Salacious Snake

A funny tidbit related to this topic: http://www.cultofmac.com/196247/developer-has-game-rejected-for-pointing-out-in-app-purchases-are-nonsense/ Terry Cavanagh had a game rejected from the iOS app store due to his description containing the text:

I appear to be a celiac, which is making Life a little more difficult. I mean, it's cool to finally have a clue as to what is causing the unending discomfort I've been dealing with for years, and a means to avoid it. But man, being on a gluten-free diet sucks. Also, if you're on a gluten-free diet, people assume you're a fad dieter. I really hate that sort of stuff. I don't want to have to explain to people that, "No, it's not for some wooly 'health benefit.' It's in order to manage a genetic autoimmune disorder, and yes, it really does matter if you prepare my food with a knife that was previously used to cut a slice of bread." The diagnosis of this sort of thing is complex and difficult, so I'm not 100% sure that this is what I've got, but I've had some pretty convincing results so far. No beer and no pizza make Wikipedia Brown go something something.

So many people! Welcome, dillweeds and non-dillweeds alike.

It all feels a bit disconnected to me. Like, I know some character told me why I'm on this mission, but I don't remember how it's connected to anything else. I read a note that made my target sound like a jerk, and maybe a friend of the big person I don't like, so I guess that's a reason. Going after all these people is supposed to somehow weaken the main villain, right? I don't see why I couldn't just have gone after him from the start, since Corvo is a total badass and ready for anything. Also, I have no idea why everyone at the Life of the Party level decided I was hostile at one point. It turned into a big mess when I thought I was being quite sneaky. What does the Outsider have to do with anything, other than being an excuse for Corvo's superscientifical abilities? These and a few other qualms aside, though, I love playing the game. The best levels recall the high points of the genre: locations which seem to have been built as functional places first, and subsequently molded into gameplay spaces. Unfortunately, not all or even most of the game is like that, but it's a treat to poke around a building and find things where you'd expect them to be, based on your experience as a human who has been in real buildings. It's fucking ridiculous how rare that is in games. It's weird, because I'd think people who get into level design would be the type to have a very serious love of architecture and the creation of convincing places. Exploring a place that seems real adds tremendously to immersion and is interesting for its own sake. And because I can't help calling out some good shit from the Thief series, I'm talking about places like Cragscleft Prison, the dockside warehouses, the bank, and all the various manors and mansions and other abodes. Hell, the best Counter-Strike map was cs_mansion. It was horribly unbalanced, but it was a cool little house with working doors and light switches and a bunch of rooms. There isn't a single hallway that's blocked off with an impassable pile of rubble, and that's the way I like it. I don't care if there's no reason to go down that hallway. Let me go down there and find that out for myself. (I realize that part of the problem is the perceived waste of resources in creating content that a player might not see while following the critical path. That's a really shitty attitude.)

I'm playing on easy, because I figure combat is the least interesting element of the game. I just want to fart around Greenvale and harass people.

I wonder how significant the changes will be. I'm a few hours into the game on 360 and wondering if I should wait and start over on the PS3. Word is it has better controls and stuff.

Oh yeah, holy shit. The whole soundscape of this game is fucking terrific. It's weird and unnerving at times, and very interesting. It's yet another area in which it reminds me of Thief. I feel bad using comparisons so heavily when I talk about this game, but it very strongly takes me back.

Really? I love Piero. But then, I already loved Brad Dourif, so maybe I just gave him a pass automatically. I think the voice acting is fine all around. Not much of it jumps out at you, but that's OK… it's a lot better than being taken out of it by bad acting. For a while, I thought all the Carrie Fisher characters were voiced by Carol Burnett. She totally sounds like her now!

It seems like the objective markers weren't there earlier in the game's production. I bet they wanted you to find your way around via a combination of the stationary in-game maps and notes/overheard conversations, but people got too confused, so they added the markers. If the markers were always intended to be there, then why bother leaving a note saying that so-and-so is going to be on the third floor? Because of those other clues, I think turning off the markers is a totally viable approach, though I'm leaving them on because I'm stupid and lazy. Thief 2 had the best maps:

I finished the first proper mission, and I'm in love with this game. I keep expecting someone to call me a taffer.

Regarding his silence, I kind of expected Corvo's tongue to be cut out during his incarceration. They don't want him spilling the beans about the nefarious plot, after all!

I thought it was fun, but it didn't measure up to the ambitious stuff Roberts was saying at the outset, which tarnished the game a bit (possibly to an unfair degree).

Time to dust off the HOTAS and pedals and order an Oculus Rift.

I'm stoked to the max.

You're like some kind of guru of social media. (These are probably good ideas.)

Anything that's in the tradition of Thief/Deus Ex/Arx/Underworld/System Shock/Whatever is enough to get me at least interested. Whether or not it's a successful expression of that sandboxy multi-tool methodology is yet to be seen, but I certainly support the experiment at the very least. It having Raphaël Colantonio and Harvey Smith at the helm is encouraging. Regarding the length: http://imgmr.com/ind...red-game-length On his twitter, Smith says it should be around 12-20, depending on how you play. The four hour thing seems to be a weird, unfounded internet rumor. We'll see. edit: Did some poking around, and it stems from a stream wherein a player set the game to easy, skipped all the side-content, didn't explore and ran through killing everyone in his path. I could see a game of this style being very short indeed if played in that manner; that is not the experience I expect to have. If you took all the waiting in darkness out of Thief, it would probably be pretty short, too.

I can't believe I spent all those words whining about 'bargoes and missed the opportunity to mention busting them.

I understand. I've been on the media side of embargoes, and of course when you agree to it, you abide by it. If you wait until release, you forfeit a ton of potential site traffic, which is pretty much the worst case scenario for most websites. I don't fully understand the thinking that goes into it from the publisher's side. I imagine part of it is that they want people to make a purchasing decision prior to reviews coming out (which is further incentivized by pre-order bonuses), which has an undercurrent of consumer-hostile shittiness, but seems to be considered fair play. I don't know if outlet-specific exclusive coverage is still a major thing, but that could also factor in. The reason it's getting my hackles up in this case in particular (and why I was admittedly a bit terse in my earlier comment) is that based on how people are trying to talk around it, it seems as if part of the embargo is that people are not even allowed to say whether or not they're playing it. Holding back the review is one thing, but that seems a bit extreme. In other cases where reviews are embargoed, you'll still see the odd twitter comment along the lines of, "Hey, the review is forthcoming, but… this game is pretty fun so far," or, you know, the opposite. Instead, the discourse is more like: It seems crazy to me. If Bethesda is confident in the game, wouldn't they want a little word of mouth starting already? Do they know the game is a steaming pile of shit, and don't want word to get out? Based on the little bits we've been able to see so far, it looks terrific, so why keep such a tight grip? You're completely right that the publisher has the right to control access to the product before it's released to the public, and it behooves media outlets to play along, but I think it creates a weird, unpleasant atmosphere around the game. That's my gut talking, rather than my brain, I suppose. It may simply be that I'm personally sick of the super-controlled PR drip-feed methodology, but (like the insane state of pre-order stuff), it must work. Halo 4 is being promoted with a series of videos about the weapons… I mean, that used to be the joke about shooter coverage, but they're seriously doing that. That's the kind of stuff that made it hard for me to enjoy writing about games, which probably accounts for the chip on my shoulder. Going into an interview with a list of good questions and walking out with the same exact shit that was on the PR info sheet is really disheartening, and I imagine a lot of people right now feeling awfully constrained about how they can and can't talk about this coming wave of fall games. I can't say with any authority, but I would imagine that it's disheartening for developers, too. Sorry, this came out pretty disjointedly; it appears that I have unresolved personal issues regarding marketing and PR.

I guess this game has a super strict embargo, because it seems like nobody's even allowed to talk about it openly. I don't know what's more annoying: the fact that publishers place embargoes like this, or the fact that the media complies so completely.

I've had that same thought about many games. I would love adventurized versions of the Infinity Engine games, for instance, or for a very different example, Persona 3. I play all such games on the easiest available difficulty setting (and cheat if possible) in order to minimize the amount of time spent in combat. What I want to be doing is poking around dialog trees and fiddling with objects in the environment.

I don't like old-school computer RPGs, but I do like the idea of Tom Hall and Brenda Brathwaite working on a big, cool project that they're excited about. I don't know if that's enough to get me a-pledgin', but I'll be watching their progress.

I'm guessing you were originally supposed to read the body language and behavior of the suspect, but in practice it didn't work, so they added the little target indicator instead. That's the kind of situation where you need to take a deep breath and do some real editing; those missions should have been excised entirely. I know it sucks to kill something that a lot of work and resources went into, but fuck me, it's not like the game doesn't have enough crap in it already.

Luckily a proper successor exists, which continues the legacy of hard lessons. So Long, Oregon, formerly known as Fuck Oregon, Let's Go Find El Dorado: http://solongoregon.captain-games.com

I wish I could remember more clearly. What I do recall is a conversation about killing wherein Lee said that he had killed before. Clementine asked if it was a walker/zombie type person, and Lee said no, it wasn't, it was just a regular person. I'm picturing it in the back room of the pharmacy, though I could be wrong. It wasn't very specific, but she did know that he had living human blood on his hands. As for the conversation in 3, I could swear there was a bit where she was upset that he didn't tell her. Lee was saying something in response to that and I was shouting at the TV that she knew already. I can rewind and see exactly how it went down, but I won't have the chance until next week.

My current name is Diaper Dawg. I almost never play iOS games, but I'm all over Super Hexagon if anyone wants to compare scores! edit: Just sent requests to everyone here so far.