{"id":48448,"date":"2019-11-04T06:00:48","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=48448"},"modified":"2019-11-03T17:18:06","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T22:18:06","slug":"diecast-277-halloween-starbound-manifold-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=48448","title":{"rendered":"Diecast #277: Halloween, Starbound, Manifold Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend was our twice-yearly ceremony of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=84aWtseb2-4\">pointlessly messing with the clocks<\/a>. I just realized I didn&#8217;t rant about it this year. Sorry about that. I&#8217;m not giving up, I&#8217;ve just got other things on my mind lately. Feel free to revisit <a href=\"?p=44693\">my rant from exactly one year ago<\/a> if you&#8217;re missing my usual tirade against this petty annoyance.<\/p>\n<p>Also: The mailbag is now empty, so if you have a question you&#8217;ve been sitting on then now is your chance. The email is in the header image.<\/p>\n<p><br clear='all'><audio controls><source src='\/diecast\/diecast277.ogg' type='audio\/ogg'><source src='\/diecast\/diecast277.mp3' type='audio\/mpeg'>Your browser does not support the audio element.<\/audio><div><small><a href='\/diecast\/diecast277.mp3' download='diecast277.mp3'>Direct download<\/a> (MP3)<\/small><br\/><small><a href='\/diecast\/diecast277.ogg' download='diecast277.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>.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/diecast\/diecast277.mp3\">Diecast277<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Show notes:<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>00:00 Halloween<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This section also covers death, funerals, burial customs, and a bunch of other stuff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>16:50 Starbound<\/strong><\/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\/cJUh9gjEuOs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen class=\"embed\"><\/iframe><br\/><small><a href='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cJUh9gjEuOs'>Link (YouTube)<\/a><\/small><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n<p><strong>20:46 Manifold Garden<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>21:45 Outer Worlds &#038; The Chicken Factory  <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>31:33 Music Class<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll talk more about this tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>36:30 Mailbag: Gameplay in games with mature subject matter.  <\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast,<\/p>\n<p>You mentioned recently that you received too much letters and because of that don\u2019t have enough time to talk about anything else on your show. So I decided to write you a letter.<\/p>\n<p>My question concerns the possibilities of telling stories in a videogames primarily through the use of that games\u2019 mechanics. I noticed that many games that are considered to have \u201cmature\u201d* story either:<\/p>\n<p>a) have very minimalist, or almost non-existential gameplay (which isn\u2019t a bad thing, there is no need to create robust mechanic if the game doesn\u2019t need one). Something like Limbo or TellTale\u2019s games;<\/p>\n<p>b) have more robust mechanics, but they are completely separate from the story (like The Last of Us or Bioshock Infinite**, though you tastes may vary; I\u2019m thinking about games in which the story is consider to be good despite the gameplay, not because of it);<\/p>\n<p>However, it\u2019s difficult to find games that are being praised for their \u201cmaturity\u201d specifically because of their gameplay. At best, game\u2019s mechanics are not an obstacle.<\/p>\n<p>But I think that gameplay is the \u201cprimary language\u201d of games (so to speak) when it comes to communication with players. Expensive cutscenes, sublime soundtrack and so on are great and all, but the core of a game lies in it\u2019s structure of it\u2019s mechanics. Therefore, that should be the main focus when it comes to making a \u201cmature\u201d game \u2013 gameplay. Gameplay should enhance the idea of game\u2019s story by creating appropriate impressions through the use of right tools. For example, if the story of a particular game is about the danger of possessing an excessive amount of freedom, then the gameplay itself should allow players to experience that. When the game takes more linear approach, it\u2019s all fall flat, because I don\u2019t feel the story.<\/p>\n<p>So, gameplay should enhance the story. But that\u2019s not what I want to ask you about. I wonder, if it is possible to create a \u201cmature\u201d game that tell it\u2019s story mainly through it\u2019s mechanics (obviously, it would still have some sort of graphic and sonic presentation, but they would enhance the mechanics, not the other way around). Can story be told through gameplay? Could that game achieved world-wide popularity? Or maybe it would be like trying to make a movie by beating yourself in the head with a film projector? Would such thing be a masterpiece or a glorified Excel sheet?<\/p>\n<p>Basically, dose the strength of a videogames\u2019 stories lies in their capability of containing multiple sources of different media or do they have something unique?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks,<\/p>\n<p>Darek<\/p>\n<p>* By \u201cmature games\u201d I mean those that are considered to deal with difficult and (usually) socially important subjects by providing intricate solutions \u2013 or by providing the lack of such solutions. You know, something that people describe as\u2026 deep.<\/p>\n<p>** I actually consider the stories of this games to be rather mediocre, but that\u2019s beside the point<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>53:45 Mailbag: AI Generated stories  <\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Diecast,<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t know if you guys have ever heard of procedural generation \/joking.<\/p>\n<p>Considering there have been a lot of advances made in the fields of NLP (Natural Language Processing) and ML (machine learning), do you think it would be possible to train an AI to generate interesting plots in video games?<\/p>\n<p>I imagine if something like that were possible it would probably be rather generic plot beats overall, i.e. <\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re playing a Knight who is trying to defeat an Evil Wizard to save the Heir to the Throne, and if you happen to lose the AI generates an event to handle your loss. For example Rangerman McArcher, an NPC you met elsewhere, shoots an arrow at EW, who takes off with HttT.<br \/>\nOr do you think it would be too hard to have such a system generate content that&#8217;s interesting enough to keep players engaged?<br \/>\nVale,<br \/>\n-Tim<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend was our twice-yearly ceremony of pointlessly messing with the clocks. I just realized I didn&#8217;t rant about it this year. Sorry about that. I&#8217;m not giving up, I&#8217;ve just got other things on my mind lately. Feel free to revisit my rant from exactly one year ago if you&#8217;re missing my usual tirade [&hellip;]<\/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-48448","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\/48448","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=48448"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48450,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48448\/revisions\/48450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}