Mystery Science News Thread 3,000

I dunno if this qualifies as news but this is the first retro-console thingy that’s actually interested me purely from a design standpoint. Boy howdy I think that’s a nice looking piece of electronics.

I refuse to support anything g with that kind of website design. Also the buttons on their controller are XBox layout :confused:

Yeah I had to work on a site for a building development project that had the same blinding hot pink background. Not a pleasant experience. I think the designer for it got fired.

That console thing looks cool though, but what will the price be?

Is it an actual thing or just photoshop artwork and an idea that will get a Kickstarter campaign?

Hitman is going on sale

This is another one of those simple, beautiful indie games that is not beautiful enough to sustain its simplicity. I think I’m getting picky in my old age.

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No, you’re not picky, underwhelming platformers are very underwhelming in 2017. Some of the art concepts are great (I like that cow) but the execution isn’t very inspired.

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Sort of my thought as well, though I should mention the game dev’s mission, perhaps:

“We want Ayo: A Rain Tale to help raise awareness about the daily hardships faced by those who live in the Sub-Saharan region. Ayo represents every child who courageously takes on the job of fetching water for their family. It’s a story that must be told, and we’re confident that games – the preeminent interactive media of our time – are the perfect way to do so.”

The developer, Inkline, is based in Beirut. At first I was wondering if this was another new African dev group like the folks who did Aurion and then I was digging to see if they were donating a portion of sales to charity or anything but I didn’t see anything like that.

Love the visual style here, reminds me of Twinsen’s Odyssey

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http://reallifemag.com/player-one/

Worlds collide

However that is a tortuously sloppy and sweeping article. We don’t need these strained leanings towards ‘games desire to be created without authors’ when we can really say, like other media, there’s an abundant underclass of people playing in their garage who scrape by in grinding poverty and won’t escape.

We don’t need to put Bob as a primal indie when we can instead say, he was too early, didn’t have the skill set, and was isolated from a culture that could nurture game makers. We don’t need to elevate him to acknowledge his humanity.

I’m insulted by, ‘here’s a troubled kid who found release the first time they created something. On a totally unrelated note, let’s talk about cults.’

“Charismatic leaders”! applied to games? Meaningless in a field which, apart from the demands of indie marketing (and shared by artists, musicians, ‘influencers’) are relatively free from personality cults next to other media.

He’s absolutely right about exploited workers but this language obscures it. There are much simpler explanations for the lack of (needed) unions in the tumultuous and exploited games workforce: an inherited mindset from tech and the pay and social status gap between engineers and designers/artists.

Finally, let me offer some context. I’ve been working 80-85 hour weeks since February. I’ve had about 6 days off. But even though I’m working for global megacorp and even though I’m not getting paid I’m not unhappy about it. I’m doing it because I want to make the game better, I’m endlessly willing to promise things to get more leverage into shaping this, I like my work. A lot of this happens when I inappropriately sneak features in based on a great conversation because, well, wouldn’t it be cool if this was in the game? If you don’t tell the producer we can play it come Monday.

Generally I see team leads, QA, and regular workaholics on weekends. QA guys are here for the overtime and because QA contracts are heartlessly short; it’s famine or not-famine for them. Leads have a real creative ownership stake and feel that same drive I do to make the game better. The rest–sometimes they have made promises years ago that turn out to have been the work of two people; and they are trying to make do. Some are probably making up the promises of their bosses–and that’s honestly the worst. Some are like me and know that no matter the deadline or the manpower they’d be here because why do something else when you could be making cool stuff?

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Felix are you trying to troll me

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Felix started this forum to troll you

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I swear the next person linking a Bogost article

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that was thomsen whom I also love

also I actually can’t fathom working a more than 40 hour week let alone without getting overtime

but I still <3 you

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This is the really unjust part. As we’ve established I’m barely motivated by money but a lot of game overtime is driven by people like me (designers) and leads talking about exciting new features that get implemented by people lower down. The least they could do is pay for productions’ mistakes.

Theoretically this industry works on bonuses and people will be squishily compensated based on unpaid overtime once a) the game is released, b) they’re still employed (seriously this place is like 35% contractors), and c) the game is a hit. I’ve never met all three of those conditions before, so it’s an imprecise tracker of overtime…

No mention of sb. Our haute couture status remains secure

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