{"id":42879,"date":"2018-06-04T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=42879"},"modified":"2018-06-04T03:31:20","modified_gmt":"2018-06-04T07:31:20","slug":"diecast-213-early-consoles-starships-and-flawed-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=42879","title":{"rendered":"Diecast #213: Early Consoles, Starships, and Flawed Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heads up! I plan to stream a little later in the week. I&#8217;m thinking maybe some Destiny 2? I&#8217;m aiming for Wednesday, but I haven&#8217;t picked a time yet. <\/p>\n<p><br clear='all'><audio controls><source src='\/diecast\/diecast213.ogg' type='audio\/ogg'><source src='\/diecast\/diecast213.mp3' type='audio\/mpeg'>Your browser does not support the audio element.<\/audio><div><small><a href='\/diecast\/diecast213.mp3' download='diecast213.mp3'>Direct download<\/a> (MP3)<\/small><br\/><small><a href='\/diecast\/diecast213.ogg' download='diecast213.ogg'>Direct download<\/a> (ogg Vorbis)<\/small><br\/><small><a href='?cat=287&feed=rss2'>Podcast RSS feed.<\/a><\/small><\/div><br \/>\nHosts: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.peripheralarbor.com\/\">Paul<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/\">Shamus<\/a>. Episode edited by <a href=\"http:\/\/steamcommunity.com\/profiles\/76561198087035658\/\">Issac<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Show notes: <!--more--><strong>00:00 Intellivision<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"?p=42861\">I talked about this last week<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>For the record, this is the original Atari joystick:<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/atari_joystick.jpg' width=100% alt='The ridges at the base of the stick were perfect for trapping a mixture of dust and sweat in the grooves where you could always see it, but never properly clean it. The single-button interface smothered game design. The case was made of rigid plastic and was designed to fit the hands of an adult male, even though the machine was marketed to kids. Gaming was off to a rough start.' title='The ridges at the base of the stick were perfect for trapping a mixture of dust and sweat in the grooves where you could always see it, but never properly clean it. The single-button interface smothered game design. The case was made of rigid plastic and was designed to fit the hands of an adult male, even though the machine was marketed to kids. Gaming was off to a rough start.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>The ridges at the base of the stick were perfect for trapping a mixture of dust and sweat in the grooves where you could always see it, but never properly clean it. The single-button interface smothered game design. The case was made of rigid plastic and was designed to fit the hands of an adult male, even though the machine was marketed to kids. Gaming was off to a rough start.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>And when I talk about &#8220;affordances&#8221;, I&#8217;m referring to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QCSXEKHL6fc\">this Extra Credits episode<\/a>. The game Paul was talking about was <a href=\"https:\/\/classicreload.com\/striker.html\">Striker<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>15:19 The Story of Activision <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I related this story from memory without preparing beforehand. Hopefully I didn&#8217;t botch too many of the details. <\/p>\n<p><strong>26:52 Technology Connections<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Vacuum tubes were still in use when I was a kid. By the time I hit adulthood they were long gone, and I never went back to figure out what they were and how they worked. So this was pretty educational for me.<\/p>\n<p><table class='nomargin' cellspacing='0' width='100%' cellpadding='0' align='center' border='0'><tr><td><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lQBGFZU3zco\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=lQBGFZU3zco'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p><strong>31:33 Paul&#8217;s Spaceship Game<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.girlgeniusonline.com\/\">Girl Genius<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/peripheralarbor.com\/gallery\/v\/CG+Art\/Concept-based\/GirlGenius\/\">art Paul made<\/a>, and here is <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.projectfledgeling.com\/20180506\/1148\/\">his thing on starship design<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>47:52 Mailbag &#8211; flawed games. <\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear crossers of the Rubicon,<\/p>\n<p>While answering my question last week you (Shamus) stated something that resonated with me.<br \/>\nYou said that you are sometimes buying games because they look intriguing. Furthermore you elaborated, that these games might be more interesting to discuss.<br \/>\nThis leads to my point I once made in the comment section, where I theorized, that flawed games might be more interesting to analyze than those, really good or really bad.<br \/>\nAs I see it great and aweful can be analyzed but only in one way. For one you have to extol its virtues and for the other you have to catalogue the shortcomings. That leads to it being somewhat boring. The worst games to discuss I found were those middle of the road, bland, average games, where the only thing to say is &#8220;It exists&#8221;.<br \/>\nBut in my eyes the motherlode of this discussion topics can be found at the fringes of the &#8220;Meh-region&#8221;. With inhabitants like Mafia 3 and Far Cry 5.<br \/>\nYour thoughts on this?<\/p>\n<p>Greeting<br \/>\nGresman, who has no idea how to read or write phonetic alphabets<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think I got distracted on a tangent rather than answering Gresman&#8217;s question, so&#8230; oops.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, just look at this guy:<\/p>\n<p><div class='imagefull'><img src='https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/images\/destiny2_derp.jpg' width=100% alt='Oh gweat ledah, I&apos;m pwoud to therf you in thith conqwetht of Erth.' title='Oh gweat ledah, I&apos;m pwoud to therf you in thith conqwetht of Erth.'\/><\/div><div class='mouseover-alt'>Oh gweat ledah, I&apos;m pwoud to therf you in thith conqwetht of Erth.<\/div><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not just me, right? The guy on the right looks like a cartoon character with a hilarious speech defect, doesn&#8217;t he? Please tell me I&#8217;m not the only person who laughed at him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heads up! I plan to stream a little later in the week. I&#8217;m thinking maybe some Destiny 2? I&#8217;m aiming for Wednesday, but I haven&#8217;t picked a time yet. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Show notes:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[287],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diecast-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42879"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42892,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42879\/revisions\/42892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}