clyde

I see a creative renaissance coming for roller-coaster design. I've been thinking about games I want to play with the oculus rift (not much else to do ehen you don't have one) and I'm stuck on SSX. Man, SSX seems like it would be so cool with VR. A first person mode would be so interesting, especially of the camera flipped as you did. Thanks for answering, I look forward to reading everything you have to say about it.

What is it you are trying to do?

This afternoon, I'm leisurely considering some ideas for putting romance mechanics into a board game. I'm realizing that courtship mechanics are vastly different than romance mechanics. Courtship is based on tactical decisions that a player makes in order to achieve a specific cooperative relationship. Romance is a matter of designing the game so that players are motivated towards choosing partners with which to cooperate, independent of increasing their chances of achieving win conditions. It should be more pleasurable and satisfying to lose with a well-matched partner, than to win with a poorly matched one. The partner qualities can't be dependent on the real life personality traits of who is playing the Shoe piece and who is playing the Thimble. I guess that means that there should be some sort of player-abilities (kinda like enchantments in Magic the Gathering, but they only affect partners or maybe players within an area of effect) that would be revealed from each player's individual decks during the course of the game. These abilities would have complementary effects on each other that would give players a sense of elation in receiving access to new cooperative abilities. As more of these player abilities (representing personality traits) are revealed (possibly selectively revealed), some partnerships would become more attractive than others, and possibly change the landscape of motivation. Once I started thinking about this, I realize that there is a possibility within these mechanics for wonderful romantic tropes like seeing a desirable personality trait in someone that they cannot see in themselves; or jealousy. Even if romance can't be systemized to a perfect representation, attempts to do so will give us symbolic behavioral algorithms that can evoke examinations of ourselves and of our relationships with others. And it feels like expectations of these representations in games are so pitiful that any attempts will be appreciated greatly.

So what is the deal with roller-coasters? On neogaf everyone seems to love the rollercoaster. Can you describe the appeal? Is it just a matter of "Can I handle this?" or is it an experience that VR makes worthwhile?

Sorry everybody, didn't mean to post twice. Well uh. . . I'm playing a lot of Stone Age on my iphone and Pegs and Jokers is a blast with two teams of two.

Does Liar's Dice count?

The Show Must Go On has the most memorable fail-states for me. After a mediocre performance, I felt encouraged to do both better and worse.

I think I'd settle for fan-fiction I liked it so much. Maybe Cronenberg should write a movie about the life of Kafka. Btw, great question about dating sims on the podcast Patrick. I wanted to hear them talk about that. Also, I'm searching for similar stuff so I'll keep you posted if I see anything that does romance well.

Has Cronenberg made anything that mixes attractive atmospheres with intriguing esoteria since Naked Lunch? Or is Naked Lunch a fluke. Existenz seemed like something a college student would make after taking a philosophy course for the first time.

I love Naked Lunch.

I'm currently reading Pride and Prejudice and it is very much this. It's pages of banterous dialogue where they insult each other in clever ways while maintaining utmost ettiquette. Must be a british thing. I like it.

Regarding hidden sales, my method is to put anything I'm remotely inyerested in on my wishlist. Then when the sale comes on, I can check my wishlist to see if anything tempts me. Quick question. If I buy a game as a gift for an unspecified person, and then decide later that I'd rather play it myself, will I run into any difficulties in unlocking the gift for my personal account?

I liked the part in the first episode (I think) of Spaced when the landlord is talking about her ex. "I said it's me or that dog... He left the next morning, that bitch." I thought that was really funny.

I suppose there is some depth to the scale of your property ownership or marriages. Still, it would be nice if the marrying one person was different than marrying another. It's been a while since I've played it, maybe the systems do have that depth. I don't remember if I had to fight my wife's pimp in order to marry her or if I just imagined that happening.

I don't entirely disagree with you, but land ownership and sex in Fable 2 seemed like they offered less to discover than a guild quest-line in Skyrim or Oblivion. Even though there it was a system rather than an authored, linear quest-line, I felt like there was (edit:) less depth. Sex and property in Fable 2 seemed to have the same consequences regardless of where it was experienced, offering little narrative depth. Edit: I'm also unclear on what makes a Skyrim questline have less discoverability than those systems in Fable. Both are non-essential and scattered about.

I'm having fun talking about this movie with you Rodi.

How would you feel about those non-critical activities being always available, but also being introduced by certain NPCs? So as you are wandering the world, depending on who you happen to speak to, they may be like "I'm going to be a rich land baron, ask me how!" Does your enjoyment of the non-critical activities require that you discover it yourself? How is what you describe, different from a guild quest-line in Oblivion or Skyrim?

Awesome toblix.

I feel like the depressing qualities of Synechdoche, New York are easily attributed to the main character's pride (meaning the way he presents himself to himself). I think throughout the story he has some hunch that he can choose to influence that identity toward a desired end, but it would make is seem less "real" for him which is ironic since his obsession to represent his reality realistically, is constantly gnarling and distorting it. So good. I could never dream of crafting a story that is folded so well.

The only method I've had success with (with the exception of just increasing exposure to new stuff and hoping i like a few) is looking up bands, song writers and band members who I like on wikipedia and then tracing their other projects. It doesn't always work but it's the most reliable method for myself.

I'm listening to Kanye West's new album and it's thought provoking, but not in the ways that I think he intended. His obsessive use of female objectification as a metaphor for his racial relationship with American consumer culture is getting kinda akward. I enjoy hearing his perspective on independence and empowerment, but the only ways he seems to be able to express it is by referencing a sexual relationship of submission and dominance or by using terms of ownership and property. Anyone else have thoughts on this aspect of his music? I enjoy it, but I feel like I enjoy it as a subject for study rather than solidarity and participation. His music itself is pretty great. I really appreciate his skill in making lo-fi high-fi and the other way around.

I've only played a bit of Uncharted 3 and haven't played The Last of Us. It seems like a lot of gaming podcasts talk about the dissonance between the protagonist being an lovable everyman and being a mass murderer in the Uncharted games. From what I'm hearing, Naughty Dog's solution was to more properly theme a game where you Kill many humanoids, rather than coming up with compeling game systems for being a lovable everyman. Maybe this "solution" is what can make shooter games seem so homogenous in theme. And the popularity of shooting as a game mechanic (let's go ahead and admit it, it's fun to run around a map and pop dudes in the head after disabling the alarm and stealth killing the back-up) leads to a homogenization of theme for the majority of games. As soon as I make this argument, I start thinking of hundreds of counter examples. There are a lot of popular non-shooting games that have more flexibility to their themes. Why do I tend to think that shooting games are the dominant genre that leads the others? Or is it that shooting games aren't actually about killing humanoids; or is it that these games completely disregard associated consequences of killing humanoids? Really, they aren't about killing humanoids, they are about enjoying a shooting gallery where the animatronic hillbilly says "Oh my!" when you shoot the bullseye on his moonshine bottle.

Assuming it wasn't substance induced, Nico could go see a psychologist and have to fill out a multiple choice dicotomy key of symptoms for prognosis. The finished report is then sent to the development team as a bug report. One of the questions should be "Do you often have thoughts about hurting yourself or others?"

The extra curricular activities in GTA 4 were great for me because sometimes I just wanted to role-play living in a city. Most of the time when I played, I would do missions and cause ruckus, but sometimes (typically after something happened in a story mission that seemed like it was supposed to have emotional weight) I would just take a walk or a cab ride or sit in my apartment and watch television. While I was doing those passive activities, my contemplation of what had occurred would sometimes be forgotten or would be interupted by bumping into someone who gives me a WTF?! Look and obviously thinks I should have to pay for their coffee. ### I know it would take development resources, but how cool would it be if I could actually take a mission from them to get them another coffee. When you bring it to them they say "thanks" sarcastically because it was still an inconvenience to them.#### It's nice when the stuff is there, horrible when a mission depends on you doing it well, and rarely appreciated. But I like playing dolls sometimes. One time I was just doing some urban exploration into a train tunnel and I was worried about a train coming. I was looking for graffitti. At somepoint the celing started glitching out and the geometry of the city appeared to me in a really odd broken way. I was thinking how awesome it would have been if i could have asked a pedestrian if the were seeing what i was seeing and then have them walk off disinterestedly. Later a cop would come come up and arrest me for intoxication in public. So many fantasies. These ideas occur to me while I wander around GTA 4 more than when I wander around other game worlds, so there is some value in that.

2EN1's new single came out. They are going to release a music video every month through October. I'm psyched.