Dualhammers

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Posts posted by Dualhammers

  1. Posted

    Also, it was funny to me that Nick said "Jon Blow judges you for playing a silly game" because during launch week Bennett Foddy (of Qwop fame) asked how X-Com 2 was and Mr. Blow responded saying it had the same "clunky core mechanics" but was now also "loud and in your face. The character stuff is like it was designed for twelve year olds." I jumped in to say that if you prefered the 1994 Xcom because it was the smart one you won't like it but the incorporation of extensive player expression to foster human connection with your soldiers in a tactics game is really interesting and cool. To this Mr. blow replied:

    "I think what he means is it has hats."

  2. Posted

    It probably doesn't mean anything but when Chris mentioned Firewatch he said "Jake and I shipped Firewatch..." and it made me realize that we have not heard Sean on the podcast in awhile. I infered some big stuff is going on in his life so I am not surprised or anything, but that stood out to my brain. Is Sean still officially on the cast?

  3. Posted

    This episode was really good because it brought back all the memories of Bushido Blade I have from my pre-teen years. That was probably one of the few games of the original Playstation era that stayed with me in terms of personal game aesthetic. There is a part of me that has the hubris to think I could someday help create a game that is Dark Souls world building and environmental storytelling but with the Bushido Blade combat model. 

  11. Posted

    Heard about this thread on the latest cast, and today felt like a good day to post. Life has been rough for me the last couple months. Here is just a smattering of things that have occurred:

    1. Wife lost her Q/A Job after the entirely company was fired by the new CEO.

    2. Panic attacks have become an almost daily occurrence, with symptoms mostly being chest pain that no doctor can explain.

    3. Several failed projects have left me without any job prospects myself.

    4. My dad died suddenly at the end of April of a heart attack. (Since my mom died when I was a teenager I'm now fully an adult).

    Despite all this, however, I need to remember that I have a lot of good in my life as well:

    I have a wonderful partner, my new doctor is helping me find a therapist and placed me on some drugs that seem to be helping, and my Dad's will left me an unexpected inheritance that will allow us to actually try our hand at starting a business rather than scrambling for another low-paying Q/A job.

    I feel overwhelmed almost daily these days but i'm doing my best to keep going. Lurking around this forum is part of what helps me keep going. Folks like Danielle continue to inspire and encourage me. I know that I'm going to keep trying, come what may.

  12. Posted

    When the discussion of the town came up my first thought was similar to Jake's. Dashiell Hammett was also known for creating fictitious towns that were reminiscent of real places while also alluding to some greater archetype. Red Harvest is a perfect example with the opening description of Poisionville:

     

    I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he had done to the city's name. Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn't see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richardsnary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better.

     

    And then later.

     

    The city wasn't pretty. Most of its builders had gone in for gaudiness. Maybe they had been successful at first. Since then the smelters whose brick stacks stuck up tall against a gloomy mountain to the south had yellow-smoked everything into uniform dinginess. The result was an ugly city of forty thousand people, set in an ugly notch between two ugly mountains that had been all dirtied up by mining. Spread over this was a grimy sky that looked as if it had come out of the smelter's stacks.

     

     

    I am fairly sure this kind of description would be very similar to what Nic Pizzolatto would have written in the script. 

    One thing that we've touched on only tangentially is True Detective's relationship to pulp noir fiction. In its day pulp noir was just that: pulp. The writing wasn't suppose to be high art, it was suppose to be accessible to the masses. In a lot of ways True Detective season 1 was a departure from that with the level of polish and sophistication that was put into the entire season. It will be interesting to see if this season will return to its more pulpy roots both in terms of content and delivery. Justin Lin seems like a signal that may be the case but we shall see.
     

  15. Posted

    The first instant I heard about Brand's involvement with Offworld Trading Colony I sent a tweet to Soren letting him know that I didn't want to support the game if I knew money would be finding its way into Brad's pocket. Which really frustrates me, because I too think Soren is a cool guy who is now stuck with Brad on a business level. 

    I've honestly wrestled with this decision a lot, because I want to support Soren, but I personally feel that it is the tiny compromises we make every day that have allowed certain toxic elements to stagnate inside the industry. That being said, there doesn't seem to be a good solution here. Soren will get hurt a lot more if this game doesn't work than Brad will, but Brad will benefit if it does.

    Honestly, I don't know what to do.

  16. Posted

    The talk about pricing has me super bummed. As someone who is trying to make games I have visions of trying to be truly transparent with the way I create my work, price it, and use the profits. It is a personal response to the frustration I have with the way many companies go to great lengths to hide what they do and why they do it. Hearing about the Monument Valley revolt gives me some understanding as to why they do hide everything.

    At the height of Gamer Gate a lot of the supporters said they were part of a "consumer revolt" implying that they were using their power as consumers to move the production of games towards some kind of ideological purity. I wonder if those reviewing Monument Valley poorly felt the same way.

  18. Posted

    I probably have the worst answer which is that I spent way too much time playing video games as a kid that when it was time to think about college there was no other topic that I knew as much about. Animation, a side of video games I was completely inept at, became my major for the worst reasons: insecurity and narcissism.  Everyone in my personal circle really thought I should study English or perhaps creative writing, mostly because it was the only thing I had anything approach talent for, but I wanted to prove that I could get good at something I was completely bad at.


    Since then, however, my appreciation for games as a medium has  grown into a mature appreciation both for the work and the community and culture fighting to grow a round it. I don't know whether that is the result of my mind justifying my choices or if I was just lucky in happening upon an aspect of culture as packed full of potential as it seems.

  23. Posted

    I am very much with the thumbs on the frustration for stories where the schlubby white dude being mentored by the far more capable non-white non-dude character only to have them stand aside for him to take his rightful plcae as the chosen one. I am dying for a film or book to reach that final act and have the more capable character go "No, you you're going to help me. You're not ready." As a schlubby white dude myself I don't like the dishonesty.