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SuperMechagodzilla posted:In the case of videogames, I would say you can simply subtract the 'fun'. Gamers balk at this, but the fun in games comes from the endless grinding, the purchasing of microtransactions, getting hyped on forums for the next big sequel, debating console specifications or whatever. Anything but the actual good parts of the game. Star Citizen cuts to the chase by consisting solely of the act of preordering and paying microtransactions. This has a tremendous psychological appeal, to the point that actually releasing a game would be disastrous for the company. See, this is what I'm talking about. Look at what happens when someone who's good at film criticism tries to talk about games. e: cinematography in games is almost as bad as narrative; if you must compare it to other art forms, the metaphor you're looking for should be something non-narrative, non-linear, and which is more concerned with the creation of spaces than communicating a message. an architect would be better equipped to talk about game design than a film critic. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 19:04
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Okay, church, what am I watching tonight? Crisis (1946) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8ptUt-VdAw Jour de Fete (1949) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2-7ztrFBfg The Earrings of Madame de... (1954) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19k5VILpyzw From the Earth to the Moon (1958) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4NuTyU87s0 Trafic (1970) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S2hRXV41S0 Kuso (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLxKJHBhZP0
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Mar 18, 2019 19:06
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Franchescanado posted:Due to a recent unfortunate occurrence, I have written a sincere note about suicide. Respect to you and to everyone else as well, this dumb idiot forum has drastically changed my life for the better, and I’m glad to know you’re around to help in case someone needs it.
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Mar 18, 2019 19:06
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Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:William Hung hung himself Did you hear, Kenny was killed? He was on vacation on Kilkenny.
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Mar 18, 2019 19:06
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there's still ideological content in games (in much the same way there's ideological content in putting uncomfortable slopes and spikes on the outside of public buildings to force homeless people away) but there's a distinction between film where everything zooms in on this encounter between the viewer and the film and what the viewer takes away from it, on what is communicated and all these competing theories of language, vs. games/architecture where the meaning of the thing is inseparable from "what do people do with it after they encounter it"
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Mar 18, 2019 19:15
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Super Mario Sunshine is a piece of art about the delicious experience of blasting poo poo with a hose.
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Mar 18, 2019 19:31
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btw, updated MotM thread with my take on The Commissar, with all the screenshots you sickos could desire
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Mar 18, 2019 19:37
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:See, this is what I'm talking about. Look at what happens when someone who's good at film criticism tries to talk about games. The appearance of space in a 3D game is an illusion; the computer running the software is generating a constant stream of 2D images based on whatever mathematical calculations. Fundamentally, what you're doing in an FPS is producing such images (with the accompanying sounds and music). Why jump to architecture when we have, like, set design? Also, I don't think any game can be considered 'non-narrative', since there is always a point where the player begins and ends the game. Contrast an FPS set in a building with, say, a virtual architectural model used as a reference or blueprint. There isn't actually a difference there except, again, in the way that the program is read: the architectural model can be read as art, but is more generally just perceived as a source of information. Such a model becomes a game at the point where the viewing of the model is treated as a narrative ("I'm moving through the door, I'm approaching the window..."). In the case of Bandersnatch, the movie-game refers to itself as the navigation of maze - but what you actually have is large set of mediocre short films about causality. It's akin to how the notion of a 'cinematic universe' is just a marketing term for the concept of sequels. Your first set of choices will unlock a Bandersnatch 1, then Bandersnatch 2 is based on that, and so-on. This is arguably less nonlinear than just choosing to watch Iron Man 3 before Iron Man 2.
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Mar 18, 2019 20:43
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Franchescanado posted:Due to a recent unfortunate occurrence, I have written a sincere note about suicide. thank you very much for this
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Mar 18, 2019 20:47
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me logging in
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Mar 18, 2019 20:52
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The appearance of space in a 3D game is an illusion; the computer running the software is generating a constant stream of 2D images based on whatever mathematical calculations. Fundamentally, what you're doing in an FPS is producing such images (with the accompanying sounds and music). Why jump to architecture when we have, like, set design? Your own eyes, looking at a three dimensional object, are also a constant stream of 2D images that you mentally assemble into a 3D space. The space itself is a fiction, but our understanding of that fictional space is as real as our understanding of a real space. Architecture is useful for understanding games because they have a similar relationship with the observer. The observer examines the objects and spaces on their own terms, subject to the rules of the game, but few games have rules so restrictive that the viewer can't explore the spaces. It differs from set design in that set design only needs to work for a much smaller set of possible angles and circumstances.
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Mar 18, 2019 20:53
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:The appearance of space in a 3D game is an illusion; the computer running the software is generating a constant stream of 2D images based on whatever mathematical calculations. Fundamentally, what you're doing in an FPS is producing such images (with the accompanying sounds and music). Why jump to architecture when we have, like, set design? Because the most interesting and telling part of games is the part that isn't scripted, or at least, that is left over after the player has been presented with the script, perhaps influenced by it, but is now free to run around and construct their own narrative. An FPS set in a building where you're, like, Duke Nukem or Max Payne and the player's just (as you suggest) going through the motions to unlock the next snippet of amateur cinema so they can get the rest of the story is obviously borrowing from film, sure. But that's the least interesting kind of game, and the amateur cinema snippets aren't even the most interesting part of those games. The interesting questions are stuff like -- what is it about 2fort and de_dust that is so uniquely enthralling that they become the site of virtual communities? Why do video games like EVE Online encourage people to form these close-knit, almost student-mentor relationships, supported by wikis full of a bizarre mixture of practical advice for succeeding at what the game does, packaged together with cultural indoctrination? The answer to "why not set design" is because set design is there to be looked at. It's there to guide your eyes and support the illusion of life that gives theater (like cinema) a symbolic shorthand for real life, so that it can say something about real life. The idea of going "beyond the surface" or "immersing yourself" is nonsense because all it is, is a communicative illusion. There is nothing after or beyond the illusion. Games also use this illusion to ease people in -- the bad guys in Mario are presented as living creatures with grumpy faces that advance aggressively towards you, so you know they're bad news and it's not a surprise that they hurt you when they get close. But the great things about games is this is basically just scaffolding -- once you understand the mechanics, the gameplay, and can engage with it directly, these things have served their primary purpose. Presentation is still worth analyzing, because seeing TERRORISTS WIN so many times that it becomes meaningless and taken for granted is still a little weird, and there's still something being communicated there. But what makes games interesting is what the rules do, what kind of person the rules attract or repulse on their own aesthetic merits after the visual/symbolic presentation has become rote, and what people do with the game -- with this weird, seemingly pointless tool / art object made out of rules. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 21:04
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quote:Gamers balk at this, but the fun in games comes from the endless grinding, the purchasing of microtransactions, getting hyped on forums for the next big sequel, debating console specifications or whatever. Anything but the actual good parts of the game. Star Citizen cuts to the chase by consisting solely of the act of preordering and paying microtransactions. This has a tremendous psychological appeal, to the point that actually releasing a game would be disastrous for the company. I thought Star Citizen also has a mostly non-functional alpha for a few parts of it now
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Mar 18, 2019 21:12
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RBA Starblade posted:I thought Star Citizen also has a mostly non-functional alpha for a few parts of it now Giving them money for each tantalizing 47 minute video of awkwardly narrated pre-alpha mockups is the game, I thought.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:16
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Magic Hate Ball posted:me logging in Big mood
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Mar 18, 2019 21:18
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microtransactions are the video game equivalent of optical blending
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Mar 18, 2019 21:19
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Let me give an example; it'll even be a single player game that has a consistent narrative all the way through, rather than something more multiplayer or freeform, to avoid confusing the issue. When I was 11 or 12 years old, my parents got me a Gameboy Color and a Link's Awakening cartridge. Most of you probably already know this, but it's one in a long series of games about a elfin young boy who's destined to be a hero, fights a bunch of monsters to collect mystical items, and uses them to save the world. Link's Awakening toys with this story a little bit (he's not fighting to save the world, so much as to wake up God, who is dreaming the world, which will cause the island to disappear and allow the protagonist to return to reality) but it's still a pretty familiar formula. The thing with Link's Awakening, however, is that it's a very buggy game. Not buggy like "will crash and brick your gameboy," but in the sense that the obstacles it uses to guide you on the "intended," predetermined path are very poorly calibrated, and can't always stop you when they're supposed to. The magical feather that lets you jump is only supposed to cross one tile at a time, but a pixel-perfect diagonal jump will let you cross two. There are paths that are blocked by destructible barriers, requiring a bomb that must be hand-placed next to them to remove -- but if you equip a bomb and a bow, and activate them on the exact same frame, the game will interpret them as a single object and produce a bomb that flies like an arrow. There's a boss you're supposed to fight four times, and each time he runs away like a coward, and when you finally corner him he drops a key that lets you progress through the dungeon. But if you're clever, you can overload him with damage in each fight, seemingly "killing" him each time, and getting a key each time -- giving you three more keys than you need to unlock every door in the entire place, and giving you free rein to explore it in any order you wish. Sometimes sequence breaking like this would be very beneficial, allowing you to achieve your goals (most of which you're encouraged to take up by the game -- but not always), but it's also possible to skip around so much that you break things, and the game becomes unwinnable. You might be able to flip the switch that closes one door and open another, but not be able to flip it back. You might be able to traverse what was meant to be an impassible obstacle in one direction, but not another. That kind of thing. I played Link's Awakening over and over again, long after I knew how the story went or had any real interest in it, because it was a fascinating object lesson that demonstrated: "It is possible to break taboos and norms, to bypass rules and do what you want; you can get ahead by doing so, even. But this also means you have to take responsibility if doing this gets you into trouble or ruins your chance at things you wanted and could have realized by playing along." (An interesting dynamic to play with, and especially if you're a preteen.) Coincidentally, this does actually work pretty well with the game's actual narrative, but frankly, the mechanics -- the broken, unintended mechanics, no less -- do a better job of teaching it, because you have agency in the matter and whether it all works out or blows up in your face depends on how well you understand and how responsibly you use power. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Mar 18, 2019 |
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Mar 18, 2019 21:28
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I like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:30
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Bloodborne is dope.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:31
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I like foraging in breath of the wild and for a while I've harbored an idea for a game in that style where you just spend a few days in the life of a person living on a quiet island where you help people out in various ways that might be interlinked, the purpose being to a: encourage empathetic interactions and b: spend time driving, walking, or riding a bicycle before hunting or looking for things in a way that provokes a meditative state. There is nothing more engaging to me in a game than when the game is not being "the game", so making a game out of that is an appealing prospect.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:42
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Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn forgoes the health and lives systems of previous Kirby games, and instead replaces them with a Sonic The Hedgehog-like system where you temporarily lose collectible beads when you’re hurt and even if you have none you aren’t forced to restart the level or from a checkpoint, but this new system of "health" is in actuality more frustrating and stressful than in other Kirby games.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:43
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I like foraging in breath of the wild and for a while I've harbored an idea for a game in that style where you just spend a few days in the life of a person living on a quiet island where you help people out in various ways that might be interlinked, the purpose being to a: encourage empathetic interactions and b: spend time driving, walking, or riding a bicycle before hunting or looking for things in a way that provokes a meditative state. There is nothing more engaging to me in a game than when the game is not being "the game", so making a game out of that is an appealing prospect. congrats on inventing Animal Crossing
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Mar 18, 2019 21:50
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DC Murderverse posted:congrats on inventing Animal Crossing And Stardew Valley.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:52
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Magic Hate Ball posted:I like foraging in breath of the wild and for a while I've harbored an idea for a game in that style where you just spend a few days in the life of a person living on a quiet island where you help people out in various ways that might be interlinked, the purpose being to a: encourage empathetic interactions and b: spend time driving, walking, or riding a bicycle before hunting or looking for things in a way that provokes a meditative state. There is nothing more engaging to me in a game than when the game is not being "the game", so making a game out of that is an appealing prospect. Breath of the Wild is fun, but mother of God, the gimmick of your gear breaking every five minutes is just the goddamn worst.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:56
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Gonz posted:And And 33% of Red Dead Redemption 2.
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Mar 18, 2019 21:58
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breath of the wild with donut county aesthetics
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Mar 18, 2019 21:59
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K. Waste posted:Okay, church, what am I watching tonight? Watch Kuso and let me know if it's way ahead of it's time, or slightly too far past it, so I can adjust my Plex queue accordingly. (this is pretty self-centred advice, I'm sorry)
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Mar 18, 2019 22:04
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Magic Hate Ball posted:breath of the wild with donut county aesthetics I hope the Donut County people keep making cool anti-Gentrification games Honestly the whole game is making the player complicit in gentrification by having them be the ones literally dropping this cool neighborhood down a hole which is one of the more innovative ludonarrative conceits I’ve seen
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Mar 18, 2019 22:05
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I just finished Breath of the Wild over the weekend, can confirm it owns.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:08
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Cease to Hope posted:Your own eyes, looking at a three dimensional object, are also a constant stream of 2D images that you mentally assemble into a 3D space. The space itself is a fiction, but our understanding of that fictional space is as real as our understanding of a real space. Your eyes aren't producing a series of 2D images, and vision is not the only sense through which you experience your environment. You have a basic sense of where your body parts are in space, for example. Your inner ear picks up movement. Even with just one eye, you have various cues that allow you perceive the world in 3D. Tuxedo Catfish posted:The interesting questions are stuff like -- what is it about 2fort and de_dust that is so uniquely enthralling that they become the site of virtual communities? Why do video games like EVE Online encourage people to form these close-knit, almost student-mentor relationships, supported by wikis full of a bizarre mixture of practical advice for succeeding at what the game does, packaged together with cultural indoctrination? In this case, what you're talking about is virtual reality - and, in that case I side, with David Cronenberg in his Existenz commentary: virtual realities aren't art because they are merely realities.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:11
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Alfred P. Pseudonym posted:I just finished Breath of the Wild over the weekend, can confirm it owns. I just beat A Link Between Worlds two weekends ago. Despite my incredulity, I must admit, it's easily one of the best games in the series. I'll hopefully get a Switch this year so I can play Breath of the Wild and the Link's Awakening remake.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:12
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Your eyes aren't producing a series of 2D images, and vision is not the only sense through which you experience your environment. You have a basic sense of where your body parts are in space, for example. Your inner ear picks up movement. Even with just one eye, you have various cues that allow you perceive the world in 3D. Yes, your eyes are producing a series of 2D images. It's why you're susceptible to optical illusions of depth. Your vision isn't the only sense you use to establish things in space, but it is the main sense you use. Even when you have one eye, you can look at things from multiple angles simply by moving. We establish fictional spaces via a screen the same way we establish three-dimensional spaces we can't touch, and we see them the same way a person with one eye would. SuperMechagodzilla posted:In this case, what you're talking about is virtual reality - and, in that case I side, with David Cronenberg in his Existenz commentary: virtual realities aren't art because they are merely realities. This is just bizarre. Architecture, decorating, and landscaping can all be art; why would doing the same in an entirely artificial space not be art? Virtual realities aren't real.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:21
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I could not get into Breath of the Wild
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Mar 18, 2019 22:21
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I don't have a 3DS so I've never played A Link Between Worlds, but, honestly, the best Zelda to me is still A Link to the Past (and having re-played it when I got my SNES Classic like a year and a half ago, I can say it still holds up). Ocarina of Time was fun enough, and Majora's Mask was a neat gimmick, but I never really fell in love with them, and I tapped out hard on Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword.MacheteZombie posted:I could not get into Breath of the Wild Like I said, the weapons-breaking gimmick just killed it for me. I played it twice, for a few hours both times, at my in-laws' place, and it just drove me fuckin' nuts.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:22
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Anyway, any concerns about video games and art are effectively moot since Hollywood's been making gameitic scenes since AotC's C3PO/R2D2 funhouse ride and Crystal Skull's MonkeyVine platformer section.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:22
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Take it to the Sensorydome!
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Mar 18, 2019 22:23
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Timby posted:Like I said, the weapons-breaking gimmick just killed it for me. I played it twice, for a few hours both times, at my in-laws' place, and it just drove me fuckin' nuts. Yeah I'm guilty of the #notmyzelda mentality about that. Just wasnt fun crafting disposable weapons.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:24
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Timby posted:I don't have a 3DS so I've never played A Link Between Worlds, but, honestly, the best Zelda to me is still A Link to the Past (and having re-played it when I got my SNES Classic like a year and a half ago, I can say it still holds up). Ocarina of Time was fun enough, and Majora's Mask was a neat gimmick, but I never really fell in love with them, and I tapped out hard on Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. OoT's still my favorite. You didn't mention Wind Waker, which is my 2nd favorite. If you love A Link To The Past, I hope you get the chance to play A Link Between Worlds, because it's a direct continuation of it, the map is very very similar, and it feels really good. Twilight Princess is fine, but repetitive. I think Skyward Sword has some of the best puzzles in the series, but I don't like the over-world and got exhausted by all the swordplay bullshit.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:27
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Franchescanado posted:I just beat A Link Between Worlds two weekends ago. Despite my incredulity, I must admit, it's easily one of the best games in the series. BOTW is the only Zelda game I’ve completed. I got close with Majora’s Mask as a kid and rented Ocarina of Time for a weekend but that’s it.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:31
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Franchescanado posted:OoT's still my favorite. You didn't mention Wind Waker, which is my 2nd favorite. If you love A Link To The Past, I hope you get the chance to play A Link Between Worlds, because it's a direct continuation of it, the map is very very similar, and it feels really good. Never had a GameCube so I only played Wind Waker when we had it in our demo station when I worked at a video game store back in college. (Yes, I know the Wii basically had a free GC inside, but by the time I got one, Wind Waker was impossible to find.) I don't know why OoT never truly clicked with me; could just be a combination of Navi, way too much wandering, and the Z-targeting system being a bit broken. The soundtrack was loving killer, though; Gerudo Valley was one of the first songs I learned when I picked up the guitar in college.
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Mar 18, 2019 22:34
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