T w e n t y S i d e d

I’m really starting to warm up to Larry. Last episode he tried to kill Lee, but today he’s just arguing to leave strangers to die, demanding food in a threatening manner, and being incredibly incompetent. If he keeps improving like this then in another two or three episodes he might only be the second most horrible person alive.

Still, I have to give the game credit. Larry is the good sort of antagonist. (If not antagonist, then antagonizing character, if you feel the need to split that particular hair.) He fits in the world and he has his reasons for being the way he is. As Roger Ebert loves to say, he’s the guy you love to hate.

I do wonder what the group is doing here. Kenny’s truck was just out of gas, but it should still work. (Remember we left it about a block from the pharmacy.) If the food is running low, why aren’t we on the road? As we’ll find out tomorrow, we have fuel now so we’re free to leave. This place is a dead end. I know Kenny is trying to fix up the RV, although the only reason to fix the RV is so we have enough space for everyone. But certainly a couple of people could go in the pickup and forage for food.

These questions aren’t central to the story or anything. This situation is perfectly plausible. It’s just that the odd time-jump between episodes left me wondering what I’d missed and how we arrived at this particular set of circumstances.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

I thought the girl who wanted to die was a really interesting conversation. If you think about it, people would indeed spend a lot of time cooking up theories on what was happening and why. Like, that would most likely be the new #1 water cooler conversation everywhere, forever. It would probably break down into a few camps:

1. This plague is the punishment of an angry God or a fulfillment of some prophesy.
2. This is the result of magic / demonic stuff but was brought about by humans.
3. This plague is made by the government and was released on accident, or for nefarious purposes.
4. This plague is the result of alien intervention or stuff from space. (Meteorites and such.)
5. It doesn’t mean anything / it was just random chance / we can never know the truth / shut up and stop talking about it.

You think people go crazy thinking about who shot JFK? People hate unanswered questions. Just imagine how much more people would fixate on the question of What killed everyone in the world?

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Late in this episode we compare The Walking Dead to Dead Island. Here’s my review of the latter, if you’re curious. Here is the original Dead Island trailer, which caused such a fuss and led to unrealistic expectations for the game.

That game is pretty much my poster child for soulless AAA game development. Uncanny valley photorealism. Big-budget production values. Tacked-on leveling mechanics that actually detract from the core experience. Horrible kinesthetics. Loads of bugs. Lame-ass quests. Dissonant storytelling that can’t seem to present a coherent tone, theme, or plot. Jarring cutscenes that don’t mesh with the world. Completely unbalanced mechanics where one class is objectively better than another and all classes are rendered pointless by the kick action. Cringe-inducing pop-culture references. Shockingly awful character designs. Huge marketing push that was almost completely at odds with the game itself. A late entry into an oversaturated genre.

Millions of dollars were spent to produce and sell a game that just wasn’t worth playing. It would be like spending half a million bucks to make a solid gold Prius, and then not bothering to make sure the engine works. It’s heartbreaking to see so much money and hard work poured into producing such an unworthy product.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Walking Dead EP4: I LOVE Candy Bars!”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Here is episode three of Spoiler Warning’s coverage of episode one of the first season of The Walking Dead, which is the third incarnation of the source material and the tenth season of Spoiler Warning.

I think it would have been an interesting idea to make the stupid evil nutjob a different person from the insufferable abrasive loudmouth bully. Right now the deck is stacked so hard against Larry because he’s wrong, unreasonable, and rude. I wonder how things would go with players if the guy arguing to kill the kid was doing so in a detached, clinical manner, and the person against it was being emotional and irrational. Instead of saying, “Let’s wait until we find a bite”, they could be simply making appeals to emotion and denying that a bite was possible. How many people would lean one way because they want to side with the voice of reason, or the other way because it’s the more reasonable thing to do? With time pressure and uncertainty, you might be able to nudge some people into considering the “kill the kid” side of the debate.

Here, Larry wants to kill a little kid without even waiting to find a bite. He’s so eager to do this that he’s practically taunting the parents. The whole exchange is why I quit watching the TV show. The danger here isn’t from the zombies but from one person being completely unreasonable. His insistence that everyone stop and murder a child without even waiting to find a bite or see any symptoms is ludicrous.

Early in the show I accuse Lily of being “irredeemably evil”. Here’s why: (Spoilers for next week.)

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Walking Dead EP3: The Only Winning Move”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.