Critical Cycle

Originally published March 23, 2020. Time limits in games are a fairly common way to push the player away from degenerative strategies (kiting, farming, camping etc.), and extending it to puzzle games with a move limit seems like it might be beneficial as well. After playing a few games that rely on this concept, however, I find that a soft turn limit (i.e. you’re allowed to continue, like when there’s a displayed par score) is at best a distraction (you could introduce pars to all kinds of puzzle games and they wouldn’t magically get worse) but at worst a crutch for bad and lazy puzzle design. I’ve never been a fan of it, but it was particularly playing TaniNani and Sync 3D that made me realize why. To establish some common ground and goal, the main thing I look for in puzzle games is truth, which is hard to pin down concretely. Jonathan Blow has two lectures on the matter: Designing to Reveal the Nature of the Universe (w/ Marc Ten Bosch) and Truth In Game Design . Esse...

Originally published February 24, 2020. Doki Doki Literature Club starts off relying heavily on anime tropes to establish an innocent and cheery atmosphere for a generic dating sim. Of course, the disclaimer and store page already reveals this isn’t the true nature of the game, and soon enough Sayori’s depression starts getting introduced, to generally good effect. The poems in particular are well written and give a really interesting window into how these characters are feeling (my favorites were Ghost Under the Light and The Lady Who Knows Everything ). It then throws away all this setup in favour of spooky anime tropes, glitch graphics and a clunky meta narrative. Sayori’s depression loses any and all nuance as it’s revealed it was caused by editing game files, while the other girls are going insane from wanting to be with you so badly. See, it never really lets go of the harem tropes – throughout the whole thing, the characters are essentially hentai archetypes and ha...

Originally published January 24, 2020. When you finish The Witness (Thekla, Inc., 2016) you’re simply sent back to the start, all your efforts undone before your eyes. What a pointless exercise. But you may notice that a few lasers remain inactive and there are more puzzles to solve, so there’s still some hope that your effort will be rewarded. Once that’s done and you return to the top, there’s yet more puzzles. You’re on the right path, you found the reverse castle and don’t have to settle for the bad ending – you see right through its tropes. You beat the puzzles scattered around, you beat The Challenge, you’re ready for the true ending. Back to the start, but intentionally. You input the code and prepare for ascension. But again, you’re snubbed of your victory as the human that stumbles out of the simulation seems to have achieved nothing more than a strong Tetris Effect. The game’s message remains “don’t play me, I’m a waste of time”. But that doesn’t quite speak to t...

Originally published January 24, 2020. In this post I’ll reflect on how games could be seen as art, and how they fit (or do not fit) into art culture. Games as Art The core of art, for me, is its aesthetic intentions. It’s something that was conceived or created in order to appeal to our aesthetic sense, rather than as a practical tool/innovation. Whether it’s sad, scary, delightful, fun, beautiful, the whole range of aesthetic experiences apply. Games are largely created for these intentions, with the small exceptions of edugames and things like Kriegsspiel . Fun is often dismissed, because in other mediums fun is largely relegated to genre fiction/movies and other art that isn’t very respected, and some wouldn’t call art in the first place. But Football means too much to people to put it in the same box as brainless fun action movies like The Fast and the Furious (Universal Pictures, 2001). Decision making, physical mastery, pattern recognition and more ensure that game...

Originally published January 24, 2020. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (Wizards of the Coast, 2014) has this thing called Inspiration. At page 125 it reads: Inspiration Inspiration is a rule the Dungeon Master can use to reward you for playing your character in a way that’s true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. By using inspiration, you can draw on your personality trait of compassion for the downtrodden to give you an edge in negotiating with the Beggar Prince. Or inspiration can let you call on your bond to the defense of your home village to push past the effect of a spell that has been laid on you. Gaining Inspiration Your DM can choose to give you inspiration for a variety of reasons. Typically, DMs award it when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way. Your DM will tell you how you can earn inspiration in the game.You either have in...

Originally published January 24, 2020. I’ve seen this pop up a few times now. First with Sid Meier’s talk about design (2010) where he is constantly kowtowing to a hypothetical playtester and filing off the rough edges he likes in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Then in a paper prototyping lecture there was a lot about how to realize your idea in writing, communicate it with the team, and what you should be aiming for; the audience was obviously part of this. But the way “player experience goals” were presented, I’m not a fan. These are a description of what your players should feel when they play your game, kind of similar to saying “I want my game to be fun” and then cutting any features that a playtester doesn’t find directly contributes to fun for them. A lot of games are about challenge, and a very common design mantra is how you shouldn’t listen to your players because they will actively ruin their own experience. They may have a motivation (like t...

Originally published January 19, 2020. Minimalism, according to Wikipedia (2004), is work that sets out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts. It varies in intention and effect from artist to artist, and from medium to medium. It’s a process, of one work or a movement, of refinement and simplification, where something known is deconstructed and its non-essential elements removed. Fundamentally it is subtractive – yet when it works, what remains is given such power that it can easily overshadow any work that focuses instead on addition. Think about a single brush stroke. The mix of paints, the unique texture, the representation of one deliberate motion. But most paintings have hundreds of strokes littering their canvases, and the beauty inherent to each one is overwhelmed by this pure quantity. Calm Sea by Leonid Afremov (2013). Donald Judd (1965) details a new form of object that ...

Originally published May 20, 2019, but sporadically updated. List of Runs These are the runs I recommend highly. I’ve linked Speedrun.com which should have the up to date fastest run, and then after the hyphen is the length of and link to a run I recommend watching if you want English commentary (note that length is not in-game time for marathons). Demon’s Souls Any% – 42:55 Dark Souls Any% Force Quit – 20:44 Dark Souls Remastered All Bosses – 1:14:45 Dark Souls II Any% – 23:03/23:20 Dark Souls II All Bosses – 2:25:49 Dark Souls III All Bosses – 1:38:38 Bloodborne All Bosses – 1:12:54/1:16:06 Sekiro Shura – 19:59 Sekiro All Memories & All Beads – 1:06:30 If you want more, here are some less essential ones: Dark Souls All Bosses – 1:12:59-1:29:26 Dark Souls SL1 All Bosses – 1:12:42 Dark Souls II Any% CP – 50:55 + the outdated Cat Ring Skip (5 minutes in) Dark Souls II All Bosses No DLC – 1:11:18 Dark Souls III Any% – 33:23 Dark Souls III SL1 All Bosses – ...

Originally published February 7, 2019.   I just finished these in the same day so might as well combine them. Guacamelee 2 starts off weak but gets back to the first game’s muted glory by the end, while The Messenger starts off strong but stumbles during the second act. Both are overall good games I think, but they did leave me wanting more. Guacamelee 2 The metroidvania elements are wasted on a linear structure, the difficulty goes back to 0 even though the mechanics are almost the same as 1, much of the player moveset doesn’t complement the rest very well, and it’s overall at best masocore one-solution platforming combined with some combat infused with lock-and-key design – which is some decent fun, just not enough to warrant a sequel with minimal changes. It’s very much a rethreading of the first game, I don’t care much for the story but visually it’s so much of the same, not even many new characters let alone new areas and other art. The music is the worst of the...

Originally published January 8, 2019. I haven’t been playing many new metroidvanias but decided to get to it over christmas to have an opinion on what the best one was of the year (Hollow Knight was pretty clear last year, probably Ori in 2015 but I have to play ESA to be sure, in 16 I haven’t played any major ones). This year, there were a few more niche/different titles that I hadn’t gotten a good feel for from trailers; La Mulana 2, Dandara and Yoku’s Island Express. Then there was SOTN-likes Chasm and Timespinner, the not-actually-a-metroidvania Dead Cells, and more familiar Guacamelee 2, Iconoclasts and The Messenger. I played an hour or two of each, which definitely favors some less (La Mulana 2 mainly). I was thinking Guacamelee 2 might take it for me, but it’s kind of just a worse Guacamelee 1 in a few respects, I really liked that game but even if it was just as good, rehashing the visuals (exact same main character design (should have kept the dad bod), many ot...

Originally published November 22, 2018. I recently felt that metroidvania itch, and with Guacamelee 2, La Mulana 2 and other promising games on my wishlist, I naturally decided to cheap out and play some games from my library instead. Doing so left me disappointed overall, as neither of the three metroidvanias I played ended up pleasing me much despite promising aspects in each. To be up front, I never finished any of these games, because I didn’t get the impression they would get better with time, if I’m wrong there I’d appreciate being corrected. I also don’t think any of them are wholly bad, they’re all decent and inoffensive so I don’t mean to bash them here. This will focus on the gameplay of these three platformers, so the aesthetics of each will not be weighted (the music and art of Shantae is good, and Outland has some good art, but aesthetics rarely carry a game and isn’t very productive to critique regardless). I call them metroidvanias because that’s what I want...