Deadpan

Oh jeez, I hope I didn't seem inadvertently creepy knowing things you didn't expect me to.

I was referring to what SuperBiasedMan said and didn't notice a new post had popped up. Sorry about the confusion.

Haha, I thought you knew! But now that I think about it I'm not sure when I last mentioned my Twitter around here and neither my avatar nor username are really representative. Whoops! But yeah, I am him. Or he is I?

A while ago, I compiled a short list of independent games publications that I can vouch for and instructions for how to pitch to them, which could be useful to anybody here planning to write about games specifically. Just scroll past the advice on how to pitch generally (or maybe read that too actually). I should probably update the list now that I could actually have time for something like this again. If anybody has any suggestions for what to add, I'd be happy to do that, if I agree that nothing about the site seems iffy when I have a look. Also I'm @JoeKllr on Twitter and will gladly share what limited knowledge I have of this field. If you want somebody more professional, I recommend asking @NickCapozzoli, who's a regular of Gamespot and always happy to answer questions. He even does a tutorship thing for writers called Tutorial Mission, but I'm not sure if that slot is filled at the moment or not. I think sites that want you to submit complete features will generally state so on their submission page, and sites that ask for pitches generally want you to just tell them your idea so they can voice potential concerns before you go and run off in entirely the wrong direction (possibly). They might even go so far as explicitly stating that they will not accept finished articles. Also, I'd recommend focussing on just building a body of work (on your own blog or something like that) over reading guides. Easy to get stuck on theoretical stuff. Critical Distance doesn't really take pitches, but Blogs of the Round Table, where you write something in response to a monthly theme and then they compile a list of who wrote what, is probably a nice place to start out if you want a bit of practice writing on a schedule, to a theme and as part of a larger conversation. This is very true! There's nothing stopping you from just making your own thing, and if you stick with it people might just notice you. I made a thing some three years ago and now I'm at least vaguely known in these circles, and it's much easier to approach editors about writing something when they already know you got the stuff. The roundabout path I took to entirely negligible amounts of cred should also tell you how true the thing Apple Cider said about this basically being impossible is.

Do you mean people will think that the thing itself is real or that it's a real conspiracy that other people believe in? Or both?

I share your general optimism about this introduction and agree it's probably not that big of an issue, but can we really substitute digital and retail for each other that completely, especially given how that coincides with differences in the manner of thing people are buying? Somebody might go buy a hammer for one single task like "I want to hammer in a nail for this one painting I bought," but it's still a useful item to have around afterwards. You might buy a dress and return it after wearing it out once, but the thing that's stopping you from keeping it is probably entirely a monetary concern, not that the dress is now literally spent. But to a lot of people, I think, there's very little appeal to keeping around a piece of media they have already consumed, so to them this refund policy might be less analogous to "I have the option of returning a physical item I bought" and more akin to "I can get a refund for a meal I have already consumed" It still takes a certain gutsy terribleness (and spectacular commitment to very low-level fraud) to do that, but there's arguably less of a mental block to doing something like that when the "Oh this thing might come in handy one day or another" justification for the puchase falls away.

I'm curious how this policy might change based on use, because it looks like at the moment there's very little in the way of people buying, finishing and refunding games that just happen to be shorter than two hours. Like, Cameron Kunzelman has just released a short narrative game that only takes about an hour to finish if you don't want to see every possible path, nook and cranny, and he's been tweeting about this worriedly a bunch. Or does that mean people can now reviewbomb things on Steam by buying something, writing about it, and then immediately refunding it? The common wisdom is that Valve will have thought about this somehow or is bound to make changes when something is obviously broken, but I'm not sure if that's really the case anymore what with the state they left Greenlight and the Curation system in.

If it helps, even after three years of doing this and breaking in far enough to get paid on occasion, I still struggle with intros. They're the worst! And so is every other part of a text if you end up getting stuck on it. Also, you could try finding a place that's less daunting to pitch to than the totes profesh sites you're maybe a little in awe of and that'll give you a bit of coaching, feedback and a vague schedule to keep to (sometimes knowing that something is not just for you can be enough to get you to sit down and finish it, in my experience). Definitely be very cautious in who you allow to have your writing because there's lots of places that will gladly abuse you and tell you you should be thankful for the experience. I recommend never writing for places where somebody up top makes money but you don't.

I'm definitely happy to share whatever limited expertise I got on pitching and depending on what folk are planning to write about I can even point you to a few places. And then five years from now somebody discovers this thread and gets very upset about our collusion.

Oh yeah, that's a fair angle to bring up for sure. Despite dismissive comments, there's definitely actual work and skill that goes into confessional writing, and consequently it's possible to completely mess it up. Just that every specific complaint I have seen people make why this fails as a preview, not a general piece of writing, is revealing of some questionable perspective on how previews are supposed to work. Like, people are saying it's disrespectful to write about an event like that, and the question is: disrespectful of whom, the people who hosted it or the people reading this? (I help out at Critical Distance and know the folk you mean Rey)

If they want to make the most life-ruining version of this game possible (the last one cost me 175 hours), I hope they go further in the direction of more randomization. It seems to me that everybody played the first XCOM as a regular strategy game once, and then for the next dozen or so games flipped on Ironman and started treating it as a potentially 20-hour long roguelike. Except it got a bit dull when you treat it as such, not only because the maps start repeating, but also because the structure and pace of the overarching storyline are mostly set in stone. Either you do well or you don't, but once you're on the road to ruin there's not really anything that can get you back on track (say rare random events that give you a small boost with new technologies or some high-ranking officers) and once you're doing well there's not really anything to shake up your march to victory, safe for that one-time thing they added in Enemy Within. So hopefully this one ends up with a bit more dynamic structure. Or hopefully it doesn't, because I would never get anything done ever again.

The interesting thing about how this discussion has moved on is that I still haven't read the preview in question and it has made your widely diverging opinions very entertaining to read. At least, I guess that some people have found something worthwhile in that article shows it wasn't a complete failure? The issue for me was less whether that article holds up or not, but that the ideals the rant postulates aren't conducive to criticism. That you need to sit still and be attentive when PR wants to do its shtick. That you should quit the moment you are no longer brimming with excitement over getting to play yet another game to make room for somebody more enthusiastic. That you should never discuss something that's "not your thing" so you don't get in the way of the real criticism by real fans. Those all massively pre-select what kind of responses you get and all serve to make them lean more in the direction of favorable coverage.

A real ethics issue in games writing: the widespread and completely fucking bullshit attitude that if you aren't constantly on the verge of peeing your pants with excitement, you aren't doing your job properly. Like this ex-journo ranting about a dismissive preview of the new Rockband Polygon apparently ran, and how the writer needs to learn to show proper love and respect for games, or quit. Why even do this if you don't share the passion? Why even do this if you're not interested in celebrating what you see? Because glob forbid we ever send people to games events who aren't so fucking amazed to just be there they might actually form a critical thought or two. Did you know that there are a million people who would love to have your job? Why aren't you properly enthusiastic? Ugh.

I even forgot to mention that it can stun enemies. And it scales considerably with upgrades, with bonus damage, accuarcy and crit chance to riposte attacks if you level the ability. My Man-at-Arms has been wrecking house.

I don't see an issue with boycotting somebody so spectacularly vile (hence why I made the personal decision not to buy Offworld Trading Company, or The Vanishing of Ethan Carter for that matter), except that people often make these decisions thinking they now fixed everything when really whatever alternatives they end up directing their support to instead are still ethically questionable, if possibly to a slightly smaller degree. Because capitalism is a totalizing system, and as Apple Cider already said, there's no ethical consumerism possible under it. Different example of this would be recent calls to boycott Patreon over some vile stuff that's hosted on there, a move which would inevitably hurt creators more than the platform, and not even any of the people folk are meaning to hit, since nobody who cares strongly enough about that kind of thing to withdraw money would have been supporting gross shit in the first place. And even after that, where is the money you are not giving the platform anymore going, really? Probably not something great. So I don't begrudge anybody their decision to choose supporting Soren Johnson over also supporting Brad Wardell in the same move. But also "things are never going to change anyway" isn't a position I personally ever want to base any decisions on.

I forgot to mention that food can now also crit. I guess this makes sense in so far as all healing items got that boost, but I do enjoy thinking about what this implies narratively. Is food sometimes more effective because it's more tasty than expected (which would imply somebody packed sweet treats) or more healthy (which would imply somebody packed carrot sticks or something). Or because it's more filling than expected, like somebody used extra butter? Good game.

All I know about Construct 2 is that some friends used it to make this weird game.

He might do less damage in that world because once his shitty politics actually make developers avoid the company, Stardock is increasingly likely to get rid of him, at which point he would be just one more incredibly sexist dude adjacent to games rather than a sexist dude directly in games that might get in the way of women trying to make games. It's hard to judge people in individual cases when you don't really know the whole story or why they may be unable to leave or discuss a partnership even though they might really want to, but on a bigger scale, it's a really big issue that there's practically no consequence in this industry to being an incredibly sexist or otherwise discriminatory dirtbag. It's like how TB is a complete garbage golem but indie devs will still mostly try and play nice with him because he promises that sweet exposure.

The level generation seems to balance out across a longer campaign, but you definitely get some weird results. Sometimes it's a stationary guard staring at a wall at the end of a corridor that leads nowhere, sometimes it's a stationary guard staring down a corridor that you absolutely have to get through.

New update: Two new characters (Arbalest and Man-at-Arms), couple of new bosses, lots of little changes. Healing can now crit for twice the usual effect, which is useful enough for the Vestal, but I imagine if you build an Occultist into a crit-focused team, he could potentially patch up your tank completely in a single move. Probably still not going to make anybody switch out their Vestal. Seems that this addressed most of the balancing stuff we talked about earlier in this thread: almost all the trinkets I had equipped for being completely kickass appear to have changed, the Hellion pendant I mentioned that boosted both damage and bleed chance on attacks now boosts bleed chance on attacks at the expense of damage, etc. etc. I only went on one mission with the new characters so far, but it feels like the Arbalest is another of the kind of characters that do two things a little but excel at neither, having decent ranged attacks plus a few options for patching up friends. Probably not enough to make anybody switch out whoever else they have in the back ranks. The Man-at-Arms though kicks total butt, and I expect there might be a quick nerf coming soon. His skillset doesn't look too impressive at first glance, but there are a couple of odd things on there that aren't properly explained. He has a protection buff that allows him to guard an ally, which I imagine means they'll intercept hits meant for them (didn't end up seeing this in practice), but more interestingly, he also has a melee attack that buffs his protection, marks him as a target, and activates a riposte stance, so until his next turn any attack against him seems to hit a) at a significantly lower rate b ) for significantly less damage (zero in the case of most of the low level enemies I tested this on) and c) trigger a counterattack for a decent amount of damage that can also d) crit. It doesn't do much if he's not being attacked, but a single enemy swinging at him seems to be enough to make up for the reduced damage of the initial attack, and you might always get lucky like me, when all three remaining enemies attack him and he just wrecks all of them. He was incredibly satisfying to take on this one outing, but also feels wildly unbalanced at the moment. I guess we'll see how this will pan out in the long run, but it seems like Red Hook definitely have some issues with making certain characters much more useful than the rest of the roster.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily take that lesson from it. Linguistically, there's a certain tendency to just words in a symbolic pars-pro-toto way just because it's easier to do - people who say the white house did or said that, for instance, generally aren't thinking of an actual moving, talking house. Not all antropomorphizing or projection that takes place in language and in our heads is necessarily pathologic on that level, although it is probably worth it to think about these mechanisms on a larger level than just fake moon cults. I think you're being too quick in dismissing the explanation of comfort over the surface-level appearance of constant worry. I didn't mean to imply that that's the surface level result of them, or that the meaning people find would be uplifiting, but it can still work out that way unconsciously. Nervous ticks, for instance, also have the appearance of making everything worse for the people who suffer from them, but somewhere on a deeper psychological level, they're still generally tied to defense mechanisms that serve to stabilize their conscious self in some way. It might seem counterintuitive that it would ever seem preferable to compulsively wash your hands or think the government is run by lizard people, but if the alternative is confronting some heavy emotional stuff...

I'm not on Giantbomb, although if you want to pass along the news and my email address (deadpanlunatic at gmail dot com) that'd be cool <3

Gonna send out an email about this soon, but since it takes a while to get everything worked out it wouldn't be too late to send me a message if you want in on this, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Conspiracy theories are fascinating from a Cultural Studies point of view. They're like a modern day animism, except instead of concerning itself with the secret inner life of rocks and trees, they tend to operate from the assumption that the incomprehensible systems that govern our lives (economics, bureaucracy, society etc) are living organisms rather than incredibly complex machines. So instead of things happening because a million little wheels mesh into each other, with no individual actor aware of the big picture, they happen because of the conscious decision of some grand intelligence that's probably - as part of a self-centered world-view - out to get you, specifically. It's a pretty flattering way to make sense of existential dread, really. You aren't suffering because of the apathy of an uncaring cosmos, but because things are designed to screw you over. Which may be bad, but at least it means that everything that happens to you is meaningful in some way.

Weird that you haven't seen any pop up, but maybe it's just bad luck. I saw my first one pretty late into my first run, near the end of Day 3. You should go for them when you get the chance though, extra operatives are among the most useful things you can get in the game. Even before you get any equipment for them they can help with scouting and keeping guards pinned down. My second favorite ones are probably the vaults.