Idle Thumbs 79: Most Memorable Maid

[Jake]

Or "Our Friend Scoops."

Idle Thumbs 79: Most Memorable Maid

When two of the best games of the year land on the same day, we have little choice but to call in reinforcements. With special guest Steve Gaynor. Nice mask.

Games Discussed: Dishonored, BioShock, XCOM Enemy Unknown, Jagged Alliance, Far Cry 2

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[Latrine]

You know, Kirkman used to say all the time in the letters section of Walking Dead that the aliens would come eventually...

[Brannigan]

Wasn't there at one point a small strip of that actually happening and it was silly?

Edit: Yep.

[Latrine]

Also... (XCOM spoiler)

XCOM does have zombies in it.

[Luftmensch]

I haven't taken the time to check the etymology, but the moment Chris began to assert that puzzles are distinct from games, I thought of Games Magazine.

The discussion about single player versus multi player games I think leaves out a vast history of people goofing off by themselves and making up rules. The cup-and-ball game dates back to the 1500s, just to take one example.

I think a game depends on two things: One, it needs defined arbitrary rules, and two, it needs a person to play by those rule (I'm just exploring too, I already see holes in this definition, which includes every government in existence). An easy example is when you're a kid, you decide the floor, or perhaps light-colored tiles, is made of lava, and you play out the act of crossing the room as if the floor was lava. I think it's fair to call that a game.

Where Video games (I use the one-word version because that's language for you) fit into this is that they have to be designed by someone. They are often single-player, but that doesn't mean there's only one person involved. Cup-and-ball and of course solitaire are single-player games, but the rules and set were already crafted by someone else a long time ago. I don't think it's a unique phenomenon at all. Video games have much more complex rules, and they can craft more elaborate real-time scenarios, but I think it's just one particular form of something that's been going on for a long, long time that happens to be well suited for single-player games.

I spell Video games as one word, and I consider crossword puzzles to be games. There you go, I'm a real rebel.

[Henroid]

On the "what is game?" discussion right at the start of the barfed ruination:

I tried write some big elaborate post and it was coming out poorly, so let me take some notes while listening back on what triggered this thought, and then write the thought down.

video games are reactive environments

video game game is keeping you from succeeding

video game wants you to get to the end

puzzle vs. game

enforced rules of the world

Okay, so here it is: Solitaire. Solitaire is very much an interaction with rules and it involves no other agency aside from your choices. Is it a puzzle you're solving, or a game? I lean toward it being a puzzle, but the moment you try to time yourself or play for least deck flipping (or without resetting the deck at all) or keeping score somehow, it becomes a game right? Playing chess against an AI doesn't fall into this realm because the computer is mimicking any action that would be taken with a given rule set. It knows what it is allowed to do, and god knows who programs any sort of priority against other units and what kind of value is assigned. That's actually an important point too, because the AI is only as capable as the programmer(s) allowed.

But ultimately you guys were right; it's something worth discussing with the original idea birther (horf, what a phrase) present to fully explain his point. I was going to say there is no right or wrong to this, but really Jake is right. The academic side of this discussion is interesting to have but it solves nothing in figuring out. It's all about perspective, the eye of the beholder.

[Problem Machine]

Over time I've come to believe that the actual game space of any single player game is going to be by necessity some combination of puzzle and skill-game. One one end of this spectrum we have most turn-based strategy games, which always have a statistical optimal strategy, and on the other you'd have something like Super Meat Boy (though purer examples exist). The reason why this is necessarily so is because AIs, no matter how complex, are still essentially knowable, while other people are essentially unknowable. I think one of the things that competitive games offer is a special kind of intimacy that comes from trying to understand another person.

Of course, whether that's a 'game' or not is a matter of semantics, so I don't think that's a super great way to frame that discussion.

[Luftmensch]

The MDA theory by Robin Hunicke, et al I think does an interesting job of describing what is game without trying to make a narrow definition of what game is. The authors describe eight basic aesthetics they've observed in games (I've heard a few variations on this list but they're all similar) that basically sum up the different things that games seem to ultimately do:

1. Sensation

Game as sense-pleasure

2. Fantasy

Game as make-believe

3. Narrative

Game as drama

4. Challenge

Game as obstacle course

5. Fellowship

Game as social framework

6. Discovery

Game as uncharted territory

7. Expression

Game as self-discovery

8. Submission

Game as pastime

And they give these examples of how these aesthetics fit into a few well-known games:

Charades: Fellowship, Expression, Challenge.

Quake: Challenge, Sensation, Competition, Fantasy.

The Sims: Discovery, Fantasy, Expression, Narrative.

Final Fantasy: Fantasy, Narrative, Expression, Discovery, Challenge, Submission.

I kind of like their approach especially because it strictly avoids trying to define a game, and just accepts a game as something that we know what it is. Video Games is probably most right in that regard, though I think Chris' proposal to compare brain patterns is a bit silly. I'm no neurologist, but I have a suspicion that the whole scanning brain patterns thing isn't quite the catch-all people hype it up to be.

[gregbrown]

HOW AM I GAMING?

(VID) EOG-AMES

that's (843) 364-2637

[Steve]

HOW AM I GAMING?

(VID) EOG-AMES

that's (843) 364-2637

My next XCOM soldier will be named Eog Ames with the nickname Vid.

[The Claw]

Classic episode, nice to have Hot Scoops back.

[Steve]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=103374568

[Luftmensch]

Christ Steve, now that I know you live in Portland your beard makes perfect sense.

I never realized the whole time I lived in Charleston that all the phone numbers started with Vid. Unfortunately, VID-EOG-AMES is a taken landline.

[Badfinger]

Should it technically be Vid "Eog" Ames if we are following the convention of nicknames in the middle?

VID AMES

VS

MAX IDES

This November 15th, LA Coliseum

[Erkki]

Knowing Steve Gaynor's tendency to spoil things, I will not listen to this before I've played Dishonored (in November).

[Steve]

I ain't spoiled nothin

[Steve]

btw here's the other most memorable maid from Dishonored

[youmeyou]

Awesomecast.

I tried pickpocketing that maid and then she turned around. But all that happened was she got pretty scared. I mean I was scared too, but I thankfully couldn't translate that emotion into my avatar.

[elmuerte]

must play Dishonered.... soon

[dmarlett]

This is why I am pro-Union.

btw here's the other most memorable maid from Dishonored

[Twig]

I have totally seen rats eat unconscious dudes in Dishonored!

In the the first level

in the doc's house, I knocked 'em all out, opened up a door, and freed a swarm of rats that rushed out and

totally ate a dude! He wasn't dead. I had left him snoring.

[Problem Machine]

Oh yeah, if you leave guys on their backs they will randomly choke to death on their own vomit sometimes.*

*Not intended to be a factual statement**

**I haven't even played Dishonored. ;_;

[Twig]

What, for real?

That's... that's kind of great. I think? Are you sure. Are you just pulling my leg.

[Gormongous]

Highlight his post, Twig.

[Twig]

Could have been real for all I knew! It's something I might've done, were I contributing to design. U: