rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

Well well well, walking simulators have made the NYTimes

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/arts/video-games/video-games-where-hearts-not-guns-drive-the-action.html

It's emulation's long association with piracy, Cifaldi said, that has given it a bad name. Nintendo in particular seems to have a particular aversion towards it, he noted, pointing to their official statement on the issue which has been available at their corporate website for the last 16 years.

How Come Nintendo Does Not Take Steps Towards Legitimizing Nintendo Emulators?

Emulators developed to play illegally copied Nintendo software promote piracy. That's like asking why doesn't Nintendo legitimize piracy. It doesn't make any business sense. It's that simple and not open to debate.

But this language, Cifaldi claims, is disingenuous because the Wii U's Virtual Console is nothing more than an emulator.

More damning, Cifaldi claims to have found a piece of hexadecimal code from a freely available Nintendo Entertainment System emulator — a kind of watermark from a Nintendo emulator known as iNES — embedded within the code of the version of Super Mario Bros. for sale on the Virtual Console right now.

"I would posit," Cifaldi said, "that Nintendo downloaded Super Mario Bros. from the internet and sold it to you."

http://www.polygon.com/2016/3/18/11265988/emulation-isnt-a-dirty-word-and-one-man-thinks-it-can-save-gamings

Creative Director: “Yes, we definitely need doors in this game.”
Project Manager: “I’ll put time on the schedule for people to make doors.”
Designer: “I wrote a doc explaining what we need doors to do.”
Concept Artist: “I made some gorgeous paintings of doors.”
Art Director: “This third painting is exactly the style of doors we need.”
Environment Artist: “I took this painting of a door and made it into an object in the game.”
Animator: “I made the door open and close.”
Sound Designer: “I made the sounds the door creates when it opens and closes.”
Audio Engineer: “The sound of the door opening and closing will change based on where the player is and what direction they are facing.”
Composer: “I created a theme song for the door.”
FX Artist: “I added some cool sparks to the door when it opens.”
Writer: “When the door opens, the player will say, ‘Hey look! The door opened!’ “
Lighter: “There is a bright red light over the door when it’s locked, and a green one when it’s opened.”
Legal: “The environment artist put a Starbucks logo on the door. You need to remove that if you don’t want to be sued.”
Character Artist: “I don’t really care about this door until it can start wearing hats.”
Gameplay Programmer: “This door asset now opens and closes based on proximity to the player. It can also be locked and unlocked through script.”
AI Programmer: “Enemies and allies now know if a door is there and whether they can go through it.”
Network Programmer: “Do all the players need to see the door open at the same time?”
Release Engineer: “You need to get your doors in by 3pm if you want them on the disk.”
Core Engine Programmer: “I have optimized the code to allow up to 1024 doors in the game.”
Tools Programmer: “I made it even easier for you to place doors.”
Level Designer: “I put the door in my level and locked it. After an event, I unlocked it.”
UI Designer: “There’s now an objective marker on the door, and it has its own icon on the map.”
Combat Designer: “Enemies will spawn behind doors, and lay cover fire as their allies enter the room. Unless the player is looking inside the door in which case they will spawn behind a different door.”
Systems Designer: “A level 4 player earns 148xp for opening this door at the cost of 3 gold.”
Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.”
QA Tester: “I walked to the door. I ran to the door. I jumped at the door. I stood in the doorway until it closed. I saved and reloaded and walked to the door. I died and reloaded then walked to the door. I threw grenades at the door.”
UX / Usability Researcher: “I found some people on Craigslist to go through the door so we could see what problems crop up.”
Localization: “Door. Puerta. Porta. Porte. Tür. Dør. Deur. Drzwi. Drws. 문”
Producer: “Do we need to give everyone those doors or can we save them for a pre-order bonus?”
Publisher: “Those doors are really going to help this game stand out during the fall line-up.”
CEO: “I want you all to know how much I appreciate the time and effort put into making those doors.”
PR: “To all our fans, you’re going to go crazy over our next reveal #gamedev #doors #nextgen #retweet”
Community Manager: “I let the fans know that their concerns about doors will be addressed in the upcoming patch.”
Customer Support: “A player contacted us, confused about doors. I gave them detailed instructions on how to use them.”
Player: “I totally didn’t even notice a door there.”

Founder, Doors.com: I love masturbating to these doors

That's awesome. Thank you.

this killed me

i loled at tools programmer

oh wow and this is made by someone at ubisoft no wonder it sounds so fucking familiar

https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/737594641562767363

marco ‏@elrokxxo May 31
@tha_rami a skull near a toilet, enviromental story telling gets me

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-06-01-why-did-ancient-egypt-spend-3000-years-playing-a-game-nobody-else-liked

Dr Finkel should probably know. His job title is the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian Script, Languages and Cultures in the museum's Department of the Middle East. In a multiple choice scenario you would not struggle to match his headshot with his occupation. Unless one of the other options was "wizard".

This guy is amazing! Here is a video of him talking about the Game of Ur (as mentioned in that article): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjznvH54Cw

(good article, thank you)

ditto!

http://shmuplations.com/iq/

http://www.vice.com/read/tibia-game-players-journey-to-open-a-locked-secret-door

just read that article on senet; any poker players on ilg? the only game i've been playing on the reg lately is android texas hold-em, and I often think about what a stupid card game texas hold-em is, hardly a game at all really, until of course you throw the betting game on top, and then it's fantastic.

the foremost senet expert mentions betting may have been involved, though there doesn't seem to be any obvious evidence for it. anyway, fascinating that there are games we don't know how to play anymore

which android hold 'em do you prefer?

not sure if I've tried them all, but I've given three or four of them a shot and the only one I can get into is dragonplay, aka live holdem pro.

it's the best i've found but it's still not very good. very strange I think that there isn't one obvious best mobile poker game, maybe poker is waning in popularity a bit? anyway if I knew how to program smart phone games I would make the best one available by a country mile and retire to a cozy cottage on the beach, que sera sera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvYlxnHOY-Q

Took me like 5-10 minutes to get used to the narrator's voice ("compwession"??) but this is really, really good so far. Love the crazy prog-rock album cover style of the company early on. Damn this is long though, I'll have to finish it in pieces over the week.

that was excellent

yeah he does have a distracting speech impediment but he also does his research and puts a lot of work into these.

Psychnosis games always tripped me out. i remember being amazed at a display Amiga running Shadow of the Beast inside a Software, Etc. someday i will play through those games...

i also love that there is a shooter called "Agony" where you play as an owl.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3063298/breaking-the-status-quo/ed-smith-and-the-imagination-machine-the-untold-story-of-a-black-vid

Think Kim identifies as female, according to twitter: https://twitter.com/kimxxxjustice

These videos are great. The narration takes getting used to, and some jokes fall super-flat, but the knowledge and research is superb. Was Kim a videogame journalist or programmer back in the 8/16-bit days, or simply a megafan?

there's a 5 part / 4 hour history of molyneux on her channel too which is excellent - well worth a watch

well this is an absolutely fantastic read

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/26/the-24-year-feud-that-has-dogged-star-citizen

yeah, that's great - thanks for sharing

the whole star citizen debacle is endlessly fascinating

Great article!

unless they're a star citizen fan i think everyone has concluded by now that the entire project is - tho likely initially well-intentioned - abandonware and never going to live up to its initial promises.

Fantastic article

yeah that was long and also really good, what a weird story. has anyone played any of the games mentioned in the article?
I

my uncle was an og Wing Commander dude, wonder if he was in on the kickstarter...

my first pc (a 75mhz pentiium) was bundled with a copy of wing commander 3 and it seemed impossibly futuristic to me at age 14. full-motion video with luke skywalker ffs!

first wing cmdr was a key experience for me

I watched my friend's Russian dad play a lot of Wing Commander. And I played a ton of Wing Commander 2, it was very difficult (and barely ran on our computer iirc) but also mind-blowing at the time.

http://i.imgur.com/TVXFyl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NzVH5A9.png

apparently wing commander images are my proustian madeleines

"It's true, sir. The Kilrathi have invisible fighters."

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 15:17 (eight years ago) Permalink

god i loved wing commander 2 SO MUCH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfAoVX_VWWs

SPEAK OF YOUR PLANS NOT OF YOUR TOYS was a regular catchphrase for us in junior high

and let's not forget "evaluation.... TOTAL LOSS"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qYItb4g6qg

I will go to bat for privateer - it was awesome when I was a yoot. WC3 I will not go to bat for. Its a prime example in the list of new computer games I bought as a kid that would never, ever play on my slightly outdated 486 rig that I could never keep up to date because I was 12.

ahahah yes "SPEAK OF YOUR PLANS NOT OF YOUR TOYS" is pretty great

i've talked about this before but this was the perfect era for digitized speech - - - still rare enough that every line really could glow bright as it rattled around in the brain.

love how much that opening cinematic is packing in, too. kind of a lurching, herky-jerky sort of plot too. great.

I feel like I'm from another planet from you guys

i.e. I grew up strictly Apple -> NES -> Mac, and then emulators, and I totally missed out on the whole WC thing
I did have a neighbor who was big time into Star Control II and such, so at least I'm not 100% game-vegan

i also never played WC i think it was maybe an age thing? bc i was only in 6 in 1990. but i definitely played return to zork (1993), myst (1993), civilization (1991), and railroad tycoon deluxe (1993) - which were i'm thinking games my parents were probably more okay w/ me playing and also just a tad later than WC.

i never got into Wing Commander cos X-Wing and Tie Fighter were both fun and once DOOM came out i gave up on flight sims completely. i do remember seeing a demo or something and thinking it looked really cool. i bet it was a great influence on George Lucas in how to film the Star Wars prequels.

My pal Andy was way more into X-Wing and Tie Fighter than WC. Everybody with a PC owned and played WC, I think, but they played through it like once and that was that. It may actually have been that it was too easy for my PC gamer buddies to beat, so I barely got to see it. Stuff like SCII and the LucasArts games took longer to beat and came with more replay value. I could also just be hypothesizing right out my butthole here.