Salacious Snake

The cube-mapping question was about the effect that makes it look like there's a three dimensional space beyond building windows. When you move the camera around, it looks like you're looking into a room, even though there's no geometry there. It's like parallax mapping, I guess. I found this blog about it, which has illustrative animated gifs which are too large to repost: http://simonschreibt.blogspot.com/2013/01/assassins-creed-3-windows.html (I did not submit that question)

This doesn't seem to fit in with your style based on the itinerary so far, but the only place I know in SF is the 21 Club in the Tenderloin. Shit is off the wall. http://www.yelp.com/biz/21-club-san-francisco

In light of the perfunctory design question, I liked the new trailer for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain as shown at the Microsoft thing today. It lists a bunch of features, but then shows how they actually contribute to the core design of the game (tactical espionage whatsit). For instance, it mentions dynamic weather, which is usually good for atmosphere at best, but the mention is immediately followed by Snake using the cover of a sandstorm to steal a jeep out from under someone's nose. I saw that and was like, "Heck, yeah." http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/06/10/metal-gear-solid-v-reveal-trailer-e3-2013-microsoft-conference It's funny, because Metal Gear games do tend to have a lot of seemingly extraneous stuff.

Aw, fuck. There goes my whole argument!

I can get down with that. The problem is that people put these things in their games because it's just what you do. If the designers are attempting to create immersion, then putting in iron sights in service of that goal is perfectly reasonable. (It's also good to have a little zoom in games in which you're dealing with large engagement ranges, and it can signal that you're sacrificing movement to reduce bullet dispersion, etc, so I can see gameplay reasons for it, too.) There are just far too many things that are only useful the one time you are forced to do them in the tutorial. (Press B to crouch under this low opening, the likes of which you will never see again! Sneak up behind this guy and press R3 to perform a silent kill in this game that is otherwise completely devoid of stealth gameplay!) I'm tired of it. As I said, these things can all have their place sometimes, but in a given game's development, I'd like to believe there was at least a meeting where someone made a case for why that thing makes sense in this particular game. I can't help but imagine that in most cases, nobody ever brings up the possibility that you can make a first-person shooter without crouching. If it does come up, the answer must be "because players expect it." And that's a shitty way to make things.

Don't worry, it's not the Shyamalanesque twist at the end of the game.

I like the returning conversation about perfunctory design elements (good way to put it, Sean). During the previous discussion, I was thinking about first-person shooters. The rampancy of crouching is absurd. It almost never serves a purpose. When I go back and play the original Quake, I never miss the ability to crouch, because it wouldn't add anything. See also: "iron sights" in many cases. These things do have their place. Crouching is great for lowering your profile in Arma, for instance, but in faster paced arena shooters, it's stupid.

Return to Zork is super weird. For something that's aged a little better and is less confounding, I'd skip to the third of the graphical CD-ROM era Zorks and go with Grand Inquisitor. I agree with toblix about the Journeyman Project games. Loved them at the time, but they've aged poorly. Joke answer: The 7th Guest

It's true, there was another mangled recording.

Your wish is granted! It's kind of a small studenty demo type thing, but people who have tried it in the rift are really digging it.

I like that they didn't bother with any reward tiers that don't get you the actual product. Those always seem dumb.

God, looking at this right next to the fair use discussion happening in this thread makes for a bleak snapshot of our society. I hate everything. I'm going to go commit copyright infringement. edit: or I suppose I should say "infringe some copyrights."

That's some dystopian shit right there.

I am in full agreement with you. It always saddens and surprises me when I see the way people consider it "fair game" for powerful corporations to go after people. The laws around fair use and other intellectual property issues aren't nearly good enough. They are weighed most heavily in the favor of those who need the least favor. Maybe I've listened to too much Negativland, but I think every individual should desire a freer creative landscape.

Well, that was certainly a press conference. At least I got an eyeful of Allard!

I just saw J Allard!

Put this in your oculus and rift it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GUcJyRrskT0

For those who may not remember: You have to appreciate the attention to detail with the little column headers and stuff being branded.

Find me lurking in a bathroom near you.

That sounds lame. Also, they appear to have deep-sixed the forums, which is never a good sign.

That's a shame. It's a well-designed and made device, even if I could never find a use for it. Looking at their website, there's a lot of support for fairly current games. http://www.novint.com/index.php/games Of course, they're mostly shooters in which you don't interact with the world around you in a way that would be particularly interesting. Recoil is neat and all, but it's all about picking up and nudging objects around!