clyde

I think I mixed Titanfall and Destiny up a bit . . . with Halo.

It seems like there are other types of persistent progress besides shortcuts; little art asset additions that make you feel like you have ran into some stuff in your many attempts. But as far as actually effecting gameplay, I don't know of anything besides shortcuts and your personal knowledge of how things work in that world. I love Spelunky. I never use the shortcuts, but I've never gotten past the third world. There is something to be said about game design that can make the first four levels fun and challenging everytime. Gotta get that cash and supplies for world 2.

I just watched Synechdoche, New York for the second time. It was even better the second time, but it still makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable in an existential way. I read the wikipedia article, it says that it was first envisioned as a horror film, but Charlie Kaufman decided to make it about things he is actually afraid of rather than monsters or killers and such. For about a decade I was obsessed with meta-referential material and I feel like this movie does it with such skill and to such an extreme, that I can feel like that type of subject has a point plotted far enough along the spectrum, that I can just focus on the area which is in between nothing and Synechdoche, New York. I see no need to take it farther, and I can just pick out parts for specific use. I was reading about the scope motif in the wikipedia article and then I looked at some of my older writings and had no difficulty finding something applicable. It inspired me to consider this idea; As meta-referential content or narrative-feedback increases in ambition, it is because the author is trying to increase the work's applicability. It's so interesting, but I have a hard time expressing my interest. Man this movie is so good. It expresses the systems of expression and the esoteria of self-reflection so well. The way it shows the fear and spiraling confusion of observational-influence reminds me not to see how far the rabbit hole goes and to instead just remember that the rabbit hole exists and sometimes you can reach down in it and pull out a rabbit. After I watched the movie, I watched the cats lick each other for a while, that relaxed me a bit.

I'm waiting for this on Android. I'm prepping by reading Pride and Prejudice.

Reminded me of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I just draw phalluses and then turn them into things. In the "How to draw cartoons" books, they tell you to break down the forms into geometric shapes. I just break them down into phalluses. Or is it "phallusi"?. Or is it like "sheep". I draw many phallus.

All this talk of gaming and bee keeping has encouraged me to post this Dwarf Fortress article. I didn't know that you could bee keep and wax craft in the game. How could I, I haven't played it. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195148/

I feel like expressing my affection for my favorite art form. I really enjoy computer games. Some of them are not well made, some of them are made well for people with different tastes, and some of them are my jam, but I think it's great that they exist at all. In college, I became obsessed with the Parisian abstract art movements of the early 20th century and said to myself "Wouldn't it be great if I was there?" No, probably not, with World War threats, poverty, widespread ignorance, status-quo bigotry, not to mention that I would probably spend all my time putting orphans to work in factories rather than enjoying the elite tea-times of Gertrude Stein and Andre Breton; it likely would have sucked. Hard. But what I got was even better. A somewhat populous, consumer driven medium where there is a given faith that if the artist makes what he/she would love to play, someone else will enjoy it too. The democratized investment of Kickstarter Projects and paid Alphas; An enormous community consisting of every gradient-strata of participation; the constant potential of creating or discovering something innovative, expressive, influential, and/or fun; Computer games is a good place to be right now, and I get to participate YAY! SHOUT OUTS!! For context: I just played two matches of Super Monday Night Combat after playing La Havre and Zen Pinball on my iphone at work and I'm now choosing between Prison Architect's alpha and the Crusader King II's tutorial. We all got our favs and our failures, and most importantly, we all have passion. Usually we talk about the details, whether a platforming cartoon character should adjust their direction mid-air or whether or not a hidden-picture game can respectfully address issues like sexual-assault, but we got our face buried so deep in this most excellent pie of savor, that I rarely have an opportunity to just be like: "I FUCKING LOVE COMPUTER GAMES!" Know what I'm sayin? Feel me.

This is everything you need to know to make a basic game. http://www.auntiepixelante.com/twine/

Twine is free, easy to code and easy to distribute. I think you can do things like have random number generators in it, but anything besides branching choices, images and conditional content for past decisions will take a little digging. From what i understand, all you have to do to distribute is share the resulting html file on dropbox or whatever. Ren'py is an excellent visual novel engine. It's free, has a very active and helpful community at the official forums and you can do some fairly complex 2d animations with it. It supports music too. The problem I've had with ren'py is that the art assets Can be a significant investment, and i get bogged down by having to make the art assets. The resulting file is an executable that people have to download. It's harder to code than Twine, largely because you'll want to include background art and character art that does stuff. Inkle is free and has a nice interface and I think you can do all the programming by clicking on stuff. I think you might have difficulty distributing anywhere but the inkle site though. But actually, i remember them saying that they can put stories on kindle for a small fee. I seem to remember some page limit though. Choice of script is another one to look into. They'll even help you put it on the iphone app store and give you 25% of the royalties I think. All that said, if you want characters on the screen to move their mouths and you want background music, I'd got with ren'py. If you want text with maybe a few pictures, I'd go with twine. I'm writing a slice of life story in Twine that borrows from my own experiences. Something interesting about it is that when I give players choices that I didn't make, I tend to write what I thought would happen (a.k.a the reason I didn't make that choice.) So I'm having a hard time not reaffirming my existing biases. I thought that was interesting. It's really fun. Water's warm, come on in.

Is there a reason not to create a more convincing escapism in computer games? I want to step away from the idea of limited resources, because though that might be the reality of any endeavor, I want to examine if there are any inherent problems with simply increasing the ability of escapism for the sake of more escapism. Besides development resources, is anything lost when "player-immersion" or suspension of disbelief is increased in computer games.

Depends on whether or not we are all millionaires.

Anything specific that you feel you should have accomplished by now?

Has anyone checked this game out? It looks really interesting. http://conquistadorthegame.com/

I drew this today.

Zeus had mentioned that eesalram has a child. You aren't supposed to let lizards run freely through the home (especially the kitchen) because they can spread salmonella. The fact that there is a child involved increases the concern.http://www.cdc.gov/healthypets/animals/reptiles.htm

Be careful of salmonella.

When my wife watches movies on Netflix movies, she fast-forwards through any scenes that don't have the main characters in them. I find myself fighting for the artist's intent, but really, she should have the option. There are a few movies I might actually enjoy if I could toggle a switch that says "fight-scenes - yes/no" and "chase scenes - yes/no". That's not true, there would barely be any movie left. I'm all for a switch that you can toggle "save-feature on/off" But I could see myself getting passionate about which one is the default setting.

So I love the cow farmer story in You Will Select A Decision. Are you interested in trying to help me appreciate these Porpentine games? I am not feeling esalram's style and you include a lot of Porpentine's work. How would you instruct me to love it?

I do, only it's not a highscore that is my objective, it's how far I can go. So for instance, in Spelunky, I am trying to get to a world I haven't gotten to yet. In FTL, I get excited when I get to a zone farther than I've gotten before. In Binding of Isaac, it's the Cave, or Basement or whatever the temples are called.

I love the idea that these two people were just trolling for nerds. I wonder how often one jumps out of the wood work to make essential corrections.

Here is a website that focuses on the pragmatics more than the cultural relevance. How to make games with Twine

I've re-read the previous posts and I can see where I may have implied that Mastaba Snoopy was not "good" because it had few choices. I also noticed I said I was looking for "good Twine stories" in the first post. I didn't take that into consideration when I responded to your post the first time. I do have a much better idea of what I am personally looking for now (compared to what I knew when I typed my first post). I am personally interested in notable twines with branching narratives.

I enjoyed that.

I feel zero shame for wanting to know if I should be expecting a branching narrative or a kinetic novel. People are coming to twines for different reasons, I see no problem with clear labels that help the audience find what they are looking for. It's not that choices make a game "good" or "bad", it's the idea that people are more likely to enjoy something if it fulfills certain expectations. I'm not saying that all interactive fiction should have choices, but I would prefer to know if it is completely linear, because I want to read the ones with choices. That said, thank you for the recommendations.