Jake

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

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Idle Thumbs 171:

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The Curious Case of the Rhode Island Reader

In life, and in the games we played this week, time continues to advance whether you want it to or not. Move forward, look back, or stand still, the inexorable march to the end continues unabated. So when you click on that dead body in the trunk, for God's sake seize the opportunity and do something interesting.

Things Discussed: Divinity: Original Sin, Ωracle, Gods Will Be Watching, The Last Express, Three Fourths Home, The Often-Ending Story, Minecraft, Geometry Wars, Half-Life 3

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Sweet, early afternoon cast.  I'm feeling droopy today at work and need something to keep my brain moving forward.

 

Also really curious to hear how The Last Express is discussed.  I've tried to play it a couple of times now, and just find that it does not hold my attention at all. 

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It's probably brought up because Chris recently talked about it on a Three Moves Ahead episode all about it, so you should CHECK THAT OUT TOO BJORN.

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While I can understand sean's feelings on the subject, I think its absurd to equate the preference of branching narratives with "wanting the butterfly effect"

Kind of insulting to call it juvenile as well. It's okay to not like it, people like different things.

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While I can understand sean's feelings on the subject, I think its absurd to equate the preference of branching narratives with "wanting the butterfly effect"

Kind of insulting to call it juvenile as well. It's okay to not like it, people like different things.

Sean made a game full of branching narrative. He's taking issue with people who claim that in-game choices have no meaning unless they directly map to some big in-world effect; that demand is a very real phenomenon.

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Grand Theft Auto 4's main character was an enigma to me. How is he so stupid? He always announces his presence to people he is going to kill, then they run away.

 

Also Far Cry 2's, how are you a professional mercenary who didn't think to take anti-malarial pills?

 

Enigmas man.

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Grand Theft Auto 4's main character was an enigma to me. How is he so stupid? He always announces his presence to people he is going to kill, then they run away.

 

Niko loves the thrill of the chase.

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This is a weird thing for me to criticize, but I'm a little disappointed in Sean for being so down on "cookies are a sometimes food."

 

Sesame Street is and has always been intended to be educationally relevant to kids' lives, regardless of what culture they live in. It's the reason why South Africa has an HIV-positive Sesame Street character and why Sesame Street recently produced content meant for kids with incarcerated parents, and it's the reason why -regardless of what nostalgia people well outside of the target audience had for the show- Cookie Monster was used to educate about childhood obesity.

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They were joking around. Not everything has to be taken so seriously. If they actually spent any amount of time on the cookies thing I could see your point, maybe. I actually get annoyed with how often little statements on the podcast get attacked.

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Sean made a game full of branching narrative. He's taking issue with people who claim that in-game choices have no meaning unless they directly map to some big in-world effect; that demand is a very real phenomenon.

 

My ex-roommate had that exact issue with Bioshock Infinite. Choices like this can give the player pause/food for thought that just wouldn't happen without them. Then there's the megaton choice in Fallout 3, which is clearly superior for its radical in-game effect.

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They just updated Gods Will Be Watching with a few additional modes if you'd prefer to just enjoy the story and not lose 20 times before progressing. I dug it much more as an experiential thing - but I can see how the incredibly tense feel of its vanilla systems would appeal to folks

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While I can understand sean's feelings on the subject, I think its absurd to equate the preference of branching narratives with "wanting the butterfly effect"

Kind of insulting to call it juvenile as well. It's okay to not like it, people like different things.

 

I am saying, quite literally, that we took flack for choices "not mattering" unless they butterfly-effected out as far as possible. 

 

Verbatim "my choice to save Duck didn't matter because Shawn was just going to die anyway." That is my problem -- because that's absurd.  A choice matters because you make it at the cost of something else, not because it has a clear consequence -- which is my design philosophy. A philosophy, I should point out, that in no way takes umbrage with games (say, like Civ) where early choices ripple out in incredible ways. That's fine. But I take strong issue with "my choice didn't matter because,".  

 

If you want to make and play and prefer choose your own adventures, that's awesome. Great. I'm sure I'd love the good ones and prefer them to a bad thing that is less explicit in its branches.

 

Also, it's worth considering what is a branching narrative?  If you play a narrative game that isn't explicitly about altering the timeline then you are experiencing a linear narrative.  The only reason the story in the Last of Us is different than a Walking Dead playthrough -- when it comes to what the characters are doing and saying on screen -- is that there are no explicit mechanics inside of the Last of Us that highlight the fact that the story could change.  It's a movie (I mean a linear story) and you play the action scenes. Nevertheless, if you edited together a Walking Dead play-through and stripped out all of UI so it was just the characters doing things, how different would it be? You would still be devouring a linear story but playing something that you knew was branching (which is what makes the game interesting and for us, worth making).  Making a choice when the outcome never comes home to roost IS interesting.  "Why did I say that to her? She just stormed away. Would she have stormed away anyway? Is it because she's upset about something else? Shit, should I've said something nice? Could I have? I don't remember. Shit... to hell with it, I made my choice."  If you give players a choice and they experience a non-obvious outcome players will actually consider inside of the fiction why that happened. Not what number flipped to make them succeed or fail but, (holy shit!) how a fictional character experienced and interpreted their action. Now the player is empathizing. And as a designer? Hell yeah, she walks away no matter what. It's way cheaper to build and we have a lot of game left to make.

 

The assertion that a choice in a game is not a choice unless it has an obvious on-screen outcome is juvenile and frankly, not one I pay much attention to.

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Persona always paralyzes me, because there's a billion fucking choices in those games and all of them have tiny but cumulative effects on what the game will be like in the long run.

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I was promised Sunless Sea talk. You promised, Danielle!

 

Persona always paralyzes me, because there's a billion fucking choices in those games and all of them have tiny but cumulative effects on what the game will be like in the long run.

 

Persona cured me of my completionism, because there are a billion fucking choices and some of them are impossible to get to no matter how hard you want it.

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I haven't listened yet, but that's a really good description of what to value in player choice, Sean.  Publish it somewhere!

 

When I replayed Earthbound a few months ago, you get to choose your character's name and other details.  I left everything as default, but then I saw that the default option for favorite food was "steak."  I am a recent vegetarian, so I changed this to "tofu."

 

Ness's favorite food is just a text string—any random collection of letters is fine and changes nothing about the rest of the game.  But it was important for me to eat tofu.  Tofu is my life now.

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To "yes and" what Sean said:

 

Even the most butterfly effect influenced game I've played (Virtue's Last Reward) is absolutely MORE linear than any Walking Dead or other Telltale game. To get the "real" ending (and it's called that in-game), you are forced to experience every possible branching timeline. It's more like a metroidvania approach to unlocking story choices than to a "real" branching narrative.

 

The butterfly effect is just a weird thing to claim to have in just about any narrative where you can have a "true ending" - in the case of a movie, it's not like you can pick on a dvd which series of choices gets taken. In the case of a game, you might play through the levels in a different order, but you don't play through them backwards. You see one person's view of a space where the butterfly effect exists.

 

Unless you're talking about a systemic game like Civ, or Dwarf Fortress, or Minecraft, where the "story" is something that only exists in the mind of the player, then I think really the only way it's been done well at this point is to make it feel like that possibility space exists for the character, if not the player.

 

I think the reason Kentucky Route Zero feels so big is that with all the tiny choices along that linear ride, you're not really given the chance to peek behind the curtain at any point, so the possibilty space FEELS like any series of choices could lead to anything, but that game is probably going to have one ending, not 100.

 

I'd love to be proven wrong, but it seems like "the butterfly effect" and "a choice-driven story" are things that just can't really coexist.

 

To paraphrase:

If you want the butterfly effect, roll a grenade down a hill.

If you want an authored story, she walks away no matter what.

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I'm going to stop be a lurker and make my first post!
 
Excellent response Gritfish! I agree that it seems inconceivable that past choices can roll together to form a multitude of unique situations in a narrative-led game. I'm not even sure that a systems based game can realisitically achieve that either. Coherent rules and behaviours are essential for both developer and consumers, without that the design would fall apart.
 
The only "reliable" chaotic element we can put into games are us.

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extremely respectable choice on the "thanks to world of tanks" promo - dollars have to come from somewhere, but wonderful to know theres added consideration to ad content rather than highest ticket (not that i would accuse an outstanding organization such as the thumbs of anything less than highest ethics, pride, or awareness of audience)

 

and side note - Papou is Greek for grandpa (pronounced just like Danielle said).  so thanks!, saying it made me smile thinking about a great guy who isnt doing so well right now, had to rewind to listen to the actual goof.

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Hey Thumbs,

 

Just wanted to drop by and say that I really enjoyed this episode. It had lots of really great in-depth game discussion along with so many moments of complete hilarity. I'm not sure why but the last few episodes didn't seem to contain as much content and started to feel like they were moving away from the great game discussions you all usually have. The way you verbalise your thoughts on game design is really insightful and helpful to us all when trying to communicate our own ideas. This episode really clicked and for me, is definitely one of the best episodes you've done.

 

Can't wait to hear you all at PAX and to see some new Firewatch content. Awesome job all!  :)

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I'm going to stop be a lurker and make my first post!

 

Excellent response Gritfish! I agree that it seems inconceivable that past choices can roll together to form a multitude of unique situations in a narrative-led game. I'm not even sure that a systems based game can realisitically achieve that either. Coherent rules and behaviours are essential for both developer and consumers, without that the design would fall apart.

 

The only "reliable" chaotic element we can put into games are us.

 

Hey Thumbs,

 

Just wanted to drop by and say that I really enjoyed this episode. It had lots of really great in-depth game discussion along with so many moments of complete hilarity. I'm not sure why but the last few episodes didn't seem to contain as much content and started to feel like they were moving away from the great game discussions you all usually have. The way you verbalise your thoughts on game design is really insightful and helpful to us all when trying to communicate our own ideas. This episode really clicked and for me, is definitely one of the best episodes you've done.

 

Can't wait to hear you all at PAX and to see some new Firewatch content. Awesome job all!  :)

 

Hey, two first posts.  Welcome to the forums!   :tup:

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I can't remember where I read this, maybe it was just in an interview, but the full statement regarding Ken Williams and King's Quest was that he had seen what Odd Gentlemen are working on (presumably what was pitched to Activision to start their interest in revive Sierra as some sort of publishing label) and that he was happy with what he saw. And the interview went on to say that Ken and Roberta are not involved in any way, because they're retired from game development entirely, but that Sierra "would welcome any input from them," etc. etc...

 

So, slightly more than the press statement of "Ken Williams approves!" but.. right, definitely still just PR speak for "Don't worry, everyone, they're totally.. almost.. well, not really, but we want you to feel like the original creators are involved!"

 

King's Quest!

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Hot-livered (Hetlevrad) is a Swedish version of Hot blooded.

 

When the song Hot Blooded comes on, do you sing Hot Livered instead?

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