Quote from: Ways of Seeing (10:12)A lot more is possible, but only if art is stripped of the false mystery and the false religiosity which surrounds it. This religiosity, usually linked with cash value, but always invoked in the name of culture and civilisation, is in fact a substitute for what paintings lost when the camera made them reproducible.

John Berger speaks on art, and its reproducibility, and what is lost -- what has been lost.

Quote from: ShelleyIt looks dark and full of terrors... but with cheebs

False alarm.

I find it difficult to trust people, but I think I'm ready again. It's about knowing who a person is, what they want to do for you. with you. I was playing Tic-Tac-Crow and I loved working on that game, you know? With redacted on art and h on sound, I feel like the actual game was so much worse than the ambience and character of it deserved.

I'd like to spend my days talking to one person, not the many-headed community that is a discord, or a social media. Skittish reminded me of that.

It's hard, blindingly hard to see eight names and their avatars as people. I feel like I've stopped seeing people.

I'm really bad at trusting other people. I ... oh, okay, this is gonna be a poem.

I'm on game#11 now, theme APPENDAGE.
Appendages falling off?

game#10 - Getting Over It with Clumsy Bird Person

edit:: oh, right! The theme was EMOTION. When I figured out the emotion I wanted the rest of the game fell together effortlessly. I can't really put it into words, but sort of like, trepidation/uncertainty/fear? "I don't want to jump" + "I have to jump" + Whatever feelings you get after jumping.

I was playing Beast Breaker and I was having some trouble. The game itself was interesting. Flawed, but interesting. And yet, I found myself playing it and hating it. I was dragging myself across hot coals for something, but for what?


In Beast Breaker, you play the game awhile and the game provides you with new items: a new cloak with better stats, a new sword with weird new abilities, a brand new weapon type. That's all well and good, and I wanted to check out these new items! I wanted to see what it was like to play with them. So I kept playing. Yeah, there's some randomness in the game, but the real randomness that got me was this discrete, staid randomess: each freshly-unlocked item could theoretically make me love the game even more.

I kept playing because I had to play to unlock new stuff, but I couldn't know ahead of time whether the new stuff was going to be good; when I had stopped enjoying the game, I still compelled myself to keep playing because unlocking new stuff, as based on my past experience, could make the game suddenly better! It depends on whether the new stuff was really cool, whether it aligned with my tastes.

HOW TO PLAY: Determine whether I love the game as it is, now. If I don't, I can safely stop playing?

Maybe this isn't even a skinner box thing. the idea falls apart. well, it's not the primordial soup for nothin'.

HOW TO DESIGN: I dunno! I don't think this is a designer problem. Is it? IS IT???A arggghhh

Quote from: droqen, paradisei figured it out. the thing they all have in common is that they're all games i think are sort of compelling/entertaining but not great, but i keep playing them because if i play for another [duration] i will get another tiny unlock that might make the game way better! a skinner box, but not of extrinsic rewards -- a skinner box of intrinsic rewards.

this is huge.

There's something interesting, but also frustrating, about building up combos that might go to waste because of a bad pool shot.

"So what is my taste?" - Stories, characters

I like villains.

I like characters who learn and change.

BB's NPCs seem constantly engaged in smalltalk. In contrast to "I like villains" which still isn't really the whole story, I find BB's characters... maybe I should indicate them separately... to be attempts to portray "characters who have some minor quirks but who are ultimately good". Is that really the problem? I have to think about this more. What kind of characters do I love? Is it more about their place in the story?

Characters in BB don't make mistakes that matter. There's a little scene where the bird guy is freaking out because he's done something that will upset grandma, but... why do I care? It will never come up again. It doesn't matter. It's a detour. All the writing is just filler!!!

Everything that surrounds the core gameplay is kind of... I think it's just not to my taste. I've already written this but revisiting is important, right? I don't dislike a grind-and-unlock treadmill, I'm just picky*. Grinding and unlocking is GREAT when I LIKE it. Same with prose (those, man, that's hard to find), and story. The stories that games are telling are often not to my taste.

So what is?

* Right, the answer to "So what is?" will not be found through vague dismissals of my taste! So let's get into it. That's what this subforum is for!

1. Unlocking is slow. Yeah, we know that one.

2. The interface for unlocking is unclear. I DO NOT FEEL AS THOUGH I HAVE AGENCY. There isn't much for me to look forward to, since all I can see is the next quest. I can look at the UI and suppose that I will be able to

3. There is not much 'play' in the unlocking, though I have started to discover that the weapons have depths. I really like Electric Pulse or whatever it's called! But... hmm... I need to think about Beast Breaker vs. Into the Breach. I have similar reservations about ItB. I also don't really like unlock schemes such as SNKRX's or Roguelite ones, where you're struggling to cobble together a build from nothing. Do I ever like an unlock scheme? I liked System Shock 2...

4. It's turn based. That's a negative for me? I'm still trying to figure out why. It's quite random, and I don't really feel 'in control'. But think about Etrian Odyssey: that game was great! (Was EO great because of its more 'real-time' drawing minigame though? Hmmmm)

So far the characters don't seem like they're going to change.

Going back to the beginning of a game is not like going back to the beginning of a book; the characters in a game often can't, or don't, grow. Meaningful change is strangled by the need to support the rest of the loop. Characters are texture, not people.

Scores are communication. They're there for the developer to indicate to a player that their efforts are noticed, that striving for more is possible, and encouraged.

What's that relationship look like? Mark Brown's video indicates three core messages:

Scores can provide an additional level of difficulty
Hey, you should try doing that faster/more precisely/etc.
You should try avoiding making these types of errors.
I feel like scores make the easiest difficulty the default, and in order to play harder difficulties, you must submit to the Score System... not sure my thoughts here make any sense.

Scores can reveal completely new way to play
Hey, what can you do to make your score go up?
Maybe you haven't exhausted all the possibilities.
Hey, what if you tried that thing that seems impossible and impractical?

Scores can encourage you to see the intended experience
Hey, what if you did X more often?
It's a simple reward... this thing gives you more points/more rank.
Communication.

~

As a player you can choose to disengage with a score system in a way that you cannot disengage with other rules of the world: physics, death, resources.

I like the idea of a score system because as a channel of communication from game design to player.

There is more here, and if you're interested, follow this golden thread up, to wherever it leads.

At its peak, there is often an unintended or unknown way to play. This fascinates me, but it's not design, it's just appreciation.

More from Are Score Systems Still Relevant? -

Assault Android Cactus

- the 'novice player' get batteries from dead enemies experience mirrors the 'veteran player' full-chain combo experience, so that if you don't pursue high scores, you still get the same 'intended experience'.

- there is an S+ rank that you can achieve by fully chaining a combo, but the game doesn't suggest this as a bonus until you actually do it yourself

QuoteHiding this away until players prove their worth is a neat way to stop players becoming demoralized when they're hit with crappy medals at the very start of their experience.

"NEW GAME+", but based on proving your skill in any single level rather than after completing the whole game. I like it!

(Unlocking difficulty modes?)