Diecast – Twenty Sided: Recent Episodes
Shamus Young
While there may be a future podcast, this is the final episode of the Diecast. The mailbag is empty for the last time. Thanks for listening in over the years. Hosts: Paul, Heather. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast385 Link (YouTube) Show notes: 00:00 Why End the Diecast? The Diecast was Shamus’ podcast, where he talked […]
The Summer Game Fest happened this weekend. That’s like eight different events: Day of Devs, Devolver Digital Showcase, Future Games Show, Netflix Geeked Week, Epic Store Showcase, Tribeca Games Spotlight, Xbox + Bethesda Showcase, and the PC Gaming Show. It’s been… a lot. I don’t know if anyone is interested in a wrap-up post, but […]
E3 is cancelled this year, but we’re coming up on the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase 2022, which should at least give us the stuff that Microsoft has to show this year. Sadly, the show begins next Sunday, which is too late for us to discuss it on the next podcast. I’m not sure how […]
I think things are slowly getting back to normal around here. I should probably do a little write-up for those that are following my health, but the short version is that dialysis is helping a lot and I’m doing ok. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast382 Link (YouTube) 01:35 Blizzard Sylph I can’t […]
At the top of the show I joked that we weren’t going to have an editor because Issac was feeling sick. But he bounced back quickly and was able to edit the show, so this episode isn’t unedited chaos as I anticipated. Oh well. Better luck next week. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. […]
I’m spending most of the day asleep. And even when I’m awake I’m still grouchy, distracted, and befuddled. Things are rough, but hopefully they’re about to get better. With any luck, I’ll have better news next week. Anyway, this is it. The mailbag is finally clear. If you still have unanswered questions now, it’s because […]
I don’t know why Paul and I get such joy out of dunking on No Man’s Sky. The game received over a dozen major updates since it was released six years ago. You’d think that, “Oh wow. The new content is awful and doesn’t address the core problems with the game!” would get old. But […]
On Thursday night I sat down with Chris and Steve and we did a podcast on Spider-Man: No Way Home. For those of you who just want the health update: Surgery is over. I’m recovering nicely. If all goes well, then in about 2 weeks my health should really improve. I’ll have more details later. I […]
One of the silver linings of the pandemic has been an overall reduction in the number of seasonal illnesses I’ve had to contend with. Thanks to the additional hygiene, staying indoors, and the mask-wearing, most run-of-the-mill infections never really stood a chance. I’ve enjoyed a nice long stretch of time without a cold or flu […]
Once again, I was sure the show was running long. And yet again, the resulting podcast is just under an hour. I guess I underestimate just how much ends up on the cutting room floor. Between segments Paul and I frequently stop and talk about what topic we want to jump to next. Or we […]
I forgot to mention it on the show, but I got a community award from Steam this week. I didn’t even know that community awards were a thing? The award also came with a prize! I received 100 Steam points, which were added to my 177,085 total. I’m rich! Or something. More details below. Hosts: […]
I intended to mention it on the show, but it slipped my mind: I actually have a new video coming out this week. Look for it tomorrow. It’s about boomer shooters. Or baby boomers. Or something like that. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast376 Link (YouTube) 00:00 Terra Nil Link (YouTube) 01:28 Stories […]
This week I felt like I couldn’t do a normal Diecast episode. I’ll have a post about that tomorrow. In the meantime, Paul decided to record an episode with a special guest. I won’t spoil it except to say I really enjoyed it and I hope you’ll give it a listen. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode […]
It’s time for our twice-yearly ritual of clock-fiddling. Which means I once again have to go around the house and remember how each clock works. This usually involves holding down two or three needlessly stiff buttons, labeled in tiny print, using black-on-black color scheme, to manipulate the clock one hour in either direction. The analog […]
I have a No Man’s Sky rant for you this week. Yes, I realize I’ve cooked you this dish before. Yes, I’m aware that you’d prefer something novel instead of leftovers from 2016. Like I said on the show, we really need another procgen space game because I’m going to lose my mind if I […]
I’m a cynical guy, and even I never predicted anything this bad. The modern gaming industry is one where you use a privacy-invading storefront to buy a DRM locked game where you use an in-game storefront to buy lootboxes to gamble for NFTs. I love this hobby, but I would experience orgasmic levels of schadenfreude […]
If I had a sign in my office that read, “WE HAVE GONE ___ WEEKS WITHOUT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE ENDING OF MESS EFFECT 3,” then that blank would have at least a 15 in it. Until today, when I’d have to erase that number and replace it with a 0. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited […]
This week, Paul is the one that showed up with a fistfull of topics, and I’m the one who… doesn’t. I could get used to this. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast371 Link (YouTube) Show notes: 00:00 Shamus Making Content on the DL This Thursday, I’m launching my Final Fantasy XII webcomic! I […]
Sooner or later every man reaches the point in his life when it’s time to make the stereotypical “out of touch old man rants about a thing he doesn’t understand”. For me, that point is this week, when I rant about TikTok. (Although I suppose you could argue that this ENTIRE WEBSITE should fall under […]
Congrats to Paul, who is now a father. Again. I’m at the age where I’m nostalgic about those hectic early years of child-rearing. Heather and I are unquestionably done having kids, but once in a while we stop and smile at someone else’s toddler and say to each other, “Man, it would be great to […]
And so we begin the new year with a bit of positivity and a whole lot of mailbag questions. Also, we got at least four different emails asking me to comment on Walmart’s proposed virtual mall. Given my history, do I have anything new to say as this idea re-appears after vanishing for 20 years? […]
And here is the last Diecast of 2021. We even managed to clear the mailbag, so we can start next year fresh. Other content will continue as normal, but the Diecast is on hiatus until January 10th. Merry Christmas everyone! Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast367 Link (YouTube) Show notes: 00:00 Wreckfest This […]
It looks like we’re going to be taking a couple of weeks off from the Diecast. This year our recording days fall directly on Christmas and New Year. So the podcast next week will be the last of 2021. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast366 Link (YouTube) Show notes: 00:00 Quarantine! Like I […]
I had a topic I meant to add to the show notes, but forgot. This week in my Paypal account I got a $500 invoice from GitHub. I spent a good while scratching my head and wondering what on earth would cause GitHub to think I owed them five Benjamins. Then I looked again and […]
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. The Christmas Shopping season has begun, the Steam autumn sale is in full swing, award season is here, and it has begun snowing in my part of the world. I just noticed that Christmas and New Years fall on Saturday this year. We normally record the show on […]
This week I learned that you can’t have a cough drop in secret. On the night of recording this show, my throat was scratchy and dry. I thought I could alleviate this with a cough drop, and would put it in my cheek when it was time to talk. Nobody would ever know! And then […]
I start the show off with some negative energy aimed at Rockstar games. But then we settle in and have a good time. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast362 Link (YouTube) 00:00 GTA “Definitive Edition” Here are the images I talked about on the show. The first is the version of Denise where […]
I’m really sorry, but I failed to filibuster Paul this week. I unforgivably allowed him several minutes of talking where he was able to say smart and interesting things. See the end of this post for the breakdown. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast361 Link (YouTube) 00:00 2-Factor Authentication On one hand, I […]
The good news is that I got my second dose of vaccine, so I’m a little less likely to die of the plague. The bad news is that I was feeling kind of run down, sleep-deprived, and cranky. I didn’t really realize how bad it was until I listened to the show and heard how […]
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast359 Link (YouTube) Show notes: 00:00 Filament Why was this game not called String Theory? 15:29 Mailbag: New World Drama Dear Diecast, So, the Syndicate faction (purple) on my New World server just had their first bit of major drama today—the guild leader of The Olympians, the guild […]
I find it interesting that we got two different mailbag questions, both asking roughly the same thing. Both people asked for examples of “best” writing. Nobody asked for examples of “worst”. It’s always nice to have a chance to work against the idea that I’m a negative guy who complains about everything.[1] I thought of […]
Once again, thanks to Paul for his patience and longsuffering in the face of my ceaseless filibuster. I imagine it’s not easy to play second-fiddle to my inflated sense of self-importance, but Paul manages to pull it off. For those of you wondering just how lopsided the conversation is, I’ve posted a screenshot of the […]
For those of you curious how the surgery went, check the show notes below. I’ve done a short write-up for those of you who don’t listen to the show. In any case, I really am on the mend now, and it looks like the medical community has run out of surprises for me. Hosts: Paul, […]
As a reminder: I’m going in for surgery this week. I don’t expect any problems, but I might not be around as much as usual. Please try to not burn the place down while I’m gone. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast355 Link (YouTube) 00:00 Blender Render Farmer Maybe this sort of service […]
I like how LABOR DAY is the one day we’ve all agreed to skip work. It makes a nice companion to Thanksgiving, where – thanks to the shopping nightmare – is a day defined mostly by avarice and gluttony. Maybe we should add a few more inverted holidays. On President’s Day, nobody is allowed to […]
Here is an hour and seven minutes of two guys talking about stuff. You’re welcome. Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac. Diecast353 Link (YouTube) Show notes: 00:00 Remembering Birthdays Thank you, gigantic amoral corporation, for telling other people to wish me happy birthday. I’m so glad you’re here, since there’s no way individuals could […]
Heads up: I spend the first 7 minutes of the show talking about weird non-gaming, non-nerd personal stuff for some reason. This segment was originally longer, but I had Issac chop a bit of it out for fear of over-sharing. Also, I had a funny story I’d intended to share on the show, but forgot […]
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Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast351
| Link (YouTube) |
00:00 Google Olympics Game You can find the game here.
03:57 What happened to Bob Case?
Sadly, I am not able to cause Bab Case to appear. He stepped away from his writing project here and that was the last I heard from him. It’s a little awkward to approach him because I don’t want to come off like, “Hey, when are you going to get back to making content for my blog for free?”
06:12 Before We Leave
| Link (YouTube) |
15:16 Mailbag: Story Coalescence
Hi!
So I was rereading you blog entries about story collapse and trust in the storyteller, because it’s something that I was thinking about (and compare it to the intro to Mess Effect).
You described the logical process of losing this trust until it would lead to inevitable Story Collapse. And I remembered, that I actually had an opposite experience. After ten years of not watching anime I decided to watch one series, for whatever reason. I was prepared to just watch and forget it, as a dumb action schlock, that it probably is. And yeah, initial episodes didn’t really wow me. But during the season, I started to notice quite a masterful world building and that characters have more depth than they are showing (and some other things). And now I have so much trust to the storyteller I can feel that the ending (whenever it will came) must be good (a feeling I never had before). I’m not sure how to call it. Story Ascension?
My question is. Did either of you ever experienced anything similar to this in any media?
Best regards, DeadlyDark
20:07 Mailbag: Eu on Piracy
So, I found this rather old study done in the EU on piracy and I’m curious if you saw it at any point: https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-22-eu-suppressed-study-piracy-no-sales-impact.html
Even the article is fairly old. It’s pretty interesting to me that apparently there’s no real value in defending against pirates unless you’re making blockbuster movies or certain AAA games, maybe.
Jennifer Snow
Don’t forget about second breakfast:
Dear Diecast,
I came across this article today, and thought it could be interesting, esepcially when it comes to discussing DRM and such:
https://www.engadget.com/2017-09-22-eu-suppressed-study-piracy-no-sales-impact.html
The TL;DR is: The EU did a study on the effect of piracy on sales of games, music, and movies, and found “‘no robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online piracy.’ In the case of games, it concluded that unauthorized playing might actually make it more likely users will buy them.”. And then they tried to hide those results :D
Just wanted to share this as I thought it could be interesting for you and Paul to discuss on the show.
Best,
Niko
I realize this seems sort of paranoid and cynical, but I just don’t trust “studies” the way I used to. Not even when they agree with my preconceived notions. I find them less persuasive than I used to, and (more importantly) I find them less useful as a tool for persuading others.
When I hear the term “study” now I think, “Ah, someone paid some money to collect data that supports their worldview or advances their agenda.” This report was from the EU and was supposedly “buried”, but I don’t know who originally conducted it, who buried it, or why. If I was younger and angrier I might spend a bunch of time going over the report and asking questions, but I just don’t see the point.
And to be clear, I’m talking about studies relating to videogames. Stuff like the effect of violence on children, the impact of pricing on sales, the suitability of videogames as an educational tool, and so on. I’m not saying ALL scientific studies in all domains are agenda-driven hogwash. I’m just saying that in the world of videogaming, we’ve seen more than our share of hogwash.
From my point of view, the uselessness of DRM was proven years ago. The publishers have long since been checkmated, but they refuse to concede or to even look at the goddamn board. If none of the previous arguments persuaded them, then what’s one more study going to do? This is just more data that they’re going to ignore and call us all thieves before sweeping the pieces off the board and storming off to write a press release about how they totally won.
Moreover, both Blizzard and Ubisoft have been rocked by scandals showing that their companies are toxic, miserable, and profoundly dysfunctional. Worrying about their lame-ass DRM policies is like criticizing Harvey Weinstein for being a bad tipper.
Like, who cares what these idiots think about DRM at this point? Burn the whole thing down.
24:35 Mailbag: Studios that died before their time.
Greetings, dear Diecast,
I was thinking about which games I am really fond of, and noticed that between Tomba (made by WhoopeeCamp), Revenant (made by Cinematix), and Arcanum (made by Troika), I have quite a few there made by studios that died before their time.
Are there particular game studios that you like that went too soon? I know 13 Window likes Looking Glass, but what about Ober Detlef?
Vale,
-Tim
35:05 Mailbag: Forgotten Game Mechanics
Dear Diecast,
So you were talking about the crazy ideas and experimenting going on in the late 90’s/early 00’s last week.
Molyneux did something in Black & White that I haven’t personally encountered anywhere else. To cut down on UI clutter, he used mouse “gesture recognition” to trigger spellcasting. I remember it as basically tracing a pattern on the ground (e.g. a spiral for a fireball) a few times for practice, then it was up to you to make it work going forward. Has this idea cropped up anywhere else? Most commentary on the game barely acknowledges it. So I’m left wondering, was it received positively, negatively, or just swept away in the passage of time?
Another game from slightly earlier was the Wheel of Time PC game, a first person shooter (of all things) using an Unreal build from somewhere between the original Unreal and UT. In an attempt to bring the flavor of the fantasy setting’s magic system to an FPS, you ended up with 40 different offensive and defensive widgets to use spread across the number keys (I’ve attached a picture of the poster that came in the box, back when we weren’t just buying bits). A substantial number of these widgets fired player-seeking projectiles that used the same pathfinding as the AI bots. The bandwidth of the day meant in a deathmatch with players firing off dozens of such weapons at each other, pings in the 400-700 range were the norm. It was bedlam, bonkers, and fun, but it didn’t sell very well. The sheer number of abilities and the rapid-fire stabbing on the number keys gave it a steep learning curve.
I bring these two games up because the crazy idea I’ve had rattling around in my head for years is how a blend of the two would work. Weaving elemental threads via mouse gestures to achieve a wide variety of spell effects (possibly even procedurally) based on the elements used, the gestures for each element, and the type of target. I bounced the idea around some boards almost 20-years ago, but we quickly came to the conclusion the infrastructure/hardware wasn’t ready and the mouse gesturing was just too unwieldy for anything fast-paced.
But now we have relatively stable twin-stick VR, allowing for accurate two-handed gesture tracking. Care to poke holes in my idea?
Are there any other strange mechanics you’ve encountered over the years that you wish had stuck around (or alternatively, overstayed their welcome)?
Thanks,
Will
46:51 Mailbag: Memorable Settings
Dear Diecast,
recently I was looking through my console game collection and reminiscing about the stories and worlds I experienced.
In particular, I love the setting of Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu*, which takes place in a far eastern land where people can travel to magical forests covered in ancient ruins.
So I was wondering, what are some unique and memorable settings you have enjoyed?
Vale,
-Tim
51:09 Mailbag: How You Would Do It
Dear Diecast,
have you ever encountered a mechanic in a game that made you think:
“If I made a game, that’s how I’d do it.”?
For example, when I first played Grandia 2 I was impressed by the battle system.
It has a global ATB where you see how far along all characters and enemies are, where attacks can delay their target, or even knock them out of their charge-up to an attack.
On top of that, positioning is worth keeping in mind as different attacks can have different attack radii.
If I were to make a game, that’s how I’d implement the battle system.
Looking forward to hear your thoughts.
Vale,
-Tim
Issac was still on the road this week. So we didn’t have anyone to edit our podcast. So we didn’t record one. So you get this instead. He’s on his way home as I write this, so we should be back to our usual schedule next week.
The mailbag is getting a bit out of hand, so I’m going to dig through the questions and see if there are any that I can answer alone.
But first let’s talk about what I did this week…
Final Fantasy Twelve I’m still working on my play-through of Final Fantasy XII. I think I’m going to write about the game eventually and I don’t want to spoil any of the major points I want to make about it. But I’d like to shoot from the hip and offer up a quick gripe: I think the game is too long in proportion to the amount of story it has to tell. More than once I found myself stomping through some godforsaken wasteland thinking:
Uhhhhhh? What’s my goal again? The map says I’m supposed to head for $LOCATION_NAME, but I can’t remember why I’m going there or how this journey helps in my struggle against the Empire. And hang on, don’t I own an airship? Why am I hiking across a continent? I’m sure someone offered an excuse a few cutscenes ago, but that was literally three days ago in the actual real world and the details are all fuzzy by now.
Shit, I need to set an alarm to remind me to take the drugs that keep me alive. If I need help remembering that, then I have no idea how I’m supposed to remember what excuse Balthier shat out last Monday to explain why I need to walk across three different climates to reach a city I can’t remember in service of a goal the game hasn’t talked about in the last two play sessions.
Maybe the story is too spaced out to keep me engaged, but it’s also possible that I’d have an easier time remembering things if my party didn’t consist of a bunch of bored mopes that hate making decisions. Maybe this would be easier to follow if I cared more. So I don’t know. Normally I answer these sorts of questions by playing through a game multiple times. That helps me fill in blanks and gives me a sense of perspective. But the thought of doing two FFXII play-throughs back-to-back is daunting.
You might remember the retrospective I did on Final Fantasy X back in 2016. My memory of that game is that while all Final Fantasy games are pretty long when compared to other AAA fare, number ten is short and breezy compared to twelve. They came out just five years apart, and both belong to the same console generation. But in terms of hours played, X feels brief and XII feels ponderous.
So I decided to take a break from XII to see if I was viewing X through rose-tinted glasses.
Sidetracked That was the plan, anyway. But then I got distracted. I started wondering about the leveling and character-building mechanics, and I suddenly got it in my head that I wanted to use Cheat Engine to fiddle around with different aspects of the game. I saw the layout of some things in memory and how the game worked behind the scenes, which made me more curious, which led to more experimenting. Pretty soon I got lost in this project and forgot all about the idea of comparing the two games side-by-side.
I might write about my Cheat Engine adventures later this week. In any case, I can’t trust my own numbers regarding pacing and game length. So let’s crowdsource this. I have no idea what I’m going to get here, but let’s see how long the cutscenes are and compare it to the overall gameplay and see what we find. This is going to be sloppy and filled with approximations, but they’ll be filled with other people’s approximations.
For Final Fantasy X, let’s see what’s on YouTube…
Final Fantasy X HD Remaster – FULL MOVIE / ALL CUTSCENES is 9.5 hours long.
Final Fantasy X HD Remaster – The Movie – Marathon Edition (All Cutscenes/Story) is a little over 11 hours.
Erm. Let’s just average these for 10.3 hours of total “movie”. According to HowLongtoBeat.com, Final Fantasy X takes about 70.5 hours for your middle-of-the-road playthrough. A completionist run is almost double that and a minimal run is just over half that, but let’s go with the middle number.
That means that Final Fantasy X is roughly 14% cutscenes? I guess?
On YouTube, this “movie” of Final Fantasy XII comes in at about six and a half hours, and it even includes little snippets of gameplay for context. Meanwhile, HLTB claims that FFXII takes a whopping 93 hours for a middle-of-the-road playthrough.
If these numbers are to be trusted, then Final Fantasy XII is roughly 6% cutscenes.
Now, I’m not going to try and convince you that one of these is objectively better than the other. There are lots of people who would rightly insist that more game and less movie is a good thing, and I can’t really argue with them. On the other hand, some people would say that Final Fantasy games are by their nature story-heavy and it’s totally reasonable to expect them to deliver lots of extravagant cutscene content. (And either way, having “more movie” can be seen as a very bad thing if the movie is terrible. I’m not saying that’s the case for FFXII, I’m just saying that all cutscenes are not created equal.)
But these numbers do support my gut feeling that Final Fantasy XII has a lot more space between its story beats, and maybe this explains why I keep losing track of the plot. I’m only playing an hour or two at a time, and I think Final Fantasy XII requires bigger individual blocks of time to really work well.
That, and the value of reminders shouldn’t be underestimated:
Final Fantasy X:
Okay, we’re going to go through the Moonflow to Guadosalam. But first we have to pray at the Djose Temple!
Here we are at the Djose Temple. Next we head for the Moonflow to Guadosalam.
This is the Moonflow. Next up is Guadosalam.
Here we are at Guadosalam. Let’s take a break, do some cutscenes, do a little shopping, and engage in a little personal drama before we begin the next leg of our journey.
Final Fantasy XII:
We need to head through the Moshoran Highwaste, to the Salikawood, to the Phon Coast, to reach the Tchita Uplands, and from there we can go to Archades. If you’re feeling like a badass we can stop in the Necrohol of Nabudis. Anyway, I hope you remember all that. Okay byeeeee! See you in four hours.
Again, you can make the case that this is a good thing. But as someone who was already struggling to keep track of all the nouns, the game really lost me at a few places. This plot feels more complex. There are more sides to the conflict, more characters to keep track of, and more locations to visit, yet the dialog scenes are fewer and farther between.
Prey Challenge Modes Next, let’s do some mailbag questions that would otherwise involve me talking Paul’s ear off. If you’re disappointed that your email is getting answered here instead of on the show proper, I apologize. If it makes you feel any better, the mailbag is overflowing. These Shamus–only questions would be the first ones to get cut if we found ourselves with too many questions.
Anyway. First up:
Dear Diecast,
I’m replaying Prey and having already beaten Nightmare mode I’m looking for some self-imposed challenges to make the game more interesting. Do you have any thoughts on how to spice up the experience?
“No Combat Focus” is an obvious rule because that ability is way too strong but after that I’m not sure where to go. Once you get the hang of it the wrench feels like it’s a little too good at costlessly clearing trash mobs (even without neuromods), but I can’t think of a rule to nerf it and the game doesn’t give you enough ammo for a wrenchless run to consist of anything but sprinting past every combat encounter.
Ninety-Three
Oh, and Ninety-Three added a little extra. I’d skip over this on the show, but it’s really interesting and worth including here:
PS: Notes on game mechanics, feel free to leave out of Diecast.
I’ve been experimenting with exactly how enemies work and there are some interesting properties the game does not make clear.
Phantoms will fall down if you hit them with two wrench power attacks and if you start attacking as soon as they start standing back up you can stunlock them to death.
If you gloo a mimic while it’s in object form it becomes permanently trapped (unless it’s one of the game’s special mimics with a fixed location scripted to jump out at you no matter what when you enter its trigger volume).
Speaking of scripting, the game cheats like mad and features a number of fixed encounters where mimics will spawn from thin air to attack you, aggro with a wider range than normal, or be placed by the level designer in a form that violates the normal rule of “mimics only copy nearby objects”, which feels like a cheap gotcha. I hope your series talks about the game’s encounter design, they clearly put time into it and the mix of scripted and procedural encounters is interesting.
If leaving out Combat Focus[1] counts as a challenge run, then I’ve done that one. CF always felt like a bit of a cheat to me and doesn’t quite mesh with my image of Morgan as an engineer / science nerd.
Also, I consider the various traumas (broken bones, burns, bleeds, rad sickness) to be a “must have” for a proper play-through. I think I had them turned off for my screenshot playthrough[2], but when I’m playing on my own I always have them on.
I usually despise weapon degradation in games where the combat is supposed to be fun and empowering. I don’t think DOOM would be improved if John Doomguy had to stop every couple of rooms to clean his shotgun. But in games like System Shock and Prey, I really enjoy needing to take care of my gear. So I tend to have weapon degradation turned on for Prey.
I also enable the feature where your oxygen reserves will slowly deplete if you get a tear in your suit, but the game is so generous with suit repair kits that it’s never been a problem.
I totally get the desire for a challenge mode to freshen up the game. For me, I find myself wishing they had a built-in randomizer. After a few playthroughs, you know where all the good weapons and goodies are. You know which containers are worth resources to open and which aren’t. I’d love a feature that could randomize all the monster positions and loot locations. Obviously this would introduce a large element of luck to the game. You might get the shotgun hours sooner or later, depending on which side of a door it ends up on. But that sort of chaos is what you want for your Nth playthrough.
As for suggestions? I’m afraid I don’t really do “challenge runs” so much as “novelty runs”. My goal isn’t to make the game harder per se, but just to break out of habitual behavior and push myself to do things differently. With that in mind:
- I’ve been considering a no-shotgun run. I actually have the preorder bonus shotgun, which appears in Morgan’s office. That’s simply WAY too early in the game to get your hands on such a powerful weapon. (Particularly one in top condition!) I literally get it before the pistol. So I’ve been considering a run where I just disassemble or recycle all the shotguns I find.
- Another idea I’ve been toying with is to not reclaim the main elevator and instead get around through the GUTS, or by going on spacewalks. I literally never see the GUTS after our first trip through those tunnels, and I wonder if they get repopulated as the game progresses.
- A no-hacking run. This barely qualifies as a “novelty run”, much less a “challenge run”. Some players decide they hate the hacking minigame[3] and choose to skip that. But I suffer from an obsessive need to LOOT ALL THE THINGS, even when I know from experience that the container in front of me doesn’t have anything worth my time. So a no-hacking run would really force me out of my rut.
- A really constrained inventory run might be interesting. Don’t take any inventory upgrades, and fill the last two columns with trash / food items to prevent them from being occupied by useful stuff.
I realize these are pretty tame by challenge mode standards. Most players attempt crazy stuff like “wrench only” or “turn off my monitor outside of combat”, but I’m not adventurous enough for that sort of thing.
ICO
Hey Shamus,
Have you played the PS2 game ICO? I recently played it and later found a critique of it by some one named PeterEliot. This is a large literary analysis of the game’s narrative, which tries to understand the themes and ideas of the game, as well as examine it in relation to folk and fairy tales, books of romanticist movement and various other classical works. It reminded me a lot of your treatise on Mass Effect, and I thought you might like to read it too.
If you haven’t played it, I can easily recommend ICO, as well as its more well known cousin Shadow of the Colossus. The same team also worked on The Last Guardian that I haven’t played yet, though it is probably just as good, considering their pedigree.
Take care,
Provisional Username
I played Shadow of the Colossus back in the day. I loved it in a thematic sense. I loved the barebones and mostly-inferred story. I loved the brilliant art design. I loved the overall mood of the piece.
The problem is, I hated the gameplay. It was irritating and inescapably punishing. I mean, when you fall off a giant sky bird, there’s no way to have another go at it except to repeat all the steps to get on its back again. There’s no good way to give the player a mulligan here. It HAS to be punishing or the mechanics don’t make any sense.
So not only do I find the gameplay mechanics to be tedious, but failure causes massive setbacks. I complain about the setbacks in Dark Souls, but a death in Dark Souls is nothing compared to the pain of falling off a colossus mid-atrocity.
So as much as I admire Shadow of the Colossus from an artistic standpoint, I’m never getting near it again. And so it would be crazy for me to tackle ICO, which looks incredibly similar: Fussy, frustrating gameplay where failure creates enormous setbacks for the player.
These are cool games, but they’re very much not for me. Although that critique you linked looks pretty cool. I might read that. Thank goodness for the Wayback Machine, since this blog evidently vanished six years ago. Alas for link rot.
Post-Processing The previous person added a bonus question to their email:
Some time ago, you sent me a key to the game Overload (the spiritual successor of Descent). And while its 6DOF thrills were just as heart-pounding as ever, I found it’s over-reliance of particle effects, post-processing, debris and numerous other graphical knick-knacks very irritating. It was hard to tell what was in foreground and what was useless background, what to focus on and what to ignore; to quote videogamedunkey, “Is that a bad guy, or a lens flare?”.
As someone who has been working on game and rendering technology since back in the 90s, when and why do you think this apparent over-reliance on visual gimmicks instead of solid art design started to take place? Is this a reaction to the jokes made on the expense of the brown gritty graphics of the late aughts? Have we inadvertently built a monument to our own sins? Do we need to repent; and if yes, to whom?
I had the same complaint about Overload. The particles, bloom lighting, and other post-processing cluttered up the frame. The original Descent was, by virtue of being an early 90s product, incredibly minimalist in its presentation. The enemies were simple shapes with clear lines and strong colors to differentiate them. The lighting model was kind of weird, and tended to render foes at full brightness, even in dark environments. You could tell the robots apart from one another, and they stood out from the environment.
In Overload, the more realistic lighting means that robots are often just a noisy dark silhouette in the distance. You can see there’s a robot there, but not what kind of robot you’re seeing. And then you start shooting, and your lasers generate huge clouds of particle effects that completely obscure your target. When the fight is over, you probably have no idea what you just killed. Also, it’s hard to see return fire coming out of the clouds of particles, which makes the game frustrating. It also gave me a lot of eye strain.
(It’s not just the number of particles that’s the problem. It’s also how long they persist. Some of the wisps of flame can linger for several seconds. You could maybe get away with some of these particles if they vanished more quickly.)
To answer the question: Why do developers do this?
I think it’s the same reason that so many movies embrace the teal and orange color grading, even in films where it doesn’t make any sense and works against the intended mood. It’s something that’s effortless to add, and in isolation it makes the image more striking. In a modern game engine, particle effects and bloom lighting are completely turnkey: Just crank the sliders up to get more of both.
(Also, the two effects exacerbate each other. Adding bloom to a wall of particles tends to create intense bloom that’s hard to see through. A tiny bit of bloom can make an image a little dreamy, while lots of bloom just makes it blurry. Also, you need to think about your setting. Bloom roughly simulates what happens when bright lights pass through humid air. The suspended water vapor gets backlit by the light and seems to glow a bit, adding this subtle aura to light sources. It’s a neat effect, but you need to ask yourself if it makes any sense. If your game takes place in somewhere hot, dry, or in a vacuum, then you shouldn’t be using bloom.)
You can imagine how tempting this is for a movie editor. You click on a checkbox and BOOM! Suddenly your footage pops. It makes the image in front of you more exciting to look at, but it might not be suitable for the work in question. If the scene takes place in a stark, sterile, clinical setting and we want the world to feel cold and indifferent, then having warm skin tones is the opposite of the mood you’re going for.
Game developers can fall for the same trap. All you need to do is click a button to make sexier screenshots, but you need to take a step back and ask if you’re making the screenshots look better at the expense of the work as a whole.
That’s it for this text-only podcast. Next week we should be back to normal.
My editor is on the road this weekend, which means I don’t have anyone to take our weekly podcast and wrangle the audio into something presentable. So no podcast. We might not get one next weekend either. The young people are making the plans around here lately, which means everything is disorganized last-minute chaos.
I really envy them sometimes.
At any rate, let’s talk about…
Why Valve Needs the Steam Deck Thumbsticks AND trackpads AND face buttons. I'm not sure I have enough thumbs for this device. Remember the Steam Machine? That was Valve’s attempt to make a “console” for PC games. It didn’t work out, and I figured that was the end of it. But no. Valve is trying again, this time with a Switch-esque device called the Steam Deck.
Paradoxically, I think this effort is probably doomed and yet I’m glad to see that Valve is still trying. They’re continuing to invest in Proton, a compatibility tool for getting Windows-targeted games running on Linux.
Microsoft is in a weird place right now. Apple is apparently the third most profitable company on the planet. Sure, Microsoft is #4. But the secret to Apple’s income is that their platform (the iPhone) is a walled garden and they get a cut of every single transaction performed on the device. There are about 1 billion iPhones in use today. Meanwhile, there are about 1.3 billion Windows 10 users. Microsoft is being used on more devices, yet Microsoft trails Apple in income to the tune of $15 billion.
But Shamus! You’re comparing mobile phones to desktop installs. There are different platforms, with different income models, for different user bases with using different usage patterns. This is a nonsensical comparison!
I agree. But we also know that companies are guilty of a lot of nonsensical corporate dick-measuring. If there’s an executive meeting next week and some soft-brained doofus asks, “Why are we making less than Apple when we have more users?” we know it won’t be the stupidest thing ever uttered in the Microsoft conference room.
| Link (YouTube) |
The point I’m getting at is that having a locked-down platform with a single storefront might look really attractive to someone at Microsoft.
“Hey guys, I just ran the numbers. It turns out that if we controlled access to Windows the way that Apple controls access to iPhone, and if we assume that such control would have no negative impact on our userbase and we also assume that consumers and manufacturers won’t flee to competing operating systems, including earlier versions of Windows, and if we further assume that our storefront can capture a similar percent of all software transactions even though enterprise packages and productivity software have radically different economic models compared to phone apps, then by my calculations we would make $LOLEFFYOU billions every year!”
Imagine if Microsoft made the Microsoft Store the only way of getting new software on Windows, and so all software sales had to go through them. Sure, tech-savvy users could “jailbreak” their desktops, but a lot of non-technical people wouldn’t be able to make that leap. In response to PC gamer backlash, Microsoft responds with “Get an Xbox!”
It doesn’t matter if the plan makes sense. It only matters if Microsoft thinks it makes sense. If they ever decided to seriously pursue something like this, it would be a huge threat to Steam. Even if it ultimately failed, Microsoft could still make life very unpleasant for the folks at Valve software for a few years.
I’ll admit this scenario doesn’t seem likely. But it’s not impossible. If I wore Gabe Newell‘s shoes, this would be the scenario that kept me up at night. I’d be very happy to pour money into projects like Proton that would give me additional options when dealing with a threat like this.
So What About the Steam Deck?
The problem with the Steam machine was that it was basically a gaming console for the price of a desktop PC. You were giving up the functionality of a PC, but you didn’t seem to be getting anything in return in terms of more power or a lower price. There were certainly use cases for a Steam Machine, but all of those use cases could be covered by a desktop PC.
For contrast, the Steam Deck really does do something you can’t do with a desktop PC. At $400, it’s competitive with the other gaming consoles in terms of price. And if you get the dock, then you have a portable gaming machine that can become a “desktop PC” type deal. Or to look at it from the other direction, it’s a desktop PC that can become a Switch-like portable gaming device.
I work from home and I don’t really travel so I don’t need something like this, but if I travelled or had a daily commute, the Steam Deck seems like a really sensible option. I can play games on the road, and then I can come home and stick it in the dock for a more traditional mouse + keyboard + monitor experience.
The Steam Deck will begin shipping this December. It’ll be interesting to see how it does.
Sandy of Cthulhu
| Link (YouTube) |
This week I discovered the YouTube channel Sandy of Cthulhu, by id Software alumnus Sandy Petersen. During his time at id, Petersen contributed to Doom, Doom II, Quake, and a bit of Quake II. Beyond that, he also contributed to Sid Meier’s Pirates! (1989), Civilization (1991), and all three Age of Empires games (1997-2006). Whenever people talk about the history of early shooters, they usually focus on superstar names like John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack, and American McGee. Guys like Sandy Petersen, Michael Abrash, Tom Hall, and Kevin Cloud often get glossed over because of the show-stealing interpersonal drama between the big names.
Petersen was also a designer for Lightspeed (1990) a game I played obsessively in the summer of 1991 and then never touched again. Over the next couple of decades I watched as it sort of vanished from history. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone reference the game since I played it, even though I thought it had a couple of interesting ideas.
Anyway, Sandy’s channel is worth a look if you want some behind-the-scenes stuff on those early games. He’s more focused on the design than the drama, which is cool because, again, I think the “Boy John Romero sure was a wildcard back in the 90s!” story has been told enough times.
We’re reached another big round number of Diecasts, so I feel like I should… do… something. Or say something. So here’s a fun fact…
There are 79 episodes of the original Star Trek, 178 episodes of TNG, 176 of DS9, 172 of Voyager, and 98 episodes of Enterprise. An hour-long TV program in the USA is typically ~41 minutes. Which means there are, roughly, 480 hours of Star Trek television to watch. And no, we’re not counting the appalling new stuff like Discovery and Picard, which are action dramas with science words in them and not science fiction. Yes, there’s a difference, even if the dunderheads at CBS don’t know about it.
Anyway. 480 hours of trek. Diecast episodes these days are just a smidge over an hour. But back in the day when the cast was bigger, episodes regularly ran for an hour and a half. For the sake of laziness, let’s just assume the average is around an hour twenty. That means there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 460 hours of Diecast. So there’s almost as much Diecast as there is Star Trek.
None of that means anything. I just thought it was interesting.
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Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast350
| Link (YouTube) |
00:00 Rocketeer’s Final Fantasy XII Series
So hey, The Rocketeer… I’m looking to get in touch with you. Please email the Diecast (email in the header image) so I can bug you.
For those of you who want to read his FFXII series, here it is.
05:24 Shamus is still playing Final Fantasy XII for some reason?
Currently wandering the desert. Trying to explore the entire SandSea this time instead of making a beeline for Raithwall’s Tomb. Gettin’ SUPER bored of killing Jawas, though.
Also, I don’t know what to make of the floating orange spheres[1] that can one-shot my overleveled (~30) characters, but they can piss right off.
10:40 Paul is still playing Dyson Sphere Program for Some Reason
| Link (YouTube) |
12:38 Mailbag: Carmack’s Coding Retreat
Dear diecast,
If John Carmack invited you to join him on his coding retreat, and offered you to teach you any of his black magic coding skills he knew, what area/subject would you chose?
With kind regards,
chris
This is the 3Blue1Brown series on Neural Networks I mentioned.
21:37 Mailbag: Erosion of Taste
Dear Diecast!
Don’t worry, this isn’t about them young’uns not liking the proper things the proper way anymore, but something I experienced personally: my taste in games kind of eroded.
To elaborate: back in my youth I was really into immersive sims like Thief, System Shock 2, stealth games like Hitman or Splinter Cell, tough round based tactics/RPG games like X-Com or Jagged Alliance 2 or the original Fallout 1+2
But nowadays, despite having very fond memories of those titles and having completed them multiple times over in my younger years, I cannot seem to enjoy them anymore. Not the originals themselves, or streamlined and modernized sequels, or spiritual successors, or even masterpieces like Prey keep me glued to the screen, or motivate me to boot them up ever again after spending a single evening with them.
How come? And do you two share similar experiences?
Greetings from Austria,
Norbert “ColkeusRattus” Lickl
P.S.: You’re saying my name well enough to be tolerable!
31:08 Mailbag: The Emotional Impact of Music
Hey Shamus, Paul, and the comments section,
I’ve been meaning to comment on last week’s post (week of July 5th) but I got sucked into the Rocketeer’s Final Fantasy XXII dialogue and have been enjoying that rabbit hole on my phone so the tab is occupied by twenty-sided is currently occupied on my phone. I guess both my question and answer tie in together: all of the games that have caused me to tear up or cry have done so through the use of music rather than just through the use of plot or character. This list includes things such as the original Final Fantasy VII (Aeris(th’s) death accompanied by the music, Mordin’s death in Mass Effect 3, and Shepherd’s revenge of Thane in Mass Effect 3 (no matter how corny the cutscene is I still tear up), Dom’s death in Gears of War 3 (to an instrumental version of Mad World), the middle ending of Hades.
Most of the most emotional scenes whether it is sadness or excitement within games are accompanied by outstanding music. And yet, gamers, reviewers, and journalists rarely bring up music within the genre. Why is there such a blind spot for this portion of our hobby? I hold The Maw from Halo: CE as one of the best examples of level design within a linear shooter, but that is largely because of the music that goes along with the gameplay. How many people would feel the emotional attachment to “their” Shepherd in ME without the theme accompanying the decisions you make?
Chris/Gautsu
| Link (YouTube) |
41:30 Mailbag: Accents
Dear Diecast.
As an australian I was very much amused by Shamus’s take on an australian accent, even if it did sound more like a distorted working class british accent(which seems to be fairly normal for Americans trying to sound australian). I would be very interested to hear your take on other countries’ accents as well.
Best wishes, Henry Chadban.
| Link (YouTube) |
52:56 Mailbag: Where do you start writing a story?
Dear Shamus!
I hope this mail finds you in good health.
It’s a question about how you start writing your fiction books. What kickstarts the whole process and what do you write first?
Best regards, DeadlyDark
I think I did okay with the Steam Summer Sale this year. I picked up a reasonable handful of games, but I didn’t add a bunch of crap to the Backlog of Shamefully Un-played Impulse Buys like I used to in the old days. I actually took this time to cull some stuff from my wishlist. I figure if it’s 75% off and I’m still not buying it, then I’m probably never gonna buy it.
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Diecast349
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00:00 InnerSpace
Not the movie, we’re talking about the game.
03:08 This Badly Translated Game of Portal
| Link (YouTube) |
09:56 Kingdom Come: Deliverance
THE GAME COLON THE SUBTITLE
18:25 Picked up Final Fantasy XII
I originally played this thing on the PS2, way back in 2007. You can actually read my original thoughts here, back when I was just a wee baby critic. Since then, I’ve spent about a decade and a half reviewing games, analyzing stories, and exploring games from many new (to me) genres. My horizons are broader, and I’ve got a better understanding for the cultural context of the JRPG genre. And with the benefit of that added perspective and the chance to revisit this game all these years later, I have to say: Eh. Yeah. This is basically how I remembered it.
This is an obtuse mope of a game and I don’t care about a single one of these characters. The plot of FFX was absolutely surreal and the characters were full-on lunatics, but by the end I really cared about those oddly-dressed idiots and their goofy struggle against Kaiju Satan.
But what’s the consensus these days? The game did okay back in 2006, but I’d really like to know how history has judged it. Is this a series favorite? A weird experiment that didn’t hold up? A mistake? An underappreciated gem?
27:59 Deep Rock Galactic
You’ll have to toss me!
28:13 Sunless Sea
28:24 Venineth
28:35 The Outer Worlds
28:50 Dyson Sphere Program
30:03 Mailbag: Meeting Your Other Characters
Dear Diecast,
I don’t know if that’s necessary, but: spoiler alert for Dragon Age series.
In Dragon Age: Inquisition our character met Hawke, the main protagonist of the previous game. He could also receive a letter from the hero of the first game, the Warden. It seems that BioWare really likes the idea of meeting your own characters as independent NPCs – something of that sort can happen in Star Wars: The Old Republic; there are also similar ideas in Mass Effect 3: Citadel. Last but not least, developers were actually trying to bring the Warden to Inquisition in person, but determined it was too difficult to do.
So, speaking of RPGs in general: do you think it’s possible to create such situations in which we would be able to interact with our characters from previous games, without ruining the players’ agency? I’m specifically thinking about the ones that are mostly created by said players: e.g. more like the Warden, less like Hawke or Shepard.
Do you think it’s possible? Is there some kind of AI magic that could make it happen? Should we even try, or are we going mad from too much power?
Cheers,
Darek
34:55 Mailbag: Dead by Daylight
I happened to be watching some random Twitch streams and stumbled across people playing “Dead by Daylight” which self-describes as “a multiplayer (4vs1) horror game where one player takes on the role of the savage Killer, and the other four players play as Survivors, trying to escape the Killer and avoid being caught and killed.” In Shamus’s recent E3 announcements for various”Left4Dead” style games he mentions not being very excited about what was on offer in comparison to the originals. While Dead by Daylight isn’t a shooter, it seems like the closest thing to L4D that people are playing these days and the format has allowed them to adopt a number of famous horror properties into playable Killer characters, which I personally think is really interesting.
tl;dr Are you guys familiar with this game or have you given it a try? I’m interested on your thoughts on the various Killers they’ve adapted (Michael Myers, Leatherface, Freddy Kreuger, Ghost Face, the Demogorgon, Pyramid Head, Nemisis, etc)
44:28 Mailbag: Terrabyte Games
G’day Diecast,
so I was rummaging around in my attic recently and found a box containing no less than 11 floppies for a single game (Monkey Island 2). Of course nowadays we have CDs, which can hold hundreds of floppies of data, so I was wondering…
How long d’ya think it’ll take for games to reach a terrabyte in size?
Vale,
-Tim
Not to be confused with Trilobyte games.
49:36 Mailbag: Games that Made You Cry
Dear Diecast
Has there ever been a game that made you outright cry? In the emotional sense I mean, not because you were laughing your asses off or something.
From Dunkey
I knew it. I knew I’d think of a bunch of examples after the show. While I can’t claim any of these wrung genuine tears out of my stony heart, I did find them very emotionally powerful:
- Last of Us (Powerful)
- Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Lee’s last chapter. (Strong)
- Final Fantasy X (Mild)
- The very end of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (not so much sadness as shock.)
55:54 Mailbag: Thrill of Stealth
G’day Diecast,
so a few weeks ago Shamus mentioned he doesn’t like Alex (AKA FailRace, AKA that guy who does Survive the Hunt) being so very careful and sneaky and cautious. This made me wonder: how do you feel about general stealth gameplay? Do you not care for watching people play things like Thief and Alien Isolation, or do you go into those with different expectations?
Thank you and Paul for the wonderful content,
Vale,
-Tim
1:04:26 After Credits
I am not responsible. This is all Tim’s fault.
My writing is generally fueled by whatever experiences I’m having at the moment. If I’m programming, then I talk about the coding I’m doing. If I’m playing a videogame, then I talk about the game. If I’m inflicting my music on the world, then I talk about music theory. And if my health is bad, then I try to find a way to talk about it in a way that makes it funny or thoughtful.
Lately I’m spending a lot of time worrying about my health, but this time around it’s a dull, grim sort of worry. I don’t have anything witty to say about my current predicament and I don’t have any clever observations. Things are just going poorly and there’s nothing to be done about it. My current situation is my new normal and I need to accept that.
My father died in 2000 at the age of 59. For years I’ve been half-jokingly saying that my goal was to beat him and at least make it to 60. He was an overweight recovering alcoholic with epilepsy that lived alone and smoked two packs a day, so outliving him always sounded like a pretty easy goal. I’ve got a decade to go if I want to outlast him, and It wasn’t until recently that I started to worry that I might not make it.
I’m fine at the moment, but I’m dealing with a lot of cascading health complications that began with my high blood pressure and have branched outward since then. I want to repeat that I’m okay right now. I’m not in pain and I’m not dying. But I’m moving a lot slower than I was a year ago, and I need to be very careful with my diet and medications to make sure things don’t get any worse.
Legacy Here are the graves of generations gone by. I'll bet their websites have all gone down. So why am I suddenly giving so much thought to death all of a sudden? Well aside from the health complications, it’s because I just noticed it’s been a little over a year since my colleague Michael Goodfellow died. He was about ten years older than me, and at this stage in life that feels more or less like the same age.
We weren’t close, but we were both aging programmers-turned-bloggers that traded emails and source code from time to time. I noticed last week that his site at www.sea-of-memes.com has lapsed and fallen to domain squatters. For whatever reason, this hit me really hard. I was sad when he passed, but seeing his personal site and all his projects vanish into the bit bucket has filled me with insurmountable existential dread. I’ve always known that I was going to die someday, but now I’m grappling with the realization that – regardless of how carefully I plan – someday my website will eventually fall to squatters. I can’t explain why this is so much more upsetting than death itself.
Anyway, if something did happen to me then I’m sure my website would be fine for many years. Michael’s problem was that he didn’t really have anyone in place to take care of his stuff when he passed. (He was unmarried, and I got the sense that the rest of his family wasn’t particularly tech-savvy.) But my wife knows how important this site is to our family, and she has a lot of experience taking care of various WordPress websites. She would do fine as the caretaker of Twenty Sided.
The plan is that the comments would be closed across the entire site. This is just to protect against spammers and vandals, since the site would no longer have a full-time moderator. Other than that, not much ought to change. Well, aside from the lack of updates I guess. This site won’t get any new content after I’m gone, unless WordPress introduces a Ouija Board plugin that allows me to author posts from the afterlife. Given what a nightmare PHP is, I really advise against using it to interface with supernatural realm. Those sorts of shenanigans are how you end up opening portals to hell.
The worst thing that might happen is that some future WordPress update would break my custom-built theme, and Heather would need to switch this site to using one of the ugly default themes. That would be sad, but at least the site would stay up.
The other bad thing that might happen is that WordPress might break my custom plugins. I’ve written tools that allow me to use shortcode to create footnotes.[1] If that code breaks, then the shortcode would appear in the article text.[ref|Like this one.] Similarly, the image of the graveyard above will look like this once it turns back into a pumpkin:
[img src="stock_graveyard2.jpg" title="Here are the graves of generations gone by. I'll bet their websites have all gone down."]
So if you’re reading this from the future[2] and you’re seeing this shortcode appearing in the article body, now you know why. Something broke my ancient legacy code.
I realize that, in the grand scheme of the universe, my gaming blog is barely a trifle. But it’s my trifle damn it. I built it, and I get some sense of personal satisfaction in the fact that it it’s still standing after fifteen+ years. Like a bridge, I don’t expect it will last literally forever. But I’d be very disappointed if it fell over the moment I stopped personally taking care it.
Well, that’s enough dread for one day. Let’s talk about something fun!
The Switch Some of fiction's greatest villains include Hannibal Lecter, Moriarty, and Darth Vader. Let's add Tom Nook to the list, the most diabolical loan shark ever to appear in a children's game. A few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to get my wife a Nintendo Switch. A few people shared the wisdom that Nintendo is probably planning a mid-gen hardware refresh in the next year or so. In early 2022 I’ll (probably) be able to buy a better machine for the same money, or the same machine for less money. Ergo, this is a bad time to get a Switch.
I was grateful for the advice, but also a little disappointed because I wanted her to have one.
For the last six months or so, my wife has been balancing work between three different jobs. She’s a nanny for two different families, plus she took care of an infant for a couple of young doctors still stuck in the “rotating shifts” / “on call” phase of their career.
But alas, the doctors are moving away and taking their adorable baby daughter with them. Heather was crushed. While taking care of a baby is a lot of work, it’s literally Heather’s favorite thing to do aside from playing Animal Crossing. So it was awesome when the doctors got her a parting gift of a Nintendo Switch and a copy of said Animal Crossing. She gets the joy of having the machine right now, and I won’t be plagued by guilt knowing that I could have gotten a better deal if I’d waited.
The Switch has taken the place of honor in the living room, which means the Playstation 4 is returning to my home office. This means I’ve hooked it up to my PC again using…
The Elgato This is the latest model. I'm actually using the last-gen version of this thing, the Elgato HD. I’ve always been a little dissatisfied with the technology we use to capture video output. Specifically, I’ve never really wrapped my head around why we need the technology at all.
Back in 2008 or so, I had an Xbox 360. I also had a cheap little $40 TV tuner card that would take the analog output of my Xbox and put it in a little window on my PC where the resulting footage could be captured. You plug card into your PC and plug the Xbox into the card, and now the footage is all yours. That’s how I captured the screenshots for my Fable 2 series.
Like the vast majority of the first-run Xbox 360s, my console died the death after a little more than a year, and it was almost a decade before I had another console I wanted to plug into my PC. When the time came, I was somewhat horrified to discover that the process had become more complicated, more expensive, and slower. That’s the opposite of what we usually see in consumer electronics.
These days, you need to pay somewhere in the ballpark of $200USD for the hardware. That’s a pretty big step up from the $40 I paid in 2008. And once you do that, the hardware will enable you to view the footage in a window… with two full seconds of latency. That makes the game unplayable, so you need to split the signal and send it to another monitor where it will appear without latency. You’ll use the monitor to play the game while the capture software records the resulting delayed-by-two-seconds footage.
This is really obnoxious. My desk is already overflowing with gear and the snarl of cables behind my monitors has already become untenable. The last thing I want is another entire monitor[3] that only exists to show me an image that is already on one of the existing monitors! And the only reason I have to do this stupid and expensive thing is that there’s this inexplicable two-second latency when converting the digital output of my console to a digital signal that my PC can display.
So then I have a conversation that goes like this….
I don’t get it. What could it POSSIBLY be doing to the video signal that requires two full seconds of buffering?
Shamus you fool! OF COURSE it takes time to process modern TV signals! Don’t you realize how advanced these images are?
I know that a 1080p image is about two million pixels. Frankly, that’s nothing on the scale that modern computers operate on. What is it doing with them?
Shamus, you sweet summer child. It takes TIME to convert a video feed. These aren’t analog signals like in the old days. This is DIGITAL INFORMATION.
Great. We need the signal in digital format, so it’s nice that we don’t need to convert from analog first. But what takes all the time? What is the operation being performed on these pixels that requires EXTERNAL PROCESSING HARDWARE, and yet still can’t get the job done in less than two seconds?
Shamus, you naive buffoon, the signal being sent to your television is totally different from the pixels that Windows is drawing in a window. This means that signal must be converted. I can’t believe this is confusing you.
No, I get that. But like, two seconds? My computer – like all modern PCs – is a processing MONSTER. It’s got 8 cores running at 3.6Ghz. Do you have any idea how much raw processing power that is? And my TV doesn’t have anything approaching that level of computing power. And yet my $90 Wal-Mart television is able to display these images with zero latency.
Shamus you bumbling simpleton, your TV DOESN’T NEED TO CONVERT THE SIGNAL, because the signal is already in a format native to the TV. What’s so hard to understand about this?
Whatever the format is, we’re still talking about 2 million discrete pixels. That information arrives in a way that my TV can figure out which pixels to turn on and off, and it does so with primitive hardware that probably costs just a few dollars. I get that the signals are different, but what sort of conversion operations could possibly take two entire seconds? What does it need to do? Convert CMYK to RGB? Re-scale the inputs to a different number space? Maybe handle some compression? None of that is a big deal when it’s a question of 2 million pixels vs. 28.8 billion processor cycles.[4]
Shamus, you should stop asking questions that only show how ignorant you are.
That’s how questions work. Just answer me.
You’re failing to understand how COMPLEX a modern video feed is. There’s encryption that needs to be processed!
You can totally turn off HDCP. In fact, you HAVE TO. And even if there’s a bunch of DRM on the signal that needs to be dealt with, your TV seems to manage just fine with its underpowered processing hardware.
Well it just, you know. Needs to… convert the signal.
Yes, but what is it DOING?
And so on. For the record, I’ve never had anyone talk to me like this, it’s just that this is how the exchange goes when people ask about it. Elgato specifically singles out compression as the culprit for why there needs to be an entire second [5] of output latency. It’s this stupid circular conversation where the conversion needs to take a long time because it’s converting, which is somehow both tautological and a non-sequitur.
Without knowing anything about it, I’m willing to bet that at the heart of this mess is a stupid patent or other obnoxious licensing shenanigans. Someone came up with a video feed format, and they own the exclusive rights to processing that feed, so you have to buy chips from them. But since they have a monopoly on this format then there’s no competition, which means the chips are lame, underpowered, and outrageously overpriced. I’m willing to bet that you could make a better system that has just one or two frames of latency, and that it could run on a modern PC without needing external processing hardware, and the whole setup could cost less than ten dollars. The only reason that such a thing doesn’t exist is because it would be a patent / copyright violation to do so.
To extrapolate further, I’m betting the feed needs to use a patent-inhibited format because these machines can play movies and Hollywood wants to make sure we don’t pirate their precious movies. So all of this horrendous expense and bullshit is their attempt to close the barn door now that the animals have already escaped.
I can’t prove it, of course. I don’t even have any evidence. But there must be some reason for this mess, and this is my guess for why this is so needlessly expensive and difficult.
I’ve Been Here Before Regardless of the reason, it does make this entire process way harder than it needs to be for the end user. I spent a good chunk of Saturday fiddling around with cables and trying to remember how the setup worked. You need to go from the console, to the Elgato, and from the Elgato to a dedicated monitor. But then also the Elgato needs to connect to the PC via USB. And then I need speakers for the monitor, because even though I already have speakers on my desk, those are for the PC and I need some for the monitor so I can hear the game in real-time rather than on a delay.
So I spent over an hour fussing with things. I’d look something up, and then go, “Oh right. I remember that’s how it was. It’s coming back to me now.” There are a dozen little details that can go wrong, and I had to trip over all of them so that I could remember tripping over them in 2018 so that I could remember how to not trip over them.
Anyway. I got it working again, so it looks like I’m going to get to play the Final Fantasy VII remake soon.
We spend most of the show talking about game demos and trailers. Which means the show notes are going to be a big wall of embedded videos. I realize this isn’t super-useful to those of you who read in an environment where you can’t watch videos, but this is what happens when you do an entire show about three-minute video game commercials.
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Diecast348
| Link (YouTube) |
Show notes: 00:00 E3 Wrap-up
E3 is over, but Steam NEXT Fest is still going on. And EA is doing some sort of non-E3 showcase in the next couple of weeks.
This is good. We’re spreading things out. In my ideal setup, the overwhelming and expensive germ-spreading convention would be retired. Instead, each major publisher would just pick a week during the summer to show off their stuff. We’re not quite there yet, but this is a step in the right direction.
02:44 Outer Worlds 2 trailer
| Link (YouTube) |
03:45 Steam NEXT Fest: Game Demos?
It’s amazing. Finally computers are powerful enough that we can try software before we buy it. If only we could have developed this technology sooner.
05:17 They Always Run
| Link (YouTube) |
The main character looks like a badass in the trailer, but you’re going to need to practice if you want to pull off those moves. 09:48 Road 96
| Link (YouTube) |
14:03 Lifeslide
| Link (YouTube) |
14:32 Nuke Zone
| Link (YouTube) |
15:24 Industria
| Link (YouTube) |
The developer makes it clear that the game is inspired by Half-Life 2. In terms of art style, I think they nailed it. The art is incredibly strong.
In terms of gameplay… well, you can tell this is the work of a small team. I played the demo, which is both far too short and yet still managed to show off a lot of general awkwardness. It’s a shame – the art and level design are so good they create unfortunate expectations of AAA quality, which you can’t hope to meet with a small team.
Still, there’s no denying that this is really amazing work.
18:42 Minecraft Dungeons
| Link (YouTube) |
I can’t say for sure that this game will be a flop, but nobody asked for this. “Hey what if we made a Minecraft-branded game that contains none of the elements that made Minecraft so popular?”
I guess Microsoft wants to justify the billions they paid for Minecraft?
21:58 Minecraft Update
Man, I need to get back into the game. As soon as I’m done with this E3 stuff. And when Steam NEXT Fest is over. And I’m done with my Prey retrospective.
23:12 Dorf Romantik is amazing!
I love this game.
25:52 Hardspace: Shipbreaker
I don’t have anything to add to what we said on the show. I liked this thing in concept, but it’s very difficult to capture the dull grind of a hopeless job without the experience becoming a dull grind in a hopeless job.
37:47 Mailbag: Culture Blind
Dear Diecast,
An interesting reason that some people have unique perspectives on games may be that they were hidden behind a “culture blind”. They were unaware and thus unaffected by the reaction by peers, media, and marketers to the product. They have a self-formed opinion.
In 2011 I was immersed into World of Warcraft so completely that I had no awareness of the wider gaming community. I didn’t know that Mass Effect 2 existed, the Wii U was a touch screen peripheral for the Wii (though this misconception was wider spread), Skyrim brushed against my awareness, and I didn’t know about Dragon Age 2.
When I got around to playing Dragon Age 2 in 2014 I adored it. My two complaints were the consolized combat system which removed the companion tactics queue and the cave aesthetic which got a bit old.
My perspective formed without preconceptions due to my WoW culture blind. When I now read reviews of 2011-2013 games I more often than usual strongly disagree with points made. It makes me think that there is an immense effect exerted upon us by culture and that this effect informs our opinions more than we realize.
Do you have games that you played with minimal preconceptions? How do you think marketing, peers, and reviews alter our opinions?
-Chris P.
49:36 Mailbag: Bethesda Quest Mods
Dear Diecast
Speaking of Bethesda games, have you guys ever tried out Skyrim and Fallout quest mods? If so, which have you played and which was your favorite?
From Donkey
54:15 Mailbag: Virtual Consoles
Hi guys,
While it was no fun for 13Window, erm I mean Shamus to be in the hospital, special shoutout to Paul for the Shamusless diecast ; it was fun & refreshing hearing all your memories about gaming with your SO, made me reminisce about mine :)
– in the last diecast someone mentioned programming for dead consoles ; it made me think, have you tried virtual consoles such as Pico8, and what’s your thoughts on that? I plan on trying it out, because the “philosophy” of having a set of hard limitations… seems kinda… I’d say creatively interesting.
Here is the site for the Pico8. So charming.
1:02:37 Mailbag: Sticking with Bad Games
(Question continued from previous email.)
– Why do you think, a few years ago (I’d say mid-90’s cause i was young and naive), there’s this impression that we (at least, I) bought less games, but played them to death, even not very good games ? and I remember having a good time even if I knew it wasn’t great. I propose a few theories : less games availables, or media was still evolving (we didn’t knew better), or we were less spoiled so less demanding, or is it rose-tinted nostalgia blurring our vision ?
Take care everyone !
Cheers
Earlack
Like I said on the show, E3 kinda snuck up on me this year. It had barely started when we recorded this podcast, but it’ll be basically over by the time this goes live. Whatever. I doubt people come to my site because my coverage is timely.
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Diecast347
| Link (YouTube) |
Show notes:
00:00 E3 Coverage – Ubisoft and the Cavalcade of Cringe
I’ll have a proper show-by-show breakdown of E3 later this week.
07:34 Anacrusis – Left 4 Dead Writer Chet Falizek
Having seen Back 4 Blood now, I have to say Anacrusis feels like a bedroom indie project, while B4B feels like a proper mid-budget successor.
14:32 Dorf Romantik: Singleplayer hex-grid Carcassonne
| Link (YouTube) |
I bought this during the show, and it won me over in a couple of minutes. I love it. Check it out. I find it deeply hypnotic.
Although, I don’t get the title. Dorf? Romantik? The author is not a native English speaker[1] and I can’t escape the notion that something is getting lost in translation. There’s probably a joke or pun I’m not getting.
20:50 Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
| Link (YouTube) |
Will this be a return to the best part of the Borderlands series, or will this be another disappointment like Borderlands 3?
28:00 Goonswarm visits the Diecast
Here’s the link, although I sort of use this topic as an excuse to gush about how crazy their foray into EVE Online was. This discussion is a response to Diecast #324, which is still one of my favorite episodes of the show.
34:23 Hackers breach Electronic Arts
Hackers breach Electronic Arts, stealing game source code and tools
Those that do not learn from incredibly recent history are doomed to repeat it.
46:57 Two Point Hospital is charming and silly.
Yes, I’m discovering this game two years late.
52:40 Mailbag: Survive the Hunt
Dear DiceCasters,
In the beginning of 2020, you put up an analysis of Failrace’s Survive the Hunt, with a link to Episode #12. Since then, they’ve reached 35 episodes with a few one-off spinoffs or specials.
I’ve been watching ever since your analysis. The Failrace guys have updated their rules over time, to acknowledge some imbalances and make their game “better”. In particular, they’ve changed the number of air vehicles allowed, made a rule that high-end supercars were off-limits to hunters unless the prey is caught driving in one (making taking a fast car an important choice with risk-vs.-reward elements), and had a few one-off special rules or scenarios, with the last episode involving an “Escape the country via plane” escape sequence involving a partner in a plane, as part of their 10 year anniversary of the site.
Are you still keeping up with the series? Are there any other games you Diecasters can think of where a healthy dose of setting changes and honor system rules can create a new fun “game mode” that isn’t being captured by the gaming community at large? One of the best parts of the Survive the Hunt format is that it is “video gamer agnostic” – you don’t need to be a gamer or even know GTA5 to understand what the prey’s goal is or what might be a good or bad strategy. Are there any games out there with a similar ease of understanding that might make them particularly suited for recording and viewing or the YouTube environment?
— Nick
I never understood sports fans shouting coaching advice to their televisions until I watched this series.
“GO! Just GO. Do something unexpected! Shoot at some NPCs to make them drive crazy and throw off the hunters. Go over a jump, drive fast, steal a box truck, bail out, try to blow up some target cars, whatever! Just… do ANYTHING but sit at a fucking traffic light for three minutes, arguing with yourself over whether you should have turned right at the last intersection.”
Fail Race is actually a cool channel and I love their antics, but the hunted guy really does need a dose of courage before the game starts. Dude, we’re not here to see you win, we just want to see cool shit happen!
This week I sat down with Chris and we spent two hours talking about the Batman Arkham series, the Sony Spider-Man game that needs a subtitle, and even a bit of Resident Evil. It’s like a bonus Diecast. Actually, it’s like TWO bonus Diecasts. We also talk a bit about my attempt at a Bayonetta playthrough and how that ended.
Eh! Steve! Talking Batman and Spider-Man with Shamus Young
Also, Chris and I talk about superheroes that would be good for an Arkham-style brawler. I’ve played with this idea a lot over the years. It seems simple, but it’s actually kinda challenging once you get down to it. Let’s assume we PROBABLY want a hero that operates in the urban areas of Earth. I mean, yes, you can set the game in the wilderness or some fantastical other-world, but that is more challenging in terms of design and marketing. Audiences can immediately understand cities, slums, warehouses, and that sort of thing. That’s the classic superhero milieu, and marketing knows how to sell that.
Anyway. Let’s put together a pitch for marketing and see if we can get someone to green-light a game. Making a game on par with Arkham whatever isn’t easy. You need tons of animations, lots of varied foes, and a variety of environments. You can’t do this as a mid-budget game. We need AAA money to make this happen.
Here’s what we need…
- The hero needs to be reasonably well-known. Marketing isn’t going to give us fifty million dollars to adapt some obscure goof.
- Maybe this seems obvious, but we need a hero that fights with their fists. That rules out a ton of people. Lots of heroes feature beams, guns, telekinesis, fire, ice, illusions, magnetism, shape-changing, summoning, or other non-brawling gimmick. Those heroes are a bad fit. We don’t want to have to prototype some new gameplay system, and we don’t want to have to strip away a character’s iconic powers to make them work as a brawler.
- Effortless flying is a no-no. If the hero can fly, then players will be annoyed when we glue their character to the ground during fights. (And no, we’re not going to try and make an airborne brawler, this genre is tricky enough as it is.) Gliders like Batman can work, though. Batman can’t hover, and if he’s in a tough spot he can’t escape by simply flying straight up.
- The hero can’t be too powerful. Like, how can we devise an entire game worth of mooks that can take more than one punch from Superman? And what would you do about sequels?
- They need to be mortal. Not only do mooks need to be able to take a few punches, but they need to pose a credible threat to our hero. That can’t happen if the hero is practically invulnerable.
- Mobility. The hero needs some means of transportation that isn’t just walking around. Yes, I realize this conflicts with #3. If the hero has to walk, then the gameworld needs to be very flat and small. At the very least, they should be able to run fast and jump large distances.
With that in mind, who would be a good fit?
I think my suggestion of The Punisher was a bad one. Like Chris said, he’s all about guns. You might be able to make an interesting open-world game like Saints Row with the Punisher, but that’s a different pitch.
Like I said on the show, Wonder Woman would be great, provided we can come up with appropriate foes. Her power level varies a lot between adaptations. Sometimes she’s a Superman-level god, and sometimes she’s weaker than that. I don’t know if the audience is open to a version of the character that’s vulnerable to crowds of mortal human thugs. She can use her lasso like a whip to swing around, so she has some mobility.
Luke Cage might be a little too invulnerable, but he’s a possibility if we can make him just a little less durable. He’s limited in terms of mobility, though. If you make this an open-world game, then maybe we can give him a motorcycle? Or maybe we can just give him super running and jumping, and fans will let it slide.
Like Chris said, Daredevil is a really good fit. Like, why hasn’t someone done this already? A Daredevil game should have gone into production the moment Arkham Asylum became a hit.
Maybe we could rehabilitate Iron Fist with a good game tie-in? The Netflix version of the character was insufferable, but it’s not like you can’t tell a good story about an urban kung-fu master. As for mobility, I think you can get away with a little Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon style wall-running with some general rooftop parkour.
Given his fame, Wolverine seems like an obvious choice, except for those claws of his. I guess we can imitate the cartoons and pretend he never stabs people with them. Also, how does Wolverine lose a fight? His healing means he ought to be able to walk off anything common mooks might do to him. Maybe you can do a Dark Souls type thing where – instead of a game over – Wolverine just goes down and wakes up later in a dumpster somewhere? Also, what do we do about mobility?
Any other suggestions? Any beloved heroes you’d like to see get the Arkham treatment?
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Diecast346
| Link (YouTube) |
Show notes: 00:00 Prey
05:15 Procgen in Blender 2.93
08:40 Microsoft Edge – Smart Enough to know when you’re trying to replace it!
…but not smart enough to understand why I want to.
15:19 Mailbag: The Perfect Bethesda
Dear Diecast,
In the last episode you guys talked about Todd Howard and his public persona. That made me think of Bethesda as a whole – they’re really unusual for an AAA studio. They can be incredibly ambitious in some areas and hopelessly outdated in others – at the same time. There is also something unmistakably unique about their games; Bethesda’s „essence” if you will.
So – in the end of the day, what are they trying to accomplish? What would a perfect modern Bethesda game be? The one that’d catch up with their ambitons? I’m not talking about the days of Morrowind or Daggerfall, but today – what seems to be their ultimate goal?
Cheers,
Darek
24:54 Mailbag: Deus Ex Invisible War
Dear Paul,
From previous diecasts Shamus has slipped that deus ex invisible war traumatized him. Could you perhaps ask him what the experience was like, without opening old wounds too much?
with kind regards,
Chris
27:08 Mailbag: DumbBots is smart fun
Dear Diecast,
I’ve been having fun with an indie programming game called DumbBots. It’s a little bit like a Zachtronics game or one of those games where you control robots on a grid and have them fight each other. Except in this case, all of the scenarios are like something you’d see in a movie or action game. Your bots start out so dumb they sit there and do nothing, and you need to tell them how to steal all the loot, survive the zombie apocalypse, kill everyone else in a deathmatch, and so on. I wouldn’t normally expect a programming game to be so “cool” but the music and atmosphere is great, and every time you run your program you get an action scene that you choreographed yourself!
There’s a free demo, which is really just the main tutorial levels, if you want to try out the programming interface and general atmosphere before you buy it.
30:19 Mailbag: Programming for Dead Consoles
Dear Diecast,
I happen to work in film, and in a role that occasionally requires me to interface with old televisions and consoles and things like that. I won’t get into the intricacies of syncing televisions to camera, but my job is simply to “make it work.”
I was given the task of putting an image on an old TV that only had an RF input. It wasn’t a complex image; simply a green screen that would be composited over in post by the editors. One could bring a complex assortment of VCRs, scan converters, and a laptop to do that, but a different idea came to mind; I had a 3DO collecting dust, and the 3DO is one of the few consoles that actually had a direct RF output. Not only that, but the 3DO is CD-based, not cartridge based, meaning that there was a very good chance that I could actually homebrew an interactive program to do what I needed.
As it turns out, 3DO development is exceedingly easy. While documentation is sparse, there is nonetheless a downloadable build environment for modern Windows installs (and originally, Mac OS 7) that, with a little environment variable setup, can build you a hello-world disk image in less than fifteen minutes. Plus, with the a 3DO emulator core (and BIOS images) easily acquired through retroarch, you don’t need to waste CD’s to test your builds.
Have you ever gotten involved in writing software for dead consoles? Are there any consoles you’d like to see revived? Any games you’d want to see ported to an older console?
Sincerely,
“Brad.”
36:26 Mailbag: AI Dungeon
Dear Diecast
Have you ever tried out A.I. Dungeon? It’s a procedurally generated text adventure game, which come up with some pretty wild and unexpected stuff.
From Donkey
40:28 Mailbag: Survive the Hunt
Dear DiceCasters,
In the beginning of 2020, you put up an analysis of Failrace’s Survive the Hunt, with a link to Episode #12. Since then, they’ve reached 35 episodes with a few one-off spinoffs or specials.
I’ve been watching ever since your analysis. The Failrace guys have updated their rules over time, to acknowledge some imbalances and make their game “better”. In particular, they’ve changed the number of air vehicles allowed, made a rule that high-end supercars were off-limits to hunters unless the prey is caught driving in one (making taking a fast car an important choice with risk-vs.-reward elements), and had a few one-off special rules or scenarios, with the last episode involving an “Escape the country via plane” escape sequence involving a partner in a plane, as part of their 10 year anniversary of the site.
Are you still keeping up with the series? Are there any other games you Diecasters can think of where a healthy dose of setting changes and honor system rules can create a new fun “game mode” that isn’t being captured by the gaming community at large? One of the best parts of the Survive the Hunt format is that it is “video gamer agnostic” – you don’t need to be a gamer or even know GTA5 to understand what the prey’s goal is or what might be a good or bad strategy. Are there any games out there with a similar ease of understanding that might make them particularly suited for recording and viewing or the YouTube environment?
— Nick
43:23 Mailbag: Stack Overflow
Dear Diecast,
Today I learned that Stack Overflow is apparently worth $1.8 billion. I can’t quite decide whether that’s too little or too much. I’ve had mixed experiences with the site. What kind of experiences have you had there?
–John
Check it out! Dynamo Dream is out! Mess Effect is out! Issac’s old computer is out. BioMutant is out! It’s Memorial Day in the US, which means school is out. Elliot Page is out. Gas prices are out[rageous]. This episode of the Diecast is out! My patience with hand-holdy games is out.
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Diecast345
| Link (YouTube) |
Show notes:
00:00 Issac has a new PC
Here is his new processor:
- CPU speed is “1600 GHz”. Is that a typo? Shouldn’t that be 1.6GHz?
- Processor count is 2? So this is two processors in one? How does that work? Below it says “6 cores”. Does that mean each processor gets 3 cores, or what?
- It says Frequency: 3.66Hz precision boost. WTF is a precision boost, and why is it measured in hertz?
- The processor speed – 3.2GHz – is the last item listed. In the old days that was the first and only thing anyone cared about. Now it’s sort of a footnote to the thermal solution.
I’m not suggesting that this listing is wrong or bad. I’m just saying that I’m so far out of the loop that it’s all nonsense to me. This is why I’ve always hated shopping for hardware. It takes a long time to educate yourself on what the numbers mean and which ones are important. And even once you’ve done the homework, there’s always the anxiety that you’re making some newbie-level mistake and getting ripped off. This stuff ain’t cheap!
And then three years later when I need to upgrade again, I’ll find out all the numbers and specs have changed and I have to start over. The numbers don’t just go up over time. They get redefined, moved to a new scale, combined with other numbers, or are deprecated in favor of other numbers.
08:01 Dynamo Dream is out!
| Link (YouTube) |
14:26 Mess Effect is out!
BUY MY BOOK.
25:20 BioMutant is Weird
Here is the Day[9] stream of BioMutant I discussed on the show.
42:48 Mailbag: No Singleplayer WoW
Dear 13Window and Paul,
“Game at the bottom” design where most of the real gameplay happens in your cooldown-based ability bar has been extremely popular since at least World of Warcraft, but it seems to be almost exclusive to the realm of MMOs. No one making a singleplayer RPG says to themselves “People really like World of Warcraft, so let’s use that as the basis for our combat engine.” Is there a whole cottage industry of singleplayer WoW clones that I haven’t found, or is that genre really nonexistent and if so, what does it tell us about game design that only MMOs use that style?
Ninety-Three
46:33 Mailbag: KOTOR Remake
Dear Diecast,
So apparently Aspyr is now remaking KotOR? Could be cool. I wish there were some screenshots or something to show the proposed style of the remake.
I realize this is about a month old at this point, but I didn’t see it until now.
Jennifer Snow
50:43 Mailbag: Favorite Adventure Game Moments
Dear Diecast,
Could you share some of your favorite adventure game moments?
Mine is the showdown with Death in King’s Quest VI. Please take the time to watch it online if you are unfamiliar. It is only a minute or two long It combines good writing, good voice-work, and beautiful art.
Wishing you all the best,
Bobbert
Here is an example of Gary Owens and his golden voice, which made Space Quest IV and Space Quest VI such a treat.
But the real magic was Secret of Monkey Island. Like I said on the show, that game was packed with brilliant ideas. If I had to list my Top 5 Adventure Game Moments, 4 of them would probably be from that one game.
As I mention in the show, I’m a huge fan of watching people bumble bumble their way through Hitman levels. The thing is, it’s hard to find videos of this. A lot of videos are well-rehearsed runs by players who know what they’re doing. If you have any suggestions, please leave me a link in the comments. Thanks!
Anyway, sorry for the lack of content last week. Things will probably continue to be be a little spotty around here until I’m fully recovered.
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Diecast344
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Show notes:
00:00 Apex Legends Does Not Want Players
I really do want to know what’s “offensive” or “unacceptable” about “dudecon”.
12:00 Day[9] Plays Returnal
Here is the stream in question:
| Link (YouTube) |
And here is the Hitman III gameplay that made me laugh until I couldn’t breathe. Note that I’m not promising that you’ll find it funny. It’s just that I’m genetically predisposed to laugh at chained blunders and cascading mishaps in Hitman games. It’s annoying that Hitman III is a stupid EGS exclusive. I have the previous two games on Steam and I’m not willing to break up the set.
Oh, and speaking of obnoxious bullshit surrounding the Hitman franchise…
21:48 Mailbag: Timed “Online Events”
Dear Diecast!
I am a long time fan of the Hitman series (with an obvious exception) and an early backer of the “new” Hitman, the start of the most recent trilogy. Despite it raking in very positive niche reviews (like Super bunnyhop – who, btw, I’d like to hear on the show again some time), I bounced hard off of it. Upon reflecting why, it wasn’t the gameplay or level design, but the timed “elusive” targets. Not to delve too deep into that feature, it’s just a relatively small piece of content that requires the game being played at a certain time, and after that it is gone forever.
Now, I am neither a compulsive “100% game completioner”, nor am I particularly against games-as-service online integration. But that feeling of having missed out for good, robbing me of the potential to “fully” experience the game at my own pace put me off so much that ever since it was introduced, I never even started up the game.
What’s your thoughts on that? Do you feel the same as me? Or do you think it entices you to play the game even more?
Also, I’d really love to read one of those huge epic plot and mechanics deconstructions of the new hitman games by you.
Kind regards
Norbert “ColeusRattus” Lickl
29:48 Mailbag: Most Played Games on Steam
Dear diecast,
Have you checked the most played games list on steam lately?
https://steamdb.info/graph/
I find it quite the interesting list. Apparently some games stay fun
forever (GTA V still in the top 10) and others are hardly played anymore despite being very good (Metro 2033 Redux). I think the replayability factor is what keeps games on the list. Interestingly, despite Shamus claiming that nobody wants to play Left 4 Dead anymore L4D2 is on place 23 with 17,554 concurrent players at this very moment. Also I find it hilarious that Cyberpunk 2077, the most anticipated game of 2020 is now already been overtaken by Age of Empires 2, a game that launched in 1999.
Are there any thoughts that you want to share on this list?
Best regards,
Pseudonym
This is a fascinating topic. I keep coming back to this and thinking about different aspects of it.
Also, as I mentioned on the show:
- Warcraft led to Warcraft 3 modding, which spawned DOTA and the entire MOBA genre.
- Warcraft led to Starcraft, which led to the birth of televised esports.
- Warcraft led to the birth of World of Warcraft, an industry-defining smash hit that’s been imitated by dozens of other games, yet towers over other entries in the genre.
I think you can make the case that Warcraft (or Warcraft II, depending on where you want to draw the line) is the most influential / culturally important PC game of all time? Given the above list, I’d certainly put it ahead of venerable titles like Doom.
Maybe Minecraft outshines it? I dunno. It’s hard to compare “groundbreaking procgen educational creativity smash hit” with “invented a genre, launched an industry, and enticed a bunch of rubes to waste billions trying to copy one particular game”.
41:15 Mailbag: AoE 2: Definitive Edition
Dear Diecast,
Since December I have been playing Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition. As of this moment, the game is ranked 50th on the most played games on steam list https://steamdb.info/graph/ https://steamdb.info/graph/. I wonder what you think of this game, it has some properties that I think you might find interesting:
– First and foremost: it comes with a random map generator that can generate a wide variety of map types and has a 32-bit integer random seed. The maps are well balanced and are used in competitive play. It is also fun for playing single player. I wonder what you think of this, as both of you love procedural generation.
– The AI does not cheat. While the old AoE2 AI did cheat, the new
Definitive Edition AI is smart enough to play the same game as you. It is very good at it too. The hardest difficulty levels are extremely challenging.
– The art style makes it so that heavy graphics cards are not at all
needed. (This was true even when the old game launched in 1999, the game was mostly CPU-limited). This can be played on a very low end PC.
Additionally it comes with 151 single-player scenario’s which all have voice acting. The multiplayer scene is alive and kicking. The excellent map generator provides endless replayability for both single player and multiplayer. I am curious what you think.
Best regards,
Pseudonym
Also, here is Rutskarn’s Elder Scrolls Series that we talked about.
50:11 Mailbag: Daggerfall
Hi!
I wish Shamus good health! May the «But what do they eat?» live long and prosper!
Now to the question itself. Considering that your blog has one of the prominent topics of procgen and that you are familiar with the Elder Scrolls series, is it not weird, that you don’t talk or mention Daggerfall or Arena? What’s your opinion of them and have you ever played them?
Best regards, DeadlyDark
53:57 Mailbag: Fantasy Goes Mainstream
Dear Diecast
I know Game of Thrones wasn’t Shamus’ cup of tea but with its end and popularity has come the advent of numerous high-budget fantasy shows being put into the production from multiple studios and companies, HBO has a multitude of GOT related prequels coming up starting with House of the Dragon, Wheel of Time is finally getting a show and so is Percy Jackson, and Amazon is developing their own show set in Tolkien’s Legendarium with a ludicrous budget of $400 million on just the first or two seasons. Was wondering how Shamus and Paul is feeling about this.
Sincerely, Donkey
In case you missed it, I was in the hospital for a week. I’m still a little wobbly, but I’m on the mend. But if I eat right, exercise, take my meds, and avoid junk food from now on, then I can look forward to a long slow decline into old age, just like everyone else.
Also, sorry my audio is blown out. Apparently I forgot how to run the show while I was gone.
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Direct download (MP3)
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Podcast RSS feed.
Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast343
| Link (YouTube) |
Show notes:
00:00 Shamus Lives!
So sorry to burn so much of the show talking about my life and health. Hopefully someone finds this amusing / informative.
06:08 Roomates
I messed up the story a bit here. The three things I wanted were dark, quiet, and cold. In my conversation with Paul, I forgot about cold. My roommate was always asking the nurses to turn up the heat. And to my surprise, they did.
Back when I was young, hospitals were always cold. If you asked someone to turn up the heat, they’d bring you a blanket. Maybe the rules have changed in the last 40 years, or maybe the rules are different in the cardiac section where everyone is incredibly old and heart attacks are a bigger risk than infections.
Anyway, my room was 74F (23C), which is really hot for me. I much prefer a cool room like 65F (18C) where I can regulate my temp by adding or removing blankets.
Still, the combination of constant shouting chit-chat + flashing TV + idiot TV programming + lights on + being too hot too sleep was brutal. It really did make those first couple of days an ordeal.
23:05 Mass Effect Legendary Port
I’m not in love with the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 1. The extra resolution is nice, but something feels off and I’m not sure what it is.
29:07 My Book Arrived!
THUD 31:32 Mailbag: Music & Audio Programming
Dear Shamus,
To what extent are you interested in audio programming? I guess composing any track with a DAW and array of softsynths can be considered ‘programming’, but I’m thinking of approaches that are less linear and more system-based in the ways we usually think when using the term.
Has the idea of generative music (ie. music that plays itself based on weighted randomization) ever tickled your fancy? Or algorithmic sequencing according to rulesets (ie. every third ‘hit’, trigger X event, repeat with needless complexity)? Some of your posts on procedural generation made me wonder if this is something you’d ever given thought to. But maybe your interest in music composition is satisfied with a sturdy piano roll!
One of my favorite music acts is a duo called Autechre (aw-tek-er). They started out in 1987 before getting signed to a major label in their scene, with their early output being a blend of offbeat electro and ambient styles. What’s interesting about them is how they evolved over time and became increasingly abstract, largely transitioning from cheap hardware and drum machines to computers and full-on programming environments. The end result of their journey (ongoing today) is often described as “machine music designed by machines” that are very abstract and often lack a point of reference in relation to more conventional genres. I like to think of their tracks as puzzles to decode and decipher, usually getting my most appreciation months or years after an initial listen.
It’s not very radio-friendly, and I think a lot of their work these days is composed with Max/MSP rather than any traditional DAW. But I was curious if there was any further intersection between your interests in programming and music!
Any way, some (non-representative) examples:
Pt2ph8
Autechre Ylm0
Regards,
D
39:37 The Sims Jazz Improv
| Link (YouTube) |
The idea here is that the composer kept pushing the music through lots of key changes to keep things fresh and new. However, it didn’t seem to work on me. I remember getting irritated with this piece of music in particular, to the point where I turned off the music entirely. I recognize that the music kept changing, but for me it felt like the music was guilty of excessive noodling. It didn’t ever settle into a pattern that I could call a song. It didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. It’s screaming for attention with nothing to say.
It’s like a child yelling “Hey! Hey! Over here! Pay attention to me!” So then you finally say, “WHAT? What do you want?” and the kid just keeps yelling “Hey!”
I realize I’m dumping on a beloved soundtrack to a 21 year old video game. I’m not trying to convince you the soundtrack sucks, I’m just trying to illustrate how hard it is to generate “interesting” music, because individual standards for interesting-ness can vary greatly between individuals.
49:48 Mailbag: Odd Howard
Hi!
Not a question, but I found…. errr…. Stumbled upon a clip of Todd Howard saying the phrase «What do they eat?»
I found it amusing, so have a chuckle too:
Todd Howard Talks Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Fallout 76, Terminator, and More! – IGN Unfiltered #43
Best regards, DeadlyDark
It’s crazy. It’s like hearing Michael Bay talk about how important it is to keep things clear and coherent for the audience during action scenes. It’s like hearing JJ Abrams talk about how important it is to resolve mysteries with a clear payoff that adheres to the rules of the world. It’s like Peter Molyneux giving a talk on the dangers of over-promising.
Weird.