snoogans775

That Shazzam bombshell was very exciting. I did not feel like there was much chance of any resolution on that one. If there was a way to maximize your happiness through salient time travel, it would require you to have learned anything substantial about happiness in your original life. This is a common thread in Buddhist traditions. Reincarnation allows you to build on the previous progress of your passed experience. Knowing when and where major events would happen would only allow you to improve your condition up to the point that you could reliably make informed decisions toward a definition of happiness. If your definition of happiness was lacking, then thrill of uncertainty would be lost in the big picture. So much of life is comparing our expectations to outcomes. I think having lived a reality would make the second pass dreadful

This really got carried away. I did not realize what I had done. I should bump these to my email. I am sorry for missing tge whole convo. i did not have any intention of disqualifying anything. Your answer is totally satisfying to me. I feel its important to establish the fail-state as a premise of discussion. The existence of fail-states exists on a spectrum, with Permadeath Far Cry 2 on one end, Animal Crossing on the other, and checkpointed games like Bioshock in the middle. Once we determine where a game exists on that spectrum, we can compare the nature of its fail-condition against other games. This is a type of thinking I am teaching to K-12 students.

Hey Aoanla, I enjoy your thinking. Is something still a game if it has no fail state? I have been playing The Last Guardian, and it handles failure very lightly, though it still packs a strong punch when you die.

fantastic! Her description reminded me of a game I often played on my notebooks: by drawing sine-like curves, then drawing trajectories along the lines in the way an Excitebike rider would need to plan momentum and velocity. Line Rider fulfilled the fantasy years later, but I can see how Atari combat must have had a similar satisfaction for Hennig when she was young! I absolutely LOVED this episode. I have wanted to know the history of Crystal Dynamics, particularly the relationship that Amy Hennig had with Dennis Dyack. The triangle of Crystal Dynamics, Silicon Knights, and Naughty Dog is fascinating.