rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

Well, some people would prefer to explain statistics like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games#Genre_preferences as being a reflection of the game's content. I think it's neurological. As for that sub-category, "atmospheric exploration"-- I can't think of a game more suited than Myst to be credited with effectively creating that genre

i think myst's a pretty linear evolution from high infocom. certainly all the zorks except maybe beyond (but def zero) count as "atmospheric exploration"-- so do enchanter, planetfall, starcross etc. (and before infocom, colossal cave). suspect these games were played by a lot of women too.

the sierra/lucasarts/westwood/revolution games took their cues from the less exploratory, more linear stuff, full of npcs and jokes-- hitchhiker's, leather goddesses, sorcerer. (the first couple king's quests count as "exploratory" maybe but aren't v atmospheric.) and when zork first made the jump to real graphics (literally a week before myst) it was more like those (or like beyond zork) than it was like 1/2/3/0: full of fmv characters and inventory items. and maybe most importantly, its interface was full of contextual popup text commands chosen from menus-- more elegant than lucasarts SCUMM interfaces of its time imo, but not more than the refined eye/hand/mouth SCUMM in full throttle and curse of monkey island-- while myst popularized a seamless mode of interaction so much more native to graphical adventures that it was immediately adopted not just by all its ripoffs but by both subsequent graphical zork games. the fully appropriate newborn simplicity of "click on what you want to touch" was the graphical-adventure analogy to "the computer asks you what you want to do and you type a reply", but i think the latter was fully as "accessible" in its day (scaled down for the pre-macintosh, pre-cdrom era) and led a lot of women around a lot of desolate and eerie environments.

otm tho that just being in this otherworld, wandering around it when "stuck", is a/the major appeal in this and its precedents. myst understood this v well, which is why the box said MYST THE SURREALISTIC ADVENTURE THAT WILL BECOME YOUR WORLD.

dc is otm about the puzzles in myst, which are often v grounded and physical-- the best "ages" are designed around you figuring out how they "work" holistically-- i.e. directing the water flow in channelwood where you need it; or understanding the sound codes in whatever the world w the sound codes is called (btw i think the article above mentions that myst requires you to draw maps-- this is infamously a tell that the player did not understand the sound codes). however there are also plenty of codes gratuitously concealed in v strange places (planetarium roof, engraved plaques in power generator, distant horizon etc.) that without sinking to the 7th guest's level of I AM THE DEMENTED PUZZLEMASTER! WELCOME TO MY PUZZLEMANSION are not always exactly what you would call elegant.

what is elegant is riven, which is a stone masterpiece of eerie ruin exploration in which all puzzles and obstacles are fully integrated into the physical fiction, in which everything is about figuring out how the place works. the rightful heir to zork 2 or enchanter and hugely surpasses both. interesting to read that article on false late-90s memories of myst "killing" adventure games because of course what killed adventure games was the ridiculous excesses of the sierra/lucasarts model (williams+jensen always get blamed for this, but the strangely canonized the longest journey is a perfect example of decadence, as are all the monkey islands after... well take yr pick, and tbph as are the puzzles in grim fandango, to say nothing of the interface). if anyone had made a better game than riven the genre might have gone somewhere.

Great post

I never played Riven! I remember reading, when it came out, critical drubbings, and deciding not to sink my allowance into it.

I never thought about what "killed" the adventure game genre! But it's interesting to consider. For me, the extreme high-points in that format (Monkey Island, Tentacle, SQ3, KQ3) just were never surpassed by subsequent games. What was so good about the high-points was the lack of "rendered graphics" that made GK2 and KQ5 decidedly unlovely, the lack of speech that only created excruciating, spell-breaking loading times (SQ4, SQ5), really poor puzzle design (Sam & Max, Full Throttle). What was lost was fluidity. Even latter-day celebrants in the genre (Silent Hill 2, Monkey 3) felt clunky and inelegant. But man, those highs were high. SQ3 and Monkey Island are just amazing, and I don't think I've ever felt such a sense of accomplishment in a game as I did when I finally killed Manannan in KQ3

yeah kq3 is prob the unheralded sierra great. i'm biased tho cause it's the first computer game i can vividly remember arriving in our house, that fancy fancy box on the kitchen table, me not knowing how to pronounce "heir." i spent hours and hours and hours with that game. every environment is burned into my brain, it informed the way i thought crystal balls and the interiors of pirate ships should look, the way i thought rope ladders should unfurl from treehouses, a long-term affinity for orphan-raised-by-evil-wizard scenarios.... so great. even the bullshit of climbing up and down that mountain was worth it for how it enhanced the urgency of getting home before manannan returned - oh god i gotta stash this stuff under my bed and fast - and the triumph once you can come and go as you please. if you know what you're doing probably you can beat the whole game in like one trip down the mountain and back, but of course the first time through i lived out weeks and weeks of gwydion's sad little life. all the atmosphere a six- or seven-year-old could ever ask for.

i remember riven being mindblowing to me at the time, it's certainly an improvement on myst

grim fandango ended up winning me over once they rereleased it with modern controls, that's probably my favorite game in the genre now

fwiw The Witness is very intriguing and looks like it plays like what my dream version of Myst would be.

it's got the same vibe but the puzzles are quite different

never really played myst, though i watched others; i suspect that myst was atmosphere first, puzzles second; the witness is more the other way round - still has atmos and sense of discovery in spades though.

Was it someone here who recommended the crazy James Howell MGS2 Big Boss runthrough/commentary? It's pretty fascinating in a super dry way

I like his Last of Us videos!

His meaning James Howell.

I didn't know he did some, gotta check that out.

https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2018/05/02/caregiver-fantasy/

that was great

Every Mission is a Suicide Mission

https://longreads.com/2018/08/07/galaga/

The Bandai Namco documentation shared with me refers to Galaga’s original design as “simple, yet deep.” Its elegance lies in its ability to insist upon a high level of integrity in the gameplay. This is not a game that can be “point-pressed” by running up the score with needless actions. In Donkey Kong, by contrast, a player can mindlessly leap extra barrels for more points. Donkey Kong also boxes players in with a terminal “kill screen,” the interval where the game board simply doesn’t have the memory to continue play. The same is true of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. Scrambled code appears on the monitor and the game resets. Limited in such a way, the pursuit of a high score divorces itself from the game’s purpose: Dicking around with extra barrels has nothing to do with saving the princess. On Galaga’s hardest settings, however, the objective of the game and the achievement of a score are inextricably bound together. A high score is the product of existing well. At lunch a couple of days before ScoreWars, Mark tells me that’s the reason he loves the game: “It’s all on me.”

this is the comparative analysis i crave

ooooooo

great great article

Yes

https://www.shacknews.com/article/103473/beneath-a-starless-sky-pillars-of-eternity-and-the-infinity-engine-era-of-rpgs

brief twitter threads worth reading

every quarter, some of my students are familiar with the first video game easter egg. (warren robinett's name hidden in an extremely difficult-to-access room in 1980's Adventure for the atari vcs.) none of them know the connection it has to labor rights.

— ☽ anna anthropy ☾ (@adult_witch) October 22, 2018

http://videogamesdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/180100803290/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry

cool stuff

the insularity of jp devs' middleware extended pretty much all the way up until the past several years where they're now starting to adopt unreal engine en masse which is an interesting development

Great article, thanks for that

i can't recommend this series enough. very heavy on images.
Tracing the Influence: Stolen Images in Games

for example:

https://i.imgur.com/P3nF4yM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4Jrg5yk.jpg

great find!

https://gamehistory.org/simcity/
With soundtrack, sprites and 1991 prototype NES Sim City ROM!

that is really cool!

Yeah that was awesome!

this guy's obsession with fitting all the Mario universe games into a coherent timeline is entertaining

https://tay.kinja.com/tag/warped-pipes

Great stuff !

“Firstly, did the brothers actually even go on this journey together? Unlike its predecessor, The Lost Levels does not have a multiplayer mode and instead has players choose which character to play as at the start of the game. Also to the same point, the Princess specifically says “Our only hero” in the game’s conclusion. Is it possible that both brothers undertake this journey but separately and that only one succeeds in actually saving the Princess? Or are there even more timelines at work here then we realize? This will definitely be something to ponder moving forward.”

if he hasn't figured out the Four Marios theory then he's gonna run into problems

MUSHROOM KINGDOM HAS 4-CORNER SIMULTANEOUS 4-PIPE MARIO CUBE

Enjoyed this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlLPbLdHAJ0

i know there are no good podcasts but suspend disbelief for a second...

are there any ‘ good ‘ gaming podcasts

thats pretty broad, what in particular are you interested in?

like news vs reviews vs analysis/deep dives into games

hardcoregaming101's top games of all time series would be great deep dives if they would only let the people talk who are good at podcasting and at playing with others.

the only gaming podcast i ever listen to is three moves ahead which is a strategy podcast that mostly talks about strategy video games but sometimes board games too. it's... ok.

the only gaming podcast i ever listen to is three moves ahead which is a strategy podcast that mostly talks about strategy video games but sometimes board games too. it's... ok.

argh dreaded doublepost

i used to listen to one shot which is a tabletop podcast but the RPG wasn't particularly good and the improv wasn't particularly funny. i'd like to follow something like three moves ahead but for tabletop/RPGs

ive been meaning to check this out http://electricunderground.io/podcast/
based on the blog posts ive read on the site, it looks to be a very in-depth podcast about shmups

that being said, this is worth reading: http://electricunderground.io/is-low-latency-emulation-cheating/

i am also interested in the subject of gaming podcasts, i have never heard a good one

tho i find pretty much all books/film/media convo/review podcasts incredibly tedious

yeah thats my general feeling as well

like the 'personality-driven' review/podcast outlets like giant bomb or easy allies are real popular, but ime none of them are particularly insightful enough or share my taste enough to be worth my time

Pretty into the GI cast these days, although I mostly watch it on youtube. I see it as more of a workplace comedy than a podcast, per se.

the sad thing is that anybody who REALLY knows enough, and can put it together well enough and with interesting enough takes, to justify a podcast, should probably be doing something more lucrative with those skills. i'd love to know what longworth of "you must remember this"'s work week looks like --- does she make enough off of ad reads to justify all the reading the show implies, not to mention the work of writing a proper documentary script? most conversational podcasts would be way better as edited transcripts or just essays, but that's a lot more work and i'm not paying anybody so...

GI?

xpost i don't know her figures but i'd be shocked if you must remember this doesn't make pretty good money. but that's a globally known, hit podcast. you're right that there are easier ways to make a buck. particularly if you're starting from scratch.

yeah I mean I bet she's doing good with it now but it's more like, how do you put that much work into it for so long while building that audience?

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