Twig

Sorry, I was responding only to vimes. I wasn't trying to be a passive aggressive fuck. I apologize, completely legitimately! Boring doesn't mean unnecessary, unfortunately. I agree that it's important to have a solid foundation for discussion. I just disagree with your assertion that we lack that right now. We can always use more stone beneath our feet, but there's more than enough language and consensus on these things that we should be able to talk about them without getting upset about a little vagueness here and there.

Haha. I didn't mean it at all in an insulting way. I love BoI. Although, for completely different reasons. Obviously. U:

The controls in Hotline Miami are incredible. Yes, the game is fast-paced and floaty, but that's not really attributable to the controls. It's a choice the game designer made. It really is the Super Meat Boy of top-down shooter/action games. Although, with a whole hell of a lot more focus on story and presentation than SMB ever pretended to have. Eh, maybe not presentation, but definitely story. The Binding of Isaac is like a snail compared to Hotline Miami's cheetah, so it's no surprise you would end up preferring BoI if you don't like HM for the way it feels.

Nice!

Yeah I'm aware it's been done before, although I've never actually tried it in any form. It's such an obvious thing, though. I'm confident Valve will at least try this stuff out later. bakka: What are the arena maps? Everyone leveled up completely, fully decked out, kinda like WoW arenas? Or something else?

Okay I failed to write what I was thinking. I'm not disagreeing with myself, just what I wrote. Gameplay and Design are two separate sets. Gameplay includes some parts of design. As you should! Semantics are fucking boring. People can argue for ages about what this or that word means without getting anywhere, and people can debate for ages about how to define this or that aspect without getting anywhere. It's all so dull.

I spoke very specifically of level structure when I mentioned design, but if you want to get aesthetics out of what I said, I guess that's fine.

Hotline Miami is my favorite game in a long time. I haven't listen to the episode, yet, but since it's a topic, I just wanted to say that as a preface to whatever I say later, just to be fair.

Um, yes, of course it is. It's similar, but it's no longer the same game if, instead of taking a lot of time to think and plan, you rush through it as fast as possible. Also, most people generally agree on the broad definition of gameplay, and disagree on this or that. Gameplay encompasses the mechanics and the design, both of which can and do overlap. I don't know many people who would disagree with that. So, what are mechanics? The methods of interacting with the world. What is design? The structure of the world, the aesthetics, the "feel" (admittedly, the most wishy-washy part). I don't know many people who would disagree with all of that. Yeah, sometimes the nitty-gritty details, the down-and-dirty... They throw people off. So people talk about it, they come to a consensus about how they're going to address things. It seems like you are one of those people who does disagree, and so you're upset when people use these words in a way that you don't think people should use it? That's kind of silly. Stop complaining about things being too vague and start being more constructive. Of course, I'll be instantly proven wrong here when fifty people say "Hey I don't agree". It's true I'm only speaking from personal experience when conversing with people I've met, whether longtime friends, or random dudes at GDC. Whatever. My main point remains. Complaining about "lack of language" does jack shit. I feel like Frenetic Pony set the context for his argument relatively solidly, although, yes, everything can always be explained better than it was, in retrospect, and I know what he means when he says "gameplay". Whether or not I even agree with his use of the word, I know what he means, and I can address the situation as such!

What. The only asshole on my team was a guy who clearly didn't enjoy the game mode, anyway, items or otherwise. The other team was completely friendly, despite dominating us - a nice change of pace from the trash-talk prevalent otherwise. Not that I have anything against trash-talk, but it does get tiresome.

I find it hilarious that the Roshan fight is essentially a dungeon boss from an MMO. He has a pattern, if you ignore it you die. The only difference is you don't need to rely on other people to revive. It just further convinces me that Dota could support a co-op experience pretty well, if they script the bosses more appropriately to the style of gameplay, and maybe change up the items available for the mode, or make some hero-type-exclusive items to support a more dynamic thing and and or and or or and. Also, thinking on it, I don't hate it as much as I thought I did. I think I will enjoy it more tonight. Also also, I agree with Sully. Can't wait for more mode experimentation from Valve. This is a pretty radical change from the base game, and I love it for that, even if I don't think it's perfect.

Your methods of interacting with the world may be similar across all of the games you mentioned, but the level design and structure are very different. Half-Life is super linear. Gravity Bone flashes across a ton of different scenes very quickly in comparison. Dear Esther is a much slower experience than both of them (DISCLAIMER: I haven't played Dear Esther - I'm only speaking from what little I've seen of it. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!). Gameplay encompasses far more than just the mechanics. Yayyyy semantics. I think the language is definitely there, but everyone disagrees on all the details. No one wants to come to a single point with everyone else. They all passionately defend their own interpretation of this or that or the other thing. As I probably just demonstrated.

I thought it was lame, but I only gave it one shot. Maybe I just need time to adjust. I'll give it more time tonight.

Pretty sure the red lines are to accentuate the issue, as Luft postulates.

Yeah it was super easy, no matter what you picked, heh.

ugh i hate all of you indy 4 was fine

Close, but no cigar.

I know! I know. God. I know.

More interested in Pixar's Maniac Mansion movie. Unfortunately, I have no interest in Star Wars, as I find it boring, but the Lucas conglomerate has a ton of other properties in which I AM interested. As far as I understand, this deal includes EVERYTHING, right? LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic, etc.? I mean, even if it doesn't... that's pretty huge. But I hope it does. Sort of. Do I? I don't know. Hmmm.

That is... a lot of stuff. U: Well, if you want, I could probably put you in touch with HR here! It's a mobile games company, if that matters to you.

Finding a place to live was the worst part. subbes: The place I'm working at is actively hiring, but I don't know if what you do is what they're actively hiring for. U:

So this isn't really relevant and anyone can feel free to ignore me, but... Last night I was lying in bed thinking about random shit, when suddenly I remembered this game called Animal Quest I used to play when I was a wee lad. It's a crap game, but the basic concept (play as various animals, survive by eating other animals, or avoiding them if they're your predator) has a lot of potential for awesome. Then I realized, oh, someone had already delivered on that potential in pretty much the same way I was thinking. Tokyo Jungle! I wish I had a PS3 so I could enjoy Tokyo Jungle's insanity.

I think at this point it'd be at least a dozen people that I know of. That's a lot of people for one place!

Man, everyone be movin' to SF. U:

I actually got all A+'s without specifically going for executions. I just rushed through getting my combo multipliers as high as possible. After beating the game once, I had it pretty well figured out, and was able to get most of them on the first few tries. Highest combo I managed to get was 13, although I don't remember which level it was. DETAILS IN THINGS: So awesome. I don't know why, but that's one of my favorite things in the entire game.