gritfish

oh man, all I could think about while Chris was describing his childhood nightmares was the ad for Gotham at the moment (we might be behind the states by a week): Horrifying.

There are plenty of games that do all those things (Fez is hugely about mechanics and systems, but has an underlying theme of exploration and discovery and wonder, Where is my Heart is a puzzle-platformer like the Lost Vikings, which managed to have me close to tears at the end) - but also, games without narrative can have massive potential for self expression (by the players, if not the creator). Think about how people's personalities come through when playing a board game - Some people immediately try to take over, some keep there plans secret, and I bet you didn't think that friend had the potential to be so RUTHLESS Games also let you experience perspectives in a way movies don't. Papers Please or Cart Life are the textbook examples for this, but Valiant Heats showed how well stuff like this can be done by a big studio. To dive quickly back into boardgames, Battlestar Galactica is a show (and boardgame) about paranoia. The game doesn't really contain a "story" as much as it does a setting, but it makes you completely paranoid through a mechanical choice alone: At the start of the game, everyone's on the same side, except one person is a traitor. Or two. Or NONE. There's almost no way to tell if the people around you are telling the truth or not, except to wait for that moment when a plan goes south and your food supply is sabotaged, just as raiders appear on the horizon. But even then it COULD have happened by chance. I kind of agree with shammack - narrative and mechanics often work at odds (especially mechics based on choice) but some times the narrative comes out of making believable choices. Muppjockey already mentioned Depression Quest, but I'd like to throw http://ncase.itch.io/coming-out-simulator-2014 into the mix, because it is knowingly about choice, and how much/little those choices affect things

Man - that Naomi Clark quote nails it - There's game jams, which I mostly do for the fun of collaborating with people on a problem, but then there's THE games: the ones I don't see being made anywhere else, that I feel SHOULD be out there somewhere, and they should work like THIS... It's almost a nervous tick some times, like needing to look up something you can't quite remember - a feeling that this thing SHOULD work, and you have to see it to be sure. There's a big space for personal games out there, and I LOVE playing those, but for me the games I enjoy working most seem to be these weird logic puzzles - http://mallowdrop.com/ was my first attempt at a full game, and it's this weird exploration of gravity/platforming puzzles. There was never any story or characters - but I saw things like Braid, and Fez, and Where is my Heart? and I wanted to make games like that. These are games that take forever for me to chip away at, and often the act of figuring the mechanics out is more interesting than any game I can end up making with it. On the other hand, the games that I find the most rewarding to build in the short term, though, are games where the meat of them are procedurally generated, or local multiplayer games. They let you get up and running with a SYSTEM first, and then you figure out how to "play" inside that system. http://gritfish.itch.io/holodorks was a blast to make, because the process went from (as usual for me) exploring how a few systems worked together (procedurally generating the level and then painting the background in) and then figuring out what type of game worked in that system (we ultimately settled on going for a "Nuclear Throne" thing but didn't get super complicated with it). http://gritfish.itch.io/towerface was a blast for the same kind of reasons, but the act of testing the game with the other people at the jam and tweaking it was WAY more fun than coding all the physics.

Oh man.. I was prepared for this one to be a little bit serious, but I was struggling not to cry laughing at some points. The "playing to win, not to learn" thing reminded me of this http://thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/531/got-your-back which is a crazy tale of taking the game "diplomacy" to extremes. I won't spoil it. Does costume Quest have the sibling you don't pick show up besides being rescued? I feel like that's something that would happen but I didn't get far enough into it. Also the guy who does dresden codak did some neat Zelda concepting with the game mechanically based on Zelda, not just having her as a character swap. http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/post/47724463171/inspired-by-anita-sarkeesians-video-game-tropes.

I guess the platform choice is part of the problem? - Youtube is pretty much the home of the supercut - it's the place where, traditionally, people mash and remix videos to be funny, not educational. TED talks isn't really the place for an ongoing literary criticism series either, but Sarkeesian's videos seem more at home in that environment than youtube.. Are there other academics doing video series? I'd love to see more of this sort of stuff. (I know Brendan Keogh did one recently but I think it was only viewable through Patreon and I haven't looked into it well enough)

There is a twitter thing now with lots of press/indies doing anime avatars. It's great but totally throwing off my ability to recognise anyone while scrolling through it.

Okay, I read through the previous pages a bit to see if anyone else brought this up, and I didn't see it. I'm sorry if this has been talked about to death in previous weeks threads - I know it's been talked about on the podcast before. The idea you can have (or want) a "journalistic" review of something is insane. There's this huge dischord with people arguing there's not enough curation in systems like Steam, the Apple App Store and Google Play, and then turning around and arguing that reviewers/critics aren't impartial enough. The whole reason I read reviews for games or movies is because I want to know someone's opinion and perspective on it. "Edge of Tomorrow" looked terrible from the trailer, but EVERY person/reviewer who I know enjoys the same science fiction movies I like loves that movie. I missed it at the cinema, but I plan on grabbing on dvd when it comes out. The trailers for "Stranger than Fiction" made that movie look like Will Ferrell screaming for 90 minutes - the movie is anything but that. From the outside, Spec Ops: The Line looks like a typical bro-shooter with nothing to say. People with opinions I value found more in that game than I could imagine. Media criticism, for me, is like an escape valve for good things to get noticed despite terrible marketing / business decisions the creator likely had no part in. Objectivegamereviews.com is a fantastic joke/experiment, but if we lived in a world where only "objective" reviews exist, none of this could possibly happen. Without critics telling me it wasn't the horror game it was dressed as, Gone Home would probably still be "that game about a ghost or something". What's worse is that the argument that reviews and criticism should be treated as journalism takes away from the need for more "real" journalism in games though, to cover things that AAA studio employees under NDA's can't say without getting blacklisted in the industry. What was going on inside Irrational during Infinite's development? Who at Capcom was responsible for the continuing cancellation of every Megaman game? Which studios have unfair hiring practices / abusive "crunch time" / discrimination? Those stories can only come out of "anonymous sources" and journalistic protection. When it comes down to it: The people who make games do it because they care about games. The people who write about games are people do it because they care about games. The people who read about games do it because they care about games. The people who care about journalism? They're probably paying more attention to Ferguson or Iraq or Ukraine. The games industry isn't limited to a bunch of studios in Tokyo, San Francisco and Montreal. It's happening in bedrooms and basements and garages. It's happening online. People trying to make a living writing about games can't be everywhere to cover it and those developers can't afford massive marketing campaigns to demand press attention. I'm pretty disappointed in Kotaku's pulling back from Patreon in response to the backlash over all this. Exclusive access for indie games is more and more happening through mediums like Patreon and Kickstarter. If anyone in the games press wants to spend their money (or publication's money) on those to get a scoop, and share the stories and good things they're privy to because of that investment: Good. That's what I want. Also - some really good insight into the gamer outrage from Dan Golding: http://dangolding.tu...e-end-of-gamers

Actually, I was talking with someone about the whole internet hate machine thing that's been going on recently - we eventually decided the only way to look into that void and not go mad was to imagine every comment being read by this guy:

No, he's right - when someone's got an anime avatar on twitter I just can't see past it.

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.

Idle Thumbs' promo reads continue to be some of the funniest things on the planet. (note - I should really look at hyuvver.carm). Coming out simulator's here: http://ncase.itch.io/coming-out-simulator-2014 Nicky was also the sponsor of the Public Domain Jam I organised in May, and is a huge advocate of open-source - as such, anyone interested can go here https://github.com/ncase/coming-out-simulator-2014 and download the source code and play around with it!

Hey guys! Bit of an update on the Public Domain Jam. Nicky Case, creator of indie game “Nothing To Hide” and organiser of the Open Game Art Bundle, has donated a $1000 prize to the highest rated game in the jam that releases its code and assets under the optional Creative Commons Zero waiver. The Engine Co. have also joined, and are offering free Loom Turbo subscription (the premium edition of their cross-platform game engine, valued at $500) to the winning entry of every rating category (best art, best sound, best use of theme, etc.), and are giving a free month of Loom Turbo to anyone who wants to use it in the jam. Just download the sdk at their site and send ben.garney@gmail.com an email. Finally, the top 100 games overall will receive a copy of the Kenney donation pack, a bundle of free to use art and sound assets. There's already been some crazy stories talked about on the #pdjam tag on twitter - I can't wait to see what comes out of it.

That loading/pause screen is incredible - it's clearly a point where someone thought "this system's so powerful! LOOK AT HOW MUCH SHIT we can put on the screen at once!" This is seriously ahead of it's time though. I remember playing a flash game with this mechanic what must be years after this was made, and thinking it was really innovative. I don't really remember the PS1 for platformers though, it was more about early 3D games.

It wasn't covered on the cast, but apparently valve added the q&a from the Free to Play premiere to the movie on steam. DOTA is still kind impenetrable to me. Maybe I should ask in the potato day forum, but has anyone seen it played with a steam controller? I'm assuming they'd support it.

Also "On point".. It may be common in America, but the Polygon guys and now Idle Thumbs are the only places I hear this expression in my life.

Oh - because I was goofing around with codes and stuff for a previous jam game, I had an anagram generator in my bookmarks, so I put it some thumbs. Some of them seemed cool: CHRIS REMO Sir Chrome (he IS a robot, I knew it!) / Scorer, Him STEVE GAYNOR Avengers Toy / Vegan Oyster / Sent Voyager / Vent Yo' Gears NICK BRECKON Brick No Neck JAKE RODKIN A Kind Joker SEAN VANAMAN Mean Savanna DANIELLE RIENDEAU I Elude Adrenaline

From "Osama's Dog" Oh, it's YOU again. Welcome back. Could we not get derailed again by this obvious trolling?

Hey guys! If anyone's interested in the Public Domain Jam, it's hosted here. I posted it the game jams thread when the jam was announced. If you want to know why I started this up and how important Public Domain is to games, go listen to Chris and Zach in ep 130 If anyone has questions about it, feel free! There's a big update to that page that I'm writing up, including answers to a whole bunch of questions, so the more I can find out now, the more I can add to it (the most common one is "is it okay to use Sherlock Holmes?" - the answer is "maybe, depending on where you live."). Some other common questions: Does the game I make have to be Public Domain as well? - No, but we're adding a special category for games that DO release their source under a cc0 license. Do I have to use Public Domain art/music? - No, but I'm going to add a list of PD resource libraries to the jam page to help anyone who wants to do that. The big takeaway from talking with some people who deal with legal issues in games: DON'T make your stuff based on modern interpretations of the original PD work - don't make it based on the charcters of the BBC or American Sherlocks, or off the Disney versions of PD stories. THAT stuff ISN'T Public Domain, and IS copyright infringement.

Hey Thumbs / Readers I thought about putting this in the "Plug your shit" thread, if it should go there instead, please let me know. Way, way back in ep 130 (around the 49min mark), Chris and Zach had a pretty passionate discussion about Pubilc Domain stories, and Chris lamented that fact that for the most part, new stories and characters just won't be added to the Public Domain any more because of copyright extending beyond the heat death of the universe. Well, there's no reason we can't celebrate the stories that are. An idea formed listening to that ep, and it's been stuck in my head since then. Because I'm assuming that people here on the forums care not only about games, but about stories. So I'm proud to announce it here: The Public Domain Jam It's a while off, but I thought it'd give people time to think about what stories are important to them and how to retell them. Also, there's a category for the craziest use of the source material, and if ANYONE can come up with something totally insane for this, it's you guys.

Done! Can be found over here.

I originally posted this in "Idle Banter", because I'm a noob and completely missed this board :S Hey Thumbs / Readers I thought about putting this in the "Plug your shit" thread, if it should go there instead, please let me know. Way, way back in ep 130 (around the 49min mark), Chris and Zach had a pretty passionate discussion about Pubilc Domain stories, and Chris lamented that fact that for the most part, new stories and characters just won't be added to the Public Domain any more because of copyright extending beyond the heat death of the universe. Well, there's no reason we can't celebrate the stories that are. An idea formed listening to that ep, and it's been stuck in my head since then. Because I'm assuming that people here on the forums care not only about games, but about stories. So I'm proud to announce it here: The Public Domain Jam It's a while off, but I thought it'd give people time to think about what stories are important to them and how to retell them. Also, there's a category for the craziest use of the source material, and if ANYONE can come up with something totally insane for this, it's you guys. The original post

I'm pretty early into Thomas and Banner Saga still, but both have a really good ensamble of well-written characters. Still in early access, but Particulars (despite being a game without any characters on screen) has some pretty nice character writing. I really want to try and tackle Cart Life again - playing that game as a non-American is actually pretty hard (I don't think the coins have numbers on them?) but also I guess realistic if you're the guy with the cat... It's weird that outside of adventure games I'm struggling to think of many other shining examples that are about the writing more than being just a really good game with female characters. Perhaps games where you have a cast of playable characters (or generated / make-your-own characters) seem to fall into sterotypes less (I'm sure there's examples for and against this) because you need to have all characters feel like "valid" choices? I mean - gender doesn't matter in games like xcom or rogue legacy, but it's still there. That's actually a bloody starting point. Really you could replace the motivation in a lot of games without changing the mechanics at all. Not really a spoiler, but I was honestly quite disappointed in the Hartschild area in Bravely Default because it didn't skewer men and machismo in the same way it did with women and beauty / competitiveness in Florem.

Yikes - this all went in a direction I didn't expect, but here's a bit of a thought I had - a lot of old franchises (and Nintendo's got a lot of really old ones) take their most basic storytelling cues from "You're a guy and you do a thing. Why? To rescue a girl, I dunno.." because there wasn't a lot of tools in the medium at the time to express much more than that (instruction manuals not included), and you didn't really have video games writers in the sense we do now. Those franchises are still going, and somehow have to walk this line of being relevant to a world where we DO talk about games in terms of gender/racial equality as well as graphics and mechanics, but also have to stay true to the "innocent" tone of the earlier games. So how the hell do you walk that line, without completely rebooting the franchise? Who's done it well? Which attempts have failed and why? (Metroid: Other M?) Also, welcome to the forum, anti-me!

The choice of game is a pretty big part of it - anything with a first person camera is pretty hard, because you DO get that leaning effect (The Ideomotor phenomenon). The games that work best are either 2D, turn-based, or games that don't require a lot of dexterity at the same time as quick reactions (I have a feeling I'm going to get wrecked trying dota for this reason). There are plenty of AAA games with a mostly fixed camera that are great - Saints Row 4's camera actually doesn't move a lot unless you make it, so that makes it easier to play. The camera in Mass Effect 2-3 is pretty fixed as well. I never had leaning issues with it (1 was completely different though, and the mako sections were really hard to stay upright through) Some other games that work really well: Civ5 - using joy2key, it's pretty playable, and the constant stream of stuff to do keeps you from realising how long you've been on The Banner Saga - turn based, fixed camera X-COM - same, but with really good controller support Awesomenauts - talked about in the podcast Spelunky - same Brothers - A short experience, but the camera is always kind of fixed, so you don't lean Lumines / Audiosurf - Amazing games that are quantised, so when you're walking/jogging/peddling to the beat it feels incredible As far as speed goes, games with a lot of cutscenes are your friend, because while they're going, you can crank up the speed and run a bit more without having to worry about screwing up. The Back to the Future games were really good for this. DO NOT TRY MIRRORS EDGE. JUST DON'T.

Threndsa - Bravely Default's OTHER great feature (for me, anyway) is the way almost the battle system can be set up to run automatically - pretty much reducing it to a "JRPG character manager". Turn-based battles are great for me (god i played a lot of Fire Emblem at the gym), but that "repeat the last set of commands" system combined with the fast forward makes the whole thing just a bit more of a passively enjoyable experience when grinding.