Jake

Idle Thumbs 171: The Curious Case of the Rhode Island Reader

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I went to a small Episcopalian church in a rural town as a kid, and we didn't have a lot of the pomp and circumstance that a lot of bigger churches would have had.  I didn't see my first smoke orb until...probably 10-12 years old when they were dedicating a new outdoor alter for open air services.  It was a really confusing service for me, because they brought out all the Catholic-style service theatrics for it, which were quite different from our normal services. 

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i grew up greek orthodox, being entirely in greek the incense smell was the only positive i took away from all those masses.  

 

Bunch of grumpy old greek priests really turned my whole family off of organized religion, but the smoke orb/censers were always a highlight - as a kid i was fascinated at the control with the chain while walking & chanting

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Thanks to this episode for getting me to do the bird noise again. Also for ruining that phrase forever.

 

Yes this is what I'm coming away from this episode with.

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The discussion about the kids installing minecraft mods reminded me of some of my early video game experiences. When I was probably like, 8 or 10 or 12 something, I started playing Escape Velocity (on Mac OS 7 or 8), and I think that was my first experience with modding. There was a version of Resedit that was made specifically for editing the EV resource files, called EV edit. I would install a bunch of mods for that game, and make my own just by editing the resources. I never made any content or anything, just changed values and stuff. Still, I think that experience was very formative for me -- I am a software developer, and I think early experiences like that definitely contributed to my interest, sort of kindling a desire to tinker with software and take it apart, or change it. As a kid though, all I was thinking about was getting the coolest ship and getting these mods working.

 

Also, classic mac games. The best. 

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Escape Velocity was a great game. I only had the shareware version, which meant that every so often a manifestation of the devs would show up and raid your wallet. I got around it by always reinvesting all my money, because it would only steal hard cash. Tax evasion for 10 year olds. I also remember that the sound when jumping between systems was obnoxiously loud and couldn't be turned down. Sounded like bomb going off each time.

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Was Escape Velocity the game that you could make levels for by creating vector PICT files?

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Captain Hector! Named after the office parrot/company logo. She was one of the better shareware nags.

I love the EV series. Nothing else has come around for me that quite scratches the same itch, to use a horrible cliche.

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I pretty much always enjoy the cast, but this was a particularly great one.  Especially the way you completely ruined that poor reader's anecdote about kids playing Minecraft (which she kinda brought on herself for mentioning Cards Against Humanity), while simultaneously reflecting on how amazing it is kids (girls even!) are talking about PC mods.

 

It cracks me up that everyone is so amused by "smoke orb" when the actual names for the thing are already so amusing:   A censor is a thing for burning incense and a thurible is a censor that incenses the room by swinging it on a chain.

 

I used to go to an Episcopal church where one of the acolytes (kids who carry candles and stuff) would occasionally swing the thurible so high that he'd get it going all the way around up over his head in a full circle, but he had to be careful not to do it too much lest the priest get more incensed than the sanctuary. And you won't believe how many puns I censored from the previous paragraph. 

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I've been listening for a couple weeks now, but I have to say, I loved this particular podcast episode (enough to join the forums and share my thoughts!).

 

The discussion about player choice was really great. It frustrates me to no end when people dismiss a game as being "too linear," as if the story the game offers isn't valid unless it offered you multiple outcomes. There are games that can pull that off just fine, but like Sean said, people think they want that in every game, but they really don't. It was really nice to hear the hosts of the podcast to defend that point of view, so thank you for discussing that!

 

This might be because I was listening to the podcast in the car, but I had a really hard time hearing Chris in this episode. I sometimes had to turn the volume up just to hear him talk, and then turn it back down when the other 3 started to talk. Chris is a fairly soft-spoken guy, but in this particular episode I had difficulty catching what he was saying.

 

Love the show, guys! I hope to stick around these forums, the community seems great.

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Was Escape Velocity the game that you could make levels for by creating vector PICT files?

 

I dont think so, EV was a top down space exploration game. At least, I don't remember anything like that, but now I want to know what that game is.

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On the thing about 8-year-olds installing mods, I love the line from Corey Doctorow's book Little Brother.  "Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time rich and cash poor."  Looking back on some of the stuff I did as a kid, I realize how accurate that statement is. 

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I dont think so, EV was a top down space exploration game. At least, I don't remember anything like that, but now I want to know what that game is.

It was a mech game by ambrosia, the team that made EV. Oh it was "Avara." I don't remember anyone playing it, but now that I remember escape velocity I remember that game had a pretty big community!

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It was a mech game by ambrosia, the team that made EV. Oh it was "Avara." I don't remember anyone playing it, but now that I remember escape velocity I remember that game had a pretty big community!

 

Oh! I actually did play Avara. Not a lot, but I do remember it. I probably haven't thought about that game in years.

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The discussion about time-based games in regards to Gods Will Be Watching  reminded me of a small game I made a while ago where time progresses at a normal pace, and you have to reach the objective within those 15 minutes (it's why the game is called 15 Minutes ha). It's also a spoof of the tv show 24. You can check it out here. It's not particularly deep or challenging but maybe someone will get a kick out of it.

 

Regarding the discussion about playing a character that acted in unpredictable ways, didn't L.A. Noire have something like that where your detective would sometimes react not how you'd expect during interviews? I haven't played it myself, but seem to remember hearing/reading that about it.

 

That's true, there have been at least three moment where you think you're just asking an innocuous question and the detective flies off the rails with accusations in a temper. In this context that's actually pretty cool, but I remember at the time mostly thinking 'oh christ no shut up what are you doing man I had this!'. Same goes for Mass Effect where sometimes a keyword like 'rebuttal' would result in a genuine headbutt, exploding the whole situation. I think KRZ does a better job of it yeah, also because those choicesw do very little to the narrative. That's the way I'm trying to do it in my games too.

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It was a mech game by ambrosia, the team that made EV. Oh it was "Avara." I don't remember anyone playing it, but now that I remember escape velocity I remember that game had a pretty big community!

And according to wikipedia, it has another reference to that parrot.

 

Players operated a remote-controlled bipedal robot known as a Hostile Environment Combat and Tactical Operations Remote, or HECTOR... The name HECTOR represents a thinly-guised tribute to Hector D. Byrd, Ambrosia's mascot, a female African Grey parrot.

 

I don't know why, but I love this.

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I pretty much always enjoy the cast, but this was a particularly great one.  Especially the way you completely ruined that poor reader's anecdote about kids playing Minecraft (which she kinda brought on herself for mentioning Cards Against Humanity), while simultaneously reflecting on how amazing it is kids (girls even!) are talking about PC mods.

 

It cracks me up that everyone is so amused by "smoke orb" when the actual names for the thing are already so amusing:   A censor is a thing for burning incense and a thurible is a censor that incenses the room by swinging it on a chain.

 

I used to go to an Episcopal church where one of the acolytes (kids who carry candles and stuff) would occasionally swing the thurible so high that he'd get it going all the way around up over his head in a full circle, but he had to be careful not to do it too much lest the priest get more incensed than the sanctuary. And you won't believe how many puns I censored from the previous paragraph. 

I was kind of waiting for someone to make a joke about "Mein Craft", but i guess that would be a bit over the top ;)

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The conversation about kicking people and laughing with a cookie monster voice immediately made me wish there was a game called Cookie Kicker.   (Which would, I guess, be a game about Cookie Monster repeatedly kicking corpses?  That seems a little dark for Cookie Monster, even though he does have a part-time gig as the lead singer for like 20 heavy metal bands)

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One the topic of choice and branching narrative, one of the best, and least-imitated implementations of multiple endings in a game was Silent Hill 2, which keyed off things that were quite obscure, and some even mechanical rather than narrative (prime example: if you tended to be at low health throughout the game instead of healing immediately after getting hurt, that would lead to one of the darker endings). Having the endings be somewhat thematically tied to your actions but not explicitly determined by player choice means that each player's experience gives their character a consistent character arc, without reducing everything to discrete yes/no choices.

 

I can't think of too many examples like that. The recent Binary Domain by Sega has a trust / friendship system with multiple different endings depending on how close you are to various characters along the way. Again, this is never made explicit, to the point that when I looked up the game in FAQs, there wasn't even consensus on how many permutations of the ending existed. There aren't a ton of endings, but every one is reasonable given the events of the game.

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One the topic of choice and branching narrative, one of the best, and least-imitated implementations of multiple endings in a game was Silent Hill 2, which keyed off things that were quite obscure, and some even mechanical rather than narrative.

Yeah that was really interesting, it was also mentioned in an Eurogamer article recently. ( http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-08-17-why-silent-hill-2-is-still-the-most-disturbing-game-ever-made )

 

"Does James deserve a fresh start? Can he move past his love for his wife, or forgive himself for her death? You're making the case throughout the game, and you don't even know it. James is being judged, just as your control of him is being judged. It's true role-playing, bleeding from the digital to the physical and back again."

 

Edit: Hid the quote because of ending spoiler...

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Which Silent Hill was it that had your character kill themselves if you spent enough time looking at a knife in your inventory?

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