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I’m sure you’d like to read something profound and thought provoking from Shamus regarding Daud and such, but he’s busy being lame or something. Instead, it’s Real Question Time:
Is there any tense, serious moment I can’t ruin with abject silliness and stupidity?
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Looks like this game is going to wrap up just in time. We’re at the point of the commentary where we’re starting to repeat ourselves and go off-topic. That usually spells disaster if we’re still a long way from the end, but here we’re getting close.
To answer the oft-repeated question: We haven’t decided if we’re doing Knife of Dunwall yet. Some of us are playing it. I’ll play it this weekend. We’ll cover it if we have interesting things to say.
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We keep harping on how dull the performances are in this game, but are they really? Are they really that bad, or are they bad because their faces don’t follow the performance? (Aside from the Outsider. Let’s ignore him for now.) I can close my eyes and imagine the actors giving really intense performances. Tight face. Suspicious eyes. Clenched jaw. I’m reminded of the Skyrim preview where we could see Christopher Plummer side-by-side with the character he was voicing, and how his performance came off as dull and wooden because none of it showed up on his character’s face.
This game feels the same. Pendleton doesn’t show any emotion in his face when he’s talking about his brothers. Not anger, or sadness, or anything. It’s possible that if Derek Phillips had put more energy into his performance it would have come off as overblown and hammy, because again – dead face.
We made a fuss over The Walking Dead, but I’m starting to suspect the secret of that game was that they had characters who could really emote. Sometimes we get dudes that can glower or rage, but outside of TWD I can’t remember the last time I saw really good facial performances of regret, loss, confusion, etc.
I don’t know. I’m mostly thinking out loud. I’m not convinced I’m 100% right, but I suspect that over the years I’ve been blaming voice actors for the sins of the animators.
A great deal of the fun in KSP comes from iterative building. If you looked far enough back in its family tree, you might find a grandpa or great-uncle named The Incredible Machine. You build a thing, press go, watch it fail, and repeat until you’ve perfected your design. My best moments with the game happened when I hit launch and had the entire rocket fly in seven different directions, obliterating my intrepid Kerbanauts and leaving a huge mess for the cleanup crew.
You can find this kind of play in Angry Birds, Portal, and even some Tower Defense games. You’re not intended to succeed on the first try, and there’s just as much fun in developing a new design as finally seeing it work.
This is in sandbox mode. The game will eventually have a campaign mode of some sort, and I can’t help but wonder what that will look like and how it will work. Right now you have access to all parts and can build as many exploding rockets as you like without penalty. You can fly to any planet you want, as long as you can figure out how to design a rocket capable of making the trip. There’s no external reward or recognition for accomplishing anything.
It’s natural to look at this open system and want to add some direction to it, but if you do it the obvious way you might kill the fun of the game. I realize that there is no lower form of game commentary than armchair game design, but I ask that you’ll indulge me a bit of rambling analysis. Also, I haven’t read anything by the developers regarding their plans. I’m not trying to out-guess them or make demands, I just thought this was an interesting design problem and I wanted to talk about it.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Kerbal Space Program: Campaign Mode”
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You know, we had a long list of topics in the queue for this week. We really don’t want this to be an EA bashing podcast. But dangit, EA is just so busy making noise.
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Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #9: EA Wins, BioWare’s Integrity, Sherlock Sucks”
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How messed up does an industry need to be before your customers start clamoring for you to spend less money producing the products they buy? The $60 price tag is a foregone conclusion* so we’re not asking because we want lower prices. (Although, if that’s on the table, that would be nice too.) It’s just that we’d like to see studios stop financially destroying themselves. We’re at the point where saying, “We’ve got this elaborate new technology to make games!” is the equivalent to saying, “I’m gonna take a shower!” in teen slasher flick: Everyone knows you’re the next one to get the knife.
My column this week is about the upcoming Thief game, and how the developer has already gone into the steam-filled bathroom and begun toweling themselves with their eyes closed. As luck would have it, Jim Sterling’s video from yesterday is about the same thing. Also, we’re going to hit the topic again in the podcast this week.
In related by somewhat hypocritical news: I’m working my way through Thief 2 again, and I do admit these graphics have not aged well:
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I love the game as much as ever, but would I be able to get into it if I was playing for the first time? Still, I think there’s some room between where we were then and where we are now. We might haggle over where the sweet spot is between cost and benefit, but I think we’ll all agree we passed that point years ago. (For my money, it was around 2004-2006.) However, some of you might argue for MORE GRAFFIX!
* Offer void in Australia.
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It’s been a long time since I found a game this instantly engrossing. Kerbal Space Program is kind of like a… Sim? Sim NASA? That’s as close as I can come to describing it using pigeonhole genre labels. You’re given rocket parts, a space center, a solar system of planets and moons, and you’re left to find your own fun. Orbit the planet? Go to the moon? Throw a kerbanaut into the sun? Build a space-jet? Make a giant tower of fuel tanks and blow them up? Whatever.
The game devoured last week. I don’t even know what happened. I played the demo on Saturday, bought the game on Sunday, and the next thing I knew it was Friday and I was eyebrow-deep in orbital mechanics and rocket theory. I’m not sure where the time went. I don’t even think I accomplished that much. I put a guy on the Mà¼n. Put a group of them on the other, smaller moon. I threw a guy into the sun. This is pretty simple stuff. There are legends that some players have landed on other planets and then brought the Kerbals back again.
There’s a certain rhythm to the game…
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Kerbal Space Program: Something Different”
A programming project where I set out to make a gigantic and complex world from simple data.
What is "Domino Worldbuilding" and how did it help to make Mass Effect one of the most interesting settings in modern RPGs?
No Man's Sky is a game seemingly engineered to create a cycle of anticipation and disappointment.
No, self-aware robots aren't going to turn on us, Skynet-style. Not unless we designed them to.
I scoured the Steam database to figure out what words were the most commonly used in game titles.
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.
A video discussing Megatexture technology. Why we needed it, what it was supposed to do, and why it maybe didn't totally work.
It's not a legend. It was real. There was a time before DLC. Before DRM. Before crappy ports. It was glorious.
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
There's a wonderful way to balance difficulty in RPGs, and designers try to prevent it. For some reason.
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