http://designreboot.blogspot.com/

I recently found this one in a link from Yahtzee's column, both are pretty decent.

how abstract, ragnar.

You could probably write a book on this abstract game stuff. I wonder what goes on in your head sometimes.

I didn't think it was that abstract just like the game should never intrude in such a way like forcing them to read long instructions etc. and by having complete freedom in a game the limitations are more obvious... or something  - the second part also kind of made Pilotwings 64 unsatisfactory to me. Like when you have this huge scale model of the united states and can freely jetpack around it and realize all you can really do with it is... crash into it. So kind of a 'tip of the iceberg' feel should be in good games too imo

Alot of my enjoyment playing games comes from me associating elements of games with other things. Most of the time this is totally arbitrary and has nothing to do with anything! Here's an example: I play Earthbound regularly over a period of weeks, and while playing it I happen to be eating the same kind of food pretty often, so I begin to associate the two of them with each other and even when one is absent I start thinking about it and how much fun it is when I am doing both at the same time. For some reason the combination of the two becomes a single activity which is alot more fun than either of them alone.

It's not just food, it can be anything - I remember I was playing a demo of mirror's edge, like nearly two years ago, and in the background in the room my brother was watching an episode of Dexter. That episode of Dexter sucked, but I conflate the environments in the game with the environments in my head and for some reason I get a kick out of this? Maybe it was just the general atmosphere of the day, details I have forgotten, that added up to create this very appealling space in my mind that I even now sometimes go back to a little.

I remember when I was playing Silent Hill 2, I liked to play it in the afternoon and close my curtains over so the room was pretty dark although it was still day. I liked the atmosphere of playing this creepy game where the world was just a bit off while creating a similar kind of atmosphere in my room. It's daytime everywhere else...but not in here...That's a bit more of a direct association since it actually has something to do with the game rather than just being a random element that happened to be in my environment, but what I am saying is that alot of the time how much I enjoy playing a game has as much to do with my mind latching on to things in the real world and how they alter the experience as it does the actual game itself.

I think things like this are why I will continue to play games that have loads of bad qualities if they just remind me of something I like, or even just remind me of uh anything at all. I seem to get a kick out of being reminded of things. It's the same thing with movies sometimes. Alot of the time the content of the thing isn't as important as what the content points to in your mind, whether this is intended or not.

I'm not saying a bad game which reminds me of nice stuff I like is preferrable to a good game with no associations. I've got the brains to pick the better things and start making my associations with those things, most of the time, but judging things as being bad or good only really works as a kind of objective thing for me. To an extent - there is stuff that I won't put up with, but like say I played Dragon Quest VII the other day. This game is really kind of crappy so far - the sexism is just irritating with women being nothing but housewives, and it's kind of boring but at the same time I was kind of enjoying wandering around looking at the houses and hearing the music and stuff. It's good and bad, I'm enjoying it and I'm hating it. I have a line for crap I don't want to do anymore, and that game didn't seem to cross it.

I guess I am saying that associations will make me tolerate things I am not strictly enjoying for much longer periods of time than I would otherwise. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing I don't even know - it seems kind of obvious that it is bad, but how can I know this because maybe thoughts arise while I am making these associations that will lead me on to better things that I wouldn't have discovered or done if I hadn't had those thoughts? Who knows? It's all meaningless.

lol I hate to bring up GHANA POSTERS again but like aside from being kind of violent/macabre at times they really, I think they activated the same part of my brain when I was a gamer in my early days. And all of the movies they're depicting are horrible 80's action movies and shit, and when it comes down to it I think most nintendo games are some sort of horrible 80's movie/pulpy fantasy/sci-fi novel converted to pixels. But both manage to have this feel like each and every game/poster is unique to some degree (aside from those African movies where some obvious tropes emerge LASER EYES etc.) They both have this completely utterly unfiltered feel to them not in the sense of lol Nintendo games can have boobies because they're unfiltered, but like they don't pay any creed to what looks polished or if it's like Superman the game it looks so out of the Superman universe it's not even funny. Half the time I didn't even know what the graphics were trying to depict (I thought the third character in Dragon Warrior II was OLDMAN for the longest time because long white dress looked like long white beard and maybe I thought wizards had to be old dudes I dunno). But yeah even now I'll be looking at Nintendo games I never played and it's still like they just totally winged it with the graphics even with a lot of the major/licensed games and each one is just like this unique experience. Probably if all Nintendo games looked weird but the same it'd be fucking annoying too. But I'm awaiting a commercial game that really tries to look as whacked out as some of the old games rather than retro so coool. But I think the gaming industry has been assimilated too much into the movie/anime/toy industry that it's no longer this separate entity and it's just a mindless extension of those three things

Edit: I think independent gaming is still kind of like this, like if you guys didn't have internet and nobody in real life cared about your stuff would you still make games just to make them?? Because probably a lot of early games were like this I imagine there was no guarantee that it would really sell at all  (this is kind of an aside btw not exactly related)

gah let me see if I can summarize all this:

1. Don't worry about making a game fun, fun is too abstract an idea, concentrate on making it not feel 'cheap' first because even some of the best games were full of repetition and other officially unfun things but they probably didn't feel cheap or we wouldn't have played them. Game music in particular is about repeating elements without feeling cheap like PHILIP GLASS or someone like that

2. I don't know what this says about gamers it's not necessarily a good thing

3. Individually games probably weren't that creative but pretty much every other one felt unique. Even shit like sports games. Add some bit that the mind likes situations it perceives as something new over pretty but banal graphics

4. I dunno about immersion but I think pretty graphics stand in the way of COMPLETENESS - like a rpg village with 3 houses would look progressively weirder and less acceptable as the graphics get better, maybe

5. Videogames were a different form of media back then like I dunno I would compare them to PULP NOVELS more readily than compare them to movies back then. Now they're just kind of lumped in with all other media

edit: ahaha he was offended by bayonetta too, where's that article about how bayonetta is pretty pro-feminist when i need it?

You ask and I provide: http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/213466/bayonetta-empowering-or-exploitative/


Seriously, there's a bunch of awesome and smart people writing about videogames on the internet but you won't find them on big websites (there's a few exceptions and some of their texts ends up on those websites from time to time). You need to search for them a bit (start there: http://www.critical-distance.com/) but it's a shame places like Craked or Destructoid, which is the TMZ of the videogame world, gets all the traffic.

You ask and I provide: http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/213466/bayonetta-empowering-or-exploitative/


Seriously, there's a bunch of awesome and smart people writing about videogames on the internet but you won't find them on big websites (there's a few exceptions and some of their texts ends up on those websites from time to time). You need to search for them a bit (start there: http://www.critical-distance.com/) but it's a shame places like Craked or Destructoid, which is the TMZ of the videogame world, gets all the traffic.

that was the one, there was actually another (or two???) bayonetta-is-good-for-women article somewhere.  that's the one i remembered though.

I refuse to believe Bayonetta is a real game

I haven't played it therefore it doesn't exist

I refuse to believe Bayonetta is a real game

I haven't played it therefore it doesn't exist

Count yourself lucky that it is so much easier to do that with games than it is with movies.

Trust me on this, I've tried.

it's all gone david wong