SuperBiasedMan

This is probably already a totally obvious suggestion but a segment on Idle Weekend would be great if that makes the idea more comfortable.

Veggie paté on toast. I dunno about real paté (never had it) but this stuff is good even though it looks awful. It's a desaturated paste you get from a tube. (Weekday breakfasts are lazier)

It's funny you say they're not good people (in my head it reminds me of the main pair from The Last of Us when you phrase it like that) because I think they're generally pretty good if irresponsible people. As is Ned. Maybe I'm a charitable person but I think they want to be good, and do try to an extent. But all of them fail to address their responsibilities fully and that causes screw ups in their lives. I also felt most invested in Delilah and the relationship (that I saw as strictly non-romantic) as a connection I wanted borne out, but instead it's cut as soon as it's clear how much Delilah values it. I thought that all mirrored Henry well, both how he felt and how he acted, so it worked well for me.

I played this over the weekend and enjoyed it a ton. Felt obligated to buy it after, and forgot how cheap it was! Gonna have to buy some DLC at some point. I was surprised that maybe it was just how I played, but the game was neither a gradual descent into city management hell nor was it just printing money the whole time. My memories of Sim City were that if you did it right then everything just flowed and propped itself up, but if you did it wrong everything collapsed under itself hours after you'd made the mistake and you had to pay attention to realise you were on the road to doom. When I played Skylines I rubberbanded so hard. Multiple times I seemed to be flush with cash so I'd start enacting some policies only to discover I was now hemorrhaging money and I had to rebalance everything. And this also totally felt like actual budget balancing. I wasn't just throwing sliders to extremes, I actually thought about stuff. I didn't have much crime so I dropped police funding. I had built two firestations so I could afford to cut their funding. But with all the sick people and trash problems I had to put the hospital funding into surplus even when trying to save money because if the citizens weren't dieing they'd let me off with my 14% taxes. This actually felt like I was trying to herd cats to achieve my goals, which is the right kind of feeling. The up and down was great. Though I finished on a long high of making 10 grand a week so I'm worried it might get easy now. Also weirdly no matter what I did, high taxes and massive budget cuts, people flocked to my city. I had high demand all the time, except when I had just added a bunch of residential areas. Is that just the norm or did I do something weird? While we're on residents, why is there so little leisure stuff you can add? Early on the parks screen shows how little leisure activities people have and parks don't boost it that much. When do I get to unlock real fun stuff, like cinemas or something?

The game teases a sense out of Henry and Delilah and the player that there's something deeper, something mysterious going on. It draws you in with a bizarre bombastic premise of being researched for some reason. The game instills the same conspiracy feeling in you as in them, but then it pulls the rug out from under you, by revealing a very down to earth narrative. It pulls you out of escapism and back to real life. I'm betting that to some people that was either disgruntlingly jarring or that they genuinely didn't believe that had happened and were waiting for the later twist that revealed what it was really all about. Firewatch is a pretty quiet game, which is not what people are used to so much, especially in games. I don't even mean with shooting and explosions. Gone Home has a pretty standard arc of building to an exciting dramatic climax. It gives the player exactly what they expect. Even if they don't know what will happen, they understand the nature of it. Firewatch implies that it's just like those games but then goes differently. The ending is intentionally not a big shift in Henry's life, it has no conclusion or final point. Instead it leaves you hanging in the hope that you'll think about it more.

That reminds me. I loved the moment when Henry found the body. In my game his reaction was perfect. It wasn't overwrought distress or despair, Henry for me just said "Aw geez." It just fit so well in a scene where so often people feel the need to push big drama, but really it was a quiet, crushing discovery that takes time to process.

Made some tasty pancakes with blueberry and ice cream. Best Saturday morning fast breaking.

Went to the pub with workmates tonight and yet again my boss talks about how great it is to have me working for him. I love this job.

I think Firewatch did comment on games as escapism we retreat into as well as worlds where we can build up a narrative that it's all about us, even though in life it's not (see Henry and Delilah's paranoid explanation).

My understanding is that people mean the specificity of Henry's character is at odds with their idea of immersion and embodying a player character in a responsive world. Which I understand even if I don't think that's all games have to offer. I might be wrong about that though, there's a Tom Chick review of the game that's supposed to argue the point well so I'm going to read it later.

Wrong

I was the Pope twice.

I was going to ask if he meant Massive Chalice, which is very XCOM like with light Crusader Kings influence.

Yeah I never felt like I was Henry but I felt like I identified with him. Games are weird in the widespread idea that you are the protagonist character. Other mediums do this but games seem to do it so frequently that it feels odd to people when you're explicitly not the character. I like diverging from the player character because it opens up interesting new angles for storytelling that games too often neglect.

This is how I imagined Nick's games: https://youtu.be/xedmTEuVj7o

The film I'm involved in making is so damn beautiful.

This stub post is just to say that realism in movies is redundant but internal consistency is valuable for believability.

"What if?" premises certainly spiral out of control when you're trying to simultaneously develop them and retain consistency.

Just finished it and loved it. I can see the criticisms people had about the meandering plot, but I feel like something more constructed and plot like would feel less genuine. Henry and Delilah try to construct a narrative with a conspiracy, but that falls apart (in fact Delilah continues to try construct a narrative about murder rather than an accident, and the whole time Ned is constructing a narrative around you). Instead the story is just about these characters, what they do and how they grow. Or... don't. I identified a lot with Henry. I had a pre existing preoccupation with the idea that retreating into myself is one of my biggest flaws, and this game just shone a floodlight on that. Henry and Delilah's poor choices rang very true for me. Which made long silent walks so much better, thinking about their mistakes with regards them, and with me. The moment when Delilah says no to waiting for you was amazing. It comes full circle from being caught off guard, to realising that honestly Henry or I could be just as bad. Not to mention the selfishness of not considering that she's scared and wants to leave. I obsessively searched all of Ned's camp but she was already done, telling me to just get out and head north. I feel like the characters are in a way no better at the end. I suggested Delilah move back to be with her sister, but I don't think that's growth. Delilah told Henry to go to his wife, but I chose to respond evasively, asking if Delilah would do that. Neither of them have grown into being better people, they've just been confronted with the reality of what retreating inward and shirking responsibility can do. The awareness can lead to growth, but the growth hasn't happened yet. Delilah may or may not inform people of what happened. Henry has not made it clear what he'll do next if anything. It was also a damn beautiful game. And the audio was great too, the silences punctuating it were amazingly effective.

I'm way behind and haven't even seen a Bug's Life, but this makes much more sense if you see it as analogous to human experience. It's better to live life and risk heartbreak with relationships rather than wall yourself off from connection but have a relatively pleasant time because it's safer than possibly repeating painful experiences.

If the rankings are mostly speed that makes a lot of sense. I tend to be methodical and take out whole outposts at a time, but in this case I just snuck round the back. You're both so violent. I'm sticking with tranq darts all the way. I accidentally killed someone on my last mission apparently Must've been some stray C4.

Oof. Just finished "Blood Runs Deep" (mission 18). Non spoiler question, is there any drawback to having soldiers in your 'waiting area'? I have 250 soldiers not currently occupied and I'm a while off from having enough fuel for more base upgrades. I'm too lazy to kick them out though, so will it matter if I leave them all there?

Blurp! My mistake. I saw 4 at the top of the page but twitter was absent there. Followed!

Did Mington get the only copy out of millions that contains the cube?

I concur, I love these! I know nothing about the industry, so I can't speak to suitability I'm afraid but I'd just funnel that portfolio out there cause you have great stuff and someone's sure to need that look. Do you have a twitter? Didn't see a link on your site, and that's the main social media I use. (Also your portfolio link at the top here accidentally has a period in it, which breaks the link)