What would you consider a solid lower limit on APM?
― Andrew Farrell, Friday, 21 July 2017 12:37 (six years ago) link
It's quality not quantity.
― Mordy, Friday, 21 July 2017 12:46 (six years ago) link
The gameplay consists of googling keywords and watching the videos that come up
Right yep and chess isn't much of a game because the gameplay consists of pushing bits of plastic around on a table.
Gameplay just isn't a useful term here. The game in Her Story is "try to think of search terms that will uncover bits of the story you've not uncovered already". I enjoyed playing it.
― JimD, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:05 (six years ago) link
And yeah if you've read more than two books in your life you'll guess how the story ends, but that didn't spoil anything for me, it was the process that was enjoyable rather than the plot.
― JimD, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:08 (six years ago) link
"games" are not easily definable but a simple definition that i think works is "an artificial goal with obstacles to surmount." this includes chess (the goal is winning, the obstacle is checkmating your opponent's king without being checkmated yourself), athletic competition, card games, games of luck (which contain obstacles even tho skill is often not required), and most things we call "video games," including things like interactive fiction that have meaningful choices and/or puzzles to solve. however games that are "walking simulators" are more complicated. is it really a game if there's no gameplay? it resembles a video game in that there are mediated images that you control/traverse to some extent but if there's no goal and there are no obstacles is there really a game? admittedly Her Story has a v minor ludic element in that u do guess keywords to try and find clips you haven't seen yet. but there's no win state, and the obstacle is not particularly interesting or challenging. there are no meaningful choices. i assume everyone here would agree that if it were just the video in one long clip and you didn't interact with it at all - that's surely not a "game." so the game bit is that you google the keywords to see more of the video. it's maybe arguably a game but i don't think anyone should be horrified that there's an opinion out there that it's not much of one.
― Mordy, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:13 (six years ago) link
there's no win state
Well there's no compulsory win state but there's an optional "unlock every single clip" target which I ended up going for. So yeah that might have changed the experience for me to an extent, to be fair.
The walking simulator argument is a different one, the answer there is really just "yeah it's not a game, it's something else, what's the problem with that?"
― JimD, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:22 (six years ago) link
no problem w/ it at all! that would be like if someone said "hey i really enjoyed playing war and peace" and i was like "hey great novel not really a game." it's lack of gameness doesn't mean it's not a great novel. it just means that if you're looking to /play/ something you might not get fulfillment from reading it.
― Mordy, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:26 (six years ago) link
i think the term 'visual novel', if it didn't come with weird baggage, would be a pretty good way to describe a lot of these things e.g. night in the woods, kentucky route zero, etc - they all have 'gameplay' insofar as you're navigating the game's physical space and making dialog choices that can affect how you experience the story - night in the woods even has platforming segments that put it further into the grey area. but there's not really any way to get 'stuck', no challenges to fail.
― ciderpress, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:45 (six years ago) link
i just hate the term 'walking simulator' is what i guess i'm trying to say here - it's a mocking term that doesn't really capture what these games are about
― ciderpress, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:48 (six years ago) link
That's fair and I like all sorts of IF games that have barely any gameplay (Photopia, Telltale games). If it didn't so heavily imply text games IF would be serviceable for almost all these.
― Mordy, Friday, 21 July 2017 13:57 (six years ago) link
yeah i like IF even better than visual novel as a term actually
― ciderpress, Friday, 21 July 2017 14:02 (six years ago) link
There are more and more VR things which aren't gamey in any way, and those just keep getting referred to as "experiences". I'm pretty much fine with that, it doesn't even imply a narrative, just an environment.
― JimD, Friday, 21 July 2017 14:18 (six years ago) link
that's part of my problem with 'walking simulator' is it implies environment over narrative when the best ones are more about storytelling
― ciderpress, Friday, 21 July 2017 14:27 (six years ago) link
i hope VR will cause a resurgence of in-game characters addressing the player directly a la Sewer Shark.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 21 July 2017 15:07 (six years ago) link
i love the term "walking simulator" cos it often points me towards things i'd be interested in
we could distinguish between two kinds of ludic objects: games and toys, where games are generally as Mordy describes them upthread and toys lack innate goal-orientation or even challenge. some video games are really toys, and that's fine, and one way of identifying the difference is how we talk about "gameplay".
― In Search of the Turricle's Navel (Noodle Vague), Friday, 21 July 2017 15:29 (six years ago) link
to be less reductive, it's possible to interact with a lot of games as toys and vice versa - it's not two Platonic forms, it's two kinds of interaction
― In Search of the Turricle's Navel (Noodle Vague), Friday, 21 July 2017 15:31 (six years ago) link
Perhaps a definition of 'game' is impossible, there's no necessary and sufficient criteria. Perhaps there's just some sort of 'family resemblance' *cough*
― Eallach mhór an duine leisg (dowd), Friday, 21 July 2017 18:59 (six years ago) link
HL2
and it's still awesome today
― PressAnarchyToContinue (Ste), Friday, 21 July 2017 20:01 (six years ago) link
I made an eBay impulse buy of an Oculus Rift DK2, so have finally actually played some Elite: Dangerous, having bought it in the Steam Winter Sale. Not sure what I think of the game yet, but VR is pretty amazing.
― CraigG, Saturday, 22 July 2017 07:34 (six years ago) link
Oops, Zing Touch double-post
― CraigG, Saturday, 22 July 2017 07:35 (six years ago) link
what's elite like in VR? i haven't played it since the first mid-80s version. still waiting for the first truly unmissable VR game, is this it? currently have gear VR but willing to upgrade when price+content level out.
― NI, Saturday, 22 July 2017 13:50 (six years ago) link
I'm still at the point where I'm just kind of amazed when a ship flies out of 'view' and I can just look over my shoulder and track its movements, etc. So the game is blowing my mind a little, but that's mostly because VR.
I totally couldn't justify full price VR (though the oculus summer sale is intriguing), but I paid £100 for the Dev Kit V2 (which is slightly lower resolution than the consumer version), which felt like an ok entry price.
I used to love Elite back on my Amiga, so as long as I can get away with living a trader lifestyle and fighting the occasional pirate - as it seems possible so far - I think it'll be great. Feels like proper escapism in VR
― CraigG, Saturday, 22 July 2017 15:00 (six years ago) link
Shovel Knight, which is fun. I played through the main campaign with no problems, but now I'm trying the Plague of Shadows expansion and I literally can't make the first jump on the first level. I seriously tried for like 10 minutes to jump over a wall.
― Dan I., Saturday, 22 July 2017 19:50 (six years ago) link
I, too, look forward to the day when I can be rubbish at games and it will be as if I'm really being rubbish at things.
― Eallach mhór an duine leisg (dowd), Saturday, 22 July 2017 20:12 (six years ago) link
i bought valkyria chronicles a long time ago and somehow drifted off before i even finished the first chapter.i have now drifted back to the shores of valkyria and i'm enjoying it quite a bit. there are way too many story scenes. i don't mind them that much, the writing and acting are about slightly above average (still pretty bad but the world is interesting enough to capture my attention. but instead of one story segment between stories there are often 4 or 5 stories in a row and it really drags things down. i think i'd be more psychologically prepared for them if they'd just combine all the brief mandatory story segments between missions into a single, longer segment.
― Karl Malone, Saturday, 22 July 2017 20:16 (six years ago) link
I'm playing Final Fantasy VI. It's good!
― he not like the banana (Stevie D(eux)), Saturday, 22 July 2017 21:49 (six years ago) link
ya damn right it is!
― Nhex, Saturday, 22 July 2017 21:56 (six years ago) link
Is it really???
― Mordy, Saturday, 22 July 2017 21:59 (six years ago) link
yes. ultros be praised
― Nhex, Saturday, 22 July 2017 22:05 (six years ago) link
Oh nm u said VI I spaced and thought I were talking about most recent one yeah VI is great
― Mordy, Saturday, 22 July 2017 22:18 (six years ago) link
You*
I grew up on jrpgs but never actually played chrono trigger, maybe I'll do that after whining my way through rdr
― qualx, Saturday, 22 July 2017 23:17 (six years ago) link
Assassin's Creed IV. so nice to sail through these digital tropics, exploring random little islands, diving for sunken treasure, etc. this game is still stunning. best ship battles in video games! i never finished this the first time though. looking forward to checking out the DLC.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 23 July 2017 20:34 (six years ago) link
Like "walking simulator". Like a lot of originally derogatory terms, it can be embraced, and its less cumbersome than alternatives (immersive environment, virtual narrative etc).
I played the *Elite* beta for quite a while using TrackIR, which still seems like a better match than VR for flight-sims where most objects are distant and control panels have lots of tiny text. If I had an Oculus, I'd be most interested in loading up *Subnautica* (underwater survival horror).
PUBG remains fun for blowing off steam, and has become quite a marketing phenomenon (400k concurrent users for an Early Access game). Friend me (NotThisWay on steam) if you'd like to team up.
― полезные дурак (Sanpaku), Monday, 24 July 2017 00:00 (six years ago) link
I'm mostly still fucking with the Friday the 13th game, despite the many issues with playing this game on Xbox.
― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Monday, 24 July 2017 01:07 (six years ago) link
oh hell qualx u in for a treat. ct is the sweetest fruit on the jrpg tree.
― flippy bard (Will M.), Monday, 24 July 2017 22:07 (six years ago) link
I generously gave a friend of mine my old CD copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon + expansion packs. After I'd set it up for him on his laptop, we played for a bit and it was so fucking great I immediately went home and bought the Deluxe version off Steam.
― PressAnarchyToContinue (Ste), Tuesday, 25 July 2017 09:04 (six years ago) link
Just finished Inside, and what a finish! Still not quite sure what to make of it.
― André Ryu (Neil S), Tuesday, 25 July 2017 10:26 (six years ago) link
― Eallach mhór an duine leisg (dowd), Friday, July 21, 2017 11:59 AM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yo otm
― softie (silby), Tuesday, 25 July 2017 15:04 (six years ago) link
backlog update: did Batman: Arkham Origins DLC "Cold Cold Heart". appraisal: Not bad.
― Nhex, Tuesday, 25 July 2017 21:41 (six years ago) link
― flippy bard (Will M.), Monday, July 24, 2017 6:07 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
it's not an active member of my backlog so it might be hard to justify rn
i also really wanna play through suikoden 1 and 2 for the first time in... 15 years?
― qualx, Tuesday, 25 July 2017 23:28 (six years ago) link
I am playing Pyre, the new game from Supergiant (the Bastion/Transistor folks) and it is AMAZING. the game essentially plays like a hybrid of the Oregon Trail and NBA Jam, except it's presented in some fantasy setting; you might think that such disparate elements might not gel that well together but you would be incredibly wrong, because this is a brutally easy game to just keep playing (I went for ~4 hours last night pretty much without blinking). it is also one of the most beautiful games I can remember seeing on my TV in a while; if P5 hadn't also come out this year it would be a massive frontrunner for the best-looking game of 2017. A++++++++, please play it.
Nex Machina, the new game from Housemarque, is also fucking phenomenal (not that anything less could be expected from that amazing team). apparently it was developed as a collaboration with Eugene Jarvis, the guy behind Robotron & Smash TV, so it's pretty solid fundamentally. highly recommended if you are an enthusiast of explosions and/or shooting stuff.
I have also been tinkering around with the PS4 Diablo 3 again lately; I picked up the necromancer expansion on a whim recently and got sucked right back into the best version of this excellent game.
finally Miitopia came out last night; I was only able to sink an hour or so into it but my love for the demo absolutely carries over. it's essentially Tomodachi Life, only with a point.
― thos beads (jamescobo), Friday, 28 July 2017 16:01 (six years ago) link
I got hooked on Pyre last night, it's really great.
― badg, Tuesday, 1 August 2017 17:00 (six years ago) link
horizon zero dawn
― Mordy, Tuesday, 1 August 2017 17:23 (six years ago) link
the game essentially plays like a hybrid of the Oregon Trail and NBA Jam
― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Tuesday, 1 August 2017 17:25 (six years ago) link
Pyre is pretty great (only about 2-3 hours in)"the you know who prevail"
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 2 August 2017 05:00 (six years ago) link
i only wish i could just skip all the story stuff. i get that it's trying to be a rpg, but god i hate this kind of shit
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 2 August 2017 05:02 (six years ago) link
the music and overall sound design is excellent
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 2 August 2017 05:03 (six years ago) link
the fun factor is 4.5 out of 5