NEWER POSTS

Steam Backlog: Electronic Super Joy: Groove City

By Shamus Posted Monday Jul 3, 2017

Filed under: Game Reviews 35 comments
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My problem is that I’m a sucker for games with pixel graphics, neon colors, and electronic music, but those games tend to be side-scrolling platformers that I’m terrible at. Which means I have a compulsion to seek out games I’ll never be able to finish.

As I said last week, I’m going to go through some of the 180+ un-played games in my Steam library to see what I’ve been missing. This week I played Electronic Super Joy: Groove City, which I apparently purchased in September of 2014. This is exactly the kind of game that tickles my brain into making an impulse buy on Steam: Bright colors and delicious electronic music. It’s also the kind of game I’m doomed to abandon: An unforgiving platformer.

Yes, that's the Pope under the Laser-Nipples sign. Obviously this game is pretty highbrow.
Yes, that's the Pope under the Laser-Nipples sign. Obviously this game is pretty highbrow.

In terms of pacing, it has a lot in common with Hotline: Miami. It’s a fast-paced ordeal where the slightest mistake means death, but you respawn instantly and are free to try again as many times as you like. There are regular checkpoints along the wayIn Groove City, the checkpoints are little flags you encounter every screen or so. In Hotline Miami, you get a checkpoint when you hit a staircase. so you’re really never more than five or ten seconds of flawless performance from your next goal.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Steam Backlog: Electronic Super Joy: Groove City”

 

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.

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35 comments

 

Site Update

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jul 2, 2017

Filed under: Notices 29 comments
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Heads up, buttercup: Last week I said the site was moving to a new IP. That actually didn’t happen until this weekend. Now the https is all set up. The links are updated, and now if you use the forum link in the header you should be taken to the secure version of the site.

While I was at it, I fixed the CSS so that the large first letter of a post wouldn’t get cut off if you began a post with a yellow aside box, which was the case for every post in Bob’s Game of Thrones series.

Technically, you should be able to access this blog via https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale. However, I’ve been having mixed results with this. I go to the front page, switch to the secure version, but then after clicking on some links I look up and see I’m back at the vanilla version. But other times not?

WordPress wants a fully-qualified URL for the root of the site. It prepends this to all automatically generated links, which includes a lot of the navigation stuff. I’m assuming this is the root of the problem, but I don’t know. The problem seems pretty inconsistent. It happened constantly last night, but tonight I’m having trouble getting it to happen.

I could change the ENTIRE site to ALWAYS be https, but I don’t know if there are drawbacks or problems to doing this. Would that be slower in some situations? Would that cause hassles? I don’t know what the drawbacks of https are so I’m wary of making sweeping changes without gathering a little feedback first.

Anyway, don’t worry if none of this makes sense to you. This is a small thing impacting an even smaller number of people. The point is, I did a technical thing that changed some stuff that is probably working or whatever.

 

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.

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29 comments

 

Game of Thrones Griping 12: More Like Lady PAIN

By Bob Case Posted Friday Jun 30, 2017

Filed under: Game of Thrones 80 comments
Game of Thrones Griping 11: Arya Gets Hit With A Stick Over and Over AgainPrevious Post
Next PostGame of Thrones Griping 13: The Kangaroo Trial of the Century

This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.

(This was supposed to go up this morning. Somehow I never got around to actually clicking the “publish” button, so it’s late… oops)

I want to take a closer look at one character in particular: Lady Crane. This character, and the way the show treats her, gives us (I think) a lens into how the writers think, and what sort of world they’re depicting.

Game of Thrones is not a black-and-white show, but there are certain characters we get the impression that we’re supposed to either like or dislike. And while it’s not always a clear binary value, I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to like Lady Crane. We’re supposed to root for her and consider her one of the good guys/women. So, by looking at her, we can look at what sort of character the show wants and expects us to like, and why. So let’s look at Lady Crane.

A Play Within A Show

I admit it: I’m a sucker for play-within-a-play stuff. And this unnamedI think? Braavosi theatre company is my favorite part of the Arya storyline. I always like to see story elements illuminate the setting, and here we get some sense of what version of Westorosi political current events has made into the court of public opinion. Here, Ned Stark is a scheming, power-hungry type, Joffrey a noble innocent, and Tyrion a vile demon.

We know this is all hogwash, but the Braavosi audience doesn’t, and you can’t really blame them. It’s also nice to take a trip down memory lane, and revisit plot points from seasons past. It all ends with Lady Crane’s star turn: her anguished monologue as she holds Joffrey’s body in her arms. Despite the determined use of sing-songy rhyming couplets, this is actually halfway affecting stuff. Maybe they should just do the whole show this way.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Griping 12: More Like Lady PAIN”

 

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.

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80 comments

 

Diablo III Part 2: The Gameplay

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jun 29, 2017

Filed under: Retrospectives 172 comments
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I know I don’t say this very often, but this game is way too easy.

I am not against easy games! If you want to appeal to a more laid-back and casual player, or if you want to go for accessibility, that’s fine. But as I’m playing the game in May of 2017, I get the feeling the game isn’t working the way it’s supposed to.

There are lots of interesting game mechanics here. Some foes telegraph a rush attack that you’re supposed to dodge. Some foes bombard you with mortar style attacks to encourage you to get in and engage at point-blank range. Others create zones of fire or poison around them, so you’ll want to engage at a distance. Some bosses have moves to pull you in close so they can use their most powerful attacks. Some foes attack you from all sides, so you’ll need to be creative and alert if you don’t want to swarmed. Some maps have traps like falling rubble or magical landmines so you have to watch your step.

These are all great ideas. These features should, in theory, make the battlefield a dynamic place that forces you to adapt to an ever-changing landscape of threats. Sure, one dungeon hallway is much like another. But facing mortar fire in a narrow hallway is very different from navigating around fire in a narrow hallway, which is different from navigating around fire in an open area where you are surrounded on all sides, which is different from facing clustered foes on the opposite side of a narrow bridge. Your opposition impacts the shape of the environment just as much as the placement of the randomly-generated walls.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diablo III Part 2: The Gameplay”

 

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.

Diablo III Part 1: The Legacy of DiabloPrevious Post
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172 comments

 

Nan o’ War CH15: Free Shipping

By Rutskarn Posted Wednesday Jun 28, 2017

Filed under: Lets Play 21 comments
Nan o' War CH14: Dealer is BustedPrevious Post
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One of B&G: Caribbean!‘s most transparent influences is Captain Blood, a character made famous by an Errol Flynn film that still sets the standard for half-assed Irish accents. Captain Blood is the classic tale of a doctor branded traitor by a kangaroo court and dispatched to Port Royal as slave and political prisoner. Before long he and some former revolutionaries escape in a boat, steal a ship from the conveniently attacking Spaniards, and are so successful in carrying out acts of noble piracy across the New World that the now-famous Blood is pardoned by the English usurper, William of Orange, and appointed the new governor of Port Royal. And under his righteous administration, no-one was ever unjustly enslaved in Jamaica again, probably.

It’s a classic movie, and when they get around to re-making it I’ll probably go re-see it. But you know what I’d rather watch? The movie where a grandma is indentured for forty seconds, falls in with a bad crowd, breaks some kneecaps, scores some headshots, wins a horse racing championship with a pocketful of hand grenades, and then parlays a literally undefeated career of gambling into an entire island’s worth of thriving rum distilleries and miscellaneous business enterprises.

And if that’s too much trouble, I’ll settle for thirty seconds of Diana Rigg wearing this costume.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Nan o’ War CH15: Free Shipping”

 

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.

Nan o' War CH14: Dealer is BustedPrevious Post
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21 comments

 

This Dumb Industry: Steam Summer Blues

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Jun 27, 2017

Filed under: Column 161 comments
This Dumb Industry: Denuvo and the Death of PiracyPrevious Post
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The Steam Summer Sale is going on, and yet somehow I can’t find any games to buy. Even at these giveaway prices, I don’t see anything that strikes me as interesting. I’m sure there are games that would interest me, but finding them means going through the hassle of finding the gems amid the swirling garbage pile that is the Steam storefront.

A Library of Neglect

I really dislike that you can't see the summary of a game in your library. If you want to know what it is, you have to visit the store page.
I really dislike that you can't see the summary of a game in your library. If you want to know what it is, you have to visit the store page.

It’s not that I need more games. I have 604 games in my Steam library. Of those, 185 of them are completely unplayed. Almost a third of my library consists of games I have never even launched. This is in addition to a couple of dozen games that I’ve played for less than five minutes.

I suppose I need to give some context for these numbers.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Dumb Industry: Steam Summer Blues”

 

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.

This Dumb Industry: Denuvo and the Death of PiracyPrevious Post
Next PostThis Dumb Industry: Why I Hated Resident Evil 4

161 comments

 

New Album: NEON

By Shamus Posted Sunday Jun 25, 2017

Filed under: Music 27 comments
Bad and Wrong Music Lessons: Key ChangesPrevious Post
Next PostBad and Wrong Music Lessons: Getting Closer

It’s that time of the year again when I pretend I can write music. I’ve been tinkering away, making a new song every few months or so. Three years ago I took a dozen or so songs and called them an “album”, and I guess I’ve produced enough content to do that again. My new pile of loosely related tracks is called NEON.

Whether you’re Skrillex or a nobody like me, to make electronic music you need a Digital Audio Workstation, which the kids call a DAW. It’s a program that lets you map out all the notes and instruments, allowing you to make music even if you don’t play an instrument. For a couple of years I used MAGIX Music Maker. I was not a fan. Last year someone donated enough for me to switch to Studio One, which I love.

In this album, the tracks are in roughly chronological order. The tracks produced in Studio One begin at “Hi!”.

Fair warning: A lot of this work is very amateurish. If it wasn’t for my existing audience as a writer, nobody would listen to this stuff. If I promote a track here on the blog or on Twitter, it gets a few hundred listens. If I don’t promote it, the song gets less than 10. (And I suspect most of those are from spambots. SoundCloud has a pretty bad bot problem.) So my list of musical fans is in the single-digits. This is not a complaint. I suspect I have exactly the audience I deserve. Just like with writing, if I want more fans then I need to make better content.

I’ve been climbing this learning curve for three years now, working on-and-off as the mood strikes me. It’s interesting to see my progression. Sure, my work has improved, but that advancement has not kept up with my expectations. Three years ago I was tickled to simply be able to make music. But now that I’ve absorbed literally hundreds of videos and tutorials on mixing techniques and music theory, I have a much better understanding of how things should work and I’m more keenly aware of my shortcomings.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “New Album: NEON”

 

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.

Bad and Wrong Music Lessons: Key ChangesPrevious Post
Next PostBad and Wrong Music Lessons: Getting Closer

27 comments

 
OLDER POSTS
From The Archives:

Grand Theft Auto Retrospective

This series began as a cheap little 2D overhead game and grew into the most profitable entertainment product ever made. I have a love / hate relationship with the series.

 

Programming Language for Games

Game developer Jon Blow is making a programming language just for games. Why is he doing this, and what will it mean for game development?

 

Good to be the King?

Which would you rather be: A king in the middle ages, or a lower-income laborer in the 21st century?

 

Gamers Aren’t Toxic

This is a horrible narrative that undermines the hobby through crass stereotypes. The hobby is vast, gamers come from all walks of life, and you shouldn't judge ANY group by its worst members.

 

Pixel City Dev Blog

An attempt to make a good looking cityscape with nothing but simple tricks and a few rectangles of light.

 

This Game is Too Videogame-y

What's wrong with a game being "too videogameish"?

 

This is Why We Can’t Have Short Criticism

Here's how this site grew from short essays to novel-length quasi-analytical retrospectives.

 

Dear Hollywood: Do a Mash Reboot

Since we're rebooting everything, MASH will probably come up eventually. Here are some casting suggestions.

 

Why Batman Can't Kill

His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.

 

Bad and Wrong Music Lessons

A music lesson for people who know nothing about music, from someone who barely knows anything about music.