Disqus - Latest Comments for callguinness

Re: Radiator Blog: On "Shelter" and the power of ambiguity.

callguinness — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 09:56:46 -0000

"you realize you can sprint through most of a level while occasionally stopping to forage, and the game is much less interesting for it."

I disagree! It throws the night level at you just as you get comfortable sprinting around, and at night your babies WILL die if you leave them behind in the dark. That's how I lost my first one. And I never saw this happen but I SUSPECTED a fox would pick off a straggling badger, so I always kept them close in the subsequent day levels.

Re: Radiator Blog: Mass Effect 3, minutiae

callguinness — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:22:10 -0000

The multiplayer combat is actually the strongest part of the entire game, in my opinion (that is to say, I liked it and I didn't like anything else). You should give multiplayer a genuine try if you haven't already, because it's a lot better than you might extrapolate from just SP combat.

Re: Non-verbal storytelling

callguinness — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:43:59 -0000

"And it doesn't work at all for mature, philosophical stories."

Not sure how you can back up such an absolute statement. Sounds more like a challenge than inherent limitation, from my point of view. ICO was obviously no Animal Farm but it had mature themes and a beauty conveyed without any dialogue. There are also ways to make characters appear intelligent without having them speak. See: R2D2, Wall-E, King Kong, Amaterasu (Okami), Curious George...

Please provide examples where non-verbal storytelling has been used to tell a mature, philosophical story and failed.

Re: Lie to Them

callguinness — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:25:50 -0000

That's another interesting possibility. Instead of NPC permadeath there's player-character immortality - in the sense of "new game +". It's Groundhog Day taken to the extreme, a 15+ hour game starts over with new conversation options, areas to explore, ways to solve puzzles. And then the second time you beat it, it starts over again with even more changes. And again, and again. A metagame develops online, perhaps slightly encouraged by the developers, where players tired of the game give their save files to strangers and friends who haven't played it yet. And then they pass it on to the next person in line.

Or it's not even a traditional commercial release and only takes an hour or two to complete. Like Train, only one "copy" exists. It is a singleplayer game that can only be played by a single person at a time. Each person has six hours to complete the game before it is automatically deactivated and the activation code sent to the next in the queue.

Anyway, off topic now, but thanks for the brainstorm fuel :)

Re: Lie to Them

callguinness — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:59:14 -0000

The HAWX example doesn't seem to fit with my understanding of the unreliable narrator. It's just a changed mechanic no different from a gun jamming in Far Cry 2. The unreliable narrator does not change the rules, just hides or distorts the truth. And it's important to note that often a revelation will change our understanding of the story up to that point.

I think if we apply this to games we have to think of the experience of playing, the interpretation and acting upon the rules, as being what is made 'unreliable'. Brenda's Train is the best example of a game that accomplishes this. The written rules never change, but the players are being deceived as to the nature and consequences of their actions. The final revelation forces fundamental re-evaluation of the way they are playing the game. What would be a modern digital game equivalent? I don't know if any exist. I can think of several possibilities. For example, Manveer recently suggested that actions in a game be made permanent through multiple play-throughs to allow for greater moral impact. What if you were never told NPC permadeath existed in the game until about halfway through? That would certainly get people to approach the game rules from a different perspective.