singlespace
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Posts posted by singlespace
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Rampancy managed to get a cut ready for PAX Prime this Sunday:
http://www.shacknews.com/chatty?id=30649699#item_30649699
TL;DR: Enemy Starfighter will be at the Indie Megabooth. New trailer:
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The discussion about the Thumbs taking more suggestions about games to play was a bit weird, because that seems to be a lot of how they are encouraged to play things anyway. For example, the Kerbal Space Program discussion was prefaced with laments that people were trying to get them to play it for an entire year and they should have listened sooner. CKII was something similar as well. A lot of the indies they talk about are that way, too. So the thought that what's needed is MORE input on games they should check out is kind of strange.
Yeah, it got pretty weird fast. I feel bad about it because I made a post stating it would nice if someone like Danielle became a regular because I felt that cast was getting a bit insular, which spawned a lot of negative discussion. The intent wasn't to suggest that the Thumbs change, or that they need to take more suggestions for games to play, but rather that it was nice having new perspectives on the cast and it would be great if it happened more often.
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Jesus, that escalated quickly.
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I really hope that Danielle, or someone like Danielle, becomes a regular. I feel like Idle Thumbs is becoming somewhat insular in its opinions and tastes. It's refreshing to have a dissenting opinion from someone who enjoys and plays far more mainstream games.
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I kind of agree and disagree with the notion Last of Us diluted it's impact by stretching out game mechanics when a more dense experience could have been had. For those who have finished the game,
I feel that the length and density of each seasonal arc was intentional. Summer was this long plodding season of unending infected where each encounter was much like the last. So much is presented in a very visceral fashion and of such an intensity that there's very little contrast or time for contemplation. You start the season just awe struck, but it becomes this slow grind through the sordid muggy details that follow.
Fall is quieter. The quiet moments are punctuated by bursts of spectacular brutality. You're given time to soak in the environments, to get a real feel for what was lost and how things have changed and are presented with how different life has been for Ellie vs Joel. Gone is the plodding never ending encounters and are replaced by these really dense fast bursts of action and stealth that end as suddenly as they begin.
Winter slowly builds in intensity beginning with the quietest scene in the entire game. We start with this silent snow covered forest with bright colours punctuating the unblemished snow, then we're led into an abandoned town and resort with increasingly washed out palettes, eventually ending in a near white out blizzard. The intensity and pace of the encounters increases as the palette and contrast become non-existant, both visually and in terms of gameplay. The season doesn't drag on like summer, or come in bursts like fall, but builds at a steady pace with an even length ending just as the brutal pace of encounters peaks.
Spring is a breath of fresh air and the very quick and short length of season punctuates that feeling. What few encounters there exist are quick and more of finesse than brutality. And there's a god damn herd of giraffes.
Then there's the Firefly Lab. I'm not talking about the Firefly Lab.When I was still playing through the Boston and Pittsburg, I felt the game was dragging on too much and the mechanics were too repetitious, but my opinion of the length and spread of the mechanics changed quite a great deal by the end. I don't think you can really make an educated judgement on the matter until you've finished the game in this case.
That being said, there were definitely quite a few moments in the game that really felt like it was suddenly very much a video game, but I don't feel like it's necessarily a function of the length or repetitiousness of the verbs the game is built around, just how artfully they're employed.
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Enterprise software development is extremely ungratifying. You work with a shit load of idiots, slackers, etc. Sometimes you are rewarded by some crunch time.
Game development is populated with way more talent, more respect from colleagues, but less job security.
Maybe it's a bit depressing, but as young software developer, it's shit all over. Or at least, that's my take on it.
Enterprise software is a large field ranging from hardcore database development to mind numbing SAP, but I'd generally agree with your assesment. Luckily it's not representative of the tech sector in general.
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PAR has an article on the insane working conditions in the game industry and the incredible turnover rates:
Kotaku also ran an article by an anonymous developer on the state of publishers today:
http://kotaku.com/we-need-better-video-game-publishers-472880781
It's amazing that this has been the status quo for well over a decade and it doesn't seem to be changing.
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Polygon has a nice short article up on Blood Dragon with some questions answered by the Creative Director Dean Evans:
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Remember when Jeffrey Yohalem was ranting about Farcry 3 being a meaningful satire of entertainment and video games? When he was claiming that his narrative destabilized the player and was a giant riddle to be solved? And that Farcry 3 was subversive as a shooter and called into question what we're willing to do for entertainment? Remember when everyone call him on those claims because Farcry 3 is exactly what he meant to satire.
Well to me this feels like a big "fuck you guys" kind of DLC. Something along the lines of the original game wasn't obvious enough, so this time I'll go way over the top because gamers aren't smart enough to realize my brilliance, rather than I wrote really bad satire that failed to convey any of the things I was hoping.
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Fair point, but my wordplay hinged on the band being called Garbage and therefore the possibility that I would call this trailer garbage. Also, I can both know who Garbage is and believe that not many people know who Garbage is (which I do in fact believe).
Yeah, hence my initial reaction that led to the realization that the world has changed and I'm now old.
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I don't really know why either of you thought that my comment suggested I don't know who Garbage is. I'm fully aware of them so I don't need an excuse. I was going for wordplay, not ignorance.
Phrasing. Saying "a band called Garbage" instead of "Garbage" is superfluous; hence it carries the connotation that you believe not many people know who Garbage is, hence you don't know who Garbage is. It's the same kind of phrasing that a 65 year old white male American senator uses to describe things they have no idea about.
For instance, saying "the technology called the Internet" makes you sound like you have no idea what you're talking about.
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There's also been talk about making the game explain itself better and being more straight forward. Which is totally fine with me. I've seen a lot of souls purists complaining they are going to make the game less complex, but that seems dumb to me. They can tell players how the stats and upgrades work better, while still maintaining the inherent complexity of the combat system and difficulty.
I really don't like that notion. When Hidetaka Miyazaki was a child he used to voraciously read western fantasy stories. However, due to his age and his level of english compression, he couldn't understand large portions of the novels which left him with these amazing bits and pieces of stories with these expansive confusing gaps to fill with imagination.
That wild sense that there's so much more left unsaid is exactly the kind of experience he was trying to create with Demon's/Dark Souls and I feel like if they made the systems less anachronistic, if they made things more straight forward and comprehensible, they'll loose that weird sense that you're never quite seeing the whole picture. It's a feel that permeates the design all the way down to the stats.
A lot of people comment on the difficulty of the Souls games and how the constant threat gives rise to real sense of skill and accomplishment, and while that's true I think it's important to remember how the immense amount of restraint the developers had in all things effect how we feel about the games.
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At the time I hadn't finished the game but your efforts are applauded sir!
Your applause is appreciated dear sir and congratulations on completing said game!
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Late(?) game story stuff, confusion.
What the shit is going on?
Booker is dead/in a quantum mechanically confused state (and bleeding out of his nose)
Brother Lutece was found in a grave, his sisters grave was empty
Not far from the siblings grave there is a white suited Liberty Statue headed corpse
Who does booker owe money? Related question, who can give orders to the lutece twins? Surely someone/an entity with INTERDIMENSIONAL travel dont take no guff from anyone.
Why is booker/lutece special cases?
What's the deal with the black and white closet/room? Is this lutece for whatever reason preventing booker from dying (you know except for keeping the game going)?
I just finished and here are my thoughts on your questions:
Who does booker owe money?
It doesn't matter. Comstock, after using the tears frequently for years becomes sterile, but is obsessed with having an heir, so he tell the Rosalind Lutece to find him one from an alternate world. By this point, Rosalind had already been in contact with Robert Lutece, who finds Comstock in his universe, who by this point has become an alcoholic and gambler with an immense debt, but does indeed have a daughter. Robert acts as a mediator for Comstock, and arranges for Booker's debts to be paid in exchange for his daughter.
Who can give orders to the Lutece twins?
Comstock. Rosalind Lutece works for Comstock and has been experimenting with machines that cause tears. At first she's only able to open tears that give her glimpses of other worlds, but eventually succeeds to communicating through the tears and eventually travelling as well. The person she contacts in these other worlds are the various incarnations of herself, of which Robert is one. Rosalind and Robert are not twins. They're the same person from alternate realities.
Surely someone/an entity with INTERDIMENSIONAL travel dont take no guff from anyone.
Elizabeth's abilities have been severely hampered by the syphon for years. There's a couple graphs on blackboards in the statue that show her power increase over age and show the syphon being introduced to keep her powers under control.
The many Lutece's working for the many Comstock also have the ability to form tears via their machines, but currently no longer need the machines and aren't following any orders but their own. They feel responsible for what happens to Elizabeth, hence take things into their own hands by bringing Booker to Rosalind's original reality to take back his daughter.
Why is booker/lutece special cases?
The two Lutece are special because Comstock has Fink kill the two by sabotaging their tear machine. Instead of killing them, it causes all the Lutece to disappear from all realities, giving the Lutece caught in the sabotage the ability to appear in any reality at any time and place. Booker isn't a special case.
What's the deal with the black and white closet/room? Is this lutece for whatever reason preventing booker from dying (you know except for keeping the game going)?
The first time you see a full world tear, you run across some police officers who are having complete breakdowns from remembering what happened to them in the world before Elizabeth opens the tear. When someone shifts they have memories of both the reality they came from and the one they shifted into, but there are problems. At the end of the game, Robert mentions that people moving through tears will invent memories to cover those lost from the trauma of the shift, which he notes he himself underwent when moving into Rosalind's reality.
Here's the thing: the Lutece aren't preventing Booker from dying, they're replacing him. The black and white room is Booker's apartment/office and every time a Booker dies, the Lutece grabs a suitable Booker who shares pretty much the same past as the original Booker from 1893 and moves him into Rosalind's reality at which point he remembers everything the previous Booker's did. Both the Lutece and Elizabeth note that Booker has died many many times, with Elizabeth alluding to the fact that Booker has never succeeded.
The room is black and white, as is Booker at first, because he's from an alternate reality just like the things Elizabeth pulls from other realities.
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It's appropriate that a band called Garbage played over that trailer. What the fuck is with that flying fire whale? Also, why are Phantom Snake and Ekans Motnahp riding a horse? Also, why everything.
I must be getting old. My first reaction to your post was "What the hell? Does this dude really not know who Garbage is?" then it occurred to me that they were a staple band almost 20 years ago.
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Same for me. I'm so stoked.
It was a bit sad watching Mother Base get trashed... I didn't realize how much of a sense of investment I had developed for it in Peace Walker.
Seriously, I'm not even done Peace Walker and I had this little twinge when I saw my base burning.
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First look at combat, and what not, at PAX:
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I don't want to alarm anyone, but careful out there today. Max Ides is out there... right behind you.
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According to that quote, the change from having to read Japanese horizontally from left-to-right is considered recent -- something that was born out of the everyday use of computers and the internet. I don't think Western influence was so prevalent in the early 80s. Also, Japanese books continue to be read from right to left, even today.
Japanese is written top to bottom in columns, or left to right in rows, not right to left. English is a left to right language and you would no more say that English is read top to bottom than you'd say that Japanese is read right to left. When you're talking about a single dimension, the most significant dimension is the one being referred to. Right to left scripts are a thing and include languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Thaana, etc.
Depending on the context, Japanese is either written in tategaki, vertically, or yokogaki, horizontally. You'll find yokogaki is more frequently used in technical writing such as scientific papers and engineering textbooks, while tategaki is used for things such as letters, newspapers, and literature, though yokogaki is becoming increasingly prevalent. For reference, yokogaki has been around since the late 1800s with the introduction of left to right languages such as German and English in the Meji era.
I guess I should also add that the introduction of left to right languages directly caused the initial shift because while Japanese kanji is morphosyllabic, English is not. Hence, the direction the characters run in English is critical, while in all Han character languages it doesn't make that much of a difference, which is why Japanese was adapted rather than English.
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Ever since Nick's Tweet, I have been confused as to whether I should congratulate Nick, or lament the inevitable end of Idle Thumbs this landmark event must herald.
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That's nice, Twig. By the way, I'm waiting to hear what you and Luftmensch and everybody else saying, "It should be different, more _____," actually think this Youtube series should resemble, beyond just "not what it is".
I think it's perfectly logical to equate the feminist analysis of certain tropes in video games with the critical analysis of certain motifs in cinema, but that's just me. My standards don't seem to be as high as some of the people giving such constructive comments here.
It's too soon to say what I think about her stance on the problems she presents, but I was somewhat disappointed with her first presentation. gregbrown noted earlier that she was keeping a very level tone to avoid the sexist stereotype of a "hysterical" woman in a similar fashion that Obama has to protect himself from the "Angry Black Man" stereotype. I think that comparison is quite apt. By simply being a woman discussing a feminist topic, Sarkeesian must be that much more perfect than any of her male peers to be effective.
Obama is an excellent example of someone who's brilliantly managed immense volumes of prejudiced criticism while still being a very effective speaker. He's an eloquent, expressive speaker, who doesn't give his opponents material to support their rhetoric and prejudice. I feel like Sarkeesian has to meet a similar standard to have her voice heard and I don't think she's reaching such an incredible level of eloquence, so it makes me somewhat sad and disappointed that her points won't have as much impact as they should.
It's entirely unfair, but this is the situation she finds herself in. I wish Sarkeesian was that much more perfect, because the problems she elucidates are real and every flaw she reveals, no matter how trivial, will be used as munition to distract and discredit her arguments.
I don't really have a problem with the content of her video, but it's not really my cup of tea. My personal preference is for fast dense discussions driving at a singular point like the better of the TED talks. For the kind of material she was presenting in the video, I much prefer written articles since I can digest the material at my own pace rather than have the pacing moderated by the speaker.
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Still, it's a common problem in the software industry. Companies rarely want to pay for talent (it's more or less the "my nephew is good with computers; how hard can it be"). The Video game industry just makes it worse by stripping away any sense of job security. Although similar stuff also happens in the VFX industry.
So yeah, talent will pursue careers in other directions were "shipping less that 3m units in 6 months" doesn't result in a studio closure.
I don't know what you're trying to say here. On average, software developers in the tech sector make a lot more than their compatriots in game industry and work far less hours. By a lot more, I mean you can expect a place like Apple or Google to pay you almost twice as much as a game developer in base salary.
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I think you're giving the non-Video game software industry too much credit. There is a difference in how products are developed, as the non-video games industry usually keep upgrading its existing product. So the knowledge people gather over time is valuable. People in the video games industry can more easily be handled like construction workers, especially the people who are not required during the whole development cycle.
Anyway, bad management is also present in the rest of the software industry. I think it's mostly caused by the fact that bad management does not understand the craft of software development. They think it's like building a house, or something else which is more or less the same thing every time. The places that do have good management the management often came from software development, and is usually still active.
I'm not talking about the industry in general, but rather the very limited subset of developers they'd be interested in. People who have practical experience in designing and building large scale distributed systems, or working with big iron, don't grow on trees just like people who have practical experience writing graphics card firmware are not the most common developers in the world. If you don't buy that experience, you need to develop the talent in house and that doesn't happen overnight.
I don't doubt there's some really smart people working on games, and some that clearly have the requisite experience given companies like Blizzard and CCP today, but I have the distinct impression that many game companies are far lighter on experience than they really need to be. I have a lot of friends who started in the game industry, but I can't recall a single one who still works in the industry today. It seems like the game industry bleeds talent and has a hard time attracting experienced developers from other fields. That doesn't seem like a particularly good situation.
Idle Thumbs 122: Mario's Picnic
in Idle Thumbs Episodes & Streams
Posted
You remember 1991? Third grade, second period, just before recess when you thought no one was looking? Yeah, well thestalkinghead was looking and he remembers.