aperson

The irony - this is a direct quote from Zeus that I included because it was so ridiculous and distasteful. But I guess I'm blocked now so you can't read this - what a tremendous shame! Being blocked for quoting the person you're defending seems like a pretty good way to go.

Let me quote a famous philosopher king here. I think his words of wisdom will touch your very soul: "Boo fucking hoo. Do you actually have anything useful to contribute?" You should carefully consider these profound sentiments before you post again.

Nope. Sorry, you don't get to post just a link as some sort of brainless rebuttal then try to get the last word in. I discredited his position with "1, smarm." If you want to read a long rebuttal of his position go read that Gawker piece. (My rebuttal also serves to mock the idea of smarm. So many layers!) Separately I'm pointing out that he doesn't even believe the argument he's making. I'm going to assume (admittedly for no rational reason) that's he's really smart and has put a lot of thought into his position, and hence the fact that he doesn't believe it himself is reason for me not to believe it either. (Oh noes! An appeal to authority!!!) You had the power to move on by posting something relevant to the topic at hand. Instead you decided to continue the shit posting. Only you have the power to prevent shit posting! What's the name of the logical fallacy where people keep making shitty off-topic posts to try to score points? Argument ad typical internet dipshit? Sorry, my Latin's not the best. Or my English, as Tycho so devastatingly pointed out.

Great post. Clearly you are my superior. You sure schooled me! No. It's not ad hominem. It's pointing out hypocrisy. Maybe the next time you find a wiki entry on fallacies you should try reading them? Why would I take your arguments seriously when you clearly don't believe them yourself? Keep calling for decorum while acting like a flaming moron - it's super effective. Done whining yet?

1. Smarm. 2. I'm being lectured by someone who's idea of decorum is calling others ignorant idiots. 3. I'm perfectly aware of logical fallacies. Feel free to point some out rather than simple name checking them.

This would probably have been a much larger problem for Unity a year ago. There's a significant cost to switching platforms. Unity is "good enough" for a lot of small-timers and features like cutscene editors, fancy lighting models and node-based shaders don't matter all that much for that sort of person. I see this aimed more at mid-level devs - a studio of say 6 people with professional experience in UE already - rather than really small or novice devs. Unity also runs on consoles and Vita. Which I think is starting to matter more and more as PC channels become overstuffed - being on console does lend a certain credibility to a project.

They drink it ironically. http://business.time.com/2013/05/26/after-pbr-will-the-next-great-hipster-beer-please-stand-up/ I'm only half serious and generally don't approve of calling people "hipsters", so please don't take this post super seriously, but PBR is a very trendy beer among people who theoretically should drink better stuff. In it's defense PBR is one of the better tasting cheap beers - I drank PRB before it was cool!

As I have mentioned in other places that's just my writing style, I really mean nothing by it. Too many years of debate club in high school. Also I learned on this very forum that tone doesn't matter and in fact objections based on tone are "smarm." I'd have to double check but I'm pretty sure that Merus was my teacher on this subject! So I guess what I'm saying is - whatch your smarm! (Note: I'm not actually saying that!) I admit to being dismissive of "Rules of Play" because frankly I think it's inane. I am not however dismissive of you, brkl, or anyone interested in genuine discussion. I am dismissive of thread shitters with nothing of substance to contribute - something I am never going to feel guilty about!

If I'm not here to engage or discuss why are my posts long, explanatory, and rooted in close textual reading? If you are here to discuss why aren't you actually discussing? osmosisch didn't point out any logical fallacies. He said they existed but didn't bother to say what they were. In addition he said arguing with me was unpleasant. How am I supposed to interpret that? That I'm a very pleasant person but arguing with me is unpleasant because his keyboard is covered in acid and thumbtacks? "Your face in unpleasant to look at - no offense!" I interpret people making garbage posts with no substance as meaning they aren't capable of making intelligent posts. Not quite the same thing. How many garbage posts are you osmosich going to make under the guise of encouraging better discourse?

I don't think these are complex concepts. That's the problem. I think these are, for the most part, extremely simple concepts that are being dressed-up. I would also say that metaphors are often obfuscatory. You see this all the time in forum discussions - someone uses an analogy that doesn't really work then everyone ends up arguing over the analogy. There are times when analogies are very handy of course, but they are often employed to extremely poor effect. Metaphors are great when you take a difficult-to-understand concept and relate it to a well-understood one. I don't think why Asteroids is fun or how games are interactive are difficult concepts. About the fame motive stuff - I've read most of these books on design because I was interested in them. It's only after I read them that I came up with this "fame motive" hypothesis. I don't think I had any reason to dismiss them a prioi. Let me examine one passage in depth, in my typical "handwaving" manner: First of all this is a needlessly complex way of describing why Asteroids is fun that conveys almost no meaning. Second of all while it's jargon-based it's not precise, which is why it's a poor use of jargon. Choices in asteroids are not discrete. Modelling Asteroids as a series of discrete choices is very unwieldy. (Without getting into discussions about whether time is discrete etc...) Third of all, there's no need to model Asteroids as anything, at least not in this manner. Asteroids is easily graspable. This is pretty useless to anyone familiar with Asteroids as well as anyone unfamiliar with it. Fourth, and maybe most importantly, this is a terrible explanation of why Asteroids is fun. Almost any real-time game could be described as a series of "action > outcome units." Including ET and Superman 64. Asteroids is fun because of specific design decisions. It's fun because you need to shoot asteroids, but when you do that they split in two and the game becomes harder. It's fun because steering the ship is physics-based in a way that is hard to control but not in way that's frustrating. This analysis of Asteroids is like saying that a movie is enjoyable in part because it's a series of individual frames that play in order to produce a coherent narrative. Rarely are watchers aware of the individual frames. Sure - on some level that does describe movies. But that's a poor base for the analysis or creation of movies, and also a pointless one for anyone familiar with the basics of movies. It might work as one paragraph in an introduction, but an entire book full of that sort of thing would be pretty silly. Sure. For example comparing the cardinalities of integers and real numbers by imagining integers as the inch marks on an infinite ruler and the real numbers as the space in between.

If you're going to argue about whether or not a game is horribly offensive being familiar with the specific content in question seems like an obvious prerequisite. In non-rape-related news I also beat Dark Souls recently. Like a previous poster I also got stuck at the Gargoyles for a while. Put the game down for a long time, then picked it up again after a friend helped me beat them and slowly went through the rest of the game. Other than the Gargoyles I beat everything without the help of a summon, either PC or NPC. Feels good. Ornstein and Smough were ridiculously hard, given that I had nobody to distract them and at the time I was using a lightning weapon that did almost no damage to them. Gwynn was also pretty hard but not nearly as bad. I beat him mostly via riposte. Hard to describe the joy I felt when I successfully riposted his last attack when he was at 5% health and knew all I had to do was press one last button to win the game.

You seem to have confused insulting me with making with making a valid point. (About how unpleasant I am no less) You really poked a lot of holes in what I said though! So congratulations on that.

Personally I hate Kismet. Unreal is in a weird spot. There are almost no announced games using UE4. I assume there is something wrong with it. I have no basis for that assumption other than that UE3 was very popular and UE4 isn't. IMO the main strength of Unreal Engine is the tooling. It has node based shader editing, cutscene editors, level editors, etc. It's a much more complete package than Unity in some ways.

I am perfectly willing to argue that "choice molecules" is clearly an example of obfuscatory jargon that conveys no new specific meaning and leave it to readers to agree or disagree. Quite honestly it sounds like parody. Jargon can be useful. This jargon is not. I hope that my flow of denotative molecules and the meaning lattice they have built sufficiently address your concerns. If not perhaps I can string together more meaning-conveyance units so that we can continue our bidirectional choice-molecular interactions.

According to Rules of Play choice molecules are a core concept in interactivity. A core concept! They are an "action > outcome" unit, as part of a long discussion of what "choice" is as part of an even longer discussion of what "interactivity" is. To me this is inane. To each their own I suppose, but I think I have a pretty good idea of what "choice" is. Enough to make games and enough to understand the games other people have made. This is the sort of thing I'm referring to when I say this type of work is an attempt to be recognized as a pioneer - we already have words to describe "choice molecules" and action-outcome units: "choice" and "consequence." Those are perfectly good words that everybody already understands. Calling choices and their consequences "choice molecules" is introducing pointless new jargon. The only upside is that if the language catches on then the authors of the book can be credited for it. It's actually worse than that. If you say that "action > outcome" exist as paired units you're implying that each "choice molecule" is independent or at least separable, which is not how choice and consequence works. If you have two binary choices you could have three different outcomes that depend on how both choices were made. (A & B, A & !B, !A and !B ) So not only is it silly new lingo when we already have the plain English words to describe the same concept, it's a bad metaphor as well. Harumph I say! Harumph!

It's beyond the scope of this conversation to prove what I said. When people design games they don't talk about "choice molecules." Take my word on this! That doesn't happen! (Maybe it happens at Spy Fox!) I googled "choice molecules" to see if I could find any reference to them and I came across this. I think it's an interesting and accurate take on how game design operates in relation to game design theory. It also corroborates my claims that this academic work has not penetrated the practice of game design. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/12168.46494.pdf

Juul writes some good stuff. That dictionary isn't one of them. It has a definition for "fiction" with citations. Who is it written for? Who is like "what is this strange concept of 'fiction' I keep hearing about?" Who doesn't know what a "goal" is? What "interesting choices" are? Someone doesn't know what it means to "lose" something? I mean, if you're going to assume that your readers don't know the meaning of these basic words how are they supposed to read and understand your dictionary in the first place? Let's roll with that assumption - they don't know what "win" means or what a "player" is. So if you write "In Bioshock finding food in dumpsters helps the player win the game" isn't it also safe to assume that the reader doesn't know what "food" or a "dumpster" is? Does this hypothetical reader even know English? By comparison look at this dictionary of game theory terms: http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/ In this dictionary the entries are for specific jargon with specific meaning. When you spot what looks like a normal English word like "game" it turns out the definition being used is narrower and more formal. All of these terms cross-reference and create a total formal system for talking about game theory. By comparison the Juul dictionary is gobbledygook. The game theory dictionary is precise and well-defined. The Juul dictionary looks like a half-hearted stab that didn't go through any editing or review. --- I'm belaboring this dictionary to make the point that game criticism (using the term broadly) could use a lot more criticism itself.

The book does not accomplish what it set out to do. We know this to be true. The book has not informed game design discussion in any meaningful way. It did not establish either a vocabulary or a critical framework, and in fact the previous links in this thread were to a journal including a piece bemoaning the lack of such vocabulary and frameworks. The book was not a catalyst for innovation. Nobody adopted the new concepts, strategies and methodologies. Not game designers and not even other academics. It's cool that you liked the book. That's allowed. If you want to read a drawn out discussion about what games might be the book is good for that, and if you find that interesting there's nothing wrong with that.

It's not a manual but it is about making games, rather than critiquing them. You own excerpt says as much: "catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games." IMO the book, like most books, is an attempt to carve out territory that serves nobody but the authors.

If you like Simpsons and X-Men you should consider Aliens vs Predator, The Punisher and other Capcom beat em ups. They definitely play better than their Konami counterparts. I also really like King of the Dragons, which is sort of a beat em up but a more methodical one. As well as Captain America and the Avengers. If you like space invaders you should definitely include a Galaga. (Galaga 88 is my favorite) I personally love old Irem and the games various staff worked on later. They have very distinct look that I love and consider basically the pinnacle of sprite art. These include R-Type and In The Hunt, as well as Last Resort, Metal Slug and various other Neo Geo games. So if you like Metal Slug in part for the art it's definitely worth it to look through a list of Irem and Irem-derived games. Other random personal favorites of mine: (I'll leave off fighting games, as you are primarily interested in one-player games) 'Nam 75 Magician Lord Gain Ground Shinobi / Shadow Dancer the aforementioned UN Squadron Magic Sword

I was thinking less about film studies books and more "how to make a movie" books. In my mind a book like "Game Design Fundamentals" is a "how to make a game" book. It's not a step by step guide, but it is about making games rather than critiquing them, by giving people the tools and understanding required to make games. I'm not familiar with film studies books, but I am familiar with books on cinematography, editing, and other books about the fundamentals of making a film. Some of them are fairly academic sounding in their language (regarding nomenclature, types of shots, etc) and like Game Design Fundamentals in part about building a vocabulary, but in my experience they don't stop and debate what exactly a movie is or why people enjoy watching them. It's just assumed that people have a good understanding of movies and basic human emotions and motivations. You're reading a book on cinematography, you probably know why people like movies! For some reason that I don't understand at all people who write about games are often obsessed with inane "deep thoughts" about games - what is a game? What is fun? What is enjoyment? Does a game need to be fun? Is making a game art or craft? Is story important? These are things that can be fun to debate but are wholly irrelevant to making good games. But these are often posed as foundational issues that must be addressed first - we just can't make fun games until we understand exactly what "fun" is. It's like the authors of these works are extra-terrestrials confused by our human emotional states. Doesn't every human being intuitively know what fun is? If you're reading a book on game design don't you have a good enough working definition of "game"? --- The idea of waves of video games being aligned to generations is an interesting one. I think this is definitely true for the introduction of the NES and the N64/PSX, but I'd have to think about it a lot more for other hardware. In general the history of game design seems like an extremely under-explored topic. Game design is very trend-driven but I rarely see those trends discussed.

I would say that to me building a 1-player cabinet would be a huge mistake. Arcades were a very social experience and a large number supported 2 or more players. What if a friend came over and was intrigued? They don't have to be good at games either, just pump in the credits. Arcade games are designed such that someone who doesn't know how to play can still join in and have fun. There are a huge huge number of games that are better with 2 players. Multiplayer is fundamental to the experience for a lot of games and entire genres. At least leave enough space so that you can add a second stick later if needed.

What kind of games do you like? I basically grew up in arcades. Like, going to the arcade nearly every day for a decade. I could suggest hundreds of games from different genres and eras. The question is so wide open...uh...UN Squadron? Magician Lord? Klax? I NEED MORE GUIDANCE!

Man...that Journal of Games Criticism. That piece by Brendan Keogh is the kind of thing I can't stand in academic writing - taking an extremely simple idea and making it needlessly complex, rather than coming up with a new interesting idea and making it understandable. I think a lot of this style of writing is an evolved defense mechanism - if you adopt it you can intimidate people and sound smart, completely independent of the ideas you're expressing. If you just come out and say "games are about the play experience, not just the mechanics" people will just say "no shit", but if you dress it up like this you come off as some sort of word wizard beyond mortal comprehension. To analyze a video game as purely about mechanics or narrative is reductive, the analysis should take into account the holistic play experience including the experience of the player. That's basically the entire idea being expressed. Incidentally I agree, but good lord. it's also interesting that it says "this article lays the groundwork for such an academic discourse of video game criticism." It's very similar to the claim made in Game Design Fundamentals about establishing a vernacular to talk about games. It's very odd to hear academics bemoan the lack of groundwork or vocabulary to work in their own field of study, purport to fix it, then bemoan it again years later. It's like...if video game criticism has been around for decades as an academic discipline and you still don't have any language for discussing video games properly maybe you should just pack it in, because what you're doing clearly isn't working. Or maybe consider using good old plain English. "the humanities generally and cultural studies in particular lacks a coherent vocabulary to perform strong, analytical criticism of individual video game works." This is not true at all. That language exists. It's just that academics refuse to use it because they're obsessed with staking out territory by inventing new terminology or new "conceptual frameworks." It's like everyone wants to be credited as the inventor of good games criticism so each person has to offer their own unique take they hope will catch on. They really need to someone to step in and say "yo guys, stop arguing about which framework or term you're going to use and get to the fucking criticism already you ninnies." And as an added bonus "go read George Orwell on how to write effectively because you're doing the exact opposite of that." Literally the exact opposite! Maybe we need a Journal of Video Game Criticism Journal of Criticism.

As I mentioned previously, I often use comments as pseudo-code to guide the actual code writing. And yes, they are also very useful to look back on. I also will leave comments if I had a better solution that I didn't have time to implement, some performance improvement I thought of that I could go back and make if needed, etc. It's a very bad idea to work on something and think you'll remember it when you revisit it later because you won't. This is especially true of code that looks very weird but is that way for a very good reason. You go back later and "simplify" it (or a co-worker "fixes" it) then realize you broke something because all the parts that looked weird were bug fixes.