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Smbhax finally getting into smb hacksā¦ the prophecy fulfilled
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his name is rio and he jumps on goombas heads
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i donāt actually like any of this youtube guyās observations
they are basically the equivalent of every youtube retro game guy from the 00ās and early 2010ās. just basically likes anything that looks and feels like a conventional game and hates anything even remotely weird. itās kind of like clockwork to know exactly what heās going to say in any given video. it is exactly what you expect, in way i find amusing.
and yet something about watching his channel is still soothing for me. i used to get so annoyed by these guys who talked about games but never really have that much of substance to say, but now it doesnāt really affect me much. maybe that itās just so low stakes, and the videos are short. or it just reminds me of a different time on youtube that i guess he started out in - even tho heās still putting out videos. or maybe itās just that heās so dedicated to covering every game in the SNES library, no matter how insignificant - which a lot of retro game youtube guys would never have the discipline to bother with doing. but i end up liking this channel in spite of not actually really enjoying any of the observations, lol.
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I liked the Koei kick he was on recently.
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Same - I think for me it is that the videos do a fairly decent job of showcasing footage from games Iāve always been curious about but never played, but itās less tedious than just scanning through an entire LP of said game. I donāt know that I ever really get anything out of the actual commentary, but it is an interesting way to scratch the itch of āI want to observe information about 16 bit gamesā (etc) without having to do so much work
Even though I do get sucked in to those videos from time to time part of me still also resents their existence. Curse my own brain for demanding content.
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this is the reason weāve been occasionally watching through the old chrontendo videos, itās interesting to see someone commit to this sort of obviously asinine project and get a glimpse into things overlooked for both good and bad reasons. on the other hand he said DQ2 was better than DQ1 and that FF1 had a better battle system (and possibly was even generally better) than DQ3 which are opinions that feel beamed in from different dimensions lmao
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Yes, thatās why I like any channels who like to talking about retro games and always give them a thumb up for every video I watched. It feels good when you know someone still playing it like a neighbor. Even if neighbor complains about every RPG is too long and you would never be annoyed.
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iāve been thinking about howā¦ videogames are harddddā¦ especially in comparison to watching movies (almost the same thing) where even āhardā movies only require you to be patient to see them through to their endā¦ i would rate any number of videogames maybe even more demanding than most novels iāve read idkā¦ there are reasons on reasons i havenāt been gaming at all since i started working again after getting financially supported by various people and benefits for years lolā¦ i have no idea how people balance gaming / having a job / doing other shit some of you are Family Men evenā¦ i can really only handle like 1.5 of those max at any given time. i donāt think iām getting that DDP daioujou 1cc this year lolā¦
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i have fully embraced save stating/scumming & using walkthroughs liberally for any game im interested in that i also dont envision playing again, for that exact reason. i can just finish a so-so film or novel if itās still neat enough to seem worth it but a game like that usually puts up resistance
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i think interaction is neat
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every once in a while i wonder why the vault dweller suit is so swedish
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vault boy the type of guy to ask if you are joining him for fika
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i think of āmove little guy around, click and something happensā as the most essential element tbh, everything else is just finding novel ways to make resource management & risk/reward fun which you can arguably get from like tabletop games instead
i like even having a limited interactivity model, like in a walking sim. or vrchat which is like an endless gallery of peoples work you can move around and touch stuff in. i think thats always gonna have the juice
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Iāve been questioning if āchoices with consequencesā is something worth chasing in narrative design. It has some value, but itās not as much value as whatever the meat and potatoes of the game is, and I donāt think itās as much value as a spice even. If you can make 3 paths with a good storyline, isnāt it a better use of your time to just make one better path?
Also there is a line that separates āmove little guy aroundā and tokens on a chess board, and Iām not sure where that line is. XCOM is close to one side of it.
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The common thread between those is agency. Moving a little guy around is the most concrete manifestation of it and the latter are more abstract manifestations.
I got the word āagencyā from C. Thi Nyugenās book and now I think itās weird how absent it is from videogames discourse. Itās not a terribly uncommon word but it feels like Nyugen is somehow one of the only people who realized itās important here. While everyone else is mostly using words about structuring a space so that agency can be expressed, and words about specific types of agency, without ever pointing to the umbrella concept.
Nyugen is primarily interested in tabletop games which might have helped him zero in on it. With videogames it can be a little harder to see. Videogames are always partly about expressing agency but they often seem like theyāre just using agency as a component of trying to do something elseā¦ like, feeling rewarding.
In Nyugenās framework, game rewards (like cardboard victory tokens) are something players suspend disbelief on. Players pretend to believe these fake rewards are something worth striving for in order to express their agency during the game itself.
In videogames, rewards are viscerally satisfying, so there is much less need to suspend disbelief. I mean like bombastic explosions, numbers going up or even a satisfying jump animation on the little guy. Some designers use this to create a more welcoming space to express agency, but others end up hollowing out agency because it risks interfering with the stream of rewards the game is determined to dole out (but there is always a little agency left, otherwise it would be a gift not a reward)
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I miss AllGamesBeta/Delta
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Nguyenās book is also what has influenced my thinking about games lately, and lead me to believe the laborious work they require to operate is really the point of a lot of the pleasure behind them and some of their most interesting affects. I donāt think itās the mediumās most unique qualities, but automating much of the processes required to sustain a situation or simulation that welcomes a player to adopt an agency that has them seeing what is worthwhile about operating these machines towards often stressful and time consuming goals is probably why videogames are particularly so energizing for people.
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i think this is what the Chris Crawfords of the world were trying to get at in their own blinkered and strangely puritanical way: that moving a guy around in a space is nice but itās maybe not the most interesting way to utilize the sort of systems games have - and that if games want to evolve, they have to push beyond that.
think the Chris Crawford types were unwilling to full internalize how much the market perpetuates that kind of sameness though. and also uninterested in basically anything that didnāt do things in the exact way they prescribed they should be done. and also their creative approach did not translate in the way they hoped.
i donāt think the problem with games is really the lack of experimentation, itās that the market will always move towards perpetuating a fundamental sameness and predictability. anything outside of that are like ālost futuresā or ācousin gamesā or whatever. maybe an interesting curiosity but not treated as important outside of that. and too many people in the games world still have this psuedosciency way of justifying why the games that are popular deserve to be popular which further perpetuates an inflexibility to trying anything else.
also the main media i think thatās āscoopedā games at this point is online video. you may not be a guy moving around in a space in a video but itās quicker and more immediately accessible than getting into a game will ever be. and it āfeelsā less isolating than playing a game, even when it isnāt. to me this is a big part of why games feel like that theyāre at some kind of existential malaise point right now.
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