Idle Weekend July 30, 2016: Look at You, Hacker

[Chris]

Idle Weekend July 30, 2016:



Look at You, Hacker
With the release of Blendo Games' Quadrilateral Cowboy, the Weekenders are once again enamored with all things hacking. Danielle expounds upon the virtues of heist-by-deck, while Rob ponders the power fantasy of becoming a god among machines. Elsewhere, they grapple with diversity and historical accuracy, Rob takes a peek back at Entourage, and Danielle devours season three of BoJack Horseman. Holywoo!

Discussed: Quadrilateral Cowboy, Deus Ex, System Shock, BioShock, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy, Mr. Robot, BoJack Horseman, Entourage

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[Xeneth]

Rob's reaction to my mail about Yowamushi Pedal was priceless, ha ha ha! I am indeed just just some actual reader that gets dragged into Anime sidequests by his SO.

 

I guess at some point R&D's only exposure to the series was somehow seeing a shot of "Peak Spider" Makishima's initial character introduction?

His "demonic" appearance (including Gene Simmons-esque tongue) is played up initially for impact against the mousy and reserved main character, but it's really not a prominent factor past that; They very quickly humanize him and make it clear that he's a good dood despite his wild look and stand-offish attitude, so it actually took me a while to remember what part of the show Rob and Danielle were even talking about.

 

If you like cycling as a sport though, seriously check Yowamushi Pedal out! It's very grounded compared to a lot of sports anime, (like Haikyuu is to Volleyball) and while many aspects are played up or exaggerated for the sake of character drama, there's some real world mechanics buried in there that make the story more relatable than if... I dunno, their bikes unfolded and fused with the riders, transforming them into combat robots or whatever?

 

A lot of Anime is very "forest for the trees" when it comes to the way things work and why, which I'm happy to report isn't the case with some series!

[Gormongous]

  On 7/31/2016 at 8:48 PM, Xeneth said:

If you like cycling as a sport though, seriously check Yowamushi Pedal out! It's very grounded compared to a lot of sports anime, (like Haikyuu is to Volleyball) and while many aspects are played up or exaggerated for the sake of character drama, there's some real world mechanics buried in there that make the story more relatable than if... I dunno, their bikes unfolded and fused with the riders, transforming them into combat robots or whatever?

The best sports anime tend to be very procedural and deeply grounded in their subject. The best baseball anime, Cross Game, regularly devotes four or more episodes to the moment-by-moment progress of the game and takes multiple asides to explain rules, the better to heighten the dramatic tension. Even sports anime about obscure sports, like karuta in Chihayafuru, are enjoyable because of that desire to onboard the viewer at the same level of knowledge and passion as the characters in them.

Side note, Danielle would definitely love Chihayafuru. Rob probably would, too.

[sclpls]

Personally I was relieved to discover that Quadrilateral Cowboy didn't feature any real programming. My problem with games like Glitchspace and Double Fine's Hack n Slash is that doing all the work of programming, but with a video game avatar interface rather than a text editor is actually a miserable experience. So I wasn't really looking forward to playing another game of that type. Happily, QC is more like you have these pre-written scripts, and all you are doing is running command lines.

 

The elements borrowed from heist movies in QC really is fantastic though, and what has kept me going. While I still eagerly await Jean Pierre Melville the Video Game, QC is the next best thing.

[Chris]

  On 8/1/2016 at 5:01 PM, sclpls said:

Personally I was relieved to discover that Quadrilateral Cowboy didn't feature any real programming. My problem with games like Glitchspace and Double Fine's Hack n Slash is that doing all the work of programming, but with a video game avatar interface rather than a text editor is actually a miserable experience. So I wasn't really looking forward to playing another game of that type. Happily, QC is more like you have these pre-written scripts, and all you are doing is running command lines.

 

The elements borrowed from heist movies in QC really is fantastic though, and what has kept me going. While I still eagerly await Jean Pierre Melville the Video Game, QC is the next best thing.

 

It's true: it's a command line interface simulator, not a programming simulator. What it actually makes me feel closest to is when I was first learning to use DOS on our piece of shit IBM computer in 1990 and even changing directories for the first time felt like magic.

[sclpls]

Haha yes! I remember the amazing feeling when I discovered the dir/w command, and I could actually read all the files in a directory!

[Mike Danger]

I just wanted to note for the Hacking Episode that I've been watching Person of Interest based on Rob's recommendation a few episodes ago and it's crazy good. I can't believe someone at CBS not only signed off on this, but also signed off on the crazy fourth season. It's much, much better than I thought it was going to be.

[Gamebeast23456]

Another interesting part of a lot of hacker fantasies is the idea of technology as a uniting force for people with different backgrounds. MR. ROBOT's hacker team consists of a ambiguously ethnic lead (Rami Malek is Egyptian-American, and there's a lot of factors in the show that lead to his racial background being super ambiguous and also not really that relevant), a white woman, an Iranian-American woman, a black dude, and a more typical white guy programmer dude. Despite their differences in background, all these people are united by a vision of a future and the tools for delivering that future. Of course, what makes MR. ROBOT great, and not just a rehashing of every other Fight Club-alike story of 'bringing down the man' is that it actually does examine the ways in which these radical philosophies and worldviews can interface with damaged people who, at times, are very clearly compensating for other failures with this mission they've created for themselves. 

 

So far I'm about three hours into Quadrilateral Cowboy and I'm really enjoying it. I don't know if I'm perceptive enough to really tug at what the story actually is, but I do enjoy the loose world all of the Blendo Games' are about, and I like the unifying, lo-fi art style. I think the specific fantasy that this game is playing to, however, is different than a lot of the more egalitarian hacker stories. In this game, you are basically a gun-for-hire, you do jobs for the monied interests that will pay for your services. It is really a fantasy of ultra-competence and power, regardless of the fact that you seem to ultimately just be a tool of more powerful people. There's something slightly grittier or more human about this idea, and it provides a different kind of fantasy, one that still indulges in the more DIY and underground aspects of cyberpunk/hacker fiction. 

[Beasteh]

A discussion on hacking games, but no mention of Uplink? Listen to those 90's phone dialling sounds - magic:

 

 

Although (as you can tell from the video) the game was more Hollywood style hacking, there was a command prompt to use when not watching progress bars. It even had an IRC client built in which was incredible at the time.

[SecretAsianMan]

  On 8/2/2016 at 12:06 AM, Mike Danger said:

I just wanted to note for the Hacking Episode that I've been watching Person of Interest based on Rob's recommendation a few episodes ago and it's crazy good. I can't believe someone at CBS not only signed off on this, but also signed off on the crazy fourth season. It's much, much better than I thought it was going to be.

 

I too have been watching POI and am similarly enjoying it. It started off kind of slow and the episode plots are way too predictable but overall I'm liking it.

 

 

  On 8/2/2016 at 7:03 PM, Beasteh said:

A discussion on hacking games, but no mention of Uplink? Listen to those 90's phone dialling sounds - magic:

 

 

Although (as you can tell from the video) the game was more Hollywood style hacking, there was a command prompt to use when not watching progress bars. It even had an IRC client built in which was incredible at the time.

 

I was also somewhat surprised that Uplink was not mentioned.  The interface is very Hollywood but I feel like the method (although very abstracted) is more accurate.  Most movie/TV hacking scenes involve a person furiously typing to hack something in "real time" when the reality is that actual hacking involves running programs and scripts.  But its way less interesting to watch someone coding for hours on end so you get the Hollywood version.

[Nappi]

Did anyone play Hacknet? I quite enjoyed the retro feeling I got from typing commands like "ps" and "kill [PID]", until I encountered a game breaking bug that did not let me continue with the story.

 

[Beasteh]

  On 8/3/2016 at 4:08 PM, SecretAsianMan said:

was also somewhat surprised that Uplink was not mentioned.  The interface is very Hollywood but I feel like the method (although very abstracted) is more accurate.  Most movie/TV hacking scenes involve a person furiously typing to hack something in "real time" when the reality is that actual hacking involves running programs and scripts.  But its way less interesting to watch someone coding for hours on end so you get the Hollywood version.

 

On top of that, the scripts you use in the game are bought from an illicit software marketplace. The game pre-dates bitcoin, so it's done with money, but it's another way the game works to suspend your disbelief.

 

Hacknet looks like a spiritual successor to Uplink, but with a strong focus on the command line like QC.

[juv3nal]

hacknet is really good. I never got around to finishing it but the moment when

  Reveal hidden contents

the rival hacker takes out your GUI and you're forced to use the command line

is so good

[Nappi]

  On 8/3/2016 at 9:20 PM, juv3nal said:

hacknet is really good. I never got around to finishing it but the moment when

  Reveal hidden contents

the rival hacker takes out your GUI and you're forced to use the command line

is so good

 

Yeah, that was really well executed. 

[unimural]

Obligatory Dwarf Fortress defender post:
 
Getting started with Dwarf Fortress installation-wise is really easy these days:
 
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=126076

 

The main issue still is that there's so much to learn. Most of it isn't difficult at all. There's just a lot of it, and you have to internalize a fair chunk before you can get anything functional going on in the game. Really, you have to study the game before you can play it. Either by reading the wiki or watching a bunch of let's plays. Or ideally having a patient live tutor sitting next to you. Back in 2006 when I started playing the game it was all a lot simpler. I don't envy people who try to get in the game these days.

[BlueNinjaPanda]

I've been listening to the Myths and Legends podcast based on Danielle's suggestion, and I've been loving it. Good stuff, especially since I've gotten into Smite recently and it's fun when I get to learn about the back story of one of the gods I've been playing.