Patreon Newsletter - February 2016 (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Thanks for your support this month. Here's what I've been up to, and what's coming up over the horizon.

Post Script

Sadly, I was only able to produce one episode in February because of a nasty illness. Feeling good now and it's great to be back researching, editing, and playing. Anyway, here's how it came together.

Morality in the Mechanics

This episode went through so many changes. It started as a look at the stress system in Darkest Dungeon, and how it made your heroes feel more like human beings. Then it turned into something about mental health. Then something about how games turn you into a bad guy.

Then it went back to the stress system, as a comparison with the panic system in XCOM 2. And then, after a lot of work, into something about morality. What a weird, tangled mess. That anything coherent came out of the process is a miracle.

Morality systems are interesting for me because when given the choice, I'll always play as a good guy. I don't get any joy out of arbitrarily being an arsehole. So something I really wanted to focus on was how these games put pressure on you to do selfish and immoral things through the mechanics

It's a topic I intend to explore further - I hand-waved the RPG morality systems in Mass Effect and Fallout, but I'm sure I'll return there at some point. And I guess I have to do something on Spec Ops: The Line. You can't be a real video game critic without talking about that game, I guess!

Oh, and thanks for your help on Patreon when I asked about morality systems. It helped me get my thoughts in a sensible order.

Sneak Peek

What am I working on next? Right now I'm hard at work on a video about one of my most requested topics: The Witness.

Well, more specifically, Jonathan Blow, and the way he designs puzzle games. He has a fascinating philosophy which led to some incredibly sharp conundrums in Braid and The Witness. I can't wait to share it with everyone, and to dig deep into both of those games.

I'm also fascinated by clicker / idle games. How can a game like Cookie Clicker - a game about clicking, waiting, and watching numbers go up - be so engrossing, and so popular? And is there anything we can learn from those games that we can apply to other genres?

I've got some thoughts, but I'd love to hear what you think.

I never know what order I'll do things in - I teased a bunch of episode ideas in last month's newsletter and achieved exactly half of one of them - it really depends what excites me at that moment. I'll be sure to drop some questions to everyone on here when I settle on something solid!

Oh yeah, and I'm off to GDC in San Francisco next month. Looking forward to chatting to some designers, and getting to sit in on some talks.

Mark's Month

I've just started playing Far Cry Primal. I was suspicious of how Ubisoft could make a Far Cry games without guns, but it's actually quite successful. What it leads to is a game where you feel vulnerable, and you have to move deliberately and make choices carefully.

Not unlike Far Cry 2, actually. It's certainly, as far as I've played, less gung ho than Far Cry 4. When you meet a woolly rhino or a leopard you can't blast it with a rocket launcher. You basically just have to get the hell away from there.

Also from Ubisoft: I got quite into the beta for The Division. This is a third-person shooter like Ghost Recon or whatever, but as an MMO.

In some ways, the pairing is not ideal. Having to shoot a guy with a hoodie like 80 billion times because he has a lot of HP is weird. But in other ways, it feels good - stomping through New York with a party, and running across other human players, makes for some really interesting scenarios.

When I was sick I binged on three things: Fargo season 2 (great), Louie season 4 (great), and Project X Zone 2 (not so great). Look, I enjoyed seeing characters from Yakuza, Shenmue, Ace Attorney, and Resident Evil all get together but the gimmick wears thin after about 5 hours.

Then you have another 45 of fanfic level writing, weird fetish stuff, and utterly mind-numbing turn-based tactics. I dig crossovers (Smash Bros, Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright) but this one just doesn't do it for me. Here's my review. 

Quick thoughts on (almost) everything else I played: Firewatch is a tragic character piece set in a stunning location (more on that in Game Maker's Playlist tomorrow). XCOM 2 assumes you were adept at XCOM Enemy Unknown and will literally murder you if you weren't. Unravel is adorable but the puzzles fall short. Superhot is super fun.

And the other GMT-related thing of note: my Super Mario 3D World episode got a quick a shout-out at the end of this PBS Game Show episode. Neat!

Reading List

Each month I'll share some videos and articles I've enjoyed. This time...

Firewatch with me

This blog post talks about how the physical paper map reflects Henry's personality, and this one explains how Campo Santo created an environment that be redressed with different lighting and colour to evoke different moods.

You can see them for yourself in this episode of Other Places.

This talk from the developers goes into how a Metroidvania like design - where Henry can make shortcuts to speed up his navigation of the Shoshone forest - lets the player become more familiar with the world (as Henry does) even though they're only in it for a few hours.

Much has been written about the story and the ending, but interactive fiction developer Emily Short has one of the best analysis pieces.

These complaints feel to me like they’re completely missing the point of the story; though I would say that they’re missing the point partly because of some feints Firewatch makes in the midgame. So the fault is shared.

Finally, this IGN podcast with key members of Campo Santo is worth a watch. If you listen to the podcast Idle Thumbs you'll know how funny and smart these guys are.

Anyway!

Multiplayer map design is always fascinating. On Gamasutra, Call of Duty modder Muhammad Ayub breaks down the basics of building a well balanced map.

This article from Katherine Cross about how Dragon Age: Inquisition turns prejudice into a mechanic is a great read, and could inspire all sorts of games that double up as social commentary.

If your Inquisitor is a human warrior or rogue, you begin with the highest possible court approval level. But if you are a mage - a member of a class held in great suspicion and fear in Thedas - you start with a lower level. Even moreso if you play as an Elf or Dwarf, and you lose the most points right off if you play as one of the tall, horned Qunari. As the quest starts, then, racial discrimination becomes palpable in the mechanics.

This video on time reversal in games is great - it focuses largely on the technical aspect: how does a game like Prince of Persia or Braid remember where you've been, and why do some games put a limit on your ability to rewind?

It's a good reminder of why improved processing power in modern consoles can give us more than just fancy graphics. Interesting mechanics, improved AI, and other innovative stuff can come out of more bits and bytes.

Postmortems are a good way to learn about making games. But this one on the elegant iOS puzzler Prune is quite different. Joel McDonald focuses on the things that helped him become successful that other developers fail to mention, or perhaps even notice.

Specifically, his good design skills wouldn't count for much if it weren't for luck, having the time and money to make mistakes, and even the privileges afforded by his genes. An important read.

Oh yeah, you know those demos that get played on stage at E3 press conferences? This guy somehow got his hands on one for a Ghost Recon game, and it's very interesting. It's absolutely and utterly broken unless you follow the exact script of the demo. I love behind the scenes stuff like this.

Also, Usborne have made their 1980s computer programming books available as free downloads. Someone made a working calculator in Super Mario Maker because of course they did. This Kotaku post on drawing backgrounds would be great for anyone making an adventure game. And I would so watch this 80s show "D-Dogs".

In non-game related stuff, Every Frame a Painting reveals how the Coen brothers edit a dialogue scene, a guy is a dick to a robot, and here's how Spotify makes those perfect playlists every damn week.

See you next month!