unimural

It's been a good long while since I've play with the ducks, but one of the many things, for me, that differentiates King of Dragon Pass from most other strategy titles is the relative lack of a time pressure. Something it has in common with CK II as well. What I mean by this that there's really no way of falling too far behind. There's no tech tree to climb, no limited resources creating pressure to constantly move forward. Certainly the events do tick by, and probably there are some gates you have to pass, or you won't be able to win the game. However, in general, the game is relative sedate: as Jon Shafer said, the game is more about the game happening to you instead of you happening to the world. You won't be out-teched, and even if you do poorly now, a couple of good seasons, a lucky raid or two and you're very much back in the game. Also, I vaguely recalling a feeling that the game almost tries to prevent you from hoarding your resources, and understanding that was the moment the game clicked with me. That if you have a surplus of something, you should use that surplus to gain something, anything, instead of trying to hoard more. The other key moment was realizing the CYOA rituals don't necessarily have only 1 single possible correct answer. I really liked Bruce's comment about the game being a story of answering what civilization is for this clan. It's a really powerful theme, and it's executed so well, it is silly. The characters really do feel grounded. There are traditions, roots, but even those traditions were new things at one time. And as the player you get to juggle between respecting the traditions and forging your own way. Marvelous stuff. Also, I think it might be worth to mention that the Gamedesign Roundtable had an episode with David Dunham a couple of years ago: http://thegamedesignroundtable.com/2013/08/26/episode-42/

To play or not to play For me, Troy's model about other games offering the same fix definitely applies, although in the other direction. RTS games were something possibly-fun to do when I didn't have a "real strategy game" to play, i.e. a turn-based game. I vaguely remember arguing on some BBS, probably 1996 or so, that the term RTS was a misnomer, because they aren't really about strategy, but controlling units in a battle, real-time-tactics was my proposed, correct, term for the genre. But there was a time, I suppose between 1999 and 2005-6 where I did play a lot of RTS games. Because there were a lot of them at the time, and everyone was playing them. Some of them were even good. Noteworthy here is that what I actually wanted was light and perhaps lighthearted games with some economics and some units fighting over territory. I especially loved games with concrete provinces, those were my ideal games. The real-time nature, multiplayer focus, on the other hand certainly are aspects that do not appeal to me. I sometime do play multiplayer games, I can even play a lot of them, but I mostly play to play with specific people, the game doesn't really matter. Lords Managements on the other hand are just way too far along the spectrum for me. I think. I haven't really studied them even, since the WC3 mod. Rambling man Having said all that, if someone could ever re-create what playing as the commander in Natural Selection was like for me, without having to deal with all the annoyances of multi-player, my life would probably be somewhat ruined. Natural Selection is a multiplayer asymmetrical first person team-shooter, where one person plays an RTS game with the rest of the players acting as units. The team sizes were usually 6-8 people, which meant it was just around the upper limit of what I am able to keep track of. The tech tree is short, but still offers some variety and possibilities for unorthodoxy. The map sizes are fairly small, once again, something that's easy enough to keep track of. Most things roughly an order of magnitude beyond your ability to fully control, but still manageable. Of course often the players would ignore all your orders or complain constantly. But mostly that was just like any other constraint. Your troops weren't ideal. Or sometimes they were too ideal compared to the other team and what you did, did not matter. But that small scale made the game manageable at the fast pace of an RTS. Not that I ever was a great commander, just a lowly pub. But I think it would not be impossible to capture something similar in an RTS, just very difficult to design in a way that would be both fun and challenging. I know there have been several games that have done the same thing, but all are, I believe on-line multiplayer. I did play some NS2 with the Rock Paper Shotgun crowd for a while a couple of years back. But I was too much an old man for even that. Lovely game that, though. Dead-ends One of the few RTSes that I do remember fondly is an odd Russian game called Perimeter. It kind of had this proto-tower defense feel with very concrete dispute over/control of land, and an unit production mechanic where you transformed your basic units into more advanced versions. It has been 10 years, but I would like to hear if there are games that have successfully applied the same ideas in some interesting ways? I never tried the sequel because my friend said it was rubbish, and he likes RTSs.

I think Consider Phlebas is an interesting book, but it is not a good book. It is not a very strong story, but the ideas presented are often delightful. And there's a whole bunch of them. Personally I felt it would have worked much better as a collection of short stories focusing and highlighting those ideas. I also agree with others that the Player of Games is probably the best book to start with, and one of his best works all in all. I would also recommend anyone who likes the Culture novels to try his non-SF works. They are varied and some of them are very powerful. Admittedly a lot of his early work is concept-heavy, but I think Banks pulled it off enjoyably and very well. Some of my personal favourites are Song of Stone, The Bridge and Espedair Street. The last is the most accessible of his works, I think. Or at least less gothic.

A good point, and a great way of looking at it. Thanks!

I re-watched the Stan bits recently in an attempt to try to understand why people latched on to him so much. I still think all the scenes where Stan was mentioned clearly weren't about Stan. The second season has had a lot of characters and scenes that blink by, or have meaning only because they imply something. The 'Stan' scenes were good scenes about Frank both as a character and as a crime lord, at least for me.

I'm very much looking forwards to hearing the Thumbs talk about Her Story.

Yes, but I thought the question that was asked wasn't really about that, and I really think it was an interesting question. But perhaps I'm just projecting my own thoughts. Perhaps my initial interpretation of the significance of the role AI as either an opponent or part of the system is flawed. All the games that I mentioned are great at creating stories. But that same applies to Civ as well. Perhaps the important ingredient is marrying the theme with the gameplay. Still, I would love to see something like the Left 4 Dead AI director for a 4X type game.

Wrt Sid Meier's maxims discussion, I think the cast misunderstood or sidestepped the question. The CK2 discussion was about AI characters doing cool things, and the player just reading about said coolness. And the poster (it seemed to me) suggested that the AI is not an opponent in the game, merely one of the subsystem. The real opponent is the system as a whole. And the question was, should strategy games embrace this asymmetry, instead of providing opponents that have only the same verbs as the player. I've been thinking about the sane thing myself. Endless Legend did a bit of it, AI War kind of as well. And I would include Dwarf Fortress as well, although it is almost a pure simulation. All games I quite enjoyed. I think it is harder to make such systems be rewarding and it is harder to learn such games, for the player. But I do want more of them. Also, Bruce's quip made me want to play Sid Meier's Circus Maximus, a gladiator arena management game. Edit: Oh man, that's what you get for being sleepy. Circus Maximus was the one famed for the races, wasn't it? Ludi management sim sounds almost better though. Theme Ludi.

Great to have Sean back on the pod! The discussion on Defcon and Twilight Struggle reminded me of ICBM, a short (thumbs-friendly length) nuclear launch code operator simulator. Or a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander to be exact. I'd say it's worth your time if you enjoyed sims by MicroProse when such things were still made. http://gamejolt.com/games/strategy-sim/icbm/57197/ It is truly strange that nukes are such a piece of fiction to me, even though they are very real and rather terrifying.

Ugh. For the past 2 months I've been busy, and didn't have time to listen/watch the cast or the series. So. I last week I caught up the since ep. 18. Perhaps binge watching the whole series makes it easier, but dear god a weekful of the worst Twin Peaks has to offer is pretty darned awful. In fact it is so bad Dick is now my favourite character. Listening to Jake and Chris struggling to enjoy the show didn't really help either. Urgh.

I've been following UA on off since I first read about it on RPS last summer. I find it really interesting that they got the Underworld rights and that the game is kind of set in the Ultima Underworld setting, except without the Ultima part. I do, however, strongly dislike backer exclusive content, and items with gameplay effects sounds bad. If the items will not have a significant effect, then people won't use them. If they do, they make balancing the game difficult, and most likely too easy for people with said items. All in all, it always seems to me stuff like that is time that should have been spent on something else. Also, $600k does sound like a fairly modest budget for what they are trying to accomplish. Still, I do really hope they'll get funded and that the project will be successful. OtherSide sounds like a great team and Neurath is one of the unsung heroes.

I'm suprised to see all the weariness towards early season 2. I still really enjoy it. On the other hand I dread having to watch the rest of the season 2. The second half is really tiresome, with a few gems here and there.

The following is perhaps a bit too far in the 'angry guy on the internet complains about video fames', but I was a bit suprised the Transistor was so well received by the cast of the pod. I've ended up disliking Transistor. The in medias res start never truly colaseced, for me. I do like the world-building. Cloudbank is a haunting palce. But it's hard to feel a part of it. I don't know exactly why, but Transistor feels very much like watching something instead of playing something. One character's monologue to another. For once I find myself missing exposition. There are a whole bunch of characters, places and events that speak of a larger world, but I never felt the story had much to do with the world, and the characters had even less of an existence. Perhaps it was all just too alien for me. The 'press e' interface, while enhancing the unreality of the digital world, increases my distance from the events by reminding me that this is all just artifice. Also, the access point interface is a constant annoyance. Changing from one loadout to another is truly cumbersome. Why do I have to go back to the function list after every single opertaion? My desired operation is to fill the empty slots, or change skills in specific slots, not to remove or add specific functions. In order to change from one loadout to another I ended up removing all functions and building the whole build from scratch. This is exacerbated, as the death penalty is the removal of functions. A PC specific minor annoyance is that in order for a interface button to become active, the mouse cursor has to cross the button border. If you switch to a new interface screen, to select the button under the cursor you have to move your mouse off and then back on the button. Given how often you have to move between interface screens, this was rather annoying indeed. At the start the existence of the combat seems weird. What is this sword? How can I stop and slow time? Why can't I just run away? The combat kind of feels out of place. It's almost as if Supergiant wanted to make a different game, but couldn't help themselves. The combat does sound interesting, tactically enhanced action, lots of skills to combine for rewarding new results. Yet I find the actual fighting fairly chaotic and unsatisfying. I admit I am often not that good with action games, and can find them frustrating, if they make failure punishing. Transistor makes this especially bad, as multiple failures can make your situtation really difficult. Also, since there aren't always access points availble, you may enter a fight with a very poor loadout for it. In fact you seem to be completly capable of creating a walking dead scenario, as you can end up with a loadout with no offensive capabilities and no way of changing it. I am glad it exists, just for the music and the art. I'm just not sure I want to even finish it.

Ouch. Less than 4000 copies for PC. I'm shocked. I guess that includes the two copies a friend of mine orded for us (from EB iirc). Last I asked from local retailers, still no date for release in Finland. We've both been trying to pimp the game, and everyone we've forced to play it has loved it. A crying shame it hasn't done well. Regarding the ads, I haven't seen them, but I do think it could not have been the easiest of games to market. Atleast the game got done and I got to play it. Even though I fear the people sitting on top of the money will see this just as another proof that different doesn't sell. Even if Psychonauts really isn't different at all. Just a bloody solid game. Just what games should be like. I do think they should have chosen some other level for the demo. It was tons of fun to run around and jump and try all the stuff at the camp, but the Oleander level isn't the neatest of levels, imho. I do get the tutorial aspect benefit.

Bethesda is fully owned by Zenimax. Also remeber that Bethesda is also a publisher. Between Daggerfall and Morrowind Bethesda had its hands in nearly a dozen games according to Mobygames. I've understood both Battlespire and Redguard flopped, but atleast the IHRA games were relatively successful.