Idle Thumbs 79: Most Memorable Maid

[Gormongous]

Hah, only if the body physics were good enough to allow you to flip them over. Otherwise, it'd be my definition of over-designed video game hell. "Thrash your mouse around impotently to make the dodgy Source-style ragdoll vibrate into a face-down position!"

[Twig]

Well, it'd more just be "a funny thing that can happen" than an actual game mechanic. Although, flipping a body over is remarkably easy, provided it's automated. And... even if it's not, it's not too hard. See Garry's Mod's physics gun. A little cumbersome, but... whatever.

Thinking about this too much. Time for sleep.

[Laxan]

This one time I left an unconscious body in a room with a steampunk fan running and the guy never woke up.

[Roswell47]

  On 10/19/2012 at 9:29 AM, Laxan said:

This one time I left an unconscious body in a room with a steampunk fan running and the guy never woke up.

My brain interpreted that in a hilarious way and I imagined Steve running around a room with a dude passed out on a couch.

[Laxan]

#twitterchillers

[TychoCelchuuu]

Random thoughts:

Listening to this podcast while exercising is really hard. It makes me laugh too much.

I think it might be slightly unfair to call Dishonored out for all the women wearing "skintight" clothes - the maid uniform is kind of clingy, but aside from that it's not like they're wearing catsuits. I too very much enjoyed the "nobody wears skirts or dresses" aesthetic, whether it was driven by rigging considerations or not, and I agree with Steve and... someone else about how Dishonored is very good about not using women as repositories for tits and asses that the game can show off. The women are just as developed and interesting as any of the men (although aside from "empress of everything" and "future empress of everything" they get stuck with the shit jobs [which of course is understandable given the game's setting]) and aside from the prostitutes they aren't dressed in ridiculous revealing clothing for the male gaze to leer at them. So that's good. And just to tie into the episode's other game, XCOM hilariously gives all the women smaller, lady sized guns. That's easily as ridiculous a concession to game technology as keeping the women out of skirts is.

Someone mentioned that Bulletstorm was developed by Epic. Kind of - it was developed by People Can Fly, although Epic bought a majority share in them at some point and now owns them or whatever. I think Bulletstorm is criminally underrated and that People Can Fly in general don't get enough credit for the stuff they do, so I think it's good to get clear on that.

Chris' distinction between puzzles and games, where crosswords are puzzles and chess is a game, is sort of funny because right next to the crossword in the newspaper you've got the little chess game, which is as much a puzzle as it is a game. I could write a few pages on definitional stuff and what is game but I'm not sure there's much of a point to it - I think Sean's point (I think it was Sean) about "just ask a kid if they are playing a game and that will pretty much tell you if it's a game" is more than accurate enough for everyone except philosophers.

edit: I also just remembered that the Jimmy Stewart impersonations cracked me up. So, yeah. Those were great.

[BFrank]

To me, puzzle implies a curated, smaller experience where a few, pre-determined solutions exist and you the player have to figure them out. A standard game of Civ is open-ended, but the scenarios (like 'fight off the Roman invasion for 30 turns') are more puzzle-y due to their being constructed with a specific mechanic and player response in mind.

Great cast.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Under that definition, though, SpaceChem doesn't have any puzzles (because nothing in that game has a few pre-determined solutions) whereas bullet hell games where you have to figure out the patterns and then follow them are puzzles. So that might not be a perfect classification.

[BFrank]

  On 10/20/2012 at 11:11 PM, TychoCelchuuu said:

Under that definition, though, SpaceChem doesn't have any puzzles (because nothing in that game has a few pre-determined solutions) whereas bullet hell games where you have to figure out the patterns and then follow them are puzzles. So that might not be a perfect classification.

Action games throw an interesting wrinkle in, but I think it still works. Bullet hell games do have patterns, but they're hard enough that they force the player to improvise eventually. The point of those games isn't to memorize the pattern but to react smartly/quickly enough to having difficulty heaped on you.

I think the spectrum goes 'puzzle' <--------------------> 'improvise', and applies to action and turn-based (plus everything in between) equally. But that's just me! I'll have to play SpaceChem to see what you mean about that one.

[TychoCelchuuu]

VVVVVV might be a better example than bullet hell games, then - not much improvisation there, just figuring out the correct solution (and then implementing it, which is of course the challenge). So I think if we wanted to refine your definition, we'd have to say that puzzle games can't tax the player's reaction time. That still doesn't cover SpaceChem or similar games, though, which I think sinks the definition.

[Henroid]

Wow, Remo may be consistent on the video games vs. puzzles thing. Idle Thumbs Episode 34, starting at 4 minutes 20 seconds regarding Klax: "It's basically a match 3 falling blocks puzzle."

[quidnunc]

"Games" is one of the primary examples used in discussion about the philosophy and psychology of concepts, usually to show how it is problematic to suppose there are universal features that all elements in a category share. See Wittgenstein's family resemblances, prototype theory in psychology, etc. It's one of the more interesting topics in cognitive science. I can't think of a popular treatment other than Steven Pinker's books about language.

[Luftmensch]

I think that the distinction between improvisational puzzles from contemplative puzzles has a lot of merit, and there's been some interesting work on that topic in cog sci (famously Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow deals with that).

None of that changes the fact that Puzzle is Game.

[TychoCelchuuu]

  On 10/21/2012 at 4:02 AM, quidnunc said:

"Games" is one of the primary examples used in discussion about the philosophy and psychology of concepts, usually to show how it is problematic to suppose there are universal features that all elements in a category share. See Wittgenstein's family resemblances, prototype theory in psychology, etc. It's one of the more interesting topics in cognitive science. I can't think of a popular treatment other than Steven Pinker's books about language.

I haven't read it myself, but I've heard that Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper is more or less accessible to people who aren't philosophers.

[Gormongous]

Thanks for trying to bring up Crusader Kings II, Chris. I know I personally would love to hear your thoughts, and there's plenty of us around here that would be glad to help you over that first hump (and the second, and the third).

[George B]

Another gem of a cast!\

Especially the Koster single/multiplayer discussion. I'm not sure where exactly he talked about this but this is perhaps it.

My reaction was I believe pretty much the same as Steve's which was that single player video games require a system (a conflagration of systems) to play against. And that that's kind of it.

After hearing the gang break it down and reading this thread I recognize that it does require due consideration though.

Something like Super Hexagon is very much single player, but the leaderboards give it a much needed added dimension.

Dark Souls, the game I'm currently neck deep in, also is pretty much a single player game with non-essential (but wonderfully magical) multiplayer additions.

I guess in this day and age there are very few solitary activities of any kind. Which might help explain the weight of Koster's theory of not-One. (groan).

Good gosh I'm excited to get my hands on Dishonoured, though I'm kind of shocked that they chose to spell it without the U. I wouldn't want them to waste packaging resources by demanding 2 print runs on cover art, but come on. Isn't honour with a U the standard worldwide? Doesn't the game take place outside of the US of A.

I will also be upset if Bioshock Infinite has objective markers placed X meters away

[pabosher]

Yeah, this is one of the best episodes ever, I think. Really great stuff you guys.

[Twig]

  On 10/22/2012 at 11:07 PM, George B said:

Good gosh I'm excited to get my hands on Dishonoured, though I'm kind of shocked that they chose to spell it without the U. I wouldn't want them to waste packaging resources by demanding 2 print runs on cover art, but come on. Isn't honour with a U the standard worldwide? Doesn't the game take place outside of the US of A.

It's not our fault you spell it wrong.

Also, everyone has an American accent in the game. I don't know.

[Jake]

The "-or" versus "-our" suffix business is more complicated than "the Americans fucked it up," but it's fun to moan about it, so I'm sure it will never die and people will never shut up.* The "-or" suffix was used in words with Latin roots, "-our" with words coming more recently from French. At one point England standardized on "-our," which I think was admittedly before the colonies existed, but it was in flux for a long-ass time, at least through the 17th century, which puts it only around a generation behind the founding of America. The "-our" suffix was always in deference to/in honor of French word roots though, so it irks the shit out of me when it is decided that "-our" spellings are the Proper British Ways.

Anyway Dishonored.

* See also: "Soccer," a word invented by Brits, but forever blamed on Americans (by Brits).

[Chris]

  On 10/22/2012 at 11:07 PM, George B said:

Good gosh I'm excited to get my hands on Dishonoured, though I'm kind of shocked that they chose to spell it without the U. I wouldn't want them to waste packaging resources by demanding 2 print runs on cover art, but come on. Isn't honour with a U the standard worldwide? Doesn't the game take place outside of the US of A.

The game was principally developed in the US and is set in a location that doesn't exist at all, so I'm not sure it has much bearing on the title of the game.

[Badfinger]

  On 10/23/2012 at 1:13 AM, Jake said:

The "-or" versus "-our" suffix business is more complicated than "the Americans fucked it up," but it's fun to moan about it, so I'm sure it will never die and people will never shut up.* The "-or" suffix was used in words with Latin roots, "-our" with words coming more recently from French. At one point England standardized on "-our," which I think was admittedly before the colonies existed, but it was in flux for a long-ass time, at least through the 17th century, which puts it only around a generation behind the founding of America. The "-our" suffix was always in deference to/in honor of French word roots though, so it irks the shit out of me when it is decided that "-our" spellings are the Proper British Ways.

Anyway Dishonored.

* See also: "Soccer," a word invented by Brits, but forever blamed on Americans (by Brits).

Before I got to the end of your post I was also going to mention "soccer", which I have learned is one hell of a mangled word.

[miffy495]

  On 10/23/2012 at 1:13 AM, Jake said:

The "-our" suffix was always in deference to/in honor of French word roots though, so it irks the shit out of me when it is decided that "-our" spellings are the Proper British Ways.

Knowing this, I find it weird now that the US doesn't spell it with a "u", as they were so chummy with the French around their time of independence.

[Gormongous]

  On 10/23/2012 at 5:22 AM, miffy495 said:

Knowing this, I find it weird now that the US doesn't spell it with a "u", as they were so chummy with the French around their time of independence.

Well, America had a much later and stronger prescriptivist movement with the formidable likes of Noah Webster at its head. It wasn't enough just to enforce consistency, like in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. The language also had to be brought into line with Latin, the most perfect tongue, and with math, the bedrock of reality. It's how we get all our blindingly stupid rules against double negatives, split infinitives, and terminal prepositions.

[Steve]

Canada also has extra U's, because they are French, and love the Queene.

[Roderick]

I'm picturing John Stewart saying that. 'Oh helloooo, the queeeeene!'