clyde

[sighs with relief] It's a lot of work to be a pop-culture snob. I'm glad it's paying off.

You could tell eesaldrom that you are comedic relief. I for one, appreciate that you acknowledge my hipster-status. This reminds me of an academic paper I found about how Jane Austen formulated social reputation in Pride and Prejudice... Second edit: I just figured out that Twig was responding to the comment on Sword& Sorcery. How disappointing. Classic hipster mistake, thinking that someone was talking about himself.

I have different expectations from iphone-games than I do from console-games. I know that the iphone is capable of these longer and more in-depth experiences, but expecting it will likely lead you to missing out on some neat experiences. I think of spending a dollar on the app-store like I used to think of spending 50 cents in an arcade. I don't expect a long-lasting experience, I just expect something novel that interests me for a bit. That said, let me provide some recommendations with descriptions similar to yours: 1. Bad Piggies - It's like Kerbal Space-Program in a simplistic form having Angry Birds style levels and objectives. I love this game. They just released some new levels. I really enjoy figuring out how to get 3 stars on each stage. It's free at the moment. 2.Le Havre - Imagine if Monopoly was actually fun. Now I can't give a full recommendation for this game because it sucks on the iphone, but I love playing it anyway. The reason it sucks is because the type is too small. So Le Havre is one of the many worker-allocation style board-games that I have been introduced to through the iphone. I don't have friends to play with, but I'm really interested in how board-games are designed, so I like the automation. The other board-games I've enjoyed playing against AI on the iphone are Wabash Cannonball, Stone Age, and Ticket To Ride. Le Havre is on sale for a dollar, you won't like it, but some lurkers might. 3. Backflip Madness - This game has problems, but I got REALLY into it for a while. It has a warning at the beginning that basically says "Don't try this in real life!" and I thought it was a joke, until I played it for 6 hours. I became convinced that I could TOTALLY do a backflip in real life. But then I remembered the warning. Again, this is no Skyrim. It's a little vending machine that you wander past at a carnival in a strange town, it begs you for some change and you put it in just to see what it will show you. the biggest problem with this game is that you can't see where you are supposed to land. I just started taking that as part of the challenge, that I must memorize the order of jumps, but it shouldn't be that way, it is lazy and disruptive game-design. It's qwopish, but different. Everything is in the timing of your taps. There is only one type of tap, not four; so it's kinda like QWOP without the WOP. I may think of others later. Don't trust my opinion by the way. I would have put Tiny Wings on my list. Oh, maybe I should anyway since you can see how I would have described it; that way you can calibrate my how much my opinion is different from yours. 4. Tiny Wings - Great example of how the touch-device allows for new game mechanics. I especially like how the levels are randomly generated every day. that gives me the ability to perfect my runs through the course of the day, but on the next, it'll be a whole new circumstance to master.

Brendon Chung and Sanjay Madhav's latest episode of Extended Memory is super interesting. They interview Borut Pfiefer who worked on Skulls of the Shogun. They have some great insider views of what the goals of character A.I. can be and a great discussion about systems-interaction and illusion. The first two episodes are also enjoyable, but I found the third to be particularly enlightening.

In MUDs, is it possible for a player to write a description (I guess that would be making an object) and then link it to existing objects? I'm wondering if an internet forum could take the form of a MUD. Threads would be rooms and posts would be objects in those rooms. Maybe the posts could actually take the form of a dialogue among characters, ghosts. It would be separate from real-time chat. So when you walk in a room, you would read a description (in some way simar to a thread title) and then the posts are delivered as a dialogue by the player-characters of the players who write them. Quoting would take chronological precedence over time posted. So if Tracy quotes Charles, Tracy's ghost would respond before a non-quoting post by Evan even though Evan wrote her post before Tracy. So when you walk into a room, you see all that dialogue play out and then you have the option to add to it. Real-time chat would be a completely separate system. Players would have to be able to arrange rooms in a variety of ways. Inside-jokes could be commodified. Unique objects could be created by admins and programmed by people with exchangable permissions. So Jake could create an object called "Big Dog" and then give permission to program it to Lacabra (like an ability to bust through doors after carefully placing a key in the lock and turning it) and that permission to program would be exchangeable, but limited to one person at a time. Then it just wanders around the MUD/forum. I wonder if that would add to the forum experience, or just obscure it. I love conflation; lets me feel productive without having to produce.

This is some esoteric shit! There is a prison. Did players have the ability to incapacitate and carry other players into the prison? If so, how was it determined who could capture who? "Card collector"? Please tell me that there was a collectible trading-card game that only existed in the game. This looks rather engrossing if you have the ability to visualize these spaces. Stevie Wonder is asking developers to make games for blind people on the VGAs? Someone should tell him about this stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8BKVyqAxxf4

When you say that it was "HUGE", what does that mean? Is it like you can keep typing "north" over and over again and getting a message like "You are in the northern Plains, you see nothing of interest."? I am really curious about the things these games were able to impliment that MMOs have not been able to re-create.

I'd love to know if those tests have any actual prediction-value. I have a hard time taking them more seriously than a Cosmo quiz (except the part where they will call the cops if you say you have thoughts of harming yourself or others).

Too much text, no? Besides, talking about something is different than doing it. I can't imagine watching that, but I'm still curious about them. What is the modern day equivalent?

I think the reasoning for making a stealth game was pretty interesting in that interview. Burroughs and friends have a really uncomfortable paranoia accompaning their art-magic adventures. It makes since that the game would want to create that juxtaposition of vulnerability and esoteric power with stealth. Wouldn't it be funny if your character could assemble a dream-machine out of daily newspapers and a record-player? Then your loading screen becomes exceptionally long and the screen blinks 13 times a second.

I wanted to hear Nick talk about Gemstone 3 for an hour. I know very little about MUDs. I'd be interested in hearing a conversation of what that type of game tended to express compared to whatever the modern day counterpart is.

Have you ever heard of the "cobra effect" http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect An npc faction could offer bounties that would make erradication unprofitable. Then to make sure that they never go completely extinct, they could introduce migrations from the borders after everyone has learned their lesson. I just see so much interesting potential in all this. It would be so cool if there was a moon-cycle and certain species would migrate into the world on during certain moon-phases, like sea-turtles. I think that if the simulation was designed in a way that expects min-maxers, then they can use their greed and efficiency in favor of the simulation. The article in the OP seems to Intentionally give examples of failed ecosystems. One is an early MMO where the designers had no concept of how crowds act, and the other is a game that never actually implimented the simulated ecosystem. I understand that it is easier to prioritize apophenia and not create an interactive simulation, but I don't think that such a focus has the potential to maintain interest while the details of how the "simulation" works are revealed through play. It's like Dewar said in eesaldrom's post, it's enjoyable when you think there is some complexity to the gears, but when you find out it's a simple trick, the player loses interest. I think that there is a lot of potential in games where simulated ecosystems interact and players get a stream of info or experiences that shows them what the rules of those interactions are.

So I'm reading Pride And Prejudice and I have found that I really enjoy Austen's style. Today, I was appreciating something about her writing that reminded me of the problems posed in this thread, not the solutions. I'm going to tell you about what I read, and then explain how it demonstrates a solution for appreciation of complex systems in games. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 1 [spoilers I suppose] Elizabeth related to Jane the next day, what had passed between Mr. Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; -- she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley's regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. -- The possibility of his having really endured such unkindness, was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing therefore remained to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake, whatever could not be otherwise explained. ``They have both,'' said she, ``been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side.'' ``Very true, indeed; -- and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say in behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the business? -- Do clear them too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of somebody.'' Alright, here is what I like about Austen's style here. She explains the complex reasoning for Jane's opinion before using dialogue to show Jane's opinion. If Austen had skipped the reasoning, and just written the dialogue, then it wouldn't have engaged me. Wickham has an amiable appearance, so Jane defends him when attacked; Mr. Darcy is a friend of Bingley, so she defends him when he is attacked. Both of them are being attacked, both must be defended; so Jane suggests that there must be a misunderstanding. This conditional behavior is established, and then through the dialogue, the reader sees it played out. I think this style of mapping out the why and then watching the instance of how is psychologically satisfying. The satisfying process is to understand a system, predict behavior with the system, and witness a demonstration. Ok, here is where I think this relevant to this thread and the article in the OP that I just re-read. The article does a great job of showing what is valuable about prioritizing apophenia in a game, but I'm skeptical that the original problem it poses is caused by having a complex system. I think the problem is that the player doesn't notice, or even have access to the rules of the complex system. If the systems within the game are more apparent, then we can really appreciate them when they play out. NPC's in Ultima could have reported low populations of certain species to players and detailed three direct chains of causation for why the animal was in low population and what would happen if it stays low or gets higher. Of course I would prefer this to be somewhat elegant, but you get the idea, tell the player how the system interacts within the game world. This information will give the player a way to play with the system rather than just affect it.

I just woke up from a nap where I dreamt that someone had made a Surgeon Simulator style QWOP game where you had to perform a Japanese tea-ceremony for a guest.

It was explained to me in another thread that "escapism" is not an inherent aspect of the work of art, but instead a particular use of it. It seems that the two of you have a different view. What makes a romance-novel or Game of Thrones more escapist than ... I don't know... whatever is not escapist in nature.

Is watching Game of Thrones like watching a long chain-reaction in Bejewelled, Peggle, or Every Extend Extra? Lots of set-up and then shit hitting fans that trigger levers that cause train-wrecks? That's the impression I get from all the periphery-talk.

I LOVE the idea of turning your dreams into mad-libs so that other people have a more investment in them. That's brilliant. I'm going to do that from now on. It makes so much sense, because dreams are not about the details IMO, they are about roles, associations, and emotions. Writing "[enter romantic partner here]" instead of "Bethany" has the potential to communicate more.

I tend to remember more dreams if I'm in the habit of writing them down every morning. You may still be having the dreams, but you are forgetting them when you wake up because your mind fills with getting to work on time or ehatever rathrr than taking a moment to remember more from your dream. I enjoyed some of the assumed logic in your dream though. Control by unknowns through environmental psychology that forced your peers to compete. That was a huge theme in a lot of sci-fi I read in highschool and the movies I saw in the 90's; Cube, that Vonnegut short-story about chess, Running Man(?). That entire Spartacus thing where two people are equals with no beef, but when they are forced into gladatorial combat they beat the toe-nails off of each other.

Some of the exposition in Inception sounds like someone explaining how to play a board-game to a first-time player. One of the games I pretend to work on is my attempt to put the formula of romantic korean dramas into game mechanics. Korean dramas such as "Playful Kiss", "Coffee Prince", "You Are Beautiful", "Me too Flower", and "Dream High", are filled with mechanical tropes that seem translatable into games. It's not that every 16-episode series has a wrist-grab, it's that every wrist-grab is a negotiation of co-dependence. It's not that every series has a moment where someone's cell-phone breaks, it's that misunderstandings will have to be resolved. The initial motives of the characters are often symbolized to the level of iconography; the hard-working girl who has to provide for her family after their parents leave, the rich charbol prince who searches for sincerity in his social relationships, the no-humored successful type who just wants to be able to trust. Watching a lot of these shows, I've begun to see how they look like the same game-system with different playthroughs. This reminds me of a more general idea I've been having: I think that playing games that prioritize mechanics and systems encourage the player to look at the world as one of mechanics and systems, rather than looking at it as a detailed list of historical events. I think that games teach me to extrapolate more (but maybe my tendency to extrapolate has led me to games).

The other day I was thinking about how during a dream, your mind is probably tasked with two computationally intensive tasks: simulating a world, and interpreting it. It's interesting to me to consider how this conflict of interest could be a potential reason for why dream environments, and your decision-making abilities while dreaming, are so gnarled and feedback-warped.

Fascinating podcast. I really enjoyed hearing these fellas talk about designing this expansion. I can't think of better questions for Rob to have asked. Hearing about the iteration of Venice, the micro-management concerns with trade-routes, the impetus for the World Congress and the double-meaning of "Brave New World" was all really interesting. Great show; Great game.

Versu has an SDK Closed Beta thing. http://emshort.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/versu-sdk-closed-beta/

This was posted over in Three Moves Ahead forum in the The Brave New World thread and I wanted to see it discussed, but I'd rather do it in a new thread: I've always suspected that this view was out there, but Alex's comment is the first I've actually seen. So I looked around to find more examples of this area of criticism, because I think it's an interesting perspective. Here is a paper that attempts to describe the way that "Western Civilization's" paradigm is expressed in the mechanics and themes of Sid Meier's Civilization series (Dude, when eesald-ram starts talking about the "cyborg technobody console cowboy", I'm like "What the fuck is happening in this essay?" I love it. Good stuff.) Personally, I think that the perspective in the game is that of imperialism, but not of a particular region. This belief probably stems from the premise that imperialism has inherent methods. I love me some Civilization V and I recommend playing it it and look forward to more. I experience no shame in playing it. To me, it is beautiful, pleasurable and valuable. But I still enjoy considering these post-structuralist criticisms. Hopefully this post will lead to Howard Zinn, Jared Diamond, Noam Chomsky and a bunch of brilliant historians from different cultures to create something that can compete with Civilization 6. But til then, anyone want to talk about it?

I was explaining this game to family this morning which led to a political debate. The result was that I've been reading about U.S. influence in coups d'état on Wikipedia for the last hour and a half. I encourage you to try reading this while deep in a match of Civ 5. It is strongly influencing how I interpret the information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions