BlueCupTools Podcats! Grundislav & ThreeOhFour! Episode 82!

[Armageddon]

Only one of you did a great Walken impression. I'll let you guys decide which.

[Ponch]

Sweet! A new episode!

[ThreeOhFour]

Only one of you did a great Walken impression. I'll let you guys decide which.

I don't really do Walken impressions. I merely talk funny. Grundislav, however, used to delight me with his amazing drunken Walken impressions every weekend before his social life turned into staying at home and skyping with me all day.

He also does a sensational Bowie when drunk. He and I teamed up for a Space Oddity duet in a bar on karaoke night and it was sensational.

As for a Doom book, there really is one. Actually, a 4 part series. I actually own one of them. As for Super Meat Boy, one of these fiends is Layabout and the other is me. Can you guess which one!?

[selmiak]

wow, i neeeeed that shirt!

[ThreeOhFour]

I have the best shirts.

[Armageddon]

You play guitar? You don't play guitar that's not you... Is it? Also that's a sweet verbcoin shirt where would you even buy that.

[Chicky]

You need some new trousers Ben :p

[Grundislav]

He's been wearing the same ones since Bogans!

[ThreeOhFour]

I blew my trousers apart with the power of rock, baby.

[Andail]

About me being a teacher etc:

Yeah I absolutely agree that games nowadays are being dumbed down and streamlined just to make sure the player won't have to spend valuable minutes finding out how the game actually works on their own.

Years back I played the vanilla WoW. But when I watched some kids in school play it recently, I realized that so much was changed in this direction that the game appeared to be some kind of easy version of the WoW I had played. They just ran around and XPs somehow just rained over them with zero effort, and acquiring epic weapons was done in a matter of minutes.

I spoke to a friend who had tried Guild wars 2, and he explained that there was basically no easing in going on in terms of game material - all skills and places and monsters and special effects were shoved in the face of the player immediately. Instead you had tutorial stuff going on, explaining everything.

So my conclusion is that these days you can't really present a game slowly to the player, like back when I started playing WoW and I was walking around in a big nice forest on my own for hours and hours with virtually no gear and maybe one or two skills, while learning how to play the bloody game, so instead all the awesomeness has to be presented at once to impress people and get their attention, and in return you have to dumb down every single rule or obstacle lest it gets far too hard to manage.

Long sentence.

And yeah, I guess we teachers don't put funny hats on pupils that answer incorrectly anymore, but that's a slightly different issue - if I respond encouragingly to someone who gave an incorrect answer, I've probably ensured that the child in question dares to try again, instead of forever muting them.

Sure, there's a lot of pampering going on in schools today - you virtually can't fail a student without raising hell everywhere, no matter how lousy they are - but the part where we give constructive feedback to failures is not the problem

[Grundislav]

I blew my trousers apart with the power of rock, baby.

More like the power of b-roc-occoli, Fartpants!

[Ryan Timothy B]

Well I suppose rock flatulence is better than the Tenacious D style of ripping your pants open (man, such a bad movie).

[Ponch]

Well I suppose rock flatulence is better than the Tenacious D style of ripping your pants open (man, such a bad movie).

Heresy!

[Sephiroth]

I have the best shirts.

You also have the best hats!

[ThreeOhFour]

I sure do, Jack!

Andail's post highlights something that games were never afraid to do back in the day: allow the player to explore and learn things for themselves without fear of them getting bored/impatient with a game. It's very rewarding to figure things out on your own, and part of the fun of a game for me is overcoming the challenge of not being good at it and learning how to play it well. Lose that, and you've lost one of the aspects that makes a game an enjoyable experience.

[Chicky]

Ooh, you mentioned Blazing Dragons! A game close to my heart I've been trying to emulate the graphics style for years, it's one of the prettiest adventures of the 320x era.

[ThreeOhFour]

Yeah, it's just as pretty as any Lucasarts game, an also very fun to play.

[Ponch]

Andail's post highlights something that games were never afraid to do back in the day: allow the player to explore and learn things for themselves without fear of them getting bored/impatient with a game. ... Lose that, and you've lost one of the aspects that makes a game an enjoyable experience.

I agree completely. I'm tired of games holding my hand through every encounter. Either my map is covered in waypoints and objective flags, or everything I can interact with had a golden sheen on it so I can't miss it.

I miss the days of hidden areas, secret levels, and more than one way to the goal.

[Grim]

So... I checked what this podcast-thing is all about and listened to you guys for over 2 hours straight. It's like listening to a radio show but with cool topics, instead of the usuall boring radio stuff;)

Enjoyed it a lot!

Perfect for when you're tinkering with some backgrounds for a new game.

[Grundislav]

Episode 22