Jake

GDC! Idle Thumbs Conf Grenade 2: Don't look at me, I'm Hideo

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I have been looking for footage/photos of the insane 4d hypercube town game. What's it called?

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wtf? A 3-minute Podblast?

Idle News Podblast: 3/27/09 - With Free Monster Samples

I don't even know what to say. Things discussed: monster.

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For all those who (like me) wanted to find out more about the experimental games mentioned in the podcast, I found this article at GameSetWatch, which covers seemingly all of them in depth.

Trying to find out more about Miegakure now, which is the 'puzzle platformer in four spacial dimensions'.

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Way to spin out a hypothetical situation to a conclusion that isn't real. I think that Kojima's award acceptance got a lackluster response because his talk consisted of him saying that he wasn't retiring, that he wanted to make screenplays, and that he wanted games to be respected [implying that they will be somehow better when they are respected like film]. Not necessarily bad sentiments or whatever, but not the most rousing thing to tell a room full of game developers when you're accepting an award.

It's just that I heard that same week, a To The Best Of Our Knowledge interview with Jason Rohrer. In the TTBOOK interview, Rohrer specifically called out MGS4 as a failed avenue for game design.

http://www.wpr.org/book/090322a.cfm

I think the screenplay thing was probably a joke: he knows that the cutscenes are widely criticized. But, people didn't take it as a joke, they took it as, "this guy's the hack we thought he was." Maybe he was being serious, but it seems like Kojima is a person who makes strange and confrontational jokes. Look at Raiden from MGS2: Kojima killed Snake, and gave you an incompetent metrosexual who slips in bird shit.

My point is, I think Kojima isn't a well respected designer right now.

I could be totally wrong, and just the Rohrer interview implanted ideas + hearing that half the people didn't give props at the lifetime achievement awards.

Edited by blackboxme

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Kojima killed Snake, and gave you an incompetent metrosexual who slips in bird shit.

I kind of wish there were more of that stuff in MGS4, and less of the neverending mediocre melodrama.

I think Kojima is capable of really cool, interesting design work, but sometimes he seems to just completely fall on his ass. MGS4 was very disappointing to me in that respect--it became such a long, drudging, tedious exercise. I wish he wouldn't let himself get so bogged down in this ridiculous and overbearing twist-filled plot that has built up over the last two decades of Metal Gear games, because wading through all that stuff is getting harder and harder.

MGS3 on the other hand I thought was an incredibly fun and clever game--it actually felt fresh and inventive rather than ponderous. Kojima made a few self-deprecating jokes during his keynote, but I hope he actually understands the substance of the criticism for real, and takes it into consideration during his next project.

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We ... almost always do that. We haven't been during the GDC stuff because we've been doing them even more seat-of-the-pants than the usual casts.

Doh. Well it's the first time I've been like "wow, they sound really interesting... I want to check them out!" and not known what they were because they're unusual titles like "The Marriage" etc. Inform me, Idle Thumbs Podcast: I want to learn!

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I'm totally lagging behind with the conf grenades, but I'm catching up. Yesterday I listened to this one and, my interest piqued, I searched for the Achron videos and site. And I must express some reservations here, especially in the light of the overwhelming enthusiasm in the podcast.

Now, first off, I'm not saying this just to be contrary to everyone here; I genuinely don't know about this mechanic. It's obviously technically very impressive and a tickling notion to go back in time, change a few things and mess with everything. But will this result in more engaging gameplay? I think it'll just complicate things massively without actually making for a 'better' strategy game (however subjective that is).

See, if I follow things through, what will happen is that a match will become an enormous, convoluted, frustrating affair where every move you make is countered by the enemy tampering with time, thus requiring that you tamper with time, and him right back, up until the point where, presumably, one of them runs out of time-juice and can't stop the other's attack. That sounds fun on paper, but every skirmish will become a tedious war of attration, drawing out any battle for ages (unless time is SUCH a limited resource that one can't use it for every minor battle, but I didn't get that impression from the videos).

The time travelling mechanic does give you some cool new strategies to play with; especially sending units back in time to double up their past selves is a cool new thing. I also get that whoever is better and faster with diddling with the timeline will get superior results, thus making it a valid strategic choice to put in the game. I just doubt it will be a fun game for more than a few novelty runs to try it out. But I obviously didn't see the GDC walkthrough, so maybe I'm missing a crucial element here, like the bigger picture on how a typical game would go.

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On that note Rodi, I think the thing is it will circumvolute too much to a huge fucking degree, you'll have a thousand ways to turn the tide and turn it back and back again, the frustrating thing is you will never know the outcome of the battle...

And it looks quite ugly ^.^ but that's just me being a prick.

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Remember that Achron and other games were presented at the experimental gameplay sessions, which isn't a press unveiling but a showcase of new and unusual game mechanics. The enthusiasm expressed on the podcast is, I think, mainly for how the developers managed all the complexities of time travel, not necessarily the final game we imagine it to be. You may turn out to be right.

I think it's fair to say the game doesn't look very pretty, there could be basic issues with the gameplay, etc. Then again this is what Braid looked like when it was first shown at the EGS.

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I think it's fair to say the game doesn't look very pretty, there could be basic issues with the gameplay, etc. Then again this is what Braid looked like when it was first shown at the EGS.

You got a point there :D

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Remember that Achron and other games were presented at the experimental gameplay sessions, which isn't a press unveiling but a showcase of new and unusual game mechanics. The enthusiasm expressed on the podcast is, I think, mainly for how the developers managed all the complexities of time travel, not necessarily the final game we imagine it to be. You may turn out to be right.

Of course, of course. I'm not bashing the game in any way, I'm just ruminating on how these mechanics might flow into actual gameplay and expressing a careful opinion. What the developers have done is tremendously impressive on a technical level (and there are also some really smart game design choices like the ongoing time-echo thingy that ripples on to 'refresh' the present), and they duly deserve the applause they have received for that.

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Howdy folks, just got around to listening to this one and had a comment:

I always saw fretting over proper name pronunciations as a bizarre American quirk. Or maybe it is a perfectly normal, healthy sign of respect, and it is I who was brought up in an uncivilized place by ill-mannered man-beasts*. It is just that a conversation seems to lose its pace when people stop to ruminate over pronunciations of names (of participants or otherwise).

I think I just may be horrified that every cashier everywhere will start an ethnographic inquiry while waiting for my card to clear. Since these kinds of things usually involve a few minutes of me explaining how to correctly pronounce my name, I may have developed a negative pavlovian reaction to all discussions of correct pronunciation of names. So basically, tldr, however you decide to pronounce it is always good enough. :tup:

___________

* Some older history textbooks in my neck of the woods refer to Cleopatra as Kleopatra Ptolemeyevich. It could be that my culture, such as it is, just cold doesn't care about the finer details of how other cultures handle their names.

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Nah... that's quite common here too.

Which part of what I said are you referring to? I should also clarify that I live in the lovely San Antonio, Tejas, and hail from the lovely Serbia, Europe.

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Hmm, I think there is some importance in getting names right, though I don't mind it so much when someone calls me Roderique instead of Roderick.

Now I'm curious though. I've always spoken your name as Zivadinovikkk, not -vich. Just like Weird Al Yankovikkk.

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Hmm, I think there is some importance in getting names right, though I don't mind it so much when someone calls me Roderique instead of Roderick.

Now I'm curious though. I've always spoken your name as Zivadinovikkk, not -vich. Just like Weird Al Yankovikkk.

Sigh. :deranged: It is actually Živadinović (or Живадиновић), and hence pronounced Zhee-vah-dee-no-vich. The Caron and the acute confuse people so I exclude them. At the same time I never bothered to spell it phonetically, so it confuses people all the same. Zivadinovikkk is close enough. Unless you pronounce it Zay-vah-day-no-vay-key-key-key, in which case it is still close enough, though rather more bizarre.

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I think that's how I always thought it was pronounced. Hooray for me. Just to be sure though, the end bit... it's pronounced "vitch" right? Not "vick"?

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I think that's how I always thought it was pronounced. Hooray for me. Just to be sure though, the end bit... it's pronounced "vitch" right? Not "vick"?
Yes. And the beginning part is a "Zh", like "Zhivago".

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Oh man. Can I just call you Doctor Zhivago and be done with it all?
No, 'cause Pasternak sucks monkey balls. :tdown: You can call me Steven like everyone else does.

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