videogame things you think about a lot

[HoboSupportAct]

I thought this was commonly referred to as Snake Sex but I have been meaning to update my Kinklopedia entry on the subject

[DaleNixon]

[smbhax]

Is the PS4 just going to be around forever?

[u_u]

i hope so!

[hellojed]

Thinking about how game design just stops existing the higher you go in the industry. The period between making your first ever clone of pong right up until, like, a university capstone class is where the most creativity is. Then with each subsequent jump up the ladder, you do less and less “design” and more “systems management”, making the existing things work and never actually coming up with anything new. Eventually the teams you’re on have so many people that a coherent vision just can’t exist, everyone has gone from their individual cogs to the individual teeth of the cogs.

[smbhax]

Welcome to middle management.

[hellojed]

Thinking about that time Toby Fox made an intro video for Kenny Omega that didn’t get used but nonetheless included pixel graphic art of Cody Rhodes

[jsnlv]

Oh, this is embarrassing:

Ryan Veeder

[Arus]

Dawn of Souls would probably have been a better title. Can’t agree about the map design though. I don’t like box-ey and constrained Dawn of Sorrows is, all of the stages just blend into each other unimaginatively. It kind of shows the importance of negative space as a factor in Aria of Sorrow and Symphony of the Night’s level design being as good as it was. There are also a whole lot more obnoxious locked doors than in either of those games.

[Tegiminis]

pathologic (both of them) is explicitly patterned as stage plays, yeah. at the start of 2 a character even tells you “don’t worry about the nameless folks, they are just extras” lol

[skelephone]

i worked as a localization writer on patho 2 and yeah there is so much stage themed shit in there. it comes in at the weirdest times. Also all of the tutorial NPCs speak entirely in metered dialogue

my other recommendation is to not be afraid of dying the first time. The real game experience is dying and then getting all the nasty consequences, haha. The tradeoff you get is that after you die you get some truly amazing stage themed content that really digs into this aspect of the game’s themes. Really fun stuff!!

[Felix]

@skelephone

worked as a localization writer on patho 2

yooooooo

[BustedAstromech]

Matsuno’s team has always tried to contextualize their games in physical objects.

From Ogre Battle’s tarot deck, drawing the player in while disguising their role (is it you, or a character you play?)

to its battle system that reduces characters to little toy figures moved around by generals:

to the presentation of the strategy games as a historical lesson, placing the player at a double-remove from the people involved

to the models and die rolls of Crimson Shroud:

I believe it comes from a specific view of the relationship between player, simulation, and game created through play. Instead of trying to erase the distinction between the monitor and the world within to increase immersion, they explicitly build (simulated) artificial intermediaries. The experience can’t pretend to be presenting real people and situations, so it pretends to be a toy recreating it.

And we don’t judge toys by their fidelity to the real world but by the craft and how their abstractions highlight something true to the represented object. Final Fantasy Tactics is a beautiful toy and doesn’t suffer any limitations in looking like a complete Playstation game. Where the cinematic Final Fantasy VIII begged players to beg for voice acting and facial capture, Tactics goes beyond what I expect little toy soldiers to feel and share.

On the other side, characters drawn like actors in a historical epic struggle more in comparison. They can’t monologue as long, nor bring the real historical context in. In exchange, the player is given a different access of empathy as a player and commander forced to evaluate the situation closer to their eyes.

[BustedAstromech]

On the other side of abstraction there’s the direct-to-player communication, the game that assumes it can talk directly to the player without any intermediary.

I think I love this just slightly more than the abstraction. But in either way, I think it’s absolutely necessary that a game acknowledge its artifice and relationship to the player in some way, rather than trying to ignore it.

U.E.S.C. Marathon
Quarantine Lab Control Room Terminal 321-a(293.610.31.995>
INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL

Greetings. You’re asking yourself: Is this a trap or just
a dead end?

You shouldn’t ask yourself such worthless questions. Aim
higher. Try this: why am I here? Why do I exist, and what is
my purpose in this universe?

(Answers: 'Cause you are. 'Cause you do. 'Cause I got a
shotgun, and you ain’t got one.)

Notably Unstable,
Durandal

P.S. If things around here aren’t working, it’s because I’m
laughing so hard.

END MESSAGE
U.E.S.C. Marathon
Quarantine Lab Control Room Terminal 321-a(293.610.31.995>

[hellojed]

keep wanting to play “ancestors: the humankind odyssy” and then lose on purpose thus preventing primates from evolving into humans and society forming and whatnot

[alfred]

Just randomly started thinking about Shigeru Miyamoto advising Famitsu readers to import the NES version of Zelda 1&2.

[BustedAstromech]

Maybe a bad translation? A lot of the NES ports got cartridge re-releases on the Famicom, too

[alfred]

Nah this was from before those reissues started, before link to the past came out. Those were all in 1993 probably to capitalize on the AV Famicom that had just come out

[alfred]

Now I’m thinking about that kid who all his friends got super famicoms and SMW for Xmas, but his parents bought him Super Mario USA for his famicom instead

[BustedAstromech]

Wow, that’s way later than I thought they did it