback that motivates someone to continue the task at hand, and could even be something as simple as hit feedback in an Action Adventure game. This might seem weird, so here is a quick example: When you hit an enemy in a hack 'n' slash game, there is often a minute, almost indistinguishable stutter in the game's timing system when the blow lands on each enemy. This seems like a stupid little thing that developers do just so they can show off some flashy effects, but what this actually achieves is much more. It provides the player a clear, repeatable result of their input (i.e. a goal), they get feedback of their actions immediately, and based on the conditions of the board can begin to determine when and where this action will be effective again. This has nothing to do with the actual mechanic (i.e. swinging a sword), but is rather informed by the reward structure that results from the use of that mechanic, and the context in which that mechanic is used. A poor understanding of this is what makes people say that combining game X with game Y would be amazing, mainly in that the reward systems experienced by each game may be at odds with one another. Too often I hear developers talk about a mechanic as being flow inducing, which would be like saying the stroke of a brush is the reason a painter continues to paint. Flow, like many concepts in psychology, actually means something slightly different than it's name would suggest. Flow can really only be designed in so far as you provide the player the ability to determine their goals, increase challenge as they see fit, and the reward structure adapts accordingly.

I would guess that this is due to the way specifically oral sex is viewed in popular culture. Typically reference to oral sex is an insult, or a way to show dominance over another. I think because of this oral sex isn't seen as a mutual interaction. Also, do we have a thread for sex stuff? We probably should.

Personally I prefer Paint.Net. It's somewhere between photoshop and Paint in terms of features, but with enough certainly for pixel art. Also there is a pretty good size community that writes plugins for it.

So am I right in assuming the difference is just the time period, or were the movements different somehow? Certainly I imagine the specifics/goals were different, but it seems like each new wave is really just a broadening of the goals rather than a deviation from them. Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on the actual description, but I've heard a number of people reference the waves as if they were some distinct thing, i.e. First wave was suffrage, second wave was workplace equality, etc, the way that say the civil rights movement in the U.S., while ongoing, refers to a specific time period and set of goals.

I hear this referenced a lot but what exactly is second wave feminism? From what I can tell it's mostly a reinvigoration of feminism in politics and culture but beyond that I'm not sure. Also it seems like, for whatever reason (Rush Lumbaugh) feminism has become a charged word, so I would guess second wave feminism is more of a rebranding? I feel as though most of the discussion I see in regards to feminism is, specifically, about the word feminism and it's use or one's desire to be categorized as such.

How is the coding/scripting side of Unreal lately? I haven't taken a look at Unreal since Unrealscript was around, which I understand has been removed in favor of C++ and a visual system. I've never used a visual scripting program to write actual game logic like Input, and the programmer part of me is a little uneasy about doing that. For those that have used it, how does it compare to the previous method/traditional scripting?

I don't think Twitter in itself is necessarily that chamber, but the way we interact with it is. What is trending at any given moment, or how many likes something got, or how much attention something garnered are now considered news stories. Someone says something, someone else retweets it, someone else shares it, someone else posts about it on facebook, and very quickly the discussion goes from being about a topic to discussion about the discussion of said topic. You can go on Twitter, or any social media platform, post anything from the mundane to the inflammatory, get some retweets, and feel vindicated in your actions. I think the fact that twitter makes all of this so easy, and broken up into easily digestible chunks is what makes it seem like something more than it is. By your own admission Twitter is a tool you like to use when people are ranting about things with which you agree, and it is no different for anyone else. You're correct in pointing out it is effectively the same as choosing your friends in the real world, but it happens so much more often, faster, and generally to a greater degree online. When your social circle includes 20 people it seems like just idle conversation, but when it includes 20,000 it seems like a movement.

You bring up a point I hadn't considered before. You're right to point out that death is, ultimately, the worst expression of racism or bigotry in the real world. I could see a situation where the player's death is meaningful in this context, but the developers would have to go as far as to end the player's game (or at least make it so it can't be easily reloaded) and have that death be something the player couldn't necessarily control or do anything about. Perhaps if the player's character was killed by a mob that the player had no hope of defeating, or depending on the setting, a person just up and kills the player character because he's a member of a class that isn't seen as having the same rights as the perpetrator (as whites often did before, during, and after the US civil war). To take this a step further the same could be said of theft, though this might be an easier idea to articulate in the language of a game. I think trying to cast death in this context may actually be counter productive, in that death as far as the player is concerned is simply an end to their game. It isn't something they have to contend with, or can't do anything about. In effect the player isn't made to deal with the effects of bigotry through the game's mechanics--death is still ancillary to the experience of playing the game.

Ever since the whole GG thing started I've been periodically popping in to see whats up, but rarely go beyond that. I just can't see how any forward progress can be made in an environment which, in some ways, is designed to keep people screaming at each other particularly when one side is so belligerent in it's pursuit. Not to mention the mode of most discussion on the internet nowadays is to try to constantly come into a topic at a slightly different angle, as if finding this one line of logic would finally break the whole thing wide open. I just don't see how any new ideas or positions are going to convince people who have demonstrated an extreme desire not to be swayed from their opinions. Instead I've been doing what I can to encourage more young girls to go into tech, volunteering at a local middle school to do some coding workshops, attending women in STEM focused events, etc. My hope is that by the time everyone is done yelling back and forth about it, I'll have quietly done my part to bring about the future everyone has been arguing over. On one hand I do see the need and even the desire to call GG on their shit, but on the other I see an opportunity to get a lot done by staying just on the edge of it. The cynical part of me thinks that GG is just the distraction we need to get things done, and the empathetic part of me hates that guy.

I don't know if this qualifies as defensive but a few games use polarity (red damages blue, blue damages red, etc) like Outland and some famous shoot 'em up whose name escapes me right now. Have you though about defensive movement abilities? Something like a dodge, teleport, position reversal, grappling hook, etc. I would imagine looking through the heroes in some of the more popular Lords Management games would gather some cool ideas. Off the top of my head I would suggest chaff/countermeaure of some sort, mind control, reflecting shield, time rewinder, an ability that traps bullets to be released later, a vortex/local gravity pull, and an ability that splits the ship apart then pulls the two pieces back together.

I did a little dev blog for a while, but never managed to stick with it for more than a month or so. I felt it really helped not necessarily for feedback, but as a way to keep myself honest. Something about having to articulate what I had been doing really helped me focus and identify shortcomings. Clyde's right in saying that you won't get much of any feedback until you have something playable--just getting the eyeballs over to your blog will be tricky enough let alone finding reliable play testers. Even if you don't release it, I'd still recommend just writing something down at the end of every week as if you were presenting it to someone, even if its just a couple lines describing improvements, data integration, etc.

I spent some more time with DAI this weekend and finally got into doing the dragon hunts. So far they've been fantastic. A whole lot of fun, dynamic, and really feel like an achievement when you finally beat one. Playing these bits also revealed what I suspected were the frustrations with the combat--mainly that the terrain is the problem. On even terrain, as you typically see in a dragon fight, the mechanics are smooth and don't fail or create weird situations like they do in uneven terrain. Also for anyone who is just starting, get the hell out of the hinterlands ASAP, the quests are way more interesting in other areas.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, they've been a big help. Mainly the problem is that I'm sure games like this exist (as you have all pointed out) but I don't know where to find out about them since most websites are more geared to AAA game feature analysis (That's a nice way of saying 2 page stories about the newest gun in a shooter). Something else I came across the other day is superhot, a first person shooter where time only moves when you do.

Otherwise known as the Roger Goodell. I'm really not surprised he's using these kind of techniques. In recent years it seems like the way most people with some reputation to protect deal with controversy is to deflect the question, reaffirm their own integrity, then act like the person who asked the question is the asshole for bringing it up.

I've spent a bit of time thinking about this in the last week, and I wonder if the representations of minorities or the disaffected sometimes rings hollow in games because the world is never really hostile to the player. Sure some games may bump up the challenge, or be geared around dying a lot in its mechanics, but that is usually about as far as it goes. Most games make references to certain people being discriminated against, but this is rarely transferred to or experienced by the player. One game I remember doing this rather well was the Witcher 2, where in the first major zone you enter racial tensions between humans and non humans reach a fever pitch. The human denizens of the town, spurred by their racist leader, begin openly attacking and killing non humans. In other areas of the game you sometimes walk by someone on the street and they would start screaming or expressing disgust at your very presence (in this world your character is a human mutant, and not considered to truly be human). Thinking back on it, I think that game was able to present racism in a way that didn't rely on cartoonish representations of those ideas.

My room mate got me into the show for more or less the same reason, so yeah that's pretty much it. They have their moments, usually due to Sam Waterston's character in the original, but it's not exactly high brow entertainment. SVU in particular relies on a lot of ripped from the headlines style episodes, and they stumble more often than they succeed.

In regards to the Law and Order episode, has anyone spoken with people who have seen the episode but aren't as involved/not involved in the larger games culture? So far from what I've gathered is that people who pay attention to this kind of thing are upset about the representation of games (as leigh points out) in the episode, but from those I know who aren't directly involved in the game space seem to view the episode positively. My mom even asked if I could take her to PAX East this year so she could see what it is like for herself. All in all I get the frustration with the representation of the larger games world in it, but really the point of Law and Order isn't to examine culture but the application of the law itself. Most notably, where it fails to protect those it was designed to.

Point taken. I just have a hard time reconciling where this somewhat militant streak comes from, especially on this forum. I guess I haven't been immersed in this kind of thing enough to experience that anger myself.

He made a mistake. The only way he will realize that is if someone helps him see why it is objectionable. You're right, but he isn't the enemy. We can't write him off.

Because he made a mistake? Can you sum up a person by one thing they've said? We really need to stop being so hard on people.

I haven't been following him that closely, but I don't think Levine is espousing what y'all seem to be saying. Maybe his language isn't great, but those tweets read to me like someone who is out of his element, and genuinely wants to help.

Do all pro gamergate articles include lines from pop culture?

I seem to recall gamergate having a steam curator page that covers some of them.