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Jake

Idle Thumbs 135: That's My Goof

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If a spoiler can really ruin my enjoyment of a piece of entertainment, I feel like it's not a very good piece of entertainment to begin with. But hey that's just me and everyone's different.

As I said, even if it doesn't ruin your enjoyment of a piece of entertainment overall, it ruins one particular facet of it that you can only have once.

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Yeah that's just not a thing for me. I don't believe that should ever be a concern. Hence "But hey that's just me and everyone's different."

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TL;DR: I think the entire idea of "spoiler" is silly; it's an overused cliche in media culture and is really only something to be mad about if someone's intent is to actually and actively ruin an experience, media or otherwise, that another person is looking forward to.

 

I really, really didn't mean to revist the whole "Spoilers: Are They A Thing We Should Care About?" discussion.

 

I was just curious about the logic where people who do care about not spoiling games (and that obviously includes you, Sean, because you explicitly talk around spoilers for recent games in the podcast all the time) seem to think that spoilers at the beginning of a game matter less than spoilers at the end of the game.

 

It seems that if there's a pleasure to be had from a surprise, it woudn't matter if the surprise is at the beginning or the end.

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They're undeniably different types of surprises though. Surprises at the end of a story are almost universally surprises which, when known, can be unpacked to tell the entire path to get there. Surprises at the beginning are often the hook on which the premise rests. Writing this out is a reminder that spoilers are at worst dumb and at best frustrating to have to consider when discussing a work.

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If a spoiler can really ruin my enjoyment of a piece of entertainment, I feel like it's not a very good piece of entertainment to begin with.

 

I think it would be less of a controversy if we just called them "surprises" rather than "spoilers." 

 

Did something in the game surprise you?  Did you enjoy being surprised?  Maybe other people would also enjoy that surprise.

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Jake's weird little "what's this video game about this video game? And I can play as a pirate!" made the episode for me.

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I enjoyed Sean calling Spelunky Chris' "Irene Adler", something I didn't catch until a second listen.

 

I enjoyed that too, though it would only really apply if Chris only played Spelunky one time, and it beat him soundly and gained his respect and admiration, and then they never met again.

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Regarding spoilers, I'm in the camp where i'd rather not hear anything about a work I'm interested in but this is mostly because I'm a little bit mental. For instance, if I catch wind that a character kicks the bucket in a movie I am watching, I will sit in the cinema and every time that character appears on screen a little voice in my head starts repeating "he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die..." And over time I start to concentrate more on the annoying voice, trying to stop it, and I realise that I haven't payed any attention to the past 10secs of the movie. Spoilers kinda fuck me up and can ruin a movie for me far more than just knowing what happens. Maybe I should see a doctor :)

Does anyone else get insane compulsions, or is it just me.

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Regarding spoilers, I'm in the camp where i'd rather not hear anything about a work I'm interested in but this is mostly because I'm a little bit mental. For instance, if I catch wind that a character kicks the bucket in a movie I am watching, I will sit in the cinema and every time that character appears on screen a little voice in my head starts repeating "he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die, he's going to die..." And over time I start to concentrate more on the annoying voice, trying to stop it, and I realise that I haven't payed any attention to the past 10secs of the movie. Spoilers kinda fuck me up and can ruin a movie for me far more than just knowing what happens. Maybe I should see a doctor :)

Does anyone else get insane compulsions, or is it just me.

It's not just you. 

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I enjoyed that too, though it would only really apply if Chris only played Spelunky one time, and it beat him soundly and gained his respect and admiration, and then they never met again.

 

I believe that's the case, apart from the one time and never meeting again.

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I believe that's the case, apart from the one time and never meeting again.

 

Yeah, I've just been on a grousing spree (spurred on by hearing about that show "Elementary") for the past few weeks about how one of the things that make Moriarty and Irene Adler great in the originals is that they show up and do their thing and disappear like proper short-story antagonists instead of lingering around and becoming recurring characters like most Sherlock Holmes remakes try to make them do! And the Irene Adler remark on the cast reminded me of that again. =)

 

But that's not about Games, so, um...hey guys remember that game with creepy Watson?

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When they're talking about the bonkers "Blaaack Flaaag" animus framing device, Sean says "I totally wish I didn't have an NDA, I have a story about this... that would have been amazing if they made the game."  And then yesterday, this was announced:

 

http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/10/5197342/double-fine-cryptically-announces-new-puzzle-game-hack-n-slash

 

Hack 'n' Slash features a young elf who "uses her computer hacking skills to cheat her way through a classic action/adventure game,"

 

Seems like a vaguely similar concept, and it came out of one of DF's Amnesia Fortnights, so it's plausible he would have known about it.   

 

Another funny coincidence related to the podcast is that as the guys suggested, the game is pushing this device front and center, using it mechanically as well (and I suppose not at all as an actual framing device) but in any case aren't setting it up and then dropping it on the floor.

 

Anyway, yay for giving a concept the depth it deserves, and it will be really interesting to see where they take it.

 

Edit: Sorry for derailing the spoiler discussion

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On spoilers, I think that sometimes it's hard to know what will be a spoiler for a game.  Like I wouldn't have really thought that you could spoil Spelunky, it's not like it's got complex and deep narrative, and an awful lot of it is discoverable very quickly.  But then...

 

...the other night my wife discovered the worm level by accident. Holy crap that was amazing and unexpected! The joy and wonder of that extra level and the randomness of finding it were simply incredible. She was bouncing up and down on the couch she was so excited about it. I already knew about Hell and the City of Gold, but was so happy that I hadn't accidentally heard about the Worm level, as it would have been boring to just go there with full knowledge of how to do it.

 

That said, I think it's the onus of the player to avoid spoilers rather than on podcasters/writers to avoid talking about them.  Just warn people you're about to go into spoiler land and let them decide to hang around or not. 

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I know that the original question was whether or not a spoiler is a spoiler if it happens at the beginning of the game, but since we are talking more generally about spoilers on podcasts:

Why not just read the list of games discussed and not listen to it if you are concerned with spoilers of listed games?

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Sean wasn't talking about Hack N Slash (though I don't know what he was talking about).

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I know that the original question was whether or not a spoiler is a spoiler if it happens at the beginning of the game, but since we are talking more generally about spoilers on podcasts:

Why not just read the list of games discussed and not listen to it if you are concerned with spoilers of listed games?

 

That would be way too sensible!

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I assumed that Sean was talking about something from his time at Disney. In my mind, it was a crazy Tron game.

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Sean wasn't talking about Hack N Slash (though I don't know what he was talking about).

 

 

I assumed that Sean was talking about something from his time at Disney. In my mind, it was a crazy Tron game.

 

Oh well, my inner conspiracy theorist got cranking away (again.)
 
The trigger in the podcast was "playing the game as a QA person." What would happen if you played a game with the framing that you were a tester inside the game instead of a normal player?  What would you do differently than a normal player?  Break the game, of course!  A player would progress not necessarily by overcoming an obstacle but by finding a way to remove it entirely or glitch through it. If you've ever had the pleasure of seeing a really good QA tester, you know the brutal efficiency with which they can, well, hack and slash through your game and code.   
 
P.S. --  I remember a web game (puzzle) a couple years back with this sort of concept.  And....it's from 2004. Embarrasing.
 
Here it is:
 
 
No spoilers.

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I know that the original question was whether or not a spoiler is a spoiler if it happens at the beginning of the game, but since we are talking more generally about spoilers on podcasts:

Why not just read the list of games discussed and not listen to it if you are concerned with spoilers of listed games?

That's what I do. Then later when the episode goes up on YouTube I can check the timestamps and just skip the spoilery parts. Perversely I haven't listened to the parts of the cast where they talk about The Last of Us because I don't own a PS3, because maybe some day many years in the future I'll play through it somehow (borrow one from a friend or something).

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