Architect Address May 2023 (Patreon)

Hello! Welcome to the architect address! It’s a special patrons only series of videos where you and me, yeah that’s right just us two, have a little chat about some things that have been going on with the channel lately and I talk about some videos that have come out recently too.

So, first up, I want to talk about where we are right now, the patreon, as you might recall I’ve been doing some experiments with an $8 tier as a little extra bonus version of the five dollar get your name in the credits tier and it’s… been kind of a weird one. On one hand, there’s been a decent uptake of people to it, and I’m very grateful for that - on the other… the actual reward which is to get a little shoutout at the end of the video… that’s not really been something people seem to want to engage with. It’s basically at the point where like two people have given me any shoutouts and as funny as it would be to just read out Jinkleoid’s posts at the end of every video, I kind of think that the lack of enthusiasm is indicative of a failed system. And that’s left me in a weird spot.

Because, the intent of the $8 is a little extra thing for people who want to go above and beyond and so I want it to exist, but I don’t want it to take up as much runtime as the credits readout tier does or  be as much work as something like this because I want to concentrate the actual content of the patreon at the lower tiers so people don’t miss out - the higher tiers are for accolades and thanks only. I think as some of the $8 peeps have suggested I’m leaning in the direction of just making it a shinier version of appearing int he credits, maybe with some fancy gold lettering - but that feels a little lazy? I dunno.

I imagine special discord server access and getting to play games with me or whatever would probably do quite well as rewards but it’s just not the vibe I want to encourage. I’ve taken several steps to ensure that this isn’t an adam millard the architect of games fanclub and whilst that’s a poor financial decision I’m going to stand by it. I guess I’ll have a bit more of a think about it but I like the vibe of the patreon as is, so it’ll just be a matter of figuring out something that fits with that ethos.

Beyond that, let’s talk about some videos huh? First up is Why Atomic Heart Fails to live up to its inspiration, this one was a concept that leaped out to me the moment I booted up atomic heart - the game is trying so hard to be bioshock that it’s impossible not to notice, from the vibe, to the weapons and even to the story - I didn’t go into that during the video for spoilery reasons but let’s just say that implying atomic heart is inspired by bioshock on a story level is… kind of a huge spoiler in of itself. Honestly atomic heart’s writing might be one of the most atrocious parts of a game I really didn’t like, the main character just sort of hating the idea of being the main character of a videogame and having to do things is such a baffling choice.

As for the actual concept of the video being based around metagaming, I am actually quite surprised by how little pushback I got with that phrasing, because I know that the most common usages of the word are to do with either, using out of game knowledge to inform your decision making in an rpg, or studying the competitive tactics and strategies of a game on a player versus player level, but really when you think about it, the thought processes that go into this stuff are the same as looking at singleplayer games from a big picture perspective and using out of game information to determine your goals and strategies. I know a hallmark of the channel at this point is me just sort of making up my own terminology because screw convention but I genuinely think this fits without any generously broad interpretation.

Getting to replay bioshock was actually pretty interesting too because it’s strange which areas of that game have aged well and which ones have aged badly. A lot of the most celebrated parts of bioshock have really started to show their age, the morality system is basically garbage and doesn’t work on a gameplay or thematic level, the much hyped horror angle is mostly just spooky shadows and a few cheap jumpscares and the big daddies were pretty disappointing too, they’re way easier than I remember and there’s only like two kinds. On the other hand on a gameplay level I thought bioshock was pretty good, sure the guns feel awful and particularly on higher difficulties the enemies are pretty bulletspongey but there’s loads of tactics, lots of different approaches and the game even functions pretty well as a survival horror game. At least, it would, were it not for the vita chambers which are… just bizarre. Not really sure why they exist. Really I think what brings out the strengths of Bioshock’s combat is that comparison to atomic heart which is 15 years newer and has almost no ideas of its own, and the stuff it did change made the game worse! It’s genuinely insane how the game doesn’t let you do stuff like zap water or blow up barrels or whatever, the sort of low level gameplay wrinkles that made bioshock’s combat have this fun improvisation feel are totally absent in atomic heart so it’s just sort of a boring shooter.

All in all, as is the way with these things, I was decently pleased with the video, I got to air some grievances with games that have had it coming for a while like ARK and of course that means the video did… badly. Yeah, I think it’s probably a combination of a not particularly engaging title and the fact that the internet was oversaturated by atomic heart by the time the video came out. Ah well, at least it was a good excuse to root out a bunch of people who got very triggered at the idea of me donating to charity.

The other video that came out recently was all about Terra Nil, a game I just can’t quite decide whether I like or not, which was sort of the key point I based the video around. On one hand, it is a game that kind of has a lot of problems, particularly when compared to other minimalist building optimization games like slipways but equally it’s kind of got some interesting stuff going on on a thematic level so who knows?

I think broadly that this video… isn’t great, I just don’t think I handled the intro or the outro very well at all in a way that makes my point kind of unclear and difficult to understand. Whilst I’ll stand by the fact that anti and reverse are different things, youtube commenters, I could’ve conveyed that difference a little better and also probably a little earlier. I also think that I really messed up with mentioning that terra nil kind of has an anti humanity environmental message because whilst that’s absolutely what the game implies, intentionally or not, it’s not what *I* believe personally, and I didn’t convey that very well either.

During the making of this video I was initially intending to talk a lot about sequels and remakes and how they affect things when it comes to prior expectations but I sort of backed off of that idea because I’ve spoken about it before. That’s actually something I’m increasingly finding as I keep making videos - I end up treading on my own toes a lot and covering ideas that I’ve covered in other videos before, and whilst I definitely think I’m a loooong way off running out of concepts for videos it’s an interesting challenge to write and approach the same ideas but in a different way or offer a different perspective in a way that can give people something new to think about. Case in point this video has a bit of crossover with the metagames video and the ugly games video but I leaning into the “why do normal games get stale after a while?” angle gives this one its own identity and vibe beyond those other two. I done more than 100 of these things now and I remember all of them it’s torture sometimes to realise, oh, wait, this good point I’m making was the centre of a different video, damn.

Strangely, as many issues as I have with this video, it’s done unaccountably very well! I dunno why. Once again enduring proof that these goddamn youtubes may as well be essentially random, I swear to god. Actually on that note, I have a friend who I won’t name but his assessment on which videos are good or bad, which I often end up agreeing with, is scarily inversely related to which videos do well. He hated this one, he didn’t like the longing video or the open worldy one, all did really well, and he really liked a lot of the worst performing videos on the channel. And I actually think that’s a good thing because it means I’m making a mix of more accessible stuff for the average viewer and more indepth slightly less interesting things for real aficionados.

Right I’ll end things there, have fun day or evening I guess depending on where you are and remember that videogames… are fun… yeah... Bye!