tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65424277137089208482024-02-19T03:57:22.856-08:00Necessary InformationWillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.comBlogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-28859528306534603872015-05-02T12:56:00.001-07:002015-05-02T12:56:50.126-07:00XENOPATHOLOGY Letter Seven: Will, April 10<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" height="388" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;">Note for readers: As of this entry,
Michael and I will be digging into the game proper, and we'll be
discussing plot points as they come. If you're terrified of spoilers,
be cautious.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Michael,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">It's April 10th; I picked up my copy of
<i>Xenoblade Chronicles 3D</i> earlier today. So far, I've played roughly
4.5 hours, making my way through what feels like an extended
prologue, right up to the point where plucky heroine Fiora gets
stuffed into a big, tank-sized fridge. It seemed like a good place to
stop for a bit and get some initial thoughts on paper.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">So, the good news is: I really like
this game! I imagine you're almost as relieved to read that as I am
to write it; what a drag it would be to devote all this time and
energy to a sub-par game. But so far, I find <i>Xenoblade Chronicles</i> to
be well-written, interestingly designed, and possessed of a combat
system I feel excited to sink my teeth into. It's not all perfect,
but I'm happy to say that I'm anxious right now to get this letter
done so I can get back to playing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLOGEuuF5DHVX9fzwuv_Nj20ziN1QBwDAt4gRZF-08jz2fOOA_-NbUrROt1wxuSfh41mi-CboLtKzhdxMnrCjaF01bA4UUfSEDYgu4VR_XK3dFnt9q6QXOFjrVJa4GEfEbX-C4fQf37up5/s1600/xenoblade-shocked-face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLOGEuuF5DHVX9fzwuv_Nj20ziN1QBwDAt4gRZF-08jz2fOOA_-NbUrROt1wxuSfh41mi-CboLtKzhdxMnrCjaF01bA4UUfSEDYgu4VR_XK3dFnt9q6QXOFjrVJa4GEfEbX-C4fQf37up5/s1600/xenoblade-shocked-face.jpg" height="220" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Buff me baby, one more time</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">So, about those imperfections: Good
lord, Michael, but there's some ugly art in this game. I'm not "a
graphics guy," but some of these textures are just UNFORTUNATE.
(It's hard not to compare the game with <i>Majora's Mask 3D</i>, a remake of
a game ten years older than the original <i>Xenoblade</i> that looks several
times crisper than what I'm playing now.) While I find myself
delighted by how damn BIG the areas in question are (Colony 9 is
staggeringly huge, it took me a long time to come to terms with how
much damn space I was being offered to explore), it's hard not to
look at Shulk or Fiora's face and think someone has remade <i>Vagrant
Story</i> with characters based on a dewey-eyed Britney Spears. My friend
Gary has remarked before that cel-shading is like bomb-proofing for
3D graphics - it turns things wonderfully evergreen. I find myself
really wishing <i>Xenoblade</i>'s designers had taken that tack.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">That space daunted me at first, too;
Shulk and company felt far too slow to explore such a massive
environment. Eventually I stumbled onto the fast travel options,
which eliminated my concerns, but there were some moments when I
could feel the bile rising in my throat as I slowly plodded around
the map. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">My only other quibble at this point is
that the giant enemy names tend to obscure the actual fighting when
I'm going up against multiple opponents, especially small ones. I
really wish there was a way to shrink them or turn them off.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAaArSkUX5wksSjM8IaHs72CeV1UPeBM96SLuvlVo9hVV_SitKRcxjvysfBk2dEIWXwJjVqxJpGOSQO4m2OSWq8tw9K4TQ9j0dDgrkmh5IN4eMP2oROeuuyV4EmItzI6BsYafSsFHTX1p/s1600/xenoblade-chronicles-first-town-colony-9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoAaArSkUX5wksSjM8IaHs72CeV1UPeBM96SLuvlVo9hVV_SitKRcxjvysfBk2dEIWXwJjVqxJpGOSQO4m2OSWq8tw9K4TQ9j0dDgrkmh5IN4eMP2oROeuuyV4EmItzI6BsYafSsFHTX1p/s1600/xenoblade-chronicles-first-town-colony-9.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">This is maybe half the explorable area of Colony 9</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">And that's it. That's all my gripes so
far. It's not a very long list.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Rather than detail everything I like so
far, I think I'd rather devote the rest of my space to talking about
the moment I alluded to at the top, and why it (despite my snarky
description) felt pleasantly shocking: Fiora's death.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Now, RPGs have been killing off initial
party members for years; Biggs and Wedge get X-Zoned, Private Jenkins
takes a laser blast to the face, poor old Daveth chokes to death on
monster blood. (Bioware really, really likes this trope.) It's a way
to raise the stakes, while giving players a chance to mess around
with character classes and builds they otherwise might not be seeing
for a few more hours. Most of those deaths happen much more rapidly
than Fiora's, though, with fewer resources spent on the "guest
star" character. Fiora feels fully fleshed out - my version of
her was level 13 when she met her final fate, equipped in a custom
set of gear and well on her way to developing a unique set of Arts
and Skills. All that's to say, I had started to invest in Fiora, and
it makes her death carry more meaning than it otherwise would. (I was
honestly expecting Dunbar, with his non-available skill tree,
mentor-trappings, and a sword I knew would end up in Shulk's hands,
to be the sacrificial lion - and I'm pretty sure that was
intentional.) All that brings me to a few thoughts on the grand dame
of dead RPG party members: Good old Aeris. (Or Aerith, depending on
where you fall on the great dogma wars of 1997.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOq8zN6g9q_kbSl5EyoT8mDwevlRMBZ3rTXf10qEiQzsAJEvLuwESOjlHmOrCPSN-RWHV-HX98bjJkleeaHa8zAdnH05X0zM5TIMCP0BB202OGqdX7AEgP1H43rV-MdP7f7axIEByL1rb/s1600/aerith+fiora.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOq8zN6g9q_kbSl5EyoT8mDwevlRMBZ3rTXf10qEiQzsAJEvLuwESOjlHmOrCPSN-RWHV-HX98bjJkleeaHa8zAdnH05X0zM5TIMCP0BB202OGqdX7AEgP1H43rV-MdP7f7axIEByL1rb/s1600/aerith+fiora.png" height="271" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Looking back, it's kind of staggering
how ballsy a move Square made when it killed Aeris off half-way
through <i>Final Fantasy VII</i>. Not because of the plot impact; there's
nothing new under the sun when it comes to killing off pretty love
interests to drive heroes forward in their quest for revenge. But
wiping out a party member, one who the player was fully invested in
at that point, that's a hell of a thing. (Everything related to
Aeris' final Limit Break, which you're only ever going to see if you
specifically go looking for it, speaks to how the game hides her
upcoming loss - you're not allowed to prepare for it, and her
development arc isn't rushed to completion - it just ends, abruptly.
The only thing Square could have done to drive the idea home even
further would be to continue to provide equipment for her through the
end of the game, although that probably would have had the conspiracy
theorists literally frothing at the mouth). </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Fiora doesn't go to quite that extreme.
But nothing about her design suggested to me that she was merely
temporary, and it means I'll be a little more nervous the next time
one of those metal-faced Mechon bastards rears its head. (Even if,
realistically, this feels like a trick the game can only get away
with pulling once.) Well-played,<i> Xenoblade</i>. You made me feelings with
my feelers, and that's half the battle when it comes to getting me to
care.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Yours,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">William</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-8802385711297842012015-04-22T22:36:00.002-07:002015-04-22T22:36:32.244-07:00XENOPATHOLOGY Letter Six: Will, April 9<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" height="388" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Michael,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">I'm writing this on 4-9-15, the night
before <i>Xenoblade</i> comes out. I'm excited to play, although I'm also
working to make sure advance expectations don't torpedo my gameplay
experience. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Everything you said about difficulty
sounds borderline ideal; I've always been good about adapting myself
to whatever structure a game wants to impose on me, and it's rare for
me to leave content on the table unless I feel actively antagonized
by the design. (Side note: I know you didn't love <i>The World Ends With
You</i>, and I don't think I've ever heard you talk about the<i> Kingdom
Hearts</i> games, but I've always found their approaches to difficulty
very rewarding; the ability to tune your game to precisely your
preferred level of challenge, with extra benefits for pushing
yourself to harder extremes, is very satisfying to me. There's a
whole other conversation about how Square has used the games between
<i>KH 2</i> and the upcoming (presumably) <i>3</i> as laboratories for weird
advancements in character development systems.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBLZ2fiG8UX1RxvNr31HBuYJuYsaPaLY0aNpLQt0v80svasVt6jbRu-dHve-cufM05MbIXOpGdc84ri_Bv7nITtIdi0LIRCW_LW55lfkWX2yfN58i2Ta7sb65fJ2lNPccYTFsAfBRZ_30Z/s1600/twewy+difficulty.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBLZ2fiG8UX1RxvNr31HBuYJuYsaPaLY0aNpLQt0v80svasVt6jbRu-dHve-cufM05MbIXOpGdc84ri_Bv7nITtIdi0LIRCW_LW55lfkWX2yfN58i2Ta7sb65fJ2lNPccYTFsAfBRZ_30Z/s1600/twewy+difficulty.png" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Not pictured: Bring Da Funk, Bring Da Noise</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">The act structure certainly makes sense
to me, to the extent that any traditional narrative structure can
work when mapped to 60-hour continuous narratives. (I've never really
thought about that before, but there really isn't a direct parallel
for that kind of extended storytelling, outside maybe a longer novel,
in the Western artistic tradition. Nothing else is that long, without
built-in episodic divisions.) Certainly, the rise of Telltale's
episodic model (and before that, games like <i>Alan Wake</i>, that
intentionally mimic the beats of TV shows, down to having "episode
recaps" between gameplay portions) have codified that act
structure. But they're not hard to see in older games; <i>Chrono Trigger</i>
is broken into discrete chapters, while <i>Final Fantasy VI</i> slaps the
player in the face with its split into two parts. Even games that
aren't that overt can be broken down into changes in the party's
objectives, and the overall tone. (<i>Final Fantasy VII</i> would be
something like Act One: Midgar, Act Two: The Pursuit Of Sephiroth,
etc.) I'll keep an eye out for them in <i>Xenoblade</i> when I start to
play.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">I look forward to seeing synthesis at
work in <i>Xenoblade</i>; there's something very satisfying about feeling
story and mechanics work hand-in-hand. (I wrote about how <i>Bravely
Default</i> craps the bed in its last half when it abandons that synergy
in one of the guestblogs I wrote for you, and <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-irony-of-good-achievements.html">there's an essay buriedsomewhere in my blog</a> about the satisfaction I feel when Achievement
systems act in harmony with gameplay and story.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD6ZtEtY0HKLdlzvgBvSJpX3uEavlHPVpusFL_RRA969WMgbz_wwBebDUITcL_WO6EJgxtL28jwhaQWtL6CoopuXw9hunrMFz_JAqSxO0YZ-91XmT0I7s8uQ__XD6HniGtC-9uIApyaunC/s1600/The+Walking+Dead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD6ZtEtY0HKLdlzvgBvSJpX3uEavlHPVpusFL_RRA969WMgbz_wwBebDUITcL_WO6EJgxtL28jwhaQWtL6CoopuXw9hunrMFz_JAqSxO0YZ-91XmT0I7s8uQ__XD6HniGtC-9uIApyaunC/s1600/The+Walking+Dead.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #ea9999;">The Walking Dead</span></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">To answer your specific questions:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">1) Comedy in games is such a hideous,
weird beast. There are very few games that manage it, and even fewer
that can do it through gameplay, not through simply aping the comedic
beats of movies or TV. (<i>Super Meat Boy</i> is a game with funny gameplay,
for instance, as is <i>Dark Souls </i>(drink!), games where the levels and
traps themselves act as jokes.) On the other hand, games like
<i>Super Time Force Ultra</i> have legitimately funny dialogue, but it only
rarely impacts the gameplay. (If I'm using your model correctly, that
would be juxtaposition, right?) As for comedic mascots being
funny.... I'm going to say never? I have vague positive feelings
toward goofy little Chu-Chu in <i>Xenogears</i>, but that's about it. I can
find the character charming (although that's rarely the case), but in
general I don't think the majority of RPG designers and writers
understand humor. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoEHTDg_kv4iPKhZW1ZW31HVDZKuQjsrTAKtpF96sMH3DVv50qVdY9xYi2d8LZmMFeI05PUsnlNTpDX11Cklfti0ke23w4hQdJ-5HfLWI_Ih6hEwVRBAZlNIa57OvUwcoAvKPhfsxW4gJN/s1600/planescape+morte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoEHTDg_kv4iPKhZW1ZW31HVDZKuQjsrTAKtpF96sMH3DVv50qVdY9xYi2d8LZmMFeI05PUsnlNTpDX11Cklfti0ke23w4hQdJ-5HfLWI_Ih6hEwVRBAZlNIa57OvUwcoAvKPhfsxW4gJN/s1600/planescape+morte.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Good RPG comedy sidekick</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Oh, wait, does Morte from <i>Planescape:
Torment</i>, count? I think he'd qualify, but that just underscores some
issues with the difficulty of translating comedy from one culture to
another, I think.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">2) I don't have a problem with games
using references as shorthand, as long as it doesn't lead to
laziness. On the other hand, I'm not especially well-versed in
Japanese culture (for instance, gasp, shock, fainting spell, I've
never watched <i>Evangelion</i> and know it only through reputation/TV
Tropes), so a lot of those references aren't going to land for me. In
a way, that's nice, because it allows me to find originality in
places it wasn't necessarily present, but it also means that
shorthand won't work for me in a lot of Eastern RPGs. The <i>Grand Theft
Auto</i> games, on the other hand, use it quite well (up to a point). As
power fantasies, the game almost explicitly telling me, "Oh,
we're doing Scarface, now," feels great. The<i> Saints Row</i> games
take that even further, using musical cues and even references to the
plots/styles of other games to communicate what the player's going to
do next. They also don't fall into the trap of <i>GTA IV</i>, where Rockstar
got high on its own supply, so to speak, and decided that they could
tell a heartfelt tale of violence and redemption entirely through
cues taken from other works. (It turns out that they really, really
couldn't.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyo045ENNsknnp7ih_obgFPhnkmfZnn3M1n00MhsyhR7M28_gnaiP_fGlrX5AOoB9PisPeCn4tANibvNINI0y_-vtgKK9TP6hcXngb3LlPW1F-4W_s3LEDoC1-8VeYoYhrPF7rdO28JiJ/s1600/chu+chu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHyo045ENNsknnp7ih_obgFPhnkmfZnn3M1n00MhsyhR7M28_gnaiP_fGlrX5AOoB9PisPeCn4tANibvNINI0y_-vtgKK9TP6hcXngb3LlPW1F-4W_s3LEDoC1-8VeYoYhrPF7rdO28JiJ/s1600/chu+chu.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Less so.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Skipping over 3) because, shock, faint,
someone get the smelling salts, I don't respond terribly strongly to
Miyazaki and thus don't feel qualified to talk about his influence,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">4) This one comes down entirely to the
amount of player choice I'm given. There's something deeply
unsatisfying about being locked into the role of a villain, forced to
make the world darker and grimmer with every step, with no chance of
redemption. (I turned <i>Far Cry 3</i> off early on, both for unrelated
reasons, and because I could see the outline of the story and wanted
no part in it.) But give me a choice in how it plays out? Give me the
option to be a knight or a knave? Well, a lot of times I'll still
choose knight. But when I do decide to go for the Dark Side points,
it feels like a narrative of my own design, and thus relieves me of
the feeling of being trapped. Because <i>Xenoblade</i> is a JRPG, I'm
guessing that won't be the case; true narrative choice is scant on
the ground in games of its ilk. But I can remain hopeful! Of course,
it seems just as likely that my characters will think they're doing
something good, only to find out they've manipulated into evil,
because that's how 99% of JRPG plots go. We'll see.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Signing off with excitement,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Will</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;">P.S.: I'm sorry I was mean about the
Chicken Man. Sir Chicken Man? Sir Thou. </span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-44359762122951363342015-04-19T16:48:00.000-07:002015-04-19T16:48:05.688-07:00XENOPATHOLOGY Letter Five: Michael, April 6<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" height="388" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Will,
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">It's 4-6-15 as I type this letter out and anticipation is running high (amongst people who already cared about this game). I did a warm-up run, playing the Wii version for a bit with a classic controller so I could get used to a more traditional button scheme for the game. I played <i>Xenoblade</i> the first two times with remote and nunchuck, which was a very relaxing stance in my opinion, and while the control system with a traditional controller is perfectly fine and not especially unusual, simple muscle memory made it a bit of a learning experience for me - kept hitting the wrong menu button, basically, which is my fault and not the game's.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1PupLmS3Bd6DaYOPBGpfRBt_Pl5Ya12W8erzBT1KAKeeEtP9yv1UMV3ED32Y6PCe7Ef8BcDaIWLuEtI317DHgKuV7LtHQjRVrqRKkxp37epkkk3QXQYMDwC7_NiYrxhoT-FJJWJXJjsFi/s1600/nintendo-wiimote-nunchuck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1PupLmS3Bd6DaYOPBGpfRBt_Pl5Ya12W8erzBT1KAKeeEtP9yv1UMV3ED32Y6PCe7Ef8BcDaIWLuEtI317DHgKuV7LtHQjRVrqRKkxp37epkkk3QXQYMDwC7_NiYrxhoT-FJJWJXJjsFi/s1600/nintendo-wiimote-nunchuck.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">As I mentioned briefly in a Google chat, that "Before I Play" site is practically spoiler content, judged solely in terms of your previously not knowing anything about the gameplay (and also, I guess, by mentioning the name of a party member that you don't pick up for many hours - don't worry, frantic <i>Xenoblade</i> fan readers, it doesn't spoil "Seven"). What's more, a few pieces of advice (such as suggesting save-scumming, a policy that I personally hate) feel blatantly incorrect. Even very rare drops in this game, which can be quite frustrating, aren't in my opinion any faster to pick up using that method.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaMKu1a26OLW0AgXMVDibyarJy9TiZmVkzmskkwG0KylIXLRvL6H3NkVgEcnb6LzviPCokAWyCSOpLfbiSMG0JytuXh58y-AuIwZtk8BgiQe6cdsbwUba_db9j14fbAiF_WdIsjfDpA9I/s1600/wii+classic+controller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpaMKu1a26OLW0AgXMVDibyarJy9TiZmVkzmskkwG0KylIXLRvL6H3NkVgEcnb6LzviPCokAWyCSOpLfbiSMG0JytuXh58y-AuIwZtk8BgiQe6cdsbwUba_db9j14fbAiF_WdIsjfDpA9I/s1600/wii+classic+controller.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">That said, I guess I don't have to warn you about "timed quests," now, even if this made it a bit more dramatic than I would have.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Anyway, the reason I asked you those questions in the previous letter is specifically because the game is literally only as challenging as <i>you</i> make it. This is a thing that I generally enjoy about <i>Xenoblade Chronicles</i>, with a few hiccups. Any run of <i>Xenoblade</i> that leans in towards completionism is very easy until the endgame, and even then the challenge is largely fair except for (arguably) a very small handful of super monsters. It's very easy to <i>make</i> the game challenging - skipping lots of content as "optional" or leaving most of it for the end of the game (aside from things like the aforementioned "timed quests") will leave your level, your equipment, and even in some cases your ability load-out in a diminished state that will leave plenty of challenges throughout.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">In my <i>opinion</i> this is a real bummer way to play this game. I have a <i>lot</i> of opinions about the quest structure of <i>Xenoblade</i>, and why it's the core gameplay mechanic to pay attention to, but there's only so much I want to say before the game arrives, as I don't want to leave you with too many preconceptions. Let me say this, though, in the interest of fairness: Most of the really fun, exciting, interesting, touching, or funny quests will not open unless you do at least some of the "boring" quests. What's more, the game makes every conceivable effort to streamline the "boring" stuff to keep it fun.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">More to the point, though, even if you're going for a "challenging run" of this game, you shouldn't ever, ever have to grind. At all. The sole exception <i>may</i> be if you're going for full completion, you may want a few extra levels at the very end of the game. But the thing is, the game is designed so that you don't have to grind at all. Fulfilling quests replaces that entirely, and even if you don't <i>do</i> many of them, the natural progression through the story will throw enough enemies in your way that progression will happen one way or another. If you're grinding for any reason other than finding the combat enjoyable (which, to be fair, is a valid reason), you're probably having trouble with the game on a more fundamental level - not making use of some mechanic or another. Which is okay! But not a reason to grind for any reason other than if you find that sort of thing relaxing, which I sometimes do in an Eastern RPG.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">That said, when you first turn on the game, it's worth killing some extra enemies in the first hour just you can get a handle on combat and how the battle system and the various character upgrade systems work. Just don't feel like you have to hit any kind of milestone.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueSM9-05zK5lFkmahZotd_d0zRWM-_kRzT-iYRLwOvSrypM9sML_h-Z5Sv0O9cOsvNjBc3-B7cnOV36wzhjZtx1rifAFPYtbaDLSMNM-tuWaJgYfLVKdx6q468QsufHYNACtx5v4ofcDU/s1600/xenosaga+kosmos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueSM9-05zK5lFkmahZotd_d0zRWM-_kRzT-iYRLwOvSrypM9sML_h-Z5Sv0O9cOsvNjBc3-B7cnOV36wzhjZtx1rifAFPYtbaDLSMNM-tuWaJgYfLVKdx6q468QsufHYNACtx5v4ofcDU/s1600/xenosaga+kosmos.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">This game has its fair share of cutscenes, and when they do occur they're no overly short; the thing about the game design is that you're meant to spend a lot of time <i>between</i> them. In contrast to the execrable <i>Xenosaga</i>, which was a linear narrative without enough gameplay to sustain it - and Takahashi's recent<a href="http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/xenoblade-chronicles-3d/0/2"> Iwata Asks interview </a>was quite interesting on that front, talking about <i>Xenosaga</i>'s failure, he noted that his very small and untested team basically overloaded on the "epic" movies because they couldn't get enough of the gameplay together so that there would be rewarding content of some type, which is an interesting way to look at that whole mess - <i>Xenoblade</i>, by contrast, expects you to partake of the gameplay enough, up to and including quests, that there are long breaks between cutscenes. And to be fair, when they are protracted, it's usually in specific moments. I'd say the balance is generally fair, as they rarely occur <i>in place of</i> gameplay. Probably half of them concern what non-player characters are up to while you're busy.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">This brings up something I wanted to mention at a later point, but I think I can get away with it now: do you ever think of long game stories in terms of traditional narrative acts with act breaks? I know that in earlier eras Square attempted to get us to view their games that way in relation to when you'd switch discs, but those moments only rarely corresponded with natural break points in the story. Do you think game stories of that length <i>can</i> have traditional story structures that work? Here's why I ask: I was thinking about <i>Xenoblade</i>'s story structure recently - as I've said, I have questions about how it was paced in the long run, questions it's impossible to address here for obvious reasons, and I think I've figured out where the "act breaks" would be, but they sort of raise further questions about these issues I have. And this is directly relevant to the conversation we're having, because your feeling about the story pacing, about how much of the world you understand and care about, and a variety of other structural concerns will be affected by things like how much time you take out of your day to devote to side material, versus the forward narrative.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Let me pose this now, before you start playing, attempting to spoil as little as humanly possible: I believe that the end of act one is when six party members travel through a thing and arrive at a large body of water. It does not necessarily follow a climactic moment, but the tone of the game changes after that moment in interesting ways. Some people might argue otherwise, and I can definitely see why, and I think that's an interesting conversation. So keep an eye out for story structure stuff as you play - and I'll be interested to see how your opinion is influenced by things like quests and side trips.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGw_Wdjdbn2nqsggbLxydRwlg-t7I1qhFNZgGGgHKQrQj33kEsy7GcWdIQ24SIls5rsiLfCd-xN3E10MF9mppnZd2drwEitDHfH0wJ-EKpc1hwBjuK8XaZmPU4Ynp1Dzyp2mYKQeaSuBAd/s1600/persona+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGw_Wdjdbn2nqsggbLxydRwlg-t7I1qhFNZgGGgHKQrQj33kEsy7GcWdIQ24SIls5rsiLfCd-xN3E10MF9mppnZd2drwEitDHfH0wJ-EKpc1hwBjuK8XaZmPU4Ynp1Dzyp2mYKQeaSuBAd/s1600/persona+3.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">As you know, Will, I've long argued that storytelling in video games is the product of two distinct techniques, juxtaposition and sythesis, and that while some games are able to do what they need to do using only one technique, most games have a mixture of the two, and the balance between them is usually the issue, rather than specifically using one technique or the other at all. People like to hate on Kojima for the amount of juxtaposition he uses and celebrate his few more obvious examples of synthesis, for instance; Synthesis is incredibly important and under-utilized, to be sure, but putting another tool back in the box entirely is just handicapping storytellers. <i>Xenosaga</i> was all juxtaposition, and it was an incredibly passive experience in a way that was not rewarding. I've argued that a title like <i>Persona 3</i> has a lot more synthesis than it's been given credit for in the past. But even an earlier game in the genre like <i>Final Fantasy IV</i> found ways to use both in the same parts - the Mysidia sequence where Cecil becomes a paladin features an unusual amount of storytelling-through-gameplay for a game of that type in that era, but there are still "cutscenes" where control is given up for dialogue.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><i>Xenoblade</i> is fairly traditional in its juxtaposition use - and despite some well-delivered bits and some fine character work, etc, it's not shockingly unique - but in its use of synthesis is where I found things that were special. We'll hopefully be seeing some of that shortly.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Thanks for answering my FFXII question; I'll try to get back to that later. I have a few more questions, though, less related to gameplay:
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXk4CvkUmBI_Ij7hAxPkbtT3178UKcvlBFJFpFp4VI8lHjeIXgVltC6cc76jpZPf4RbXN5iUxi3qR3Kg59dEduDQQWQ5i2ncqnnfzO7wy9cdJxpX3v00A_OhSzWGqhQIldf-VD3WuuuMrO/s1600/SoylentGreen_156Pyxurz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXk4CvkUmBI_Ij7hAxPkbtT3178UKcvlBFJFpFp4VI8lHjeIXgVltC6cc76jpZPf4RbXN5iUxi3qR3Kg59dEduDQQWQ5i2ncqnnfzO7wy9cdJxpX3v00A_OhSzWGqhQIldf-VD3WuuuMrO/s320/SoylentGreen_156Pyxurz.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">1) Which video games have had comedy relief mascot characters that you actually enjoyed?
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">2) As a longtime fan of <i>Xenogears</i> especially, how do you feel about games that use pop culture narrative touchpoints as a shorthand? Is there a difference between the "Soylent System" (and about 10,000 other references) and <i>Final Fantasy VII</i>'s self-conscious references to <i>Akira</i>? How about <i>Persona 3</i> drawing deliberate parallels to <i>Evangelion</i>? What about what a game like <i>Red Dead Redemption</i> that drew so heavily on classic western films to basically make its story out of them? Is that different to what Rockstar also did with <i>Grand Theft Auto: Vice City</i> did with films like <i>Scarface</i>, <i>Goodfellas</i>, and <i>Carlito's Way</i>?
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">3) Are all eastern RPGs trapped in a thematic ouroborous with Miyazaki's work?
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">4) Finally, do you feel like you need to be the hero in games of this type? Is there inherent value to the western role-playing games which serve as a darkness-laden antihero contrast?
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Yours,
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Michael
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">P.S. I refuse to reply to your postscript.</span>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-90797068742591904652015-04-17T00:05:00.001-07:002015-04-17T00:05:35.792-07:00XENOPATHOLOGY Letter Four: Will, April 5 <span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg"><img align="BOTTOM" border="0" height="388" name="graphics1" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Michael,</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Because your questions made me a little nervous about the
difficulty curve going in, I popped over to <a href="http://www.beforeiplay.com/">www.beforeiplay.com</a> and
read through <a href="http://beforeiplay.com/index.php?title=Xenoblade_Chronicles"><i>Xenoblade</i>'s entry</a>. For the most part, I want to go
in to any game ignorant of the mechanics and the best strategy,
because the joy of games for me is the joy of discovery (more on that
later). My only caveats to that are games where the design is in some
way clearly broken or obscured, where normal gameplay and
experimentation won't reveal workable strategies. (I just finished
playing <i>Dark Souls</i>, so I'll take a page from that game as an
example: Leveling up equipment in <i>Souls</i> is far more
important and cost-effective than bumping up stats, a fact which
isn't readily apparent early on, and lead to a lot of frustration for
my first playthrough.) I've found Before I Play to be a good resource
for overcoming those humps and hiccups without entirely dictating my
playstyle, and the notes I read there seemed like a good guideline to
follow.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">As for things like pacing and challenge, I'll take them as they
come. If the game falters in its balance of story and gameplay, it
falters, and I want that to be part of my experience. As to
completion, I won't deny that I enjoy the dopamine fix from
"completing" a game, but I also don't want to be a slave to
itemized lists of menial tasks. (My friend <a href="http://duckfeed.tv/watchoutforfireballs/">Gary Butterfield</a> refers to Ubisoft's recent game designs as
"open-world checklists.") <i>Xenoblade</i> is apparently
buried in sidequests; I imagine I'll go after the ones that feel
meaningful or interesting and leave the rest along the roadside. </span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">I thought <i>Final Fantasy XII</i> was a fine game, but its
endgame content never grabbed me. I've never been an MMO player, and
the stress of battling the same monster for half an hour, while
possibly exhilarating, sounds far closer to work than I want my
leisure activities to be. I enjoyed <i>XII</i>'s open-world design and
AI-assisted combat, but I don't need to spend 45 minutes whittling
down a health bar longer than my arm.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViVQPzwntGJ7OPp4th20GheiTqBeESUzB7Z3jTncA3HAYqIM_kOB_WXJUgzfQzjEIlJ-_EaoyETR3ke61HJEvO3ESOGnSdC87s86vGadH6TH5Ybj6vsjNAfbvDvsVNRR97jgXNYQWESbW/s1600/yiazmat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjViVQPzwntGJ7OPp4th20GheiTqBeESUzB7Z3jTncA3HAYqIM_kOB_WXJUgzfQzjEIlJ-_EaoyETR3ke61HJEvO3ESOGnSdC87s86vGadH6TH5Ybj6vsjNAfbvDvsVNRR97jgXNYQWESbW/s1600/yiazmat.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Quickening" here is presumably meant ironically.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">I think, like a lot of gamers who survived the Playstation
2 era, I've developed a wicked allergic reaction to cutscenes
more than a minute in length. (Although Kojima gets a pass, just
because.) At the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I've shouted
"Show, don't tell!" out loud so many times at games that
relegate all of their interesting moments to cinematics. Exposition
is even worse; my hands start to itch when the interactive elements
of my interactive entertainment are turned off so I can watch some
talking heads emote. (I'm always amused when games like <i>Chrono
Cross</i> include replay items that let you skip or speed-up things
like this, as though even the designers knew they were boring their
players to tears.)</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">So the idea that<i> Xenoblade</i> rejects that setup sounds
incredibly refreshing. Your mention of it being "a game where
exploring the world was the experience" resonates super strongly
to me at the moment, because From Software uses a very similar
philosophy in <i>Dark Souls</i> (Drink!). That game uses cutscenes
exceedingly sparingly--they serve as area transitions and boss
introductions pretty much exclusively--and it goes out of its way to
hide exposition in item descriptions and vague allusions. Instead,
the history of Lordran is laid out by the player's journey, from the
slums of the Undead Burg to the shining, glorious Anor Londo, home of
the gods. The player learns about Hidetaka Miyazaki's world by moving
through it, seeing its corruption and decay and the hints of better
days. It's a beautiful way to design a game, and it invests the
player in the world far more strongly than a long text crawl or
overwrought monologue ever could.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhwEBdB3jmP-3iWhmcjiqJBwByf0EGepNCtl-uxUmsedq9WgOT388cg4iIPFEw9f7jbvmP_TnFrwxSjgb5ZLpVNCU_tk9bjBiO16sc1z1rRcHyoUpFU8x0dVqCUfujSw3fA6INQIHOtMv6/s1600/dark_souls_undead_burg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhwEBdB3jmP-3iWhmcjiqJBwByf0EGepNCtl-uxUmsedq9WgOT388cg4iIPFEw9f7jbvmP_TnFrwxSjgb5ZLpVNCU_tk9bjBiO16sc1z1rRcHyoUpFU8x0dVqCUfujSw3fA6INQIHOtMv6/s1600/dark_souls_undead_burg.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Speaking of narrative puzzles, I appreciate your respect for my
spoiler-averse nature. As we talked about on Twitter, I'm largely
indifferent to the "shock" value of plot twists; a story
stands as a story, whether I'm shocked by it or not. But I do get a
great deal of my gaming joy from discovery, from the process of
taking clues, building them into suppositions, and then reforming
them as new information comes in. (It's not for nothing that I've
referred to myself in the past as a "narrative detective.")
Some of my favorite gaming experiences of late have been mysteries of
this ilk; the sheer pleasure of working out Sissel's true identity
in <i>Ghost Trick</i> stands out as a highlight (even if it took
the game spelling it out for me to realize Ray's true motivations).
For the same reason, Kotaro Uchikoshi has become one of my favorite
designers, with <i>9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors</i> and its
sequel <i>Virtue's Last Reward</i> both employing elaborate
mystery plots that kept my curiosity and imagination burning for
days.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">This is a tangent, but I've always wished there was a way to turn
this unofficial game into a real one; a mystery story where deducing
the truth of a plot is not only the goal, but a goal that can
be failed. That distinction is key - the <i>Zero Escape</i> games are
great, but the challenges come entirely from solving the in-room
puzzles, not from working out the plot (even more so in the second
game, which lays out all the branching plots and decision points for
the player to see). <i>Persona 4</i> feints at it with the need to
name the mysterious killer, but it's a one-time thing. Adventure
games like <i>Phoenix Wright</i>, do, too, but they're so heavily
scripted that working something out beforehand can actually screw you
over, because you'll try to finger the real culprit too soon and
fail. Sierra and Infocom both played around with the idea back in
their heydays; the <i>Laura Bow</i> games are mysteries, with the
second forcing you to not only name the killer but present evidence
as to their guilt, but they're also hamstrung by the worst excesses
of that company's more wrong-headed design philosophies. Really, you
have to go all the way back to Infocom's <i>Deadline</i> for the
kind of game I crave, and there's probably something damning about
the fact that this kind of game hasn't been attempted in more than 30
years.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8WU0-bJ-UDltA6UhShJKWtrO3IjqrPeyq7zV6eQCKgFsZeU2R03-HQskYct3ZjkBW3WTGy0B_VCUUGRGdUBx59-NaQy6LPuMgBNL2fXbNU82_7PFXcMMzqHkoCKEyj_CqMND8ZqyDZDq/s1600/lara+bow+death.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8WU0-bJ-UDltA6UhShJKWtrO3IjqrPeyq7zV6eQCKgFsZeU2R03-HQskYct3ZjkBW3WTGy0B_VCUUGRGdUBx59-NaQy6LPuMgBNL2fXbNU82_7PFXcMMzqHkoCKEyj_CqMND8ZqyDZDq/s1600/lara+bow+death.png" height="241" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You forgot to look both ways before crossing the street, so now you're dead!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Not that I'm expecting <i>Xenoblade</i> to do all this; but I
do want the pleasure of trying to see things coming for myself. I'm
very excited for five more days to pass, when I get to start trying.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">Yours in time,</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">William</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;">PS: Oh man, is the chicken man like Locke? Will he get angry when
I call him a thief, and insist he's a treasure hunting chicken man?
Very excited now.</span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /><br />
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br /></span><br />
<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" --><!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-1gc5uxuyqY4%2FVQ-w_HTKq2I%2FAAAAAAAAB3w%2FSYrvTl31FFA%2Fs1600%2Fxenopathology%252Blogo.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" -->Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-81125219204332327192015-04-14T23:02:00.001-07:002015-04-16T23:42:38.439-07:00XENOPATHOLOGY Letter Three: Michael, March 23<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFg3yUbQ1H1xykqyoI7p5Sjc8PHRM1MctKJhF_fFJeDjy8nUzVng3bd8cvm3_O6Qallz0TYTg_L-OrODa8p1nnKzMV2jFhkxBrIXzAMebzAllrNG6ipEbffTXs0WjCqC7ysbgoQ4oHe5Aq/s1600/xenopathology+logo.jpg" height="388" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Will, </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Beginning with the end: a little surprised that the not-his-catchphrase didn't register, as it became something of a runaway train in "internet memes that instantly get old" terms, in reference to Shulk saying one of his many battle phrases in the <i>Smash Bros</i> trailer - which, as many of them were, was full of in-jokes and references for the fans (I wonder a bit, offhand, if Shulk's voice actor Adam Howden had any say in what he spoke, because his lines are not the same as the lines used in the Japanese <i>Smash Bros</i>, as I've heard (and this may be apocryphal) their original <i>Xenoblade</i> had slightly blander dialogue. Though, doubtless we'll get back to that later, as we're playing the game. It's fascinating to me, though, how crossover properties like <i>Smash Bros</i> can be the primary source for a wider audience in character interpretation. For many, Shulk's existence, rightly or wrongly, is <i>defined</i> by a spare few catchphrases, like a doll with a pull-string. </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqtGGJ0T4QFxU-BVCaP2sfGyfUoHc2HvlTaWp-lZTVxugmnRtLFhVVpwda8L1jlKYbOR7gWrEaZG3naFdjl3SiI5fEQE4ns21f6cxMJsRQUqBKiuvM-85uW1OAeiuFKCY6lFNwa8_bU2CX/s1600/Super-Smash-Bros-Shulk-Reveal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqtGGJ0T4QFxU-BVCaP2sfGyfUoHc2HvlTaWp-lZTVxugmnRtLFhVVpwda8L1jlKYbOR7gWrEaZG3naFdjl3SiI5fEQE4ns21f6cxMJsRQUqBKiuvM-85uW1OAeiuFKCY6lFNwa8_bU2CX/s1600/Super-Smash-Bros-Shulk-Reveal.jpg" height="205" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">I appreciate, truly, your faith in my opinions of this game. I hope that this faith proves well-placed, but a series of letters like this can be equally rewarding if you find my interest misplaced. As I've been quick to state, I have a number of issues with this game, but most of those issues are difficult to discuss without revealing more about the story than I'd be comfortable with prior to your turning the game on. Which brings me quickly to the topic of spoilers.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">As prior readers of my own site are well-familiar, but your own readers will not be, I'm not much for spoiler warnings in critical discussion. I'm perfectly happy not revealing all the plot twists to you in advance - that's a common courtesy - but for the purposes of critical analysis, rather than cursory review, twists and endings must be discussed in the same breath as beginnings and outlines. To do less is a disservice to this work. That said, <i>Xenoblade</i> is fairly notable in how its fan community is often very, very adamant at twists not being revealed - up to and including twists that occur very, very early in the story. I think, genuinely, that this is to some degree misguided. Endings are one thing, but a game this obscure requires a degree of forthrightness, in that if you don't tell someone what a story is about, they may not necessarily find a reason to be interested. Many of the 3DS edition commercials have been quick to give away things up to the game's... I want to say halfway point? And Nintendo's perspective on this issue has made some people angry. There are trophies in <i>Smash Bros</i> that some people (not me personally) find downright story-<i>ruining</i>. What's funny about that is that there are many beats in the story that I don't think are all that unpredictable. Some well-delivered, some maybe less so, depending, but a twist for a character and a twist for a reader/watcher/player are two different animals, if you follow me. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">But as you don't appear to know much of <i>anything</i> about the game, I plan on respecting that and letting you take the lead in discussing parts of the story as they come up. There's plenty more to the game besides the direct narrative beats, so I won't be lacking in discussion topics. </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">I came late to <i>Xenoblade</i> myself, for much the same reason as you: <i>Xenosaga</i>, in my mind, essentially killed the respect that the American general gaming audience had for Eastern-developed RPGs all but singlehandedly. Obviously, the true and complete story of that time is far more complicated and nuanced, but I feel like that trilogy was in retrospect a sort of defining moment for the genre. <i>Final Fantasy X</i> was less unpopular when it first came out than it was a bit later, but Eastern-made games of that era continued to go in its direction (consider the response as well to <i>Metal Gear Solid 2</i>, for instance - another game where reaction was complicated by a lot of factors) until with <i>Xenosaga</i> it hit a sort of critical mass. It's ironic, in its way, because <i>Persona 3</i> and <i>Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne</i> were coming out in that same relative era and are two of the greatest games of the genre, in my own opinion - even after everything that's been done to milk <i>those</i> franchises absolutely dry (Boy did I give up on <i>Persona Q</i> early with no regrets).</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Tetsuya Takahashi's games are most notable for always having ambition that far, far outstrips the capabilities of what he's actually producing. The differences lie in where exactly the fractures appear and what the exact failures are. I love <i>Xenogears</i> unreservedly; it's a game that means a great deal to me, but it's an 80-hour slow-motion car wreck, and the crash starts happening long, long before people think it does. I want to talk more about this game as these letters go on - I don't want to overload this introduction - but these are things it's worth stating before we begin the closest thus far he's gotten to "doing it right this time" (and <i>Xenoblade Chronicles X</i> has the potential to get even closer, at early glances, but we'll absolutely see when the time comes). </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">In the case of <i>Xenosaga</i>, however, he had many of the same problems as <i>Xenogears</i> in that staff left, budgets dropped, etc. but while in <i>Xenogears</i> still has the shape of a game that could have been something special before <i>Final Fantasy VIII</i> and <i>Chrono Cross</i> cannibalized it (and you can see beats of it <i>in</i> those games, like taking staff wasn't enough, they needed to begin feasting on the ideas as well), <i>Xenosaga</i> seems predicated on bad ideas even before the problems set in. RPG developers had a hard time adjusting to the "3D" era of the Playstation 2 - earlier generations, where dialogue was read, were able to (for instance) get away with long monologues during dramatic sequences, but when voiced that pacing just does not work. <i>Xenosaga</i> is the worst of it, constantly undercutting its own intentions at every turn because people can't stop talking when things are exploding - and we can get into the sorts of things that they monologued about some other time. It's worth mentioning right off the bat that Takahashi made a point of saying during <i>Xenoblade</i>'s development that he regretted the previous series' reliance upon endless cutscenes and wanted to make a game that was an antidote to that idea - a game where exploring the world was the experience, and the story was something you played rather than watched. We'll see if he succeeded in that goal. </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Certainly Nintendo of America has spent a lot of time shooting itself in first one foot, than the other, over and over again regarding the home console titles that make it here. I think the last two years have been interesting in that they seem desperate to right the ship, and there's been some real promising movement on that front. But it's true, the DS and its brethren have been the gaming platform of choice, especially for RPG fans. The 3DS maybe a little less so - I enjoyed the upgraded version of the first <i>Devil Survivor</i>, and I think that if you have the mindset for "quirky, overly-Japanese" releases, <i>Denpa Men 3</i> was a surprisingly solid little time-waster for a downloadable. But <i>Xenoblade</i> - an entire Wii game, and one whose draw was an enormous, expansive world, is a real surprise. </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgscSsiAgpLvAS6-UsAMa9aaNPIIofyU2X5Ncaltl8wEuFHCxAqvpio1jNeIVaXZ1d6yZIezb-wUKWAtvcZNtpOkEX8nlBpGNZ7eJcO__9t7BYCkjSp7SEmzr87BAOdXxfc7SfghoWpCt/s1600/xenoblade-shocked-face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgscSsiAgpLvAS6-UsAMa9aaNPIIofyU2X5Ncaltl8wEuFHCxAqvpio1jNeIVaXZ1d6yZIezb-wUKWAtvcZNtpOkEX8nlBpGNZ7eJcO__9t7BYCkjSp7SEmzr87BAOdXxfc7SfghoWpCt/s1600/xenoblade-shocked-face.jpg" height="220" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">There are two types of people in this world: people who looked at the facial rendering of the Wii <i>Xenoblade</i> and decided the graphics were subpar, and those who looked at the rest of the game and were amazed at the visuals of the world that had been created. Will these work on a portable system, where everything is shrunk to the size of a credit card? Will it be a downgrade or an improvement? How will the 3D affect this judgement? I'm not someone who values "graphics" heavily when it comes to the criteria for a good game, but this is sort of a unique circumstance, and something I'll be assessing as we play. </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">I haven't cracked open the package of my Shulk Amiibo yet, actually; I've built up a Mario one in <i>Smash Bros</i>, but I'm playing that game a bit less at the moment, so I haven't had an urgent need. I plan on taking the little guy out when <i>Xenoblade</i> arrives. As far as whether you need to get one, though, I don't think you need worry unless you <i>do</i> happen to fall in love with this game. Its only purpose here serves in interacting with outside-the-game extras: a music player, a character model viewer, etc. It helps you unlock those features faster, but provides no assistance with the actual gameplay, which is unchanged from the original. I like this game's soundtrack, though, so being able to listen to those songs on the go more quickly (without draining my phone's battery that is, obviously) is reason enough to use the Amiibo I already own. </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">When it comes to other prep, though... things to do or not do or think about before you begin... Let me make a remark first. As this will be my third go-round, there's an element of efficiency I'll likely be introducing into my own playstyle that will be in opposition to yours. So as not to spoil, I might use another game as an analogy: If we were both about to play the same <i>Zelda</i> title, I'd be sequence-breaking to maximize hearts and items early and quickly as you're figuring things out, based on prior knowledge, so as to gain a lot of power and advantage quickly so that I can rush on to the "good bits" and get a bit ahead of you in the same amount of time. I fumbled through my first time, the same as you will, but this is only natural. I would not give you these kinds of hints and ideas, because I want you with your new eyes to explore the world you're given naturally and give me honest reactions. But there's certainly tips I can give both now and along the way.
</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">To that end, I'll ask you a few questions. </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">1) Is challenge more important than flow? </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">2) Are world and story more important than pacing? </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">3) Would you rather be the best and most powerful, or would you rather have a dramatic struggle? </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">4) If you're enjoying a game, how much does completion matter to you? </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">5) And, hey, what did you think of <i>Final Fantasy XII</i>? </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span><span style="color: #b6d7a8;">In anticipation, </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;">Michael </span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #b6d7a8;"> P.S. "Chicken man?" How <i>dare</i> you!</span>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-54321390015289369822015-04-12T17:20:00.002-07:002015-04-12T17:20:49.022-07:00XENOPATHOLOGY Letter Two: Will, March 22<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Michael,</span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">First,
thanks so much for doing this with me. As I sit here writing on the
22nd of March, I'm excited to have a project, and especially one
where I get to talk about games with you. Let's dive in!</span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">So,
as a long-time fan of Eastern RPGs, why didn't I play <i>Xenoblade
Chronicles </i>when it first came out? To answer, you have to
trace my history with Tetsuya Takahashi and the Xeno series, all the
way back to 1998's <i>Xenogears</i>, which I played as a
14-year-old Square fanboy willing to call a 60-hour
chair-sitting-simulator a genius masterpiece. But I kid! I
love <i>Xenogears</i>.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">That
being said, the game was a tipping point in a path that Square had
started on with the more esoteric elements of <i>Final Fantasy
VII</i>, the moment the company got too obsessed with creating "games
as art," full of religious symbolism (often cribbed from anime)
and plots that were complex for the sake of complexity. (<i>Chrono
Cross</i>, which came out the next year, is the ultimate expression
of this trend, converting one of the most optimistic games of all
time into a quasi-nihilistic expression of human hopelessness. It's
probably not a coincidence that <i>Final Fantasy IX</i>, a
pretty clear refutation of the trend, came out the next year.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">But
being the vanguard in an arguably bad trend doesn't make </span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i>Xenogears</i></span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> a
bad game. For all its pretension and the swift right turn it takes
into what TV Tropes would call (not coincidentally) a </span><a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GainaxEnding" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Gainax
Ending</span></a><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">, </span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><i>XG</i></span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> has
some great plot twists, likable characters, and a really fun battle
system. (Plus, the robot Battling fighting game, because if there's
one thing late '90s Square was good at it, was designing mini games I
would have paid money to get as a standalone game). It's not perfect;
besides the notoriously slapdash second disc, the plot has a nasty
tendency to ignore most of the game's cast once their individual plot
sections are over, usually to the detriment of interesting
characters. But it's a game that I have a lot of fond memories of,
and if I've never revisited it, it's because I'd like to keep them
intact.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;"><i>Xenosaga</i> was
a whole other story, though. A "spiritual sequel,"
everything about it felt off-brand. I know I shouldn't put much stock
in the name Square (or Square-Enix) any more, but the publisher
switch threw me a bit, putting me on a weird footing. From
there, <i>Xenosaga Episode I</i> seemed to capture
everything I didn't like about JRPGs of its era; an overreliance on
long cutscenes, a plot that danced around giving the audience
information less for artistic purposes and more to obscure how
pedestrian everything was, and that same 1999-esque reliance on
symbolism and religious allusions at the detriment of storytelling.
Even worse, the game had a generally plodding feeling that's my least
favorite thing to encounter in an RPG. Out of all the genres, this is
the one that I need to be FAST; menus have to be responsive, load
times have to be minimal, and rewards need to come quickly. <i>Xenosaga
Episode I</i> didn't respect my time, and I ended up discarding
it roughly 20 hours in. When the sequels came out, I happily ignored
them.</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8bbsz4sqgpeE126N3_7gsSWaLeiOEIFjR7cKmfExZG_4DZGMhXchYPFuu2LFvvPQ89Lfl6r-O0aL5iGIk7Ir8Ohe_062Kbf_pGFWX5Voc6vW5ZC8MLdO-SC23elyE1u7_enuyDbB-huUc/s1600/xenosaga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8bbsz4sqgpeE126N3_7gsSWaLeiOEIFjR7cKmfExZG_4DZGMhXchYPFuu2LFvvPQ89Lfl6r-O0aL5iGIk7Ir8Ohe_062Kbf_pGFWX5Voc6vW5ZC8MLdO-SC23elyE1u7_enuyDbB-huUc/s1600/xenosaga.jpg" height="243" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Get a load of THESE jerkbags.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">So
when <i>Xenoblade Chronicles </i>was released, I'd been
primed to ignore anything with the <i>Xeno</i> name. It
didn't help that I was completely ignorant of Project Rainfall,
although I'm always in favor of weird Japanese games making their way
over here (he said, shoving his ROMs of <i>Mother 3 </i>and <i>Retro
Game Challenge 2 </i>discreetly out of sight). More than that,
by 2010 I'd completely written the Wii off as a gaming platform. Too
many years of shovelware had given me a massive blindspot where
Nintendo's console was concerned. Instead, my attention was on the
DS, which had built up a frankly incredible lineup of titles,
including some truly great RPGs, in that same time. So I
skipped <i>Xenoblade</i>, and never looked back. Until now.</span></span></div>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Why
return to <i>Xenoblade Chronicles </i>in 2015? Part of it
is your enthusiasm, Michael. I trust your taste in games, so I
figured this one deserved its day in court. Beyond that, I'm just in
love with the 3DS (especially my beautiful red New 3DS XL), and I'm
only mildly ashamed to admit that the game's status as the first New
3DS XL-exclusive has my interest piqued. I've just finished
the <i>Majora's Mask </i>remake, and, while <i>Monster
Hunter</i> still sometimes pulls at my attention, it's a hard
game to marathon. I want something meaty and narrative to sink my
teeth into.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8juDFabEkbm5_hLBgKx6tZQ1R-9CdJQdvcz1qY-vuc_MMsCCcKt0nHFCOW9t0N_207hB1AleOWuLJeAsj9Su_l-ZGN3U-UGqW_SJa_Vg0XDYyan1lzrCBMiqbogazqZWoGlSP1gMXLR8T/s1600/new+3ds+xl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8juDFabEkbm5_hLBgKx6tZQ1R-9CdJQdvcz1qY-vuc_MMsCCcKt0nHFCOW9t0N_207hB1AleOWuLJeAsj9Su_l-ZGN3U-UGqW_SJa_Vg0XDYyan1lzrCBMiqbogazqZWoGlSP1gMXLR8T/s1600/new+3ds+xl.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who needs a Porsche?</td></tr>
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</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">What
do I know about the game? Almost nothing. I don't even know if the
combat is real-time or turn-based! If it wasn't included in <i>Smash
3DS</i> (Shulk, something called the Monado, some kind of
chicken man), I'm completely ignorant. I don't have an Amiibo (I'm
still waiting for proof that the concept is a DS, not a Virtual Boy,
Nintendo-idea-wise). As to the length, my social life is of variable
activity, as is my work schedule. I tend to binge on games on the
weekend, so that'll be when most of my play time is done. As for
opening thoughts... I'm excited. The 3DS has been extremely spotty
for me in terms of RPGs; the best of the lot is probably <i>Persona
Q</i>, and even that's failed to hold my attention. Beyond that, we
have titles like <i>Shin Megami Tensei IV</i> and <i>Bravely
Default</i> - interesting, ultimately badly flawed games. I need
something <i>great</i> to carry around with me; I'm hoping
this'll be the game.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">In
closing, is there anything I need to know before I dive into this
game? Any prep work I should be doing, gaming wise, or anything I
should avoid so I'm not tainted by similarity? Are my expectations
too high? Should I track down one of these damn Amiibos? I eagerly
await your response.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Sincerely,</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 1;">
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">Will</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #ea9999;"><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #ea9999;">PS:
I assume that will make sense eventually!</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-11551970722524482132015-04-10T14:39:00.000-07:002015-04-10T14:40:58.480-07:00XENOPATHOLOGY Letter One: Michael, March 18<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Cough cough, pardon our dust, long time since I've updated, etc. Would you rather read about what I've been up to, or some hard-hitting video game criticism? I thought so. Take it away, Michael:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span><br />
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<span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Greetings, folks... this is guestblogger <a href="https://twitter.com/patchworkearth?lang=en">Michael Peterson</a>, formerly of <i>Project: Ballad</i>, using Will's real estate here since I no longer have permanent online residence. Will and I are pleased to present a letter series between he and I over the upcoming days and weeks (and months?) focusing on the newly-released Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, the wider-release offering of the cult Wii title, and maybe on some other things as well. I thank my good friend and comrade in games writing Will for the time spent and the words exchanged. It's a time of great contention for games, but there are few things more joyful than discussing an interesting game with a friend.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Being an Epistolary Tale of Scale, Storytelling, Monadology, and Overcooked Allusions in the </i>Xeno<i> franchise of "J"RPGs, focusing primarily on the Nintendo 3DS release of </i>Xenoblade Chronicles<i> in 2015, and looking forward</i></span></div>
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***</span><br />
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Dear Will,</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
Thanks for clearing some space for me on your desk!</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
<br />
The time of this writing is the third week in March. <i>Xenoblade Chronicles 3D</i> will be arriving in western stores on April 10th. I thought maybe we'd start talking about this game, and the others in its series (be those connections loose or otherwise) before you get started.</span><br />
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<i>Xenoblade Chronicles 3D</i> is the first game available that is exclusively for use on the Nintendo New 3DS, rather than any 3DS models before it. What color is your 3DS, Will? Mine's Monado Red. Much as in some of the previous video game letter series I hosted, I'm entering as the comparative expert opposite someone new to the game in question, and in this case I'm very much a fan of the title. Though not an unequivocal one, as we'll get to in time. I certainly have my issues with it. But I will do my best to lead you on through the world of <i>Xenoblade</i> in discussion, without spoiling anything you don't already know. Which leads to another question: how much <i>do</i> you know about this game, going in? Is Shulk's <i>Super Smash Bros.</i> appearance and its attendant mis-applied and overused memes the extent of your knowledge?</span><br />
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<br />
For the benefit of the folks following along at home, a bit of backstory. <i>Xenoblade</i> (and we'll have to keep the title shortened for our own sanity as discussion carries on) began life as a game that was initially titled <i>Monado: The Beginning of the World</i>. Renamed relatively late in its development, <i>Xenoblade</i> was released for Wii in June 2010 in Japan.</span><br />
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In 2011, word came that the game would be localized in Europe and Australia for release in the summer, but there was no word of a North American release. There are any number of conspiracy theories as to the reason, but if nothing else, somebody assumed that it wouldn't sell here. The original <i>Monado</i> title had a placeholder on Amazon that languished as the European release date approached, and a group of ardent fans began what was titled "Operation Rainfall," an effort to bring <i>Xenoblade</i>, Hironobu Sakaguchi's <i>The Last Story</i>, and <i>Pandora's Tower</i> to the US. Operation Rainfall spread awareness in any number of ways, but (according to Wikipedia) a particularly notable one was that on June 25, 2011, a preorder push for that defunct placeholder became the number one best-selling video game on Amazon for the day.</span><br />
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The game was finally given a North American release date for April 2012... but only as a GameStop exclusive. Because of this, the game instantly became a rare item. Nintendo of America's position was that Operation Rainfall had not influenced the localization decisions, but Nintendo didn't usually offer entire games as retailer exclusives, so... At any rate, the game was exceedingly well-reviewed and attained a cult following, and GameStop subsequently faced some controversy because copies were scarce, but used copies priced exceedingly high <i>were</i> available on its website, leading to a high demand amongst some and a spiteful refusal to look for the game at all from others. As another notable quirk of its release, localization was done through Nintendo of Europe, and thus the voice actors were English actors rather than American ones, even upon arriving on our shores.</span><br />
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I got my own copy from Kevin Czapiewski as a gift as we worked on <i>Project: Ballad</i>.</span><br />
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Fast-forward to August 2014, and Shulk is revealed to be a new fighter in the latest <i>Smash Bros</i> installment, surprising many - though not me, personally. I'd been predicting it (and awaiting it greedily, I must admit) for quite some time, as Nintendo's been pushing the <i>Xenoblade</i> license incredibly hard since releasing the Wii U. <i>Xenoblade Chronicles X</i>, a spiritual sequel, is due later this year, and is the highest-profile "hardcore gamer" (if we can gag that term down for a bit) title that they have slated. The first teaser was one of the earliest Wii U games previewed, and they've got a lot riding on it. Rereleasing this game, and giving it the love that it deserved the first time around, was a marketing decision for its Wii U game as much as anything. And in that sense, it's smart - this is a good game, and by every single indicator thus far,<i> Xenoblade Chronicles X</i> is shaping up to be something very special. It's my most anticipated release in <i>years</i> and even if it disappoints in the ways that <i>Xeno</i> titles always do - and this is something that I think you and I will be talking a lot about as we exchange these letters - even if it does, it's still likely to be one of the most fun and engrossing RPGs since the 16-bit era. As, indeed, <i>Xenoblade</i> was the last go-around.</span><br />
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So! You will be playing this game for the first time, and I will be playing it my third time through. Last time, I played it with my wife, and we essentially 100% cleared the game, so feel free to ask me for any help along the way if you need it - though I'm not certain that you will. There is, however, plenty for us to talk about. Obsession, the storytelling of <i>Xeno</i> games, the state of "J"RPGs in the modern age, the relationship between Eastern- and Western-developed RPGs, how being over- or under-powered affects how we engage with a game, completionism, the tendency of a fan to fill in story blanks and how gaming is so tuned to that instinct, <i>Digital Devil Saga</i>, archetypes, accents, "social links," how <i>Xenosaga</i> is one of the worst video game experiences of all time, cute mascot characters, subplots, female characters, Yoko Shimomura's love affair with the violin, and the tendency in the modern age to reduce a subject to a meme rather than engage with it... and that's what I came up with off the top of my head just now.</span><br />
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What do you know about this game's story and gameplay going in, Will? Why did you pass <i>Xenoblade</i> by when it was first released, and why are you coming to it now with this portable, 3D-enhanced release? Do you have a Shulk Amiibo (I do)? As an adult, how do you devote time to a game of prodigious length like an RPG? And what are your thoughts before we begin this long letter series?</span><br />
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Yours,</span><br />
<span style="color: #b6d7a8; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Michael</span><br />
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P.S. Ah, Hell, fine, for the sake of our readers, just the once: "I'm really feeling it!"</span>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-9255722268089442282013-07-27T16:04:00.000-07:002013-07-27T16:04:24.686-07:00How Monaco Fails Its Players<div style="text-align: center;">
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I picked up (against the better judgment of my bank account) several games during the last Steam Sale. Three of those were stealth titles of recent publication - Monaco, Gunpoint, and Mark of the Ninja (the last a gift from my friend Pat). And I bought them despite the fact that I have very real problems with the stealth genre.<br />
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Monaco has gotten the most play so far. The Girlfriend and I are moving through it, and the emotions it evokes have been a little roller-coaster-y. When it's working, it's fantastic - the art design is incredible, the character abilities well-balanced, and the challenge often invigorating. Until we hit the wrong mission, anyway. Then the alarms go off, the guards start shooting, and soon we're dead.<br />
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Now, Monaco, as far as stealth games go, is quite forgiving. You're given plenty of information about what the guards are thinking and seeing, and they have pleasantly elastic memories - if your character can stay out of sight for long enough, you'll be forgotten, and the level will go back to an un-alerted status. And in co-op, a dead player can be revived by his or her co-conspirator, making survival much easier. And yet...<br />
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There is no sensation in gaming more infuriating than loss of progress. One of the reasons we play games is that it gives us a pleasant, if artificial, sensation of achievement. We are doing things, growing stronger, passing through levels. And when those achievements are stripped from us by our own mistakes or failures, the feeling is crushing. Feeling crushed isn't why I play games.<br />
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To give a Monaco-specific example: it is a significant task to grab every single piece of loot on a floor of Monaco. It involves stealth, hacking, combat, all of your characters' skills. And if, after achieving that task, you die on another floor of the same level, it's all gone. That progress is deleted as though you'd done nothing for the last half hour of your life.<br />
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Worse, you're forced to repeat the areas you've already completed. Novelty is another important aspect of games, and by punishing players by stripping them of progress when they die, you're also stealing novelty from them. I want to experience new challenges, not be forced to re-complete ones I've already done because I died on an unrelated part of the level (this is a problem I had with Hotline Miami, as well). If a challenge kills me, I want to try that challenge again. Not spend twenty minutes doing the things that lead up to the challenge.<br />
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Am I just whining and asking to have my hand held? I don't think so. I still want hard, nasty challenges in my games, but I want the challenges to be their own reward. I don't need the stakes of knowing that failure means losing half an hour of progress in order to take the challenge seriously.<br />
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For an example of someone doing it right, look to Gunpoint. One of Tom Francis's stated design goals with the game was to never make players feel like their time had been wasted. As such, Gunpoint saves every few seconds, and after a failure, you can simply rewind a few clicks to try again. You still have to solve puzzles and execute tricky maneuvers, but there's no sense that you're being punished by the game. If you're seen, you die pretty much instantly, and then the game immediately reloads an old save; it's exactly what players have been doing when being spotted in stealth games for years, it's just automatic and far less painful.<br />
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I love Monaco. But it has made me feel legitimately upset because of how it treats its failure state, and that's not a great way to feel while playing a game. There are better ways.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-70096372028534047432013-07-02T22:53:00.000-07:002013-07-02T22:53:12.006-07:00Driving Me Psycho(nauts): One of the Worst Aspects of One of the Best Games<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Been re-playing Psychonauts, on the theory that its hilarious dialogue and gorgeous art would make it a good game for The Girlfriend to watch me play (she enjoys it, I swear). And I was right! The only problem (and it's the thing that always trips me up when re-playing Double Fine's best game) is the tedium of some of the collection aspects of the game.<br />
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Now, to be fair, Psychonauts gets half of its collection sidequest stuff right. The game is divided between the 'real' world and the mental world, and in the real world, collection works like this: Collectible items (cards, challenge markers, scavenger hunt items, and brains) are brightly colored and mobile, making them pop against the game's backgrounds. You're given a counter in each area, telling you how many many of each collectible are left. And, most importantly, each collectible has a reasonable amount of worth. Every collectible is worth either 1, 1/2, or 1/9th of one of 101 Psi-Ranks (the game's leveling-up aspect, which is completely based on collection), and the challenges associated with each collectible are proportional to the value. A Psi-card (1/9th of a rank) is easy to grab, while a Psi Challenge Marker (1 whole rank) will involve some serious searching and acrobatics.<br />
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In the mental world, however, things are different. Here, the primary collectible is the 'figment' - rogue expressions of the subconscious of the mind you're currently in. Here's the problem with figments: Each level has roughly a hundred. They move. They're 2D in a 3D world. And they're <i>transparent</i>. Admittedly, the transparent neon look of the figments is cool, but it also makes quickly scanning a level for them an utter chore. And their sheer volume means that, even though you're given the number of figments in an area, the act of finding that last rogue semi-invisible, moving, random shape can be a chore of hours.<br />
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I'm not against collection sidequests at all. In a platforming game, they make much more sense than combat (never a 3D platformer's strong suit) as a metric of success. Collectibles can encourage exploration and tricky jumping, testing the core mechanics of the game. It's only when the collection becomes an exercise in frustration that I protest.<br />
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Compare Psychonauts to Mario 64. Figments are worth a variable amount of a percentage of a Psi-Rank (usually proportional to how well they're hidden), and discovering them all unlocks a hidden ending cutscene. Which is another way of saying 'There's part of the game's story that you don't get to see if you don't get every figment' (barring Youtube, of course). In Mario, the basic collectible unit is the coin. Most levels have a total of between 110 and 140 coins, and the player is rewarded with a star for collecting 100 in a single run. After that 100, the only benefit to collecting coins is health restoration. That makes the 100-coin star challenging, but not maddeningly frustrating. It's a challenge to your collection abilities, but doesn't force unpleasant, completionist behavior on the player.<br />
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The irony is, if Psychonauts DIDN'T penalize/reward you with additional story content for collecting every figment, it would make the act of completing the task (which the game never explicitly asks you to do, but which is implicitly demanded by the ____ out of _____ figment count for every mental level) even more hollow. How many games have you played where, upon reaching 100% completion, you get, at best, a text box, and then nothing else? Once you've set a goal (by 'telling' players to get EVERY figment), there must be a reward, or the player feels cheated. (All of this presumes that gameplay like this can't be its own reward, which is easy to say, given how stressful, nerve-wracking, and boring scouring a level for a single missing figment can be. At this point, you're essentially being bribed by the game into playing it in a particular way. Bad design, I think, especially when contrasted to the elegant way Mario 64 handles it). The game has asked you to do something that most players would consider unpleasant, so it has to use the carrot of unlocked content to guide you forward.<br />
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How to fix it? Glad you asked! First, there's the Mario solution: only a subset of collectibles are needed. This is probably the most pleasant way to go around this, because you can tune and playtest to find the right percentage to avoid needless player frustration. You could also go the "collectible finder" route - Saints Row 3 does this, and it works fairly well. This can go too far, of course - Far Cry 3 is overly insistent about notifying you of where collectibles are, turning the game from one of free will into one of watching the dot that represents your character as it moves across the mini-map, creeping toward a collectible icon. It's better than leaving players to waste hours in the unpleasant act of searching, but playing as a dot making his rounds on a mini-map just isn't as fun as playing as a character exploring their environment. It takes exploration, which is ostensibly what all this collecting nonsense is supposed to be in service of, and makes it safe, boring, and rote.<br />
<br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-41316605542989446252013-06-26T09:50:00.001-07:002013-06-26T09:50:49.019-07:00Linkpost: Timmy, Johnny, and SpikeNo time for a full post today (moving/painting), so, since conversation on Facebook about yesterday's post got pretty detailed, I thought I'd just leave a link to this, one of the most interesting articles I've ever read about game design. It's from Wizards of the Coast, designers of Magic: The Gathering, and it discusses the three player motivations they design cards to appease. Yesterday, I revealed myself as more of a Spike than I really thought I was (although I imagine my friends weren't surprised). Although, I'd like to think there's a healthy streak of Johnny in me, as well. Which psychograph do you fall into? Leave a comment to that effect, if you like.<br />
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<a href="http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr258">Timmy, Johnny, and Spike Revisited</a>.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-25707184064517049442013-06-25T13:28:00.000-07:002013-06-25T13:28:41.242-07:00Why Winning Matters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My friend Matt (who blogs over at <a href="http://www.killertofu.com/">Killer Tofu</a>) pointed me to a Kotaku piece by Quentin Smith titled "<a href="http://kotaku.com/video-games-obsession-with-winning-is-killing-them-511624286">Video Games' Obsession With Winning is Killing Them</a>". It's an interesting read, with the central thesis that video games like Call of Duty, with their focus on every interaction having a clear winner and a clear loser, create more wounded feelings and sensations of failure than necessary. He points to modern boardgames as a model that video games could learn from on this score, with their focus on non-direct competition and creating experiences more than winners.<br />
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Which implies that he and I have been playing board games <i>very</i> differently.<br />
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Smith cites <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-third-edition">Twilight Imperium</a> as a game that prioritizes the creating of experiences over winning. In TI, there is a vast array of available actions to take, and the brutality of combat ensures that diplomacy is generally a first option. This encourages talking around the table and gives players breathing room to try different parts of the game world. You can focus on researching interesting things, build Death Stars, role play and sway votes in the Galactic Council. And while you're doing all that, <i>I'll </i>be busy accruing Victory Points so that, once the game is over, I'll be the winner. And one of TI's flaws is that the accumulation of VPs often stands in contrast to doing fun things, which means you can't have as much fun playing to win as you could simply screwing around. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzNh65JkQqwkDHkTkH0HbB7ap09_7GXNMcy_LjvNx2oqIqDBV0oyTO7Rb_QJvpIJVMtWPrIJmCik5QdlsFNwvo9F2bWRDBBiukYSrYA25P5qHmd9vogPqBrr_xg2zuiTDwIiUv-5PcJ2lj/s1600/VictoryPointTrack.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzNh65JkQqwkDHkTkH0HbB7ap09_7GXNMcy_LjvNx2oqIqDBV0oyTO7Rb_QJvpIJVMtWPrIJmCik5QdlsFNwvo9F2bWRDBBiukYSrYA25P5qHmd9vogPqBrr_xg2zuiTDwIiUv-5PcJ2lj/s400/VictoryPointTrack.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div>
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Maybe this need to win speaks to something flawed in my character. Maybe I've been indoctrinated by video games to believe that winning matters, and I'm robbing myself of joy. But here's my question: If winning is so unimportant to modern board games, <i>why is it there at all</i>? Why does Twilight Imperium even have a Victory Point system if winning is such a secondary concern?<br />
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Because 'winning' is the goad that ensures good play. When we all sit down around a table, we enter the so-called 'magic circle', in which we all agree that the outcome of a fundamentally meaningless activity like playing a game matters. Each player strives, to the best of their ability, to follow the rules of the game to ensure the best outcome for themselves. I bet you've played board games before with someone who doesn't care about winning, or who doesn't fully understand the rules that the game operates under. It's horrible, right? The table basically has a hole, sucking all of the fun down it as the magic circle breaks whenever it's that player's turn. They don't care about winning, so they don't make interesting moves; they act randomly, or to suit some personal whim. They're probably having fun, but it's fun at the expense of the table, and it's toxic to good gaming.<br />
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This is often the consequence of improperly defined or easily ignored victory systems. A player who feels like they can't win, either because the game mechanics make it too easy for a savvy player to pull ahead, or because it's too easy to lose track of how winning is achieved, will begin to strike out randomly, essentially attempting to pull the game down around them in the interest of their own enjoyment. This problem plagues Twilight Imperium, with its Victory Point system often lost in the haze of all the available options. A player will see another player pull ahead, and, feeling the game's stated goal pull out of their reach, will start acting only to amuse themselves. <br />
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Games are more fun when people play to the best of their abilities. People play their best when there are stakes. The agreement that winning 'matters' and is achievable by all players is the best way to create those stakes. Ill-defined or unimportant win conditions in board games aren't a blessing or a boon that video games need to adapt; they're a curse that needs to be avoided.<br />
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(I will say: Smith's last point, about the competitive party game Bang, is dead-on. A party game that relies largely on randomness is a great palate cleanser after a long, winning-focused strategy game like Twilight Imperium, and a quick game where winning is more a matter of luck than skill can be a great game to heal wounded feelings. That being said, for games where skill IS paramount, winning must and should be the player's goal).Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-7446052448544345172013-06-24T16:56:00.001-07:002013-06-24T17:02:36.056-07:00Failure to (Stop) Launching - How Launcher Games Hook You<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HojsASv8XfcuFnNL5UrzzLuZjIUw3pgtNe90pxki_SyalUVOjPIKsoOUbwJmCtWfWgkkOvAftD9J0aVcqHPac1613k0-KDP-i5uYti5TZn-lD1kLLFQiqSaQpH7n0RG6Cu2fst6_9RWD/s1600/Nanaca.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2HojsASv8XfcuFnNL5UrzzLuZjIUw3pgtNe90pxki_SyalUVOjPIKsoOUbwJmCtWfWgkkOvAftD9J0aVcqHPac1613k0-KDP-i5uYti5TZn-lD1kLLFQiqSaQpH7n0RG6Cu2fst6_9RWD/s400/Nanaca.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
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I play a lot of Flash games (especially on <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/">Kongregate</a>), for two basic reasons. One, they're free. And two, their low budgets and quick development time mean you often encounter innovative ideas that wouldn't function in a big studio release, or even as a dedicated indie game.<br />
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At least, that's what I tell myself, as I load up another damn 'Launcher' game and start sending my (pirate/buffalo/monkey/rocket/penguin/nerd/whatever pick one as applicable) hurtling through landscapes full of stuff designed to either impede or increase its progress upward or outward. So I find myself wondering: What, exactly, is so compulsive about this genre of games?<br />
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The first Launcher game I ever played was the inexplicably Japanese NANACA(Cross)CRASH!! a weird, Flash-based spin-off of a Japanese game I've only barely ever heard of (I said Japanese twice in that last sentence, because this game is very, very Japanese). The premise is simple: You're a dude. A girl hits you with her bike. AWAY YOU GO! There are people on the ground, some boost you, some slow you down. If you hit them in certain orders, weird special effects (none well explained) occur, usually to your benefit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7fMN3jmTLdCl7w_6avAoTKrMtyeSz0NZqT55ON-tpifvUQUUTfxd1xwFrCQzJj8zsLBW9jE7rDn9sAKtnApZB5of6uNXOq-USaxRMLM8KAbvtIRG3F_5dNZCKVPYeONz8vxDkIq5ngi82/s1600/Nanaca+Gameplay.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7fMN3jmTLdCl7w_6avAoTKrMtyeSz0NZqT55ON-tpifvUQUUTfxd1xwFrCQzJj8zsLBW9jE7rDn9sAKtnApZB5of6uNXOq-USaxRMLM8KAbvtIRG3F_5dNZCKVPYeONz8vxDkIq5ngi82/s400/Nanaca+Gameplay.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Back in high school, this game was VERY big in my social circle on AOL Instant Messenger, with people constantly updating their profiles (does anyone else remember how amazingly important it was to have a properly curated AIM profile, with only the best hideously colored backgrounds, the deepest, most meaningful terrible song lyrics? Just me? Right, I'm old) with the highest scores to show they were the best NANACA(Cross)CRASH!!ers (or, as we usually just called it, Weird Bike Game). So let's unpack what about it is so compelling, and see what we can extrapolate to the 'Launcher' genre as a whole.<br />
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First, the game's playtimes are very short - each session takes about a minute, unless you do very well, or very poorly. In each of these sessions, you get a wide array of emotional moments - the giddy speed of the initial launch, the pleasures or disappointments of near-misses or barely-grabbed boosts, the thrill as you catch a last-minute reprieve, the slow decline (or immediate abrupt stop) of lost momentum and the end of the session. It's very much a roller coaster (except, in this case, you can immediately get back on).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNyXIYK527489snKoG7bKdmlY-MskxzHOTXLAUzoymLmlh7tbYV5bq8pilzEKJ9VKDcsqGZA0JuaZmmPkL9W7g8KSkIYUAPIKp4r8huTrReUnJXNSUvFZTJMEEVn5Ox76r9uoCkasa-q9L/s1600/Nanaca+Gameplay+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNyXIYK527489snKoG7bKdmlY-MskxzHOTXLAUzoymLmlh7tbYV5bq8pilzEKJ9VKDcsqGZA0JuaZmmPkL9W7g8KSkIYUAPIKp4r8huTrReUnJXNSUvFZTJMEEVn5Ox76r9uoCkasa-q9L/s400/Nanaca+Gameplay+2.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
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Second, the game sits in the sweet spot between luck and player skill. The initial launch is entirely dependent on the player's reflexes, but after that, control is extremely limited. You get 3 "Boosts", where you can knock your airborne character up and give him a little speed, and a slowly recharging down-kick that imparts speed and lets you push him towards the characters on the ground. That's it. The rest of the game is watching your character float along, waiting for the ideal moments to deploy your limited controls. The order of characters on the ground is random (although the player is given a small indicator so that they know which boosts or detriments are coming up), so it's very easy for a lucky player to hit several boosts in a row, massively increasing speed and distance traveled, and for an unlucky player to hit an instant stop. However, the player control means that, when you use one of your limited interventions and it <i>works</i>, the feeling is intoxicating. Essentially, we have a situation where happy outcomes feel like a result of player skill, while negative results feel like bad luck. That's a recipe for players deriving pride from their successes without being too discouraged by their losses, and feeding that positive feeling is a great way to keep people playing.<br />
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One thing NANACA(Cross)CRASH!! doesn't have that its descendents almost always do, though, is any kind of progression structure. Every launch starts with the same probabilities of success - you can't upgrade the bike or pay an in-game currency to make the beneficial characters more prevalent. This makes NCC!! ideal as a score game, one where you can post a crowing high score to your friends with no caveats about whichever upgrades you've purchased, or how long you had to play the game to unlock the SUPER BIKE that got you your score - there's only 'skill' (which, see point 2 above). However, it also means that, once you've gotten a score you like, there's no sense of investment in the game, no feeling of sunk costs to pull you back in for another play.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAfRdL8KARJ6pBZI5m_rjOooA4SFfxk6s1-ggYyPw69jNyMBq5M1GyI7Jc9S78Axh1Y54N9AJYo8mBdSrCMPWcQzZWdJyfnXKHsLJh3Ej2llBHYCOMPDnaGAYGfajehp8YbJlQVbyvqxqE/s1600/Burrito+Bison+Gameplay.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAfRdL8KARJ6pBZI5m_rjOooA4SFfxk6s1-ggYyPw69jNyMBq5M1GyI7Jc9S78Axh1Y54N9AJYo8mBdSrCMPWcQzZWdJyfnXKHsLJh3Ej2llBHYCOMPDnaGAYGfajehp8YbJlQVbyvqxqE/s400/Burrito+Bison+Gameplay.jpg" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNyXIYK527489snKoG7bKdmlY-MskxzHOTXLAUzoymLmlh7tbYV5bq8pilzEKJ9VKDcsqGZA0JuaZmmPkL9W7g8KSkIYUAPIKp4r8huTrReUnJXNSUvFZTJMEEVn5Ox76r9uoCkasa-q9L/s1600/Nanaca+Gameplay+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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In contrast, let's look at a game I've talked about on here before, Burrito Bison Revenge. BBR (produced by Juicy Beast) shares many design elements with NNC!!, - timing based launching, special units that boost or reduce speed, a limited control scheme prioritizing carefully timed interventions), but adds a few things that really let the game put its hooks in. (An easy way to know when a game 'has' you, and one I'll refer to repeatedly here, is when you have the thought "I'll just play until _____," where _____ is some measure of in-game progression. Once you've started bargaining with yourself for more playtime, you know you're in trouble). The first is an upgrade system, where in-game currency can be spent to enhance various features of your flight (stronger launches, less speed lost from mistakes, more control interventions, and several others). This does two important things: One, it gives the player a small-scale goal to play toward - "I'll stop once I've got enough money for that top speed upgrade" (but of course, you're going to want to TRY OUT the new upgrade, aren't you? And now you're so close to that bounciness upgrade...)- and two, it ensures that the player, regardless of skill level, will do better and better as play continues. Even if the player never gets better at using the rocket slams (the game's limited control scheme), by nature of upgrading their character, they'll go, generally, further and further with every launch. Thus, you avoid the discouraging scenario often found in NANACA, where a great launch can be followed by an abysmally cut-short one; instead, you have a constant, pleasing feeling of (fake) improvement.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq6G2jUp3Qj4VZtpHpLUgHR5_UssAcu7qamimTUrplHfArlGwsLWMKPnz9pSUJ2JxvSuMvHYLWLAck37YgRy2yYFhKzTbYd39aTcgxVUCLB_hF1u9tgLuGZhugxZ_wf9rEyud0kL0asgsQ/s1600/Burrito+Upgrade.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq6G2jUp3Qj4VZtpHpLUgHR5_UssAcu7qamimTUrplHfArlGwsLWMKPnz9pSUJ2JxvSuMvHYLWLAck37YgRy2yYFhKzTbYd39aTcgxVUCLB_hF1u9tgLuGZhugxZ_wf9rEyud0kL0asgsQ/s400/Burrito+Upgrade.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div>
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Juicy Beast also introduced a multi-tiered progression scheme into the game to keep players hooked. The game world is made up of four regions, each separated by a large door which requires a sufficient amount of speed and strength (a stat only affected by upgrading) to pass through. Once the player can break through the fourth door, the game is 'over', and the push to get through each, more sturdy door, makes up the highest level of the game's progression. The doors are a milestone to aim for, a large-scale 'I'll play until I get through the next one' measurement. However, the game also has a smaller scale sense of progression, through in-game missions. These (as I described back during my <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-irony-of-good-achievements.html">Achievements posts</a>), are small, variably difficult goals that are presented, three at a time. Once one (say, do two perfect launches in a row, or earn x amount of money in a single launch, or any permutation of the game's mechanics) of these is completed, another one takes its place. Thus, even when the gameplay distance between breaking through one door and the next is too big for the player to comfortably commit themselves to, they have these mini goals to focus on as they build up upgrades (which, as pointed out above, make it easier and easier to progress to and break through the next door). The missions act as connective tissue for the other goals in the game, a way to keep players committed even during lulls.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCUZ0vC7UQ6uGNmFkS1HPcySZjnm-z1_gu2-aTuRlLU_nOdCGwBP4PT7R83xDT_5Bt92WqlXoPyN2wBRPDPKU2vdWM0YA57miqM9VHlpyBB0e6nBWyxdTBx-hdSpIcIBmSvJ6U8FS6Q4v/s1600/Burrito+Bison+Missions.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzCUZ0vC7UQ6uGNmFkS1HPcySZjnm-z1_gu2-aTuRlLU_nOdCGwBP4PT7R83xDT_5Bt92WqlXoPyN2wBRPDPKU2vdWM0YA57miqM9VHlpyBB0e6nBWyxdTBx-hdSpIcIBmSvJ6U8FS6Q4v/s400/Burrito+Bison+Missions.jpg" width="400" /> </a></div>
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So, there you have it: the modern 'launcher' game. The initially compelling aspects (short session times with a wide emotional range combined with a healthy amount of randomness and limited, but meaningful control) have been fine-tuned and married to progression mechanics designed to keep the player going for 'one more launch' (inevitably, more like 20). In a way, they're quite cynical in how effectively they suck down player time, but it's hard to stay mad at them, because it's hard to do anything right now except PLAY LAUNCHER GAMES (Will quickly alt-tabs to the three different browsers he has with launcher games waiting).<br />
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A short list of good launchers:<br />
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1) <a href="http://megami.starcreator.com/nanaca-crash/">NANACA(Cross)CRASH</a> - Weird, and addictive. Feel free to post your best score in the comments here; mine's 10,145.<br />
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2) <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBeast/burrito-bison-revenge?acomplete=burrito+bison">Burrito Bison Revenge</a> - The king of launchers - gorgeous graphics, varied controls, and an expertly machined sense of progression.<br />
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3) <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/light_bringer777/learn-to-fly-2?acomplete=learn+to+fly">Learn to Fly 2 </a>- This one offers a great deal more control than the first two, and also has an EXTREMELY CHARMING PENGUIN<br />
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4) <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/BarbarianGames/into-space-2">Into Space 2</a> - the best of the Vertical Launcher genre, where your goal is to go up, not out. A really, really detailed upgrade system.<br />
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There, that should be enough to waste a few of your days. Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-5091645467351587032013-06-23T12:17:00.004-07:002013-06-23T12:18:29.386-07:00Why I Love Jetpack Joyride But Will Never Pay For It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So I'm playing Jetpack Joyride on The Girlfriend's shiny new Windows 8 computer (Windows 8 - Like a cell phone, but it won't fit in your pocket!), and I get to thinking about how much the whole thing cost to make. Rocking soundtrack, gorgeous art, programming... My Google-Fu is too weak to find it the exact development cost, but it clearly wasn't cheap. And I've been playing it, now, ad-free, for about 2 hours. And the guilt starts my eye crawling down to the 'Purchase coins" button... And I balk.<br />
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The advent of free-to-play has done a lot of weird things to the gaming industry. Back in the day, it was simple - you gave some money, you got some game. Now, here are the models I can pull off the top of my head: the game dev gets paid in attention and future interest in products, the game dev gets paid in ad revenue per play, the game dev gets paid for the second half or last two-third of their game, the game dev gets paid before they even start development through Kickstarter, the game dev gets paid through in-app purchases.<br />
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That last one (the one that Jetpack Joyride uses) has a lot of latitude in how it can be applied. Cosmetics, extra in-game currency, bonus levels... They all boil down to one question: Can you 'finish' the game without ever making a purchase?<br />
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Of course, this means we have to define how a game is 'finished,' which is increasingly nebulous as mobile gaming's focus on pick-up-and-play has created a resurgence in arcade-esque endless games. Still, most games have some sense of progression, usually through the purchase of upgrades or the completion of achievements. Jetpack Joyride (where everything can be purchased with the in-game currency, which collects slowly, but not so slowly as to make buying things impossible) can be completed without making a single purchase. Which is good, I guess, because it avoids the upsetting bait-and-switch thing that happens when a 'free' game starts piling on inconvenience after inconvenience - which can, of course, be alleviated with a cash purchase, just as you're getting into the meat of the game.<br />
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Here's the problem, though: The major gameplay of Jetpack Joyride (which you should totally play if you haven't, it's an amazingly well crafted little thing) is collecting coins, and the major part of the game's meta-structure (that is, the system of persistent upgrades that gives you a feeling of progress) is deciding how to spend those coins. And the only way you can give the game-makers money? Buying coins.<br />
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If you think about it for a second, you'll see the paradox. If I want to compensate the game devs (and I do, because they've given me a lot of fun), I have to cheat myself out of some gameplay. I have to make some of my upgrade choices meaningless by filling my coffers with purchased lucre. It feels like cheating, and that's why I balked from, essentially, giving Halfbrick Studios a tip for the enjoyment their game gave me.<br />
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Basically, what I'm arguing here is that the free-to-play elements of a game should be disentangled from its progression structure (this is something that goes back to the Dead Space 3 "Pay for Crafting Resources" thing from last year - if earning resources is fun, then don't give me the option to pay to take away the fun, and if earning resources ISN'T fun - why is it in your game?). Include them, certainly, but in their own separate areas - cosmetic items are ideal for this. Hell, I'm even fine with selling levels, as long as you don't go crazy with it. But when games like Jetpack Joyride merge their for-pay elements with the in-game activity of gaining money, they're going to end up disincentivizing either gameplay, or paying. And a game this fun doesn't deserve either.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-47578917442615418722013-06-22T13:02:00.001-07:002013-06-22T13:03:23.759-07:00Short Fiction: Rogue-Ish(I wrote this on a whim to show that I could write something fantasy-ish. It's short, but... I don't know, I kind of like it). <br />
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The thing about rogues is that they are, at the end of the day, profoundly roguish.
And sure, that sounds great in the tavern. Everyone’s heard stories about the party that would have been chewed apart by scorpions at the bottom of a pitfall, if not for the tireless efforts of an auric-hearted rogue. Or of steel-eyed queens charmed into leniency (and out of lingerie) by a talented bard.<br />
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Sure, they were, technically, thieves. But, the stories always emphasized, FUN thieves. And when the chips were down, at the end of every story, wasn’t it always the seemingly traitorous rogue who came back to save you? A glint in his eye, aiming a crossbow bolt at your chest, but no! He was only shooting the orc behind you. He might steal your gold pouch, but he’d never stab you in the back to do it.<br />
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Which presents the question, Thak of Grimmeld, Warrior Lord of the Far Steppes, mused to himself as he lay bleeding to death on a filthy stone floor with a dagger wound in the small of his back: Who’s making up these stories, anyway?<br />
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Glenn, as he had called himself, was the most roguish of rogues, if his own stories were to be believed. Despite his simple name and unassuming appearance, he claimed to have stolen more gold, platinum, and jewels than the combined efforts of years of work from the Steppe Horde raiders who had trained Thak in his youth. He claimed to be the assassin of The Unknown Emperor, which, Thak thought now, he probably should have been more suspicious about verifying. And Glenn had a reputation, one that, Thak’s wife, the ‘Virgin’ Sorceress Aurora, assured him, made him the ideal, trustworthy companion on their next venture: He had betrayed every single person he had ever worked for.<br />
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It had taken Thak some time to work through the logic of this benefit. The flask of mead he had consumed (paid for, of course, by Glenn [with money, of course, taken from Thak’s own purse]) had made the efforts doubly difficult, but eventually he had grasped Aurora’s points (while failing to notice that Glenn was, when Thak wasn’t looking, doing some grasping of his own):<br />
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1) Everyone knew that in stories, the least trustworthy person could always be trusted. After all, the story wouldn’t be very interesting if it was just ‘The bloodthirsty psychopath turned out to be the murderer’, right?<br />
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2) Who could be less trustworthy (and thus MORE trustworthy, by this new logic), than someone who had betrayed everyone he had ever worked for?<br />
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3) This is damn good mead, isn’t it?<br />
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Persuaded by this iron-clad argument, Thak had found himself, the next morning, bleary-eyed and barely able to hold his fabled double axes, Krew and Krag, following behind Glenn and Aurora in pursuit of the fabled treasure of Mak Goughin, which Glenn had conveniently known the location of. Through his raging headache, Thak couldn’t help notice that his ‘virginal’ wife and the youngish rogue were walking closer than comfort would suggest was feasible. But he held his thick, fuzzy-feeling tongue, not wanting to give Aurora ‘paranoid jealousy’ as a weapon in their increasingly constant arguments. And so, as they ventured into the filthily-floored dungeon, he simply watched.<br />
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Not closely enough, it turned out. And so, he lay dying on the incredibly poorly kept stone floor of the dungeon, bleeding swiftly from the wounds in his back, one placed by Glenn with a merry laugh in his throat, and the other by Aurora, cold as a winter’s sunrise. Was the flickering in his vision the last of his life ebbing away? Or the guttering of the black, oily torches that illuminated the chamber? Or, possibly, the Lichstone he had stolen, years ago, from the Wizard Jandar, finally fulfilling its dark purpose and reanimating him as a murderous revenant bound to avenge his own demise?<br />
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It was that last one, happily. And as the last of his mortal existence faded away, Thak smiled at the thought that Glenn really, really should have done more research before seducing his wife and murdering him. But then, that’s the thing about rogues.<br />
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They’re roguish. That’s not the same as <i>smart.</i>
Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-72877554378106962902013-06-20T23:13:00.001-07:002013-06-21T10:13:13.304-07:00How Sadism and the Wii U Saved Gaming (Potentially)<div style="text-align: center;">
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Confession: My favorite Mario game is New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii. It's not the most polished or the most inventive, sure. It doesn't have the most beloved power-ups or the best level design. But it has one thing that has given me more joy than any other feature in a Mario game: multiplayer.<br />
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Not just "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Brothers_3">trade off when someone dies and every once in a while battle in a coin-collecting minigame</a>" multiplayer. Not "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_mario_galaxy">Player 2 collects star bits</a>" multiplayer. Not even "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Super_Mario_Bros.">there's a separate battle mode and you can run around fighting in it</a>" multiplayer. Real, honest-to-goodness, four-people-struggling-to-make-it-through-every-level multiplayer. And it was glorious.<br />
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And the best thing about it was that you could play it more than one way. Sure, you could be nice, with the more experienced players carrying the weaker ones through difficult sections, politely sharing power-ups, using teamwork to get the hard-to-reach star coins. And that's fine! Do that, you'll have a good time.<br />
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I'll be busy playing MY way - a brutal race to the finish of every level. Dirty tricks, hoarding of power-ups, intentionally throwing the others into bottomless pits. Nothing's off-limits, as long as one person's alive at the end to grab the flag. And the game's mechanics are perfectly built for this (power-up stealing, picking people up and throwing them, the way the screen scrolls), but without any explicit instructions to do so - the perfect recipe for building your own game mode. <br />
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(An aside: in 2006, my friend Nathan had the perfect ingredients for fun - an original XBox, a copy of Crimson Skies, and a projector. Dog-fighting on a big screen was, even with the muddy resolutions, suitably epic, but we eventually tired of the basic multiplayer modes, with their focus on combat over flying. And so we invented a new mode - a variation on the game's King of the Hill (where the player who holds a single flag on the map for the longest wins) with one key distinction: the player with the flag wasn't allowed to shoot. Instantly, what had been a fun-but-generic bout of dogfighting became a tense, exciting game of cat-and-mouse. Especially on the game's 'Chicago' map, with its just-wide-enough streets between towering skyscrapers, it was the perfect, player-created game of chase and be-chased.)<br />
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<a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/06/would-i-lie-to-wii-u.html">As previously mentioned</a>, I spent some time with the Wii U last week. Along with NintendoLand, the other game I played (along with The Girlfriend, my friend John, and his wife Desiree) was New Super Mario Bros. U. Because I was (and remain) fascinated by the GamePad, I asked if I could play the game in what's called 'Boost Mode' - where 1-4 players play as normal with Wiimotes while the player with the GamePad uses the stylus to place blocks, uncover secrets, and stun enemies, ostensibly to help the players on their way.<br />
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Ostensibly.<br />
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Instead, it quickly became clear to my fellow players that I was using Boost for a different purpose - to turn every level into a maze of suddenly-appearing platforms, erratically moving enemies, and sudden death traps. I would do my best to block jumps, move power-ups out of the way, and basically take on the role of a cruel dungeon master. (I cleared this with my friends, by the way. Mostly. They appreciated the challenge! I choose to believe). The mechanics for Boost Mode are less clearly designed for abuse than the ones in the Wii game, but opportunities are still there. The platforms you can create with a touch of the stylus are the most obvious method of interference, but there are other, more subtle ways to play vengeful God. 3-Up blocks can be revealed by the GamePad player, acting as perfect bait to force players into traps. And a few levels have things like giant gearwheels that respond to the stylus's touch, allowing a savvy bastard to trap and crush his... opponents? Is opponents the right word? in between their gears.<br />
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As gamers, we've always dealt with the fact that no challenge from a video game can be as organic (and nasty) as one presented by a human. Part of the pleasure of tabletop gaming is the sense that you're playing 'against' an opponent who can tailor your challenges to your capabilities. The Wii U, by giving one out of the five players (what amounts to) a mouse and monitor set-up, has created an ideal environment for that player to mastermind gameworlds to provide more interesting challenges. (The free Rayman Legends Challenges App takes this even further than NSMBU, with one player having control of most of the features of the platforming world, moving them to help the platforming player traverse). This is fun in a platformer, but what if we pushed it further, applied it to genres like RPGs or puzzle games? Mazes drawn on-the-fly with the stylus. Enemy line-ups drafted from a pool of foes. All those tasks we've relegated to AIs and pattern-generation, back in the hands of a human because we finally have an intuitive way for them to control it.<br />
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I know, I know. People have been crowing about the 'potential' of the Wii U since it was first announced. But I feel like we're on the periphery of something great, a chance for gamers to interact like never before. New Super Mario Bros. U and Rayman Legends Challenges App are at the cliff's edge of embracing what the Wii U can really do when you trust your players to help you make amazing experiences, and I still have my fingers crossed that, sometime soon, someone is going to take the plunge.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-82189215111916361842013-06-20T14:38:00.000-07:002013-06-20T14:38:10.936-07:00Would I Lie to (Wii) U?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Finally had a chance to play with the Wii U when The Girlfriend and I stopped at my friend John's house on the drive across the country.<br />
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The thing that most appealed to me about the console (we mostly played NintendoLand, although John and I did fiddle for a bit with the Rayman Challenge App, which I might write more about later) was the way the asymmetric gameplay provided by the GamePad allowed for one of my favorite flavors of gaming: Deception.<br />
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I like lying. Telling a lie well, and convincing the people around you to act on its information, is one of the great social challenges that exist. Unfortunately, in most situations indulging in that challenge makes you an asshole or a sociopath, and the negative consequences almost always outweigh the benefits (insert witty comment about politics, business, and all other profitable lines of human behavior here.) Which is why some of the games I love most are ones in which lying is a codified part of the experience, where such normally vilified behaviors are encouraged and rewarded.<br />
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This can either be lying through game mechanics (the first example that comes to mind being bluffing in poker, although my personal favorite is <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/59959/letters-from-whitechapel">Letters from Whitechapel</a>, where one player is invisible and must cross a large game map while being hunted by trail-sniffing detectives), or through outright social manipulation (Werewolf and its cousin <a href="http://www.epicmafia.com/home">Epic Mafia</a> are probably the best examples of this, where successful manipulation of the other players is a key strategy for both sides). It's <i>fun</i> to lie, because lying has stakes, and you're tricking the human mind, one of the greatest bullshit-detecting computers in existence. When you pull it off, the rush of adrenaline is incredible (I may have just outed myself as a psychopath).<br />
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Lying in video games has historically been much more difficult. Early games were played with two players on the same screen, meaning that secrets were impossible to keep, even if you 'totally for sure pinkie-swear' not to look. The only example I can think of with successful same-screen secret-keeping are the play-choosing modes in sports games, where the cursor can be made invisible so that the other player can't see your choices. Playing via network made this much easier, of course, leading to all sorts of games where controlling access to the other player's information was a key part of strategy (Starcraft and other RTS games that use fog-of-war come to mind). But there's something empty about beating someone over a network, about lying to them from across a hundred miles instead of being in the same room. It lacks... intimacy.<br />
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That's what made the Wii U so fascinating for me. Playing Luigi's Mansion in NintendoLand as the ghost (who is invisible on the main screen but visible on the GamePad), I had that thrill of sneaking up on someone, of misdirecting them and then suddenly striking. Trash talk (and communication between the other players) becomes a key strategy of manipulation and coordination. When playing as one of the non-ghost players, I had the thrill of anticipating the movements of an invisible foe and taking him down just as he was prepared to strike.<br />
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I've played a lot of games where people sitting in the same room never broke eye contact with the screen, never talked to each other. That's not possible with the games we played in NintendoLand; communication is key. The WiiU has the potential to change the way we game together, adding elements of social manipulation and teamwork to same-room gaming. If the software is there to support it (eh....), this could be a new dawn of the fine art of lying through games.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-25254759703932692412013-06-19T00:43:00.000-07:002013-06-19T00:44:19.928-07:00Walking (Dead) With My Girlfriend Finale: Keep that hair short, girl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Girlfriend and I have now finished the last three episodes of Telltale's The Walking Dead (and then moved across the country to Washington, hence, the delay of this article), and I thought I'd get a few more thoughts down on the game. This article will contain a few spoilers, although I'll try to keep it as clean as possible. Still, if you don't want at least some elements of the game's story spoiled, read no further.<br />
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The thing that became clear, once The Walking Dead was over, was that it's not Lee's story at all. Lee is the protagonist, sure, and the games stick very closely to his perspective. But the actual story, the character who the player influences in the most interesting ways on their journey, is Clementine's.<br />
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There was a moment, after the games were over, when Shanna chastised me for being too honest with Clem. Indeed, anytime the option to sugarcoat or euphemise or lie to spare her young feelings was presented, I would argue strongly against it. "She's just a little girl," Shanna argued. "She deserves the truth," I would reply. We were having a sincere discussion about the best way to parent a child who was not a child, just a deft creation of 3D modelling and writing and Melissa Hutchison's excellent voice work. But Clementine felt real to us, and her opinions mattered.<br />
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When we chose to do the right thing, it was as often as not because we were worried what Clementine would think (and the game is brutal about inserting her into moments when the urge to do wrong is strongest). Her disdain is the worst punishment the game can deliver, because, thanks to her childish naivete, she never hesitates in opting for the "good," "righteous" choice. Sure, you can rationalize your actions (and the game's structure, which requires that Clem remain devoted to Lee, ensures that she'll at least partially accept your excuse), but the punishment for doing so is the sense that you've made a permanent influence on Clem's impressionable mind.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdxZ3FZxRosX0jtorXBosDpspeAHSooXFhe5SqgOViGwDBzsNHJHKzVHskG8J9d3HBcW20Oq0_AUQ99dZhOMLl6SGJ40TUTOgDJtdp3_y_-IdjApgzvQY-xUadYtfSklz9fxWiYEm-UD2/s1600/bioshock-Eleanor-bioshock-10579587-935-669.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPdxZ3FZxRosX0jtorXBosDpspeAHSooXFhe5SqgOViGwDBzsNHJHKzVHskG8J9d3HBcW20Oq0_AUQ99dZhOMLl6SGJ40TUTOgDJtdp3_y_-IdjApgzvQY-xUadYtfSklz9fxWiYEm-UD2/s400/bioshock-Eleanor-bioshock-10579587-935-669.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Telltale aren't the first people to realize that a child's judgment is an excellent way to make a player give considerable weight to their actions. It's easy, especially for jaded gamers, to treat fictional worlds like consequence-less playgrounds where the id can run free. This is all well and good if that's what you designed your gameworld to be, but it can absolutely wreck an attempt at a serious tone. By placing the watchful eyes of an impressionable being on the player, learning from their actions, it's possible to give normally sociopathic players pause.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKRi1nPFTpPokTHeBvYM3266HVkUJGXbdYzjkUsVeGmAqWkfghESTjjz2y38_AS7cBPgCvFXrnDwnup1r05C8ecrOWWCjzuRvnTStALfHPrSPOry7Gm0DUz1wqOoANl8yEfDd6jBggUWy/s1600/alvin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKRi1nPFTpPokTHeBvYM3266HVkUJGXbdYzjkUsVeGmAqWkfghESTjjz2y38_AS7cBPgCvFXrnDwnup1r05C8ecrOWWCjzuRvnTStALfHPrSPOry7Gm0DUz1wqOoANl8yEfDd6jBggUWy/s400/alvin.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The difference here, and the reason Clementine is so compelling, I think, lays in the fact that most games that employ this mechanic (Bioshock 2, The Witcher, and Dishonored come to mind) tie your influence on the child to some set outcome for the game. You are told, explicitly, that your choices had a concrete impact, that you've pushed this child to some specific life route. In short, you're given closure on the choices you made, assured that what you did 'mattered,' because in a video game you expect to be given a clear metric for the choices you made. But The Walking Dead's conclusion derives its poignancy and meaning from the fact that we are utterly denied our closure, our ability to see how we've shaped the future.<br />
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When the game is over, your ability to influence Clementine is gone. There's no jump cut to her as a heroic messiah or a blood-thirsty warlord, guided by your parting words. There's only a scared little girl, still trapped in a bad situation, and the hope, a hope which exists only in the hearts of the player (or players), that the influence we had on her will be enough to keep her safe. That we taught our little girl enough to make her strong and smart and healthy. There's no guarantee that it will, that all those "Clementine will remember you said that"s will amount to anything. We just have to hope that it was enough.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl2Z-8s8ICMr7hpsdZnOpxeDBrc_3Dy1W_s-UcnkPm7EKdIYOw3aDYCE3KAwxSEoTrOyJopB3cjvnJMG2lPD1_fg3s1uDebLBBfw1lVQ_mknupKfnjlt7X-NOQbj-_YMgfXnJOx5OpEHqZ/s1600/clementine_ending.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl2Z-8s8ICMr7hpsdZnOpxeDBrc_3Dy1W_s-UcnkPm7EKdIYOw3aDYCE3KAwxSEoTrOyJopB3cjvnJMG2lPD1_fg3s1uDebLBBfw1lVQ_mknupKfnjlt7X-NOQbj-_YMgfXnJOx5OpEHqZ/s400/clementine_ending.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I think that's called 'parenting'.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-4451979610114205312013-06-08T16:26:00.004-07:002013-06-08T16:27:37.069-07:00Papers, Please, and the Joys of Being Mindlessly Amoral<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEUpcj27G8_Un7PPL7f912pYO9u19jvmkUBGqE7ROuEA0E3iuqf_42IQWpmWAe9nWJBtJmy-jbBv8BL22cCZe9r627nH2_BhflC3N_SaKAF_RpqCnCGXV3-bSk_V8Auwhd2skmfxdsC44/s1600/Papers+Please+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEUpcj27G8_Un7PPL7f912pYO9u19jvmkUBGqE7ROuEA0E3iuqf_42IQWpmWAe9nWJBtJmy-jbBv8BL22cCZe9r627nH2_BhflC3N_SaKAF_RpqCnCGXV3-bSk_V8Auwhd2skmfxdsC44/s400/Papers+Please+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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In my gaming experience (now stretching, ugh, 24 years), I've portrayed: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape:_torment">floating talking skulls</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Quest_4">item shop</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recettear">merchants</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Meat_Boy">sentient meat</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplink_%28video_game%29">a fake hacker</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_%26_White_%28video_game%29">God</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper">Satan</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odama">a Japanese death pinball</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronox">a shrunken planet with a ray gun.</a> It's STILL weird to be playing (and enjoying) a game about being an immigration checkpoint attendant.<br />
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<a href="http://dukope.com/">Papers, Please,</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/dukope">Lucas Pope</a>, is still in beta, but it's already compellingly playable. Set in the same post-Soviet dystopia as Pope's previous game, The Republia Times (in which your role was editor-in-chief of the state-controlled newspaper, ordered, at gun point, to keep the people happy and docile through story selection), Papers, Please is, mechanically, very simple. Potential immigrants step up to your window, give you their documents, and wait as you peruse them for forgeries or mistakes. If you don't find any, you take your giant stamper machine and CLUNK "Approved" on their passports. If they do, you reject them (or interrogate them to figure out the meaning behind the discrepancies). The heart of the gameplay is a series of very basic rules that you apply to every set of documents - are the dates right? The issuing country? Do they have the right visa? It's essentially a game of pattern recognition and anal-retentive detail-noticing, and with the wrong implementation, it could be incredibly dry. But somehow, here, it isn't.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl-wl_kL69ZWL1K7y_tOkiCnp3N6dzmHC_pbpDMqJaceU4J1Owg9Ay4Av90NfO0CIH96PVZiTnWJzpLI0nVSvsBJfo3rL4kmAysQMugH1OTYeLY3uiYp9hGJtcAP9REDvDuUzgEJL7AZFw/s1600/Papers+Please+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl-wl_kL69ZWL1K7y_tOkiCnp3N6dzmHC_pbpDMqJaceU4J1Owg9Ay4Av90NfO0CIH96PVZiTnWJzpLI0nVSvsBJfo3rL4kmAysQMugH1OTYeLY3uiYp9hGJtcAP9REDvDuUzgEJL7AZFw/s400/Papers+Please+2.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
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A huge part of that is the interface. Almost everything is done in-game, with no need for menus. Your desk is your interface - you shuffle the documents around on it, pull out your stamping machine, fumble through your instruction manual. If you need an added feature (say, to search or fingerprint a subject), a button pops out on the desk. Besides a few opening instructions, almost everything exists in-game, and it gives your job a pleasantly tactile feel.
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Adding to that feeling is the solid CLUNK of the stamping machine. It's hard to overstate how good it feels to CLUNK a document with a big, satisfying stamp. It gives a happy little climax to every encounter - CLUNK! Denied! Go away, forger! CLUNK! Welcome to glorious free state of Arstotzka, citizen! I don't know where Pope got that sound file, but it's the game's true star. CLUNK! I am seriously considering pausing writing this to play the game some more, just so I can get my CLUNK! fix.
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6c5_UxE5nlN7oSRgQuszsnVkhrmShNibL-FCyV2QcpyXQBTj4-nTBnire8qhseAtthOF878DkSK__q-THm1SFq0WevImls8e67pa3G1agKDbda5cmpLnIs5jf55XsrkQNqC7NNJcsI-mL/s1600/Papers+Please+3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6c5_UxE5nlN7oSRgQuszsnVkhrmShNibL-FCyV2QcpyXQBTj4-nTBnire8qhseAtthOF878DkSK__q-THm1SFq0WevImls8e67pa3G1agKDbda5cmpLnIs5jf55XsrkQNqC7NNJcsI-mL/s400/Papers+Please+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This lady SEEMS on the level...</td></tr>
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That joy in tiny detail, in the pleasures of executing bureaucracy, is what makes the game intellectually fascinating. Pope has done a lot of great work in making each immigrant seem unique through a very effective randomization system (along with several scripted immigrants who build up the 'story', so far as it goes during the beta). They'll praise Arstotzka as you let them in, or complain bitterly about having to travel though your hayseed country, or tell you a sob story when you ask them why they're trying to pass some expired bullshit through YOUR checkpoint. CLUNK! Bye, lady! Because, sorry, lady, but I'm on a timer. I could take the time to resolve your issue, but every time I CLUNK! my CLUNK!er, I get $5, and every night I've got to feed my family, pay my rent, and make sure the heat is on. Every day has JUST enough time for an efficient CLUNK!er to make enough to keep their son from getting sick and leaving their wife hungry, but it's close. Too close to spend a lot of time worrying about the people you're sending away unhappy.
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That's the genius of Pope's game - it presents situations where empathy is called for, and then makes that empathy harmful, or at least inconvenient, for the player. For every second you spend asking someone for an extra document, or double-checking their fingerprints, you could just CLUNK! them and send them away, with you, at least, none the worse for wear. The game has scripted characters who offer more tangible moral choices, but the game's most effective moral lesson is that it's remarkably easy (and, in fact, kind of quietly pleasant), to turn off your humanity in favor of efficiency. (Or even patriotism! There's something about the game's bombastic, tuba-y soundtrack that gives me a certain pride in protecting my fair Arstotzka from these filthy, dangerous immigrants!)
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7UuJAlb05Ke84l78Mk96c2Rfpp1WsTd3EqvOJz3b5UGeh04ZsAFtqPTjswrxYdM8ISy1rFCOyQjrPow1CYVxaPkqhZGBuYHYIUFF0aSquUkeJG1E0NHEdayCcmpW1vTvOk-09CfuoXy2/s1600/Papers+Please+4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7UuJAlb05Ke84l78Mk96c2Rfpp1WsTd3EqvOJz3b5UGeh04ZsAFtqPTjswrxYdM8ISy1rFCOyQjrPow1CYVxaPkqhZGBuYHYIUFF0aSquUkeJG1E0NHEdayCcmpW1vTvOk-09CfuoXy2/s400/Papers+Please+4.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">But I don't like her face. Clunk!</td></tr>
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"They're just video game characters, though," I hear you say. And that's the point! Papers, Please, even in its uncompleted beta form, with most of the story segments absent, functions as a beautiful simulation of how it feels when you stop treating people like people, and just as inconvenient, artificial things to be dealt with as quickly as possible. I can't wait to see what the final version can do.
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CLUNK!
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVFQOh5ChTCItAblYnOdxOS24GbAi8rWtH1sBTvPRkeN8OeXn42laUGjdgBZ7l08m3ZveMqubybI5FfEpsQEy_DeIsQNEue22oPSuACqJXStdJTGUrWEV0dAA4JWeBDoF6y73nIseVUYxf/s1600/Papers+Please+5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVFQOh5ChTCItAblYnOdxOS24GbAi8rWtH1sBTvPRkeN8OeXn42laUGjdgBZ7l08m3ZveMqubybI5FfEpsQEy_DeIsQNEue22oPSuACqJXStdJTGUrWEV0dAA4JWeBDoF6y73nIseVUYxf/s400/Papers+Please+5.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK</i><u><i><br /></i></u></td></tr>
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<i>Papers, Please is currently in beta, and can be found <a href="http://dukope.com/">here</a>. Release date for the full game is sometime this summer, and it'll cost REDACTED PLEASE PLAY <a href="http://papersplea.se/">THIS WEIRD LITTLE MINI-GAME</a> TO LEARN GAME PRICE, ALL GLORY TO WONDERFUL ARSTOTZKA</i>Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-21253185666811343452013-06-06T11:03:00.001-07:002013-06-06T11:03:50.937-07:00Walking (Dead) With My Girlfriend Part 2: Less Choices, More Dying<div style="text-align: center;">
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The Girlfriend and I finished the second episode of Telltale's The Walking Dead last night, with the general agreement that, while still quite enjoyable, it was a step down from the first one. Elaborating on why would probably involve spoilers, which I'm striving to avoid with these posts, but I think there's a few points I can make before grousing at a bit more length about a fundamental problem I have with the games.<br />
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The biggest problem we had with TWD Episode 2 was that it made the illusion of choice that powers these games more obviously illusory, ironically by offering us more ostensible freedom. The first episode, which was focused on small locations and clear-cut dangers, constrained my possible 'safe' behaviors - the ones that wouldn't obviously get us eaten by zombies - and let us pick a few choices from what was left. The second episode asks much more general questions about which paths could or would be safer, but there's clearly no escape from the general flow of the narrative. Lee (the player character) makes several decisions that neither I or Shanna would, causing several moments where we were like people watching a movie, shouting "Don't go in there!" at the idiot protagonists. The episode clearly had a story it wanted to tell, but in telling it, it robbed us of a sense of agency. There are still plenty of choices to make in Episode Two, but the biggest ones (ie. 'Should we trust these people?') are taken out of our hands, and it makes the experience feel a lot more hollow.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_sbRrBxIlU86pngSvZ8-57UwfZfsZRQ3hZN4LfuX7V7ve1At0uBCDusPV47ef0H9dqvRvw3pBc74DQfoGzyrfMIi3Ky-vp0poLu_ahH3mc5jKl_LidGZnky9v_Q8bB9PaaLA6TMGV1zOc/s1600/Choice.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_sbRrBxIlU86pngSvZ8-57UwfZfsZRQ3hZN4LfuX7V7ve1At0uBCDusPV47ef0H9dqvRvw3pBc74DQfoGzyrfMIi3Ky-vp0poLu_ahH3mc5jKl_LidGZnky9v_Q8bB9PaaLA6TMGV1zOc/s320/Choice.png" width="213" /> </a></div>
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Another problem we had (Shanna, especially), was a sense of being let down by the dialogue options in a way we hadn't been with the first episode. "Starved For Help" gets kind of dualistic, as you're pulled between factions in your group, and there (unsurprisingly) came a time when we were forced to choose sides. Afterward, during a conversation reflecting on that event, EVERY conversational choice said essentially the same thing - three different ways of denouncing the character we didn't side with. I guess you could see it as the game locking us in to supporting the decision we had made, but the fact is that none of those things were what we WANTED to say in that moment. It's another one of those times when the game failed to put us in Lee's shoes, and it breaks the sense of "What WOULD I do in these situations?" that makes the games so compelling.<br />
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That's not to say we disliked Episode Two. The plot was pleasantly twisty (if a little predictable), and most of the problems fell away as a climax pushed everything back into the tense, exciting "You have three seconds to choose or everyone dies, what do you do, WHAT DO YOU DO" sensation that we loved in Episode One. We'll definitely be back for the third.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Hl9BwcEySfglGZIwVQn3QH5T_eJkMkzfcWXdPv4N830oeoy1wXfYXdptILy7sNqYnRKd8SwaNvD9yTm7hx9YETKsZ8qNPt574jUJxqvpvAU3THlnhfNXoyFdt39XCAEmP0DYHjPlGj0N/s1600/Steel+Eject.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Hl9BwcEySfglGZIwVQn3QH5T_eJkMkzfcWXdPv4N830oeoy1wXfYXdptILy7sNqYnRKd8SwaNvD9yTm7hx9YETKsZ8qNPt574jUJxqvpvAU3THlnhfNXoyFdt39XCAEmP0DYHjPlGj0N/s320/Steel+Eject.jpg" width="320" /> </a></div>
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I do have a complaint, though, about how the games handle something that game designers have struggling with for years - player death. It's probably not surprising that, in a game about a zombie apocalypse, the main character can die. I've died once in each episode (which, I'm not gonna lie, is a little embarrassing in front of your girlfriend), and each time the only thing that really gets killed is my sense of immersion in the game.<br />
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Hypothetically, death should be the worst thing that can happen in a game. You know, because it's... death. But in The Walking Dead, the moments where Lee passed away were some of the LEAST tense, because the consequences of it were so quickly reversed. You get a "YOU DIED" screen, and then time is rewound slightly and you get another chance. If I say something wrong in a conversation, it's a mis-step I might never recover from; if my throat is torn out, it's three button presses to get back on the right track.<br />
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But what's the alternative? Death erases your save file, Steel Battalion style? Unacceptable - nobody likes to have progress stolen from them. As gamers, we've always had to deal with the fact that, in life, death is the end, but in games, it can only be a setback, because we want to keep playing. Push a player too far, rob them of too much progress, and they'll just abuse savegames (if you let them) to avoid negative consequences completely. Take that away, and most of them will quit (the ones who don't are probably weirdos who play roguelikes, ugh).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3H1L6l04rTcVuSP_L6IstEaNZ0qCjFz9yEiFwZauVpPRWwdy6kiGGBkwUzI89uOOMT06dMPVJOJIqUxn-4VKOzgiytk7_26cVEBjfi6aodmCMrHLW5l4s4AyuVBidGQXBCA7Gm5Ftemiy/s1600/Vita-Chamber.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3H1L6l04rTcVuSP_L6IstEaNZ0qCjFz9yEiFwZauVpPRWwdy6kiGGBkwUzI89uOOMT06dMPVJOJIqUxn-4VKOzgiytk7_26cVEBjfi6aodmCMrHLW5l4s4AyuVBidGQXBCA7Gm5Ftemiy/s320/Vita-Chamber.png" width="320" /> </a></div>
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If there's a solution to this, it's in exploiting the player's attachment to the other characters in the game. Instead of painlessly killing Lee, maybe every time he fails to extricate himself from mortal peril, one of the other characters is hurt saving him. Not killed - that would alter the story too much for the designers to keep the narrative under control - just hurt. Make them look more tired in cutscenes. Hell, maybe even build a sense of obligation between them and the player - "You're siding with HER after I was damn near murdered saving your ass?!" - that opens up new story possibilities or emotional connections.<br />
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If you're going to insist on having failable action sequences in your adventure game (and that's a debate, I think, for another time), they need to be invested with consequences that work WITH the adventure portions, not just alongside them. Make them part of the story, not just a quickly reverted sideshow.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-61524516894452803832013-06-04T18:58:00.000-07:002013-06-04T18:59:10.783-07:00Walking (Dead) With My Girlfriend - Some Spoiler Free Thoughts on The Walking Dead Episode One<div style="text-align: center;">
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I picked up The Walking Dead last week during the Telltale Games Humble Sale. I've found their games problematic enough in the past (Sam & Max too clunky, Strong Bad too collectible-obsessed, although the Monkey Island games are quite good) that I'd never have paid full price for it, but I'd heard enough positive things about TWD to happily pay $4 for it. Having recently moved in with my girlfriend, who loves the TV series, I thought the episodic structure would make for great lay-in-bed-together-and-play sessions. Last night, we played through the first of the five episodes, and I thought I'd jot down some thoughts about it.<br />
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First of all, the controls have none of the problems of older Telltale games, which is to say, the character moves quickly across the screen (seriously, adventure game designers everywhere: I love that the genre is back! I grew up on Space Quest and Quest for Glory. But, and I mean this as politely as possible, THERE SHOULD BE LESS THAN A FUCKINGSECOND BETWEEN ME CLICKING AND A THING HAPPENING. ALWAYS.). The dialogue wheel is stolen from Alpha Protocol, but we'd all be a lot better off if all games stole from Alpha Protocol, so that's cool.<br />
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Actually, the interface is one of my favorite aspects of the game - when you start the episode, you're given an option of a "Normal" or a "Minimal" interface, and I strongly recommend Normal. Normal means, when you make a conversational choice, more often than not a little pop-up will appear on the screen that says something like "Ken will remember you said that." The first time that happened, my girlfriend had a wonderful little fit of paranoia about how a minor conversational lie could come back to bite us in the ass. And for a game that's 60% conversations, it's a wonderful way to give player choices impact. Dialogue can be ambiguous - did that character say he doesn't trust me because that's what he's scripted to say, or because I lied to him? When the interface itself calls you a liar, it makes every decision feel more important.<br />
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The timed conversation mechanic is great, too. Once the game establishes that conversational choices have real, meaningful stakes, the added pressure of time-sensitivity amps up the stress in pleasant ways. The best moments are crisis situations, where there's not enough time for me to consult with Shanna about which choice we should make. One of us simply barks out a command, the one with the controller puts it in, and the choice is sealed. And since the most-tightly-timed choices are the ones of most consequence (which is to say, who to save when the walkers start attacking, it creates moments that feel REAL in ways that they couldn't without that urgency. It stands in contrast to the more sedate conversations, where we both try to suggest the 'right' choices, gaming the system or trying to seem morally 'correct'. But there's no time for that when zombies are about to rip a kid to shreds, only blind, instinctual decision-making. I love it, and I love sharing those moments with her.<br />
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The game it put me in mind of, unsurprisingly, was Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit outside the US and on PC), the first game I can think of that put conversations under the time pressure they would have in real life and assign consequences to how you speak. Of course, the conversational choices in Indigo Prophecy are eventually revealed to be largely meaningless, and are eventually consumed by mindless QTE combat, so it might not be the best game to use as a model.<br />
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I'm still not sure how much of The Walking Dead's sense of consequence is real, yet. I've so far resisted the urge to pour over FAQs to figure out which of my decisions actually change things, mostly in deference to the fact that I'm discovering it alongside my girlfriend. The end-of-chapter "On The Next Walking Dead" bit, where almost every decision is reflected, almost made me feel more leery, though. It felt like a checklist, with the game saying, "Seeeeeeee? We remember! Really!" I'm looking forward to seeing how my choices carry over into Episode Two when we play it tonight.<br />
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The one real qualm I have with the game so far is that it cloaks the past of player character Lee Everett in ambiguity. Without going into spoilers, Lee begins the game in handcuffs after being accused of a crime, and the game is never clear about whether he really committed it. This would be okay if this was a situation where I could choose his past, like the flashback sequences in Knights of the Old Republic II, where choices made in conversation essentially 'select' which past occurred, but the game makes it fairly clear that there IS a true answer to Lee's guilt, and we just don't know it.<br />
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In a TV show, this kind of ambiguity is natural and can be used to ratchet up tension and suspense - the first season of Homeland is largely driven by the fact that we don't know what's going on inside one of the main character's heads, and it's riveting - but in a game, it's a flaw. You can make the argument that the gap in our knowledge of Lee represents the fact that, with society having collapsed, people's pasts don't matter. But I'm not just supposed to be watching Lee Everett, I'm supposed to <i>be</i> him, making the choices I think he'd make. By hiding an incredibly important aspect of his past from me, it hamstrings my ability to make those choices. It's a hole in my understanding of the character, and it leaves me feeling like I'm going to be ambushed - and not in a fun, stomp-the-zombie sort of way.<br />
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*I'm wondering if this won't turn out to be the sort of situation where Lee's eventual guilt is determined by our behavior throughout the game - a Lee played righteously will be eventually shown to be innocent, a villainous Lee guilty. I'm okay with that sort of adaptive retcon, even if it does damage the possibility of actual redemption by retroactively exonerating a 'good' Lee instead of letting his virtuous actions be a reaction to his past.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-2147753247228360782013-06-01T21:25:00.004-07:002013-06-01T21:25:41.565-07:00Why Etrian Odyssey III is One of the Nintendo DS's Must-Play RPGs<div style="text-align: center;">
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I've been re-playing Etrian Odyssey III: The Drowned City, lately, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else, and I thought I'd try to get down some thoughts about why I find the game so compelling.<br />
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Quick basics: Etrian 3 is a first-person dungeon crawler in the style of old school PC games like Wizardry and the early Ultimas - a brutally hard, story-lite descent into a dungeon full of traps and monsters. The genre saw a resurgence in the latter<br />
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half of the Nintendo DS's lifespan, mostly thanks to Atlus realizing that the handheld was a perfect platform for graphically light, gameplay-deep games. The Etrian series' primary 'gimmick' is that you use the DS's touchscreen to draw your own map - a throwback to the old days when players were expected to keep books of graph paper next to the computer or risk getting miserably lost.<br />
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There are several FPRPGs on the DS (besides the Etrian games, the most prominent is probably the excellent Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey). So why does The Drowned City command so much of my attention?<br />
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<b>1) Pick up and put down</b><br />
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One reason I've been giving The Drowned City so much of my time is that it's remarkably considerate of it. Previous games in the series had a nasty tendency to stretch dungeon crawls out to unpleasant lengths in the interest of challenge - you had to keep pushing forward or you'd essentially lose your progress. But TDC's map designers sprinkle shortcuts throughout their levels which can only be accessed for the first time from their more difficult side. This leaves the initial pushes into dungeon floors pleasantly challenging, while making progress easy to resume if you're forced back to town, and bypassing a dungeon floor you've already cleared a snap. And since these shortcuts are invisible, they give a nice bonus to the diligent cartographer, since careful notation is the only way to keep track of where they are.<br />
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The Drowned City also encourages variation in the gameplay experience through the use of the Ocean Exploration metagame. For a small fee, the player can load their party on a boat and explore the oceans around the titular city of Armoroad. Diligent maritime explorers can make money, discover hidden items and equipment, and unlock a series of challenging bonus bosses. Ocean Exploration is light on combat, acting more as a puzzle game, and it works wonderfully to clear the palate after a tricky boss fight or arduous bout of exploration. The only annoyance is that progress in the metagame is staggered by progress in the main game, which can feel stifling at times. But it also makes sense - if the Ocean's primary purpose is distraction, you can't let players burn through it in a single sitting.<br />
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<b>2) Class</b><br />
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The level progression system in The Drowned City is fairly simple - for every level a character gains, they gain a single point that can be invested in their class skills. The innovation comes in the variety of those skills, and the classes that they make up.<br />
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The first Etrian game's classes were vanilla - a melee fighter, a tank, a wizard, a healer, etc. Their roles in the party were clearly defined, with the only tactical ambiguity being that, while the front and back party rows each have 3 slots, the games limit you to 5 characters in a battle party, meaning there will always be gaps that need to be covered with savvy strategy.<br />
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The Drowned City keeps the five-character limit, but mixes the classes in interesting ways. The tank can be optimized to be a massive damage dealer. The primary mezzer (a role that applies status effects to enemies, vital in Etrian's combat) does so by summoning companion animals into the party's sixth slot who then fight as NPC helpers (the sixth slot is also employed by ninjas, melee fighters who can create clones of themselves. The conflict over who gets to USE the sixth slot is one of the interesting ways the game's classes interact).<br />
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The most intriguing of these hybrid classes is the Prince, a kind of passive healer/buffer. The Prince's base abilities are a set of buffs which can increase attack power, protect from status effects, etc. But the rest of his skill tree is devoted to a sort of powerful but slow passive healing. Characters he buffs can regain health. If he removes a debuff placed on a character by an enemy, they regain MP (or, to be technical, TP). And, most usefully, if the Prince is at full health at the end of a round, he emits a party-wide regen effect, perfect for keeping the party in top form but devastating if the Prince takes a hit. The 5-person-party means the Prince will almost certainly be filling the healer role (instead of the Monk, an unarmed combat expert with several direct-healing spells but few buffs), meaning that the entire focus of the party shifts to keeping him (or her, as a Princess) at full health.<br />
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The whole system becomes even more fascinating/complicated when, 10 hours in, the option to subclass becomes available. Each character gets access to the almost-complete skill tree of one other class, allowing you to develop synergies between skills and shore up weaknesses in the build. A Prince can be subclassed to a Monk, to be able to heal himself back up to full so that the party can benefit, or to a Ninja to boost his evade so that he's never hit. The complexities of the skill trees and the subclass system lead to a lot of my time away from the game thinking about what builds and what skills would work together to create an optimal party (or, in some cases, apparently pointless skills make me wonder why they were included at all, leading to excitement when I stumble on a powerful synergy that makes these 'useless' skills incredibly powerful - a late game unlockable class, for instance, relies entirely on inflicting status effects on itself to increases its combat power).<br />
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And you need an optimal party. Or, near-optimal at least. Because:<br />
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<b>3) Challenge</b><br />
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The Drowned City is, as I said, a brutally hard game, something it inherits from its PC forebears. That difficulty comes in two flavors - exploration, and bosses.<br />
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Exploration covers tackling the mazes themselves - solving puzzles, fighting enemies, keeping your characters healthy. The star here is the player's own mapmaking. I know this sounds dumb - like a chore the game designers force upon you - but there is a real thrill in navigating via a map you created yourself. Working out how to best notate traps and dungeon features, leaving notes for yourself - it's just plain fun, and it gives me a real sense of ownership over my exploration.<br />
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Exploration also plays heavily in the game's crafting system. Monsters drop items that you sell in town to get better equipment to kill more monsters to get items to etc., etc., etc. But many monsters have 'conditional' drops - only gained when the monster is, say, killed on the first turn of battle, or killed while their head is bound, or with fire damage. The myriad requirements (most of which are hinted at in the game, although some must be puzzled out on one's own) force the player to keep a diverse set of skills on hand lest they lose access to the most powerful equipment.<br />
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And you'll need that equipment to take down the bosses on display in this game. These are more-or-less perfectly tuned to the level the player should be at to face them (one of the best things about The Drowned City is that, until you reach the endgame, there is almost no reason for a smart player to grind at all). They use powerful moves (that can often be effectively countered if you have the right characters and a proper observation of patterns), status effects (which can be negated if you have the right build), and huge health bars (many of which can be whittled down more quickly if you take advantage of elemental weaknesses). The best thing I can say of the boss designs in The Drowned City is that, after having my ass handed to me by them, my response is never 'That was unfair. I'd better grind some more levels," but "I need to adjust my strategy and pay more attention next time."<br />
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<b>Closing thoughts:</b><br />
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The genesis for this little(?) piece was a brief Twitter conversation Michael Peterson (aka @patchworkearth), author of the reliably fantastic web comic <a href="http://www.projectballad.com/">Project: Ballad</a>, about his difficulties in trying to get into the games. The common point of comparison for us was SMT: Strange Journey, The Drowned City's stiffest competition for the title of best first-person dungeon crawl on the DS (a much prized trophy, no doubt). Strange Journey wins, easily, on the basis of being a game 'about' something - it has loads to say about religion, humanity, environmentalism... But from a strictly gameplay point of view, I find The Drowned City's class-system to be significantly more engaging, and less time-consuming, than Strange Journey's demon summoning/fusion system for gaining access to power and skills. A lot of that has to do with transparency - Strange Journey's system involves a lot of futzing around with fusion guides and skill inheritance rules, while Etrian lets you see every skill a class can get from the moment you create a character. That transparency lets you start planning out strategies from the moment you start, and that planning, for me, is the true heart of the game's appeal.<br />
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<br />Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-52258511335071148862013-02-28T14:05:00.004-08:002013-02-28T14:05:58.313-08:00Game Design Forum's Reversing the Design - Chrono Trigger<a href="http://thegamedesignforum.com/features/reverse_design_CT_1.html">This is a fascinating, thoughtful breakdown of the narrative tricks underpinning the greatest RPG of the SNES era.</a> I loved reading it, and if you're the kind of nerd I am, you will, too.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-69510387078988162132013-02-27T23:05:00.001-08:002013-02-27T23:16:51.590-08:00A Eulogy for JUSTIN BAILEY - How Achievements Killed The Cheat Code<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>This is Part Four of a four-part series of posts on the ways Achievements have changed modern gaming. Click here for parts <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/addicted-to-achievements.html">one</a>, <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-irony-of-good-achievements.html">two</a>, and <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-elephant-and-princess-games-that.html">three</a>.</i><br />
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The Code. You remember it, I'm sure. It was the only way to get through Contra - that merciless destroyer of tiny 8-bit men. It's been <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR4CQXRJHU0">immortalized in song</a>. Hell, it was part of the company's brand identity, back in the day. One suspects it was intentionally designed to lodge in the human brain, given how easy the memory is to summon up even now, with its series of pleasing symmetries. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, (Select if you've got a friend), and Start. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_code">The Konami Code</a>. The holy grail of Cheats.<br />
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Or maybe you were a PC gamer. You've got your own set of holy words burnt into your brain, then, pulled from the early Internet, maybe even copied down from an old BBS. Fire up your shareware copy of Doom, let 'iddqd' and 'idkfa' fly, and breeze your way through the legions of hell, invincible and loaded for bear. Sure, it was cheating, but who were you hurting? Demons. And who gives a damn about them?<br />
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But, honestly, cheat codes weren't really about 'cheating'. Sure, sometimes you wanted to see that impossible-to-reach final boss or skip past your least-favorite level. But more often than not, you put them in because you could. Because they did something weird to the game, something interesting or funny or just <i>different</i>. Every gaming magazine of the era knew to address that impulse with their own Cheat Codes section. There was freedom in 'breaking' the game, in playing it in a way outside the proscribed instructions. And that's not even taking into account hacking or modding the game files, or sticking a <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/12793/how-did-game-genie-work">Game Genie on the end of the cartridge to directly mess with the game's code in unpredictable, weird, awesome ways.</a><br />
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Because 'cheating' implies someone <i>being</i> cheated. You could, if you had a particularly moralistic view on gaming, say you were cheating yourself, I guess, by turning your fragile character into an indestructible juggernaut of death. Fie upon those who ruin the sanctity of Kirby's Pinball Land, right? But really: who was being hurt?<br />
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Fast forward to today, and I ask you: When was the last time you used a cheat code? It's been a while, right?<br />
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The most obvious reason for the fall of the Cheat Code is the rise of online gaming. If you're competing with someone and he or she cheats, you've been screwed - and the designers who put the cheat in the game helped do the screwing. You can even stretch this justification to cover cooperative or open-world online games... There's an assumption in those games that all players are operating from the same playing field (with cheats, despite being part of the game code, being clearly outside that).<br />
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But what about single player games? Or the single-player components of games with multiplayer? Cheats have seemed to vanish here, as well. Vanished, or been replaced with Downloadable Content.<br />
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The answer is, almost none of our games are truly 'single-player' any more. Diablo 3 courted controversy last year when it required an always-on Internet connection to be played, even in its nominal single-player mode, but the trend has been developing for years. The meta-game of Achievement hunting has turned even the most private and introspective of Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 games into pseudo-multiplayer affairs, with the games themselves reporting your movements to the Great Scoreboard in the Sky. And if you cheat in your games, if you alter the parameters of the world to give yourself an advantage, or skip annoying content, or just to do something silly, now you're cheating EVERYBODY. And we can't have that.<br />
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We don't control our games the way we used to. Digital distribution and online multiplayer have raised a lot of questions about what it is, exactly, we're buying when we drop $20 or $40 or $60 on the game. Do we own the rights to all the content on the disc? What about locked DLC, on the DVD but out of our reach without publisher permission? <a href="http://kotaku.com/5661492/is-blizzard-banning-starcraft-ii-players-for-cheating-in-singleplayer">Do we have the right to alter our games as we see fit, or do we have to worry that 'cheating' will get our licenses revoked, our purchase taken away from us</a>*? If we cheat in our single-player game and earn an Achievement, are we breaking the rules of a larger meta-game, and can we expect to be punished for that violation by having our accounts banned, our access to online features blocked? Meta-game elements have been a huge boon to game design and game marketing, but they've leached some of the beautiful freedom out of the past-time.<br />
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And, perhaps most worryingly, we have publishers selling what once would have been free. <a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/15/for-2-99-thq-will-sell-you-a-pack-of-saints-row-3-cheats/">Cheat codes being sold as DLC</a>. <a href="http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/dead-space-3-introduces-microtransactions-but-the-worse-crime-is-against-th">Microtransactions to speed up tedious content.</a> In the old days, the only "price" for this content would have been the knowledge that you were a 'cheater'. (<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TachyonTheFringe?from=Main.TachyonTheFringe">Maybe the game would even mockingly call you one</a>). Now, it's two or three dollars, and a little bit of our control over the games we play.<br />
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But then, I guess it's not <i>really</i> so different. The player seeks a desired outcome, and so they input a special series of keystrokes, and, <i>voila</i>, it's delivered. In the old days, it was a cheat code.<br />
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Today, it's your credit card number.<br />
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*It's worth pointing out that Blizzard, despite my picking on them here, have always been fans of in-game cheats for single-player content, usually with amusingly tongue-in-cheek codes like WhoIsJohnGalt or AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs from Warcraft III. Their Real-Time Strategy games are almost certainly the most prominent examples of games with old-school cheat codes on the market today.Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-32877865719523354682013-02-26T13:24:00.000-08:002013-02-27T23:14:18.558-08:00The Elephant and The Princess - Games that talk about Achievements<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>This is Part Three of a four-part series of posts on the ways Achievements have changed modern gaming. Click here for parts <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/addicted-to-achievements.html">one</a>, <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-irony-of-good-achievements.html">two</a>, and <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-eulogy-for-justin-bailey-how.html">four</a>.</i><br />
<i> </i> <br />
We've talked about Achievements as player motivators. We've discussed the use of Achievements as commentary on the player's actions. Now, I'd like to look at games where that relationship is flipped, where gaming culture's reliance on Achievements is investigated, satirized, parodied.<br />
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Flash games are the perfect place for this kind of discussion to occur, since they're simultaneously a world where Achievements have vastly expanded both playtime and player interest (since they allow a framework of progression/accomplishment to be layered over almost any kind of gameplay), and where the glut of games employing the Achievement mechanic has flooded the market. Beyond that, they're easy to make, nearly budgetless, and almost completely unregulated, meaning that a talented Flash programmer has the freedom to make a 10-minute satire or joke game that a AAA game publisher doesn't.<br />
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Although many, many Flash games have at least a few joke achievements, the most prominent parody of the phenomenon occurs in a game named, fittingly, <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/achievement-unlocked">Achievement Unlocked</a> (along with its <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/achievement-unlocked-2?acomplete=achievment">two</a> <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/ArmorGames/achievement-unlocked-3?acomplete=achievement+unlocked+3">sequels</a>). From the game's description:<br />
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Who needs gameplay when you have ACHIEVEMENTS? Don't worry about beating
levels, finding ways to kill enemies, or beating the final boss...
there are none. Focus solely on your ultimate destiny... doing random
tasks that have nothing to do with anything. Metagame yourself with
ease! Self-satisfaction never felt so... artificial!</div>
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In these games you control an (initially) blue elephant, moving through a single, backgroundless room full of spikes and not much else. The twist is that every single element of the game has at least one associated Achievement - moving, not moving, jumping, dying, interacting with the game's UI, earning Achievements themselves... There are (in the first game) 100 Achievements (even more in the sequels, which increase both the game's size and the intensity of the parody), sometimes so similar to each other that you'll unlock five or six of them with a simple movement. The message is clear: since we're all only playing games to GET Achievements, here, have a big ol' heap of them.</div>
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And yet... Some of the Achievements aren't automatic. Some of them require exploration, puzzle-solving. Others take thought, dexterity, planning to acquire. Some of them, especially in the much-more-elaborate sequels, are actually really fun to find and, well... Achieve. The gigantic, jokey scrollbar of Achievements at the side of the game window stops being a joke, and becomes more of a To-Do list. As such, the game is as much loving homage to Achievements as it is pointed mockery. While many of the Achievements are silly and automatic, the others give the game structure - in fact, in so far as Achievement Unlocked IS a game and not a joke, it's because of its embrace of the system it's simultaneously skewering. </div>
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The message here is clear - meta-gaming, when done thoughtlessly or excessively, is a deserving target or ridicule. But when done correctly, when crafted with thought, they can add flavor and excitement to an otherwise drab game.</div>
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One place where Achievement Unlocked's commentary breaks down, though, is in addressing the compulsive nature of Achievement collection for some players. The games create a mental loop similar to what you see in many of the games it parodies, with the drive to finish the list, get the last Achievement, creating the same urge-for-completion that haunts many modern games. It's hard, I think, for games to comment on that aspect of the play experience, since creating that compulsive desire to play and finish is elemental to so many games. It can feel like biting the hand that feeds to mock the player for excessive play. But I can think of one that accomplishes it*.</div>
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<b>WARNING: THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE GAME BRAID</b></div>
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Jonathan Blow's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_%28video_game%29">Braid</a> is a game that defies easy analysis, with its distant, often contradictory narrative interludes commenting only vaguely on the actual gameplay. But one of the themes that runs throughout the work is the <i>danger</i> of obsession, of the inability to walk away or let go. The main character's need for perfection, his need to find his 'princess,' become so powerful that they warp the nature of time itself. And, in the same way that the game's time-manipulation mechanics reflect on and inform the themes of regret and obsession, the game also contains a series of secrets that comment on the <i>player's</i> need for that same completion.</div>
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Braid does technically have Achievements, but they're very simple - two per level, with one for making it through a level and the other for perfectly completing it, and a final Achievement for completing a difficult time trial mode with sufficient speed. But there are also, hidden <i>deep</i> within the game, a set of secret stars. These are alluded to NOWHERE in the game's meta-structure - there's no hint of them in the Achievements, nothing about them in the manual. The only clue that they exist at all is a constellation of stars in the sky over the game's opening area. But the stars are there, spread throughout the levels, buried off-screen or behind seemingly insurmountable walls. And they will require a gamer's deep obsession to obtain.</div>
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One involves having the patience to wait two and a half hours for an almost-immobile background element to move across the screen. One requires, if you've already completed the game, for you to delete your save and start over. Almost all of them require intense feats of dexterity and skill in non-obvious locations. These stars, these secret Achievements, require you to sweat, strain, hurt yourself, ruin your good time to get. They are not Fun, but they are Necessary For 100% Completion, that perfect, compulsive gamer ideal. And when you have all 7 of them, you can return to the game's final level. A subtly altered version of it, anyway, in which it is possible, with another Herculean effort of planning and dexterity, to ignore every message the game has been trying to tell you, and grab The Princess who is fleeing from your obsessive need. And your reward? She explodes (an allusion to one of the game's other themes, the development of the atomic bomb), and one last star is yours to grab. And then, after going through the normal epilogue, you are returned to the game's title, and now the constellation is filled in. It's a woman, trapped in chains by the stars you achieved through your joyless, obsessive perseverance. Congratulations.</div>
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There are other ways to interpret this, of course, but to me it's always been clear - we were never meant to catch The Princess. The game builds itself, moment by moment, to that realization. By violating that directive, by moving heaven and hell to capture her, the player has overcome the game in its goal of teaching that message. You can see that as a triumph, if you want - the player dominant over the played. But you can also see it as Blow's commentary on the sometimes unpleasantly obsessive mindset that dominates much of gaming... Especially in the era of the Achievement.</div>
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*There are other, less vitriolic examples than the one I focus on here. There's Monkey Island 2's charming <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1XstQdo6d0">List of Things To Do Now That The Game Is Over</a>. And, of course, Earthbound, one of the only games of its era to comment on and parody aspects of the medium, has your character's unseen father periodically calling to remind players to take a break from the game.</div>
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Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6542427713708920848.post-52469299832600090102013-02-21T09:57:00.000-08:002013-02-27T23:13:40.990-08:00Bioshock and the Irony of Good Achievements<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i>This is Part Two of a four-part series of posts on the ways Achievements have changed modern gaming. Click here for parts <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/addicted-to-achievements.html">one</a>, <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-elephant-and-princess-games-that.html">three,</a> and <a href="http://amalgamatedwittering.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-eulogy-for-justin-bailey-how.html">four</a>.</i><br />
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Yesterday I talked a bit about how Achievements give designers a new level of control over player behavior by exploiting the built-in gamer desire for completion/fulfillment/seeing the little bars fill up. If you want players to explore your entire gameworld, or try a different tactic, or just (in the worst case scenario) play your game for longer than they otherwise would, you attach an achievement to it. BAM, instantly your audience is incentivized to produce the desired behavior. In all these scenarios, the Achievements are a control system sitting metaphorically 'over' the game. There is the game itself, designed with a particular aesthetic, and then there are the Achievements, telling you from outside the game how it should be played (many games don't even include their Achievements list within them, instead shunting you to the Dashboard/Steam Overlay/Etc if you want to peruse them).* This is fine, I guess, but it can be distracting and harmful to the experience - turning a medium that is fundamentally about choice into an <a href="http://www.xbox360achievements.org/guides/retail/">exercise in checklist-filling</a>.**<br />
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I had an experience, though, in one of the first Achievement-enabled games I ever played, that makes me think that they don't have to stay that way. That instead of simply dictating player behavior, Achievements can instead comment on, interact with it - become part of the dialogue between player and designer.<br />
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<b>THE FOLLOWING ANECDOTE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BIOSHOCK. IF YOU HAVE SOMEHOW NEVER PLAYED BIOSHOCK, YOU SHOULD GET A TIME MACHINE AND GO DO THAT</b><br />
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Bioshock is, despite the way it's presented, a game with very few actual choices. In fact, if the game has a thesis, it's something like 'The vast majority of choices, especially those presented in video games, are an illusion.' But there IS one choice that always stuck with me, because unlike the binary Save/Kill Little Sisters mechanic, this one felt real, and meaningful.<br />
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Roughly halfway through the game, my quest for vengeance against mad capitalist Andrew Ryan was hijacked. My mission control, Atlas, was cut off from contact, and replaced by the macabre artist Sander Cohen. Cohen had some tasks he'd like me to do, before he'd allow me to continue on my journey. And because this was Bioshock, and because I was a gamer holding a controller, I didn't have any choice in performing them.<br />
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So I wandered around Cohen's bailiwick, tracking down his former apprentices, fighting off Splicers and Big Daddys as I went. When I found one of Cohen's 'betrayers' - often trapped in some cruel torture of the artist's design, I killed them - no choice involved. And then, on Cohen's direction, I pulled out a camera and took a lurid photo of the corpse. Cohen wanted them for his 'masterpiece,' a testament to his bloodthirsty desire for revenge. Once they were all dead, I returned to Cohen's lair and placed the pictures into their waiting frames.<br />
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Suddenly, the lights went out. A booming voice rang across the room, and a figure appeared on an upper balcony. Sander Cohen, in the bunny-masked flesh. Confetti flew and music swelled as a spotlight followed him down a staircase so that he could bask in the completion of his masterpiece. The madman and torturer thanked me for my meager assistance, unlocked a case containing my reward, and then told me, pointedly, to go. And then a very curious thing happened.<br />
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He just stood there. Annoyed, but unthreatening. Not hiding behind bulletproof glass or on a TV screen or any of those other ways games hide characters from the player to save the precious NPCs from our sociopathic urges to kill. And I realized that, if I wanted to, I <i>could</i> kill Cohen. Kill him for his cruelty, for his madness, for using me as a pawn in his sick games. Or I could go. Walk away freely, move on with the game.*** I could spare him, if so inclined.<br />
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I wasn't.<br />
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I pulled out a shotgun and blasted him, starting a short boss fight. Cohen teleported around the room, launching fireballs at me, but he was just another Splicer, and by this time I was very good at putting down Splicers. And so, eventually, he fell. And when his corpse was lying on his grand staircase, I did something that felt both a little odd and very right. I pulled out my camera, and I took a picture of the bastard's corpse.<br />
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<i><b>*beep-boop* Achievement Unlocked - Irony.</b></i><br />
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It felt like the game had read my mind. Like the designers and I had shared a quiet smile across time and space. <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything">They had, without explicitly guiding my choice, anticipated and rewarded it, and the moment felt, for lack of a better word... telepathic.</a> That's the moment when I realized that Achievements weren't just tools for player control - they could also function as part of the tone and texture of the work in their own right. As a dialogue with players, acknowledging interesting choices on the player's part instead of simply dictating them.<br />
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It's absolutely vital to the emotional power of this moment - <b>I didn't know this was going to happen</b>.<i><b> </b></i>The Achievement was a 'Secret' one, its name and conditions unviewable until it had been obtained. If I had looked at an Achievement list, if I had taken the photo because "That's how you get the Achievement," the entire experience would have been cheapened. I would have been a robot, following the script laid out in the "Road Map" to Achievements, instead of a player making a choice and having that choice acknowledged by the game.<br />
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And that's my point, I guess. Games are already good at telling players what to do. Their power, the one we're still discovering, comes from inviting players to do what they wish, and then supporting those decisions. If Achievements are going to become an actual, meaningful tool for game design, instead of an intrusive way to control the player, they're going to have to become reactive to player behavior, instead of demanding of it.<br />
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* There's an interesting phenomenon that's still largely confined to the realm of Flash games, although I've started seeing it in mobile/casual titles like the excellent <a href="http://eightyeightgames.com/">10,000,000</a> - rotating Achievements. The player is given a set of three objectives, and once one of those is completed, a new, usually harder one takes its place. This means, essentially, that the goal of 'good' play is constantly shifting, allowing an inherently static gameplay experience (like the 'Launcher' genre of games) to become more dynamic. The developer Juicy Beast is a pioneer of this technique, and if you want to see it in action (and don't mind losing a few hours of your life to gummi-squishing nonsense), I recommend their game <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/JuicyBeast/burrito-bison-revenge">Burrito Bison Revenge</a>.<br />
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**I stumbled onto that site while I was trying to remember the name of the Achievement I detail at length here. I'm not going to lie - I find the entire concept of an Achievement 'Road Map' to be pretty hideous. If games are about choice, then a document that lays out exactly how you should play to maximize a fake metric like Gamerscore is, to me, the opposite of gaming. I get that people have limited time and don't want to replay a game to get all the Achievements, but... come on, people.<br />
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*** If Cohen isn't fought, he'll show up in an optional later sequence. There is, *sigh* an 'optimal' way to handle him that gets you the most loot, but I didn't know about it at the time, allowing my choice to be made from emotion, and not calculation. (This is especially important because the game's central "Morality" system, the Little Sisters, was more-or-less ruined for me by the fact that the morally 'correct' choice was also the one that provided me with the most resources - no sacrifice required). Willhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00912226752069281265noreply@blogger.com0