T w e n t y S i d e d
In World of Goo, incompetence kills. Actually, competence kills too, just slightly less.
Sessler’s Soapbox: Innovation Vs. Numeration
Adam Sessler of G4TV has a regular video op-ed titled “Sessler’s Soapbox”. He’s a reviewer who is obliged to give numeric scores to games, and here he clearly comes out against them.
G4TV.com
But what really caught my attention was the part at the beginning where he talks about the difficulty of a game and how it does (or doesn’t) figure in to a review score. This is one of those subjects that calls for a thousand words or none, and I don’t have time for a thousand words. The best I can manage right now is to gesture wildly in Adam’s direction and say, “What he has said is significant.”
Sierpinski Triangle
When I was about 15 years old, I ran into the following set of directions:
- Take a piece of paper.
- Mark 3 dots on it. They can be anywhere, but for aesthetic reasons it is common to pick three points that will form an equilateral triangle. Number these points 1 through 3.
- Get yourself a 3-sided die. (Or use a d6 and divide by 2.)
- Begin at one of the corners. This is your “current” position. Roll your d3, to select one of the points. Measure the distance between your current position and the chosen corner and put a dot at the exact halfway point between the two. This is your new current position.
- Sit there for a few hours or days repeating step #4: (Your current position moves, pick a corner, move halfway from where you are to the chosen corner, and make a dot, etc.) For best results, use a good ruler and a nice sharp writing instrument.
When I heard this at 15, I expected that what you would end up with is a mass of dots in the middle of the paper, dense in the middle and thinning out towards the edges. This is not what you get at all. In fact, as long as you follow the directions you will never ever place a dot anywhere near the middle of that triangle. What you actually end up with is a Sierpinski Triangle:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Sierpinski Triangle”
GameScience Dice
Here is a video (broken into two parts) from GameScience, where one Colonel Louis Zocchi makes the case that standard gaming dice are not very accurate (that is, not very random) and that his dice (this is part of a sales pitch, mind you) will perform better during play.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “GameScience Dice”
Stolen Pixels #43:
Build More Prisons
Wherein I deliver a verbal beating to a bunch that has been just begging for it.
Silent Hill Homecoming:
Down is the new Up
To the person in charge of the inputs in Silent Hill Homecoming:
Dear Sir,
You are a mountebank and an idiot. Whoever gave you command of a compiler did a grave disservice not just to your software product, but to the industry as a whole. I am referring, of course, to the blatant and willful omission of a feature to allow the user to invert the y-axis, so that pressing forward results in looking down, and contrary-wise, pulling back will result in looking up. This is a feature offered by every other such product you might care to name, including all of the previous works bearing the "Silent Hill" moniker. I have spent several hours in a state of constant agitation because I cannot comfortably make use of your softwares.
I can only conclude this was an act of calculated malice, the work of an eager and spiteful reprobate. The effort required to multiply the y-axis by negative one is childishly trivial compared to the effort required to overcome eighteen years of muscle memory, which is what it seems you're asking me to do in order to play your video amusement product.
And do not attempt to claim that this was merely an oversight. You clearly offer the option to invert said axis whilst aiming. Thus you are aware of the need for this feature. I can make the controls behave the way I desire during combat, but not during the course of the rest of the experience. I cannot fathom the intent - save malice - that led to this state of affairs. Why would I want to reverse the behavior of one, and not the other? The only thing worse than having the controls work backwards all the time is to have them work backwards only most of the time, and then have them switch once again when the I am under the duress and challenge of combat.
What truly appalls me is not the contempt you have for me, which is palpable enough, but the contempt you show for your own work. Have you no honor? No shame? No basic sense of propriety? You sir, are a villain.
Do not imagine this is the end of this matter. You have not tasted the fullness of my wrath. Indeed, but have not even sampled a tithe of it. Pray you do not encounter me in the flesh, for as surely as I have spent the last three hours spinning in place and staring at the ceiling in your video entertainment product, I will teach you to fear justice the way the wicked things beneath the earth fear the sun itself.
Indignantly,
Shamus Young
Tomb Raider Underworld Reviews
In a phone call from publisher Eidos to a game review site:
If you're planning on reviewing Tomb Raider Underworld at less than an 8.0, we need you to hold your review till Monday.
They (Eidos) came out later and tried to put a good face on things, which was a fumbling attempt to convince us we didn’t see what we just saw. I mean, who are you going to believe, us, or what we said yesterday?
Just that we're trying to get the Metacritic rating to be high, and the brand manager in the US that's handling all of Tomb Raider has asked that we just manage the scores before the game is out, really, just to ensure that we don't put people off buying the game, basically.
That is to say: We would just like the reviewers to hold off doing their jobs until we can fleece their readers.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Tomb Raider Underworld Reviews”
From The Archives:
Project Frontier
A programming project where I set out to make a gigantic and complex world from simple data.
Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3
Yeah, this game is a classic. But the story is idiotic, incoherent, thematically confused, and patronizing.
Civilization VI
I'm a very casual fan of the series, but I gave Civilization VI a look to see what was up with this nuclear war simulator.
The Middle Ages
Would you have survived in the middle ages?
Netscape 1997
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
Batman v. Superman Wasn't All Bad
It's not a good movie, but it was made with good intentions and if you look closely you can find a few interesting ideas.
Internet News is All Wrong
Why is internet news so bad, why do people prefer celebrity fluff, and how could it be made better?
Are Lootboxes Gambling?
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?
Spoiler Warning
A video Let's Play series I collaborated on from 2009 to 2017.
Marvel's Civil War
Team Cap or Team Iron Man? More importantly, what basis would you use for making that decision?