DGC Ep 431: Dear Esther/Walking Simulators (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on walking simulators with 2012's Dear Esther, played here in a 2017 "Landmark Edition" but based on a 2007 Source mod for Half-Life 2. We of course set the game in its time, spend a fair amount of time on randomness and meaning, and open the cellar door. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
The whole shebang

Issues covered: walking simulators, 2012 in games, a little history of The Chinese Room (the company), a little digression on The Chinese Room (the thought experiment), influences, developing in the mod community, the role of randomness, discovering the randomness, justifying the randomness, mod communities replaying games, not discussing games as you play them, writers having the same space to play, 30 seconds of depressing poetry, "cellar door," a quality of lovely phonemes, the facts we know and the things we might interpret, a dreamy narrative space, Tim reveals his baseball knowledge, a metaphor for grief and an otherworldly space, rebirth, a car accident setting vs a gurney setting, things you can miss, not a thing video games would do, appreciating a new design space, directors' commentaries, crematory urns, one of the props, the impact of the ultrasound, needing to relate to the characters, the potential for missing things.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Fez, The Stanley Parable, The Chinese Room, Dishonored, Halo 4, Diablo III, Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, Forza Horizon, New Super Mario Bros U, Far Cry 3, XCOM Enemy Unknown, Alan Wake's American Nightware, Hitman Absolution, Assassin's Creed 3, Max Payne 3, Mass Effect 3, Borderlands 2, Darksiders 2, Spec Ops: The Line, Dragon's Dogma, Fez, Journey, The Walking Dead, Hotline Miami, Spelunky, Papo y Yo, Bastion, Super Hexagon, Sumo Digital, Dan Pinchbeck, Jessica Curry, Rob Briscoe, Independent Games Festival, Korsakovia, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Everyone's Gone to the Rapture, Unity, CryEngine, Little Orpheus, Still Wakes the Deep, Vampire: Bloodlines (series), Hardsuit Labs, Brian Mitsoda, John Searle, Alan Turing, William S. Burroughs, Nigel Carrington, Proteus, Halo, Drew Barrymore, Donnie Darko, Rogue Legacy 2, David Lynch, Lost Highway, Inland Empire, Laura Dern, Waiting for Godot, True West, Sam Shepard, Firewatch, LucasArts, 343 Games, Kevin Schmitt, Metal Gear, Death Stranding, Trespasser, Tacoma, Jedi Starfighter, Daron Stinnett, Outer Wilds, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
The Stanley Parable

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DGC Ep 430: Gone Home/Walking Simulators (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we start a new series of explorations on the walking simulator, beginning with Gone Home. We set the game in its time, talk about possible real world experiences, and dive into its restraint and storytelling. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
All of Gone Home

Issues covered: walking simulator coverage, the wave of indies and another wave, career changes, Fullbright's early history, leaving the big industry, the value of focus, location-based entertainments and shows, focusing on one thing, having constraints vs not, setting your own constraints, the spooky atmosphere but having restraint, imposing expectations from video games, visiting a previously unknown house, the Ouija board, a literal red hair-ing, stripping out all the video game-isms for interactivity, few mechanics, simple systems and using their few mechanics and verbs, experience-forward, Brett quizzes Tim, narrative richness, the ordering of collectible reading, leveraging non-linear storytelling, using period-appropriate communication, games that make Tim cry, the 90s of it all, letters vs email, waste paper baskets, a visual language and the use of consistency. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Death Stranding, Dear Esther, Firewatch, BioShock Infinite, Batman: Arkham Origins, GTA V, Tomb Raider (2013), Dead Rising 3, Dead Space 3, LoZ: A Link Between Worlds, The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, AC IV: Black Flag, Rayman Legends, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Battlefield IV, Payday 2, Outlast, Antichamber, The Stanley Parable, Papers Please, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Starbreeze, Josef Fares, Hazelight Studios, It Takes Two, LucasArts, Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, Blue Prince, Animal Well, Balatro, 343 Studios, BioStats, Calamity Nolan, Tacoma, Indie Game: The Movie, Minerva's Den, Bioshock, Kate Craig, Carl Lumbly, 2K Marin, Hangar 13, Fallout: New Vegas, Morrowind, Sleep No More, Macbeth, Antenna Theater, Meow Wolf, George RR Martin, Control, Imagineering, Disney, Fez, X-Files, Resident Evil, Amnesia, Life Is Strange, Leaves of Grass, Hollow Knight, Pulp Fiction, Final Fantasy IX, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last of Us 2, Alien, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Dear Esther (2012)

Links:
Why Is Gone Home A Game?

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DGC Ep 429: Fez (part four)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Fez. We talk about getting to New Game +, some favorite puzzles or mechanics, and then turn to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished the game! (once)

Issues covered: Tim's audio quality, community event, mind blowing, needing a certain number of cubes, a discussion of QR codes, every QR code a Fez puzzle, not being sure you should follow a QR code, stepping through the 32-cube door, metaphysical reflections, stepping back through bit depth, meme sunglasses, seeing how the world is built, debug tools, keeping a secret, independence and control of marketing and secrets, time pivots and traversing quickly, glowing gates and time of day, the low gravity space, Fez notes, Brett tries to talk around figuring out how to translate the language, talking yourself into being on the right track but not being, the lore in the world, subverting expectations and norms, exploring consequences of innovation, inspiration and subversion of classic games, not overstaying the welcome of its mechanics, changing how you think of the game, always having something going on, the artifacts and treasure maps, a more approachable platformer, difficult twitch reflexes, so you're saying it's possible.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Keep Talking and No One Explodes, Kaeon, Calamity Nolan, Space Team, BioStats, Beyond Good & Evil, Alan Wake, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Super Hexagon, Atari 2600, NES, Adventure, Plato/The Republic, The Wizard of Oz, Assassin's Creed, Dark Souls, Mines of Moria, sixty second shooter prime, MYST, Minecraft, Tetris, Humongous, Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam, Father Beast, Vessel, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Axiom Verge, Hollow Knight, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
TBA!

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Discord Game Club Ep 8

Tim had some unscheduled travel come up this week and so we were unable to work around that and instead reach into the Discord Game Club interview archive. This time around, BioStats and Calamity Nolan interview Michael Betts, a member of the Discord who is also a developer and who played his studio’s game Tower Song in this past January’s charity stream event. We expect to return to finish off Fez next week.

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DGC Ep 428: Fez (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2012's Fez, looking at coming back to a puzzle game and perception in its many forms, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
More cubes!

Issues covered: video game development ephemera, coming back to a puzzle game, not enjoying the map but maybe you should be, a text adventure map, secret doors, retraining your brain, key ordering, not knowing if you should walk away from puzzles, developing trust with the game, being motivated to solve every puzzle, when do you walk away, planning for the player to get stuck, adventure game slop, getting stuck in a more linear game, putting in scaled difficulty, getting to a point where you're stuck everywhere, different types of puzzling in the game, the steps of a particular puzzle, a meta discussion, a game about perspectives where the activity is manipulating perspectives, being proud of being in games, recontextualizing your perception, having to retrain your brain, overestablishment of genre, having confidence, working on top of a common language, recognizing that you have the tool, mechanics in a neighborhood, experimenting when you've been away, being able to innovate in more major ways, achievements/trophy hunting, being lost in the realm, Turing-complete redstone.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Sean Vesce, Zack Norman, Interstate '76, VGHF, LucasArts, Space Quest, The Witness, Blue Prince, MYST, Tomb Raider, Zelda, The Fool's Errand, Metroid (series), Hollow Knight, Kingdom Hearts (series), MegaMan (series), Mario (series), Colin from PA, PlayStation/Xbox/Steam, Minecraft, LostLake, Mors, Kaeon, Bvron, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Notes:
Brett referred to Fez's year as 2013 or 2014, but clearly it was 2012. Whoops.

Next time:
Finish(?) the game?

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DGC Ep 427: Interstate '76 Interview with Sean Vesce and Zack Norman

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we return with a bonus interview for our series on Interstate '76. We talk about shipping the game's predecessor, pulling together, and making something new. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Podcast breakdown:
1:15 Interview
1:05:22 Break
1:06:00 Outro

Issues covered: introducing the guests, having fun making games, great manuals, marrying video games and Hollywood, having more video game applicable experience than you realize, having to right the ship well into development, preordering a game you ended up working on, living in the office, getting enough memory to run the games, opening up space for something new, superheroics and glue, "high polygon counts," muscle cars with guns, being ahead of the curve, sims being in the blood, engine development, come back with your tenth idea, a 28-year scoop on engine work, "I can do that," optimizing and making things up as you go along, making a game like a movie or TV show, a soundtrack that helped drive the game, a team of 12 or 13 people, the few basic bits in a vehicle sim, the players don't know what you've cut, not being arena-based, vigilantes and comic-book heroes, the tools for making the world and a scripted objective system, building from scratch, mission structure, finite state machines and AI, having an identity and character, having a bubble, sticking to your passion, working on a new car game, hearing the chemistry, TTRPGs and alternate histories, our audience maybe not being born yet when this game came out, #minecraft-realm-life. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Activision, Mechwarrior 2, 20After1, Cinemaware, Crystal Dynamics, Project Snowblind, Tomb Raider (series), E-Line Games, Never Alone, Colabee, Very Very Spaceship, Niantic, Live Aware, Jamdat, DoggyLawn, Atari 2600, David Crane, Stephen Cartwright, Commodore '64, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Adventure, River Raid, Bobby Kotick, Mediagenic, Intellivision, Pong, SimCity, Alan Gershenfeld, Howard Marks, DOOM (1993), FASA Interactive, Battletech, Egghead Software, E3/CES, Tim Morten, LucasArts, Totally Games, Larry Holland, TIE Fighter/X-Wing, Star Wars: Starfighter, id Software, Epic, Julio Jerez, Airport '77, The A-Team, Third Eye Blind, Kelly Walker Rogers, Tim Schafer, Carmageddon, Twisted Metal, Watchmen, Jordan Weisman, Microsoft, Wing Commander, Falcon, Fallout, Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, X-COM, Julian Gollop, Alex Garden, Homeworld, Dan Stansfield, Castle Falkenstein, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, Minecraft, mors, LostLake, Kaeon, bvron, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Back to Fez

Notes:
Julio Jerez appears to be from Dominican Republic

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DGC Ep 426: Fez (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Fez. We talk about its platforming and how it fits to taste, game style, and rule escalation. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
More cubes!

Issues covered: platforming feelings and taste, inspirations and how they play out here, additional move set, floaty physics, a mental game with mostly generous platforming, a game that takes place in your head rather than in your fingers, seeking high highs, sloppiness and guiding the player, no longer seeing the whole world but only the tells, the pleasure of figuring things out, checking out the achievements, how many people get everything, the craft of the game, wanting to feel capable, finding a solution that was not the intended solution, dominated by the puzzle side, those moments where you give a big "no way," extending a simple idea and iterating on it for a fleshed-out game, iterating ideas, a chain of implication, not making the leaps of logic too large, ladders that line up and teach you how to think about the world, not knowing whether you can do a thing yet, not wanting to diminish the revelations, puzzles games Brett hasn't finished and why, editorial from the publisher and Key Performance Indicators, finding a tribe for your indie game, side games, smaller and more cohesive teams, a choose-your-own-email, having an experience, leaving endings open.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Hollow Knight, Indie Game: The Movie, Phil Fish, Nintendo, Mario (series), Little Big Planet, Guacamelee, Super Mario Galaxy, Demons's Souls, Dark Souls, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Tomb Raider (2013), The Matrix, Deep Thoughts/Jack Handey, MYST, Pierre de Fermat, Megaman, Resident Evil, The Witness, Braid, The Talos Principle, Obduction, Cyan Worlds, Super Meat Boy, Fallout, X-COM, mysterydip, Mass Effect, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Twin Peaks, Half-Life, While We're Young, Noah Baumbach, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
More Fez!

Note:
Amusingly, though I did not call out the actresses, Naomi Watts and Amanda Seyfried appear in While We're Young, and both also appeared in Twin Peaks: The Return

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DGC Ep 425: Fez (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series of series on the independent games of the last couple of decades, starting with 2012's Fez. We set the game in its time, talk a bit about its precedents and the landscape of independent games in the middle of that console generation. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Single-digit cubes

Issues covered: our real plan or lack thereof, early games, the indie revolution, the influences back and forth, the pressure of the space we're in, a highly visible indie, games from that year, sequels vs the different stuff in the indies, democratization of the market, the console cycle, always online fiasco, getting on the Steam store, opening console store fronts to independents, limitations, the broadband market and bandwidth costs, the publicity on the store, low cost of goods, continuing power of retail, a two dimensional puzzle game in a three dimensional world, charm, great music and MIDI with an unsettling feel, rotating the world, rebooting the game, achieving the effect without perspective, the Trixel engine, having a hard time getting it, trusting the game, having a new lens on a game, taking the time to infuse the whole experience, team sizes, telling a different story with an existing language, having fewer people to get on board, independent publishers and producers, influences, glitch aesthetics, map language, climbing on the sides of things, stopping time while the world rotates, how the editor might work, games from the past, CONFIG.SYS (dang it, could not remember), skipping over generations.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Will Wright, Indie Game: The Movie, Polytron, Phil Fish, Dishonored, Halo 4, AW American Nightmare, X-COM, Firaxis, Mass Effect 3, Forza Horizon, Far Cry (series), Counterstrike: Go, Assassin's Creed 3, Borderlands 2, Diablo III, Dragon's Dogma, Journey, The Walking Dead, Telltale Games, FTL, Spelunky, Papo y Yo, Bastion, Super Hexagon, Terry Cavanaugh, Supergiant, Hades, Transistor, UFO 50, Derek Yu, That Game Company, Sky, Sony, PlayStation, Microsoft, Steam, XBLA, Braid, Super Meat Boy, Nintendo, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Zelda (series), Super Mario (series), Metroid (series), Outer Wilds, The Sixth Sense (obliquely), Renaud Bedard, Trapdoor, Penny Arcade, blitworks, Tetris, Axiom Verge, Tron, Out of this World, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Super Mario 3D Land, Minecraft, Sam, Interstate '76, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
More Fez!

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DGC Ep 424: Interstate '76 (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we sadly conclude our series on Interstate '76. Poor Tim could not really play the game at all, so we're going to have to let this one go, but we'll still talk about a few things. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to Mission 10 (B)

Issues covered: Tim being unable to get the game running, other cultural objects disappearing, physics implementation details from an implementer!, PC compatibility testing, running down bugs even today, flight stick vs controller, acceleration and turning, independent throttle, analog triggers on modern controllers, easy difficulty, getting a lot out of a few cars, making cars seem smarter, lack of uncanny valley, feeling a whole story in a mission, level design vs mission design, repetitive missions in other games, rewarding you with movies, impersonating a President, committing to a stylistic identity, standing out from the crowd, leveraging an IP shift, moving around between teams, the other game made with the same fiction, working remotely in the games industry, fear and trust.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Nosferatu, Moby Dick, Typee, Omoo, Emily Dickinson, Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit, Phil Salvatore, Carlos, Julio Jerez, Daniel Stanfield, Starfighter (series), Quake, Tomb Raider, Ultima Underworld, Trespasser, TIE Fighter, Wing Commander (series), George H. W. Bush, FASA, Duke Nukem, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Gladius, Final Fantasy Tactics, Red Rock, Sam and Max, Republic Commando, Rebel Assault, Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion, Wes, Twisted Metal, Luxoflux, Vigilante 8, Star Wars: Demolition, SNES, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Super Star Wars, Big Sky Trooper, Activision, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, Dave K, Grand Designs, Bethesda Game Studios, Microsoft, Kingdoms of Amalur, .38 Studios, LostLake, Mors_d, Minecraft, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time: TBA

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DGC Ep 423: Interstate '76 (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1997's Interstate '76. We talk about physics again, mission design, input, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: 
Roughly six missions (B), technical difficulties (T)

Issues covered: end of mission two sitting duck and acting, many controller bindings, driving an automatic, mapping onto the character's body instead of the car, the hardware abstraction layer and Direct X, enumerating devices and buttons, IBM PC light grey numpads, mechanical keyboards, the nostalgia of two hands on the keyboard, extra peripherals, simulating the character vs the car, the car as the crosshairs, getting stuff off the battlefield, upgrades, managing weight, racing missions, the potential of weight impacting the simulation, a game that's not well-preserved, weird configuration and axes, mission design, following the guy you're racing, broken physics world, compounded errors, blowing up the diner, 90s references, failing the mission multiple times, guiding the player back, being unable to save Skeeter, level of detail issues, sim mission design, cheating the sim, car condition, wanting to try the flight stick, the band, good looking cars, mayhem on the field, now available on YouTube.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Falcon, XvT, MechWarrior, Steel Battalion, Guitar Hero, Microsoft, Forza, TIE Fighter, Tipper Gore, Escape from New York, Third Eye Blind, fbrccn, MuzBoz, Twisted Metal Black, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Notes: 
The more common and cheap keyboard type that Brett didn't know the name of is a "membrane" keyboard. 

Next time:
More I '76

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DGC Ep 422: Interstate '76 (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1997's Interstate '76. We set the game a bit in its time, talk about Activision (almost as an afterthought), and then start getting into the characters and the vibe, of which there is much. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Early mission or two

Issues covered: a game time forgot, playing a sim game genre, a unique take on the sim genre plus car combat, prepping the sim elements vs the actual play, other games from that year, taking a formula and doing something different with it, modern exploitation-inspired games, exploitation cinema, grindhouse, other potential influences and inspirations, why you pick sparse environments, breakable cacti, a huge variety of games, low-cost film-making and democratization, vigilantes, a bland corporation, text adventures, a business and not a game company, seeing the impact of acquisition or mergers, character introductions, fake actors playing characters, character names, Groove Champion vs Stiletto Anyway, stylized and simplified characters, flat shading and seeing every polygon, connecting to the character in the cockpit and via the radio, naturally cinematic, stylized presence, jitteriness and physics, compounding errors, deterministic physics, preserving this game and finding ways to play it, just shipping a game, dealing with a controller vs keyboard. 
 
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: TIE Fighter (series), Starfighter, MechWarrior (series), Voltron, Diablo, Resident Evil, The Last Express, Fallout, GoldenEye, Castlevania: SotN, Age of Empires, Outlaws, Curse of Monkey Island, Dark Forces 2, Shadows of the Empire, Wing Commander: Prophecy, Final Fantasy VII, Mario Kart 64, Gran Turismo, PlayStation, Dark Forces, Final Fantasy Tactics, Wet, Kane and Lynch, Suda 51, Grasshopper Interactive, Killer 7, Death Race 2000, Russ Meyers, Death Proof, Mad Max (series), MegaMan 8, Kaeon, Cleopatra Jones, Enter the Dragon, Jim Kelly, Bruce Lee, Game of Death, Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill, Fist of Fury, Starsky and Hutch, River Raid, Pitfall, David Crane, Atari, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Capcom, Blizzard, id Software, Interplay, Infocom, Zork (series), Witness, Enchanter (series), Ballyhoo, Lurking Horror, Electronic Arts, Bobby Kotick, Nintendo, BattleZone, Pac-Man, Jason Schreier, Play Nice: The Rise and Fall of Blizzard Entertainment, Hearthstone, Marvel Snap, Ultima (series), Bioware, Treyarch, Raven Software, Heretic/Hexen, Quake, Battletech/FASA Entertainment, Anachronox, Pam Grier, Chuck Norris, Dungeon Keeper, Half-Life 2, Indiana Jones and the Internal Machine, Video Game History Foundation, Star Wars: Episode I: Racer, Forza (series), Falcon (series), Dark Souls, Minecraft, LostLake86, Mors, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.  

Errata:
Lost Treasures of Infocom actually originally came out in 1991. We regret the error. 

Next time:
More I'76!

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DGC Ep 421: Outcast (part four)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on 1999's Outcast. We talk a bit about the end of the game, the challenge of plate-spinning, gadgets we missed out on for much of the game, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Finished (Brett)... some more (Tim)

Podcast breakdown:
00:47 Discussion
54:07 Break
54:36 Takeaways/Mailbag

Issues covered: getting captured and losing your stuff, getting some ammo from your subquests, some of the other weapons, the silenced sniper tranquilizer, not fulfilling stealth, a difficult puzzle in the tree world, the deep sound puzzle of the forest world, getting one key from a complicated puzzle and then a physics puzzle, doing what you think is right for your goals, modest budgets vs today's indie and AAA, the lower development cost and the challenge of readability, making big hard decisions to collapse away a problem, market size, the delusion of ship when it's ready vs making what you can by the deadline, the podcast exposing us to some really great games, plate-spinning and tendrils spreading out, imagining the flowcharts, getting to the end of the Motazaar gauntlet, "your key is in another castle," the F-Link gadget and speeding play, the other gadgets, quest system being per-zone, story bits that cover the length of the game, "rules are meant to guide people, not contain them," narrative niceties, memorable and understandable NPCs, the two fishermen, NPC depth, greater empathy vs snark in Cutter Slade, describing the time shifty stuff, running through the story at the end of the game, a bold world structure, motivating and leveraging the connectivity, the voxel terrain, dynamic systems in play, the depth of the narrative space, legacies. 
 
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Indiana Jones, Beyond Good and Evil, Anachronox, Unreal, Nintendo Switch, Breath of the Wild, Shadow of the Colossus, Assassin's Creed (series), Tomb Raider (series), Uncharted (series), Team Ico, Fbrccn, Infogrames, Appeal, Blizzard, Warcraft (series), Dwarf Fortress, The Last Express, The Crying Game, John Carter/A Princess of Mars, Delta Force, Anthony Gallegos, Rebel FM, mysterydip, Pong, Belmont, Mark Garcia, Jedi Starfighter, Republic Commando, Castlevania, Dark Souls 2, BioStats, CalamityNolan, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers. 

Next time:
TBA!

Links:
The Ghost Racing Article

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DGC Ep 420: Outcast (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1999's Outcast. We talk about world structure, world building, concrete vs abstract implementations of mechanics, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up to/through Talanzaar

Issues covered: sad news, a digression on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Project Gutenberg, finally "getting" the game, depth of story and environment at the time, the "second" world, moderating your own difficulty, supporting narrative goals, a dynamic "find this person" system, concrete interactions to increase believability of the world, the big impact of the world state change, organic architecture, cheesing the terrain collision, world-building in conversations, Mogi and his history, the crane puzzle, auto-targeting the swinging cube, the brothers competing for the business, the flautist and singer, the adventurous music, world state music, reputation as a concept, enemy states.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Belmont/Jesse Lane Nelson, Defeating Games for Charity, Jedi Starfighter, BioStats, LostLake, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter/A Princess of Mars, Project Gutenberg, Computer Gaming World, Tomb Raider, Anachronox, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, Total Recall, Grim Fandango, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Star Wars, Castlevania X: Rondo of Blood, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Finish (?) Outcast

Links:

Belmont hosts Tim & Brett on JSF

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DGC Ep 419: Outcast (part two)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1999's Outcast. Tim can't get enough of the voxels, and we dive a little bit into combat, mounts, and structure. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Mostly through Shamazaar

Issues covered: revisiting Defeating Games for Charity, the work behind the event, launch of VGHF library, accepting the voxels, possible benefits of voxels, how to represent transfer, back to metaballs, generating noise in the voxels, collision and voxels, looking unlike other games of the time, leaving out polygons for the voxels to show through, avoiding the enemies vs blasting, apparent resource scarcity, weak stealth, projectile-based shooting, combat and missing all the time, enjoying dodging but hating missing, abstraction in games, enemies dropping guns that disappear, voice work, stand-out characters, having fun with the NPCs, not being too self-serious, investigating the twon-ha, the different aesthetics of European games, a flexible mount, stumbling on the quest log, skipping ahead in the knowledge tree, seeing games in the same family, a milieu or scene, what were the game inputs that got you to this game, coming at ideas from different directions, German dubbing, the voice of Pey'j, adding legitimization, the music. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: BioStats, Mark Garcia, Artimage, Final Fantasy VI, Video Game History Foundation, Phil Salvador, Minecraft, Starfighter, Steve Ash, Spore, System Shock 2, DOOM (1993), CliffyB, Chess, Annals of the Grand Historian, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Bruce Willis, Halo, Dark Crystal, Beyond Good and Evil, Rayman, Ultima (series), Populous, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Civilization (series), Vitor, Assassin's Creed (series), David Gasman, Star Wars, John Williams, Dark Souls 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
More Outcast

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DGC Ep 418: Outcast (part one)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1999's Outcast, from Appeal and Infogrames. We first talk about this past weekend's charity event, before setting the game in its time and discussing its early presentation. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Through tutorial

Issues covered: Defeating Games for Charity, variety of streamers, offerings to the foundation, the speedrun seed, commenting on our own game, more memories of Jedi Starfighter, how a developer sees a game vs a player, a big doodyhead, the crossover of European games, setting the game in its time, not fitting in with others of its time, a weird company in gaming history, not being sure what's in the game, a parody of 1980s action heroes, pop culture origins, proper noun soup and a lexicon, waking up in another place, doling out too much worldbuilding at once, othering non-Western cultures, building on golden era science fiction, exploring the starting area, lots of verbs, discovering by exploring, technically first person, lack of quest markers, manipulating voxel density, using voxels differently, using voxels as rendering and simulation vs rendering only, ray-tracing, advances in hardware and looking back on old research, constructive solid geometry and tessellation, finding limitations, popularity in other regions, big in Japan.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: CalamityNolan, LostLake86, Robotspacer, N01sses, Sierra On-Line, Mystery House, Enchanted Scepters, Video Game History Foundation, Trespasser, Tower Song, Omega Intertainment, RPG Maker, Kerbal Space Program, Sol10, Kaeon, KyleAndError, Might and Magic, AgelessRPG, Minecraft, NES, Spelunky, mysterydip, Belmont, Andrew Kirmse, Chris Corry, SW: Starfighter (series), Daron Stinnett, June, Valheim, Dark Souls, Delta Force, Shenmue, System Shock2, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Planescape: Torment, Homeworld, Johnny "Pockets", Civilization, Populous, Tomb Raider, Nintendo, Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Anachronox, Metal Gear Solid, Atari, GT Interactive, Microprose, Hasbro Interactive, Unreal, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Asteroids, Franck Sauer, Yann Robert, Yves Grolet, Lennie Moore, Beyond Good and Evil, Armageddon, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Sylvester Stallone, The A-Team, Flash Gordon, John Carter of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs, David Lynch, Dune, Mass Effect, Stephen Donaldson, Octavia Butler, Star Wars, DOOM (1993), Morrowind, Stargate, Pat Sirk, Spore, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, Red Faction, TRON, Enshrouded, Unity, Claudiu, Heroes of Might and Magic, LucasArts, Insomniac, Metroid (series), StarCraft, Uncharted 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Note:
The term I was looking for and remembered at 2 in the morning was "metaballs"

Next time:
More Outcast

Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 417: Mailbag!

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we are catching up on our mailbag! Let's face it, it's mostly about Minecraft, though we spend a lot of time on video game preservation. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Issues covered: the manananggal, Defeating Games for Charity, ownership of work materials, Tim's notes on the Discord Game Club interview with Phil Salvador, our own games disappearing, the value of libraries, preserving all games, copyright lawyers, the tension between corporations and preservationists, protecting children online, defending your kids, engaging with your kids over games, external references, limits on exploration interest, Tim and Brett disagree about whether Minecraft devs relied on the existence of a wiki, older version availability in Minecraft Java Edition, speedrunning Minecraft, modding and Minecraft, YouTube and Minecraft trajectories, Lego Fortnite's means of directing you, limited building or building towards story purposes, curbing anxiety, dating the Balrog. 

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Matters/X-Files, Minecraft, CalamityNolan, Video Game History Foundation, KyleAndError, Hollow Knight, Kaeon, DuckTales, Trespasser, Tower Song, Pikmin, N0isses, Rocksmith, Robotspacer, Enchanted Scepters, Mystery House, Artimage, Jedi Starfighter, Katamari Damacy, BioStats, Phil Salvador, Midway/Bally, Nosferatu (1922/2024), Prince of Persia, Warcraft, The Sims, Tony Rowe, Microsoft, Bill Roper, Wil Wright, John Romero, Leo Tolstoy, Socrates, Frank Cifaldi, Nintendo, Tim Schafer, Double Fine, Devin Kelly-Sneed (P2 programmer), Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mickey Mouse/Disney, mysterydip, Roblox, Lego Fortnite, Just Dance, Ubisoft, Club Penguin, Luke Theriault, LostLake, Dwarf Fortress, Raymond, Mojang, Factorio, Satisfactory, Father Beast, Skyrim, Ben from Iowa, Dragon Quest Builders, The Lord of the Rings Return to Moria, The Long Dark, Pacific Drive, Valheim, Final Fantasy VI, Epic Games, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
Our next game (whatever that may be)

Defeating Games for Charity
Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 416: Minecraft (part four)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on Minecraft. We talk about our stories, multiplayer, and other topics, before turning to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A few more hours of Minecraft

Issues covered: the upcoming charity event, Tim not knowing where Site D is, milestones for Tim, an epic story of loss with Mors, having high stakes and risk, Brett makes a long deep dive into an enormous open cavern, the procedural elements of exploration, connected caverns, Lost Lake's skill and visiting his place, the causeway that takes you to Lost Lake, automating systems, never finding an emerald, ad campaigns from the 1950s, a game developer muses about his existence in the universe, terrain modeling and erosion, not being able to tell that something wasn't hand-modeled, changes in the algorithm over time, getting lost in narrow caverns, simple goals that are obvious needs for survival, the excellence of the second-to-second loop of mining and picking up, height modeling for terrain with height maps vs voxels, player goals and having the ability to make them as specific as you want, leaving off the limits in a block game, trading verisimilitude for expressivity, allowing the player to impact everything, simple creativity, continuing the server.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Lost Lake, Trespasser, Phil Salvador, Video Game History Foundation,  mors_d, Buck Rogers, Disneyland, Star Trek, Burma Shave, Mad Men, Dwight Eisenhower, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Oblivion, mysterydip, Valheim, Lego, Ravenloft, Picross, Terraria, Final Fantasy VI, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. 

Next time:
End of year review!

Links:
Defeating Games for Charity
Video Game History Foundation
Interview with Phil Salvador 

Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 415: At Year's End

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we recap 2024 through our interviews. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

It's all about our takeaways -- I'm going to let the clips speak for themselves and remove the usual stuff from here. In the past year, we interviewed Michel Ancel, Alex Garden, Sam Lake, Jordan Mechner, and Tony Rowe, and every interview was fun to listen to again. Terrific slate. We're so lucky. It's humbling.

Next time:
Either Minecraft or a mail bag

Links:
Defeating Games for Charity

Note: Tony Rowe's whitepaper was not yet on the Internet as of this recording; we'll keep an eye out and share it when we discover its publication.

Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

DGC Ep 414: Minecraft (part three)

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Minecraft, with this special Christmas edition. We talk a little about seeds and sharing them, carpeting your friend's base, stories of ongoing Minecrafting, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
A few more hours of Minecraft

Issues covered: wall-to-wall carpeting, Defeating Games for Charity, Minecraft gear, motion capture, finding Tim's base, stairs being my hallmark, the importance of community, a potato generator, farming spaces and pens, not being deep on the tech tree, building being an important part, learning about sheep and their needs, grass propagation, sudden appearance of grass, emergent properties and experimentation, getting quickly to the nether, leaning on villagers, building up the spawn point, monster generation, XP as currency, upgrading villagers, a system to get quickly to villages, a very deep hole, climbing out of a big hole, getting connected to the world, blockiness contributing to readability, replayable/pseudo-randomness, selecting a seed, determinism, a multiverse of deterministic universes, a shareable number that you can replicate, difficulty progression in other games, getting same-y, going to the end, investing yourself, asking why?, making and letting go, spreading out to other games, Deathgaze and other end-game FF6 discussion.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Phil Salvador, BioStats, Mega 64, Mark Garcia, LostLake86, MysteryDip and progeny, Lord of the Rings (obliquely), Valheim, Dark Souls, Breath of the Wild, Indiana Jones (obliquely), Minesweeper, Bridge, Starfighter, Spelunky, Skyrim, Soren Johnson, Civilization, No Man's Sky, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Corbin Bernsen, Pacific Drive, Final Fantasy VI, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.

Next time:
End of year review!

Links:
Defeating Games for Charity

Twitch: timlongojr
Discord https://t.co/h7jnG9J9lz
DevGameClub@gmail.com