No, NPCs would definitely not care. One of the worst feelings is when you exist in a world that has not life of its own. A world like that clings to you like saran-wrap. Not cool.

It creates melodrama. The goals given to you seem hollow, and patronizing. It makes many interactions boring. It pushes you out of the experience. It makes you not care about who is who, and what they do. You may as well not be a character at all.

Those are lifeless worlds.

Character construction is non-trivial. Movie makers fuck it up, authors fuck it up, and game-makers, for whatever reason, really fuck it up. I still don't know why that is. I think there's this divide between writers and the rest of dev, so the writers are more constrained than otherwise, get treated poorly as a result. Their work isn't prioritized.... On top of that, the writer can't control what the character does, so they're left creating story in this independent arc from everything else. Hence the text walls.

It's a result of everyone trying to do their job simultaneously, without a lot of cohesive direction.

The issue: mechanics get designed first, then characters are put in the world. By that point designers are struggling just to give the play experience they want, so NPCs become vehicles for enforcing "level design." By level design I mean the segmented construction of challenge segments. So in Skyrim it would be individual quests, "exploring" a particular area etc.

Writers shove everything else into the empty spaces. Obviously this doesn't work. NPC creation needs to happen in tandem with everything else. The obvious difficulty here is that the NPCs need to evolve with the mechanics. If you change core gameplay, all the NPCs might have to be reconsidered. This reality is daunting. But it's not a time-waster, as so many devs believe. It is actually an opportunity. Evolving NPCs, iterating on them, produces a much healthier design, and firmer integration between all the pieces of the game.

In Journey - maybe you know this - the devs started with the idea of player interaction. That was more important than the sand and the plot. They said, how can we make player-on-player gaming be more meaningful? So they developed the rest of the game around this idea. That's one of the critical reasons why it worked out so well.

I'll build up my AI while I prototype. So the NPCs will be learning to play as I do. They will have the same powers and options as the player, though obviously with different restrictions and goals. They'll also have their own personalities. That way I'll be able to prototype how all the characters interact from a very early stage.

One of the biggest mistakes less experienced AI designers make, is to design a system, then design the AI afterward. This is not a good idea. That is like writing a software package then implementing threading afterward. I mean figuring out how to implement threading afterward (then implementing it).

Do not do that! If you're a programmer you'll understand why.

I want my characters to feel so real that the player never sees the man behind the curtain. I'll raise my NPCs like babies, inside the growing environment that is my game.

Yes, generated stories start with robust characters. They are like the tools you use to build things, or the building blocks for a house. Faulting foundations will always crumble, no matter how genius your building is on top. But good foundations can take you somewhere.

Yes, everything can hit just right. You must control it like a conductor, but like a ninja. No one sees.

Yeah, Mega Man is always a good point.

 

@Snake

My biggest crit is the constant y-bash. Megaman is like always on 11.

I want: plodding like Mario, sometimes insane like Megaman, and story (/levelling)


@moi

What's the hypothesis?

Yes, I meant the core engagement is failure. Like you get punished and punished. It just keeps punishing you.

It forces you into the corner of the ring and keeps punching you until you learn to fight your way out. If you let up, it comes right back at you, and corners you. There's this need to fight for every inch, and fight to keep it.

So, if you understand that, and play it that way, then you'll enjoy it. But if you don't understand that the game will be a mystery.

Hunh? I fucking love Megaman.

Maybe you're thinking of eva.

Yeah.

Money is very hard to get without a connection (i.e. luck or in-the-industry experience) or a track-record of success.

You can fund a game off of Kickstarter with just a demo. It just has to be a good one. You also need a pitch for the entire game, like an outline for the rest of it.

The other option is to find an independent investor who likes games, most likely a publisher, like Microsoft. They will need proof of success. So you`ll need to have shipped games that have a sales record or a serious registered user-count, or data on how many hours people have played - stuff like that.

The best bet today is to get something to the demo stage and try to Kickstarter it. If that doesn't work just complete it on your own, ship it, then try again. Each time around the track you'll be in a better position to get the interest of a publisher(/kickstarter people).

A good way to gauge interest is to put up demos in forums like this one, post trailers in youtube, etc. They will give good predictions of how much attention investors will give you. A youtube view count for a trailer is enough to get a publisher to at least listen to you. Then they`ll want a design document and business plan.

You need a demo or something, or a rich uncle, to get people to care.

Not to blow smoke up anybody's a** (do I have to censor that?), but I think if you find yourself pouring all that thought and analysis into games, or whatever you're passionate about, that's a valuable thing to hold on to and cherish.

To potentially spur on some more discussion, what are your games do you guys find yourself really enjoying for their design? What kind of design schemes appeal to you?

I cherish and cherish, maybe too much. We'll see.

I like any design that is good. A design that sells, or changes people for the better (even if only slightly), provides experiences that people value, nails what I consider to be a design goal: I like all of those.

The following is a list of games that had a significant impact on my life, grouped by system, then individually sorted by the order in which I came to care about them. The systems are roughly chronological.

(in-television)
Donkey Kong

(nes)
Mega Man (#?)
Super Mario Bros 3

(snes)
Super Street Fighter 2
Super Mario World
Hook
Donkey Kong Country
Final Fantasy VI
Secret of Mana
Secret of Evermore
Super Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
Donkey Kong Country 2
Mega Man X
Earthbound
Killer Instinct

(64)
Super Mario 64
Mario Kart 64
007: GoldenEye
Super Smash Bros
Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Turok: Rage Wars

(gameboy)
Pokemon

(dreamcast)
Sonic Adventure
Hydro Thunder
House of the Dead 2
Powerstone
Resident Evil: Code Veronica
Skies of Arcadia
Grandia II
Rayman: The Great Escape

(ps2)
Devil May Cry
Jak and Daxter
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando
Kingdom Hearts
Jak 3
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

(pc)
Math Blaster  - DOS
The Incredible Machine  - DOS
Space Quest III  - family room
Putt Putt Series (i.e. Goes to the Moon)  - computer camp, Coffey's
Warcraft II
Command and Conquer: Red Alert
Final Fantasy VII  - basement Whitby
Sacrifice
Deus Ex
Diablo II
Unreal Tournament  - main floor in Whitby
Final Fantasy VIII  - in room in Whitby
Half Life II
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines  - from Chris
Cave Story  - from Chris
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War  - w/ the guys
Counterstrike  - at work
Planescape: Torment  - at Mom's
Grim Fandango
Starcraft II  - in Richmond Hill
Minecraft
Dwarf Fortress

(gamecube)
Super Smash Bros: Brawl
Super Mario Kart: Double Dash

(xbox360)
Assassin's Creed
Gears of War
Deadspace
Bioshock
Fallout 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Grand Theft Auto IV
Final Fantasy XIII
Red Dead Redemption
Demon Souls
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

(emulation)
Mega Man X
Super Mario Bros 3
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Super Mario World
Donkey Kong Country 2
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

The list of games I have for inspiration is a lot longer.

Ahhh. I see. No programming. Ok.

No, I want both. I want any theory that helps me make a better game. That is it.

mm. Okay. So you want non-experience based grammar? I've read some of your posts, the Zelda for example. That grammar is fine. Zelda is about stumbling into collectibles instead of collecting. I understand what that sentence means, and I think it is an astute observation.

You want a list of terms like that, right?

I know a little bit about art, a little bit more about music, a fair bit about interface design (usually overlooked in games), and a shit-ton about programming and design theory. I also know about business.

Ok, so going back to Mario. You want a list of terms we can use to deconstruct Mario, say to point a finger towards why it is expressive, but not indicate what feelings it gives the player?

Do you want just a grammar for existing games? Or do you want a superior grammar to leverage to create even better games?

Movie "grammar" is strongly linked to what movies express, or the fundamentals that they use to express. ... I don't know what I'm talking about.

----

Expression...

Ok. You want the English grammar for writing, or the music notes and staff and composition rules for music? I have stuff like that all over the place for games. I'm going to guess at what you mean. How do you create drive in a player to express himself?

You have to:
 a. Create actions the player can perform that "express" some
 feeling/idea. These are all the things a player can do.
  . this is Mario's run, fast-run, jump, shell-hop, slide, duck etc.

 b. Allow the player to combine these actions into patterns that
 express more complex ideas, without allowing them to express things
 that you don't think they will find valuable
   . this is several Mario actions stitched together, to create some
   play experience

 c. Set goals that force the player to express themselves in ways that
 make the expression engaging in its own right.
   . this is the variety of levels in any first world of Mario, and
   variety of challenges in a single level.
   . this is the block layouts and crafting tree and day schedule in
   Minecraft, that controls what the player can do: mine this way,
   build that way, encounter danger etc.

 d. Slowly remove the constraints that control what the player can do,
 and cannot do.
   . this is gaining more resources, equipment, knowledge of the world
   in Minecraft
   . this isn't overtly present in Mario. levels provide more variety
   because their execution takes more nuance as they get harder, so
   it's a little present. you also have more levels to go back and
   play (looking for secrets?) as you progress. Modern Mario's do the
   stars. You get more stars, you get more levels to choose from. The
   more you learn a level, the more likely a tougher star will appeal
   to you. So the game controls the player's freedom by gating it with
   difficulty.
   . Metroidvania: classic; gives powers and segments of the game
   based on performance, gating etc.

 e. Re-insert constraints at times when the player falters.
   . in FF, this is blowing all your money on stupid shit then having
   to grind (because you are 8 years old) to get the stuff you
   need. The system kicks back in and re-constrains you if you fall
   off course
   . this is losing your higher level gun in Cave Story when you take
   damage, forcing you to remaster the fundamentals
   . this is the Left 4 Dead game director AI setting up zombies in a
   way to give you regular breathers, and original circumstance in
   case you start to become bore or stale (I don't think it's that
   dynamic. It just runs off of some variables that were tweaked based
   on playtesting)
   . this is dropping a rank in Starcraft II and entering a lower
   league with less challenging, and meaningful, competition.

 
Most of the examples for "e" use challenge as the main constraint. They assume that an engaged player is a successful player, so they slap on the cuffs when the player starts losing, then offer up more freedom when they start to succeed again.

Mario has a nice constraint. You get big, so you get careless. You become small - which is very visual - and re-focus. The mushroom is like a nanny over your shoulder telling you when to sit up straight when you slouch too much.

There are many dimensions of options in a game. In Skyrim I can choose equipment, my partner's equipment, what I loot, how I fight, how I level, what I buy, where I go, how I get there, what choices I make, what quests I do. You can slap restrictions on all of them. You can give lots of freedom in some dimensions, and less freedom in others, until you are confident the player understands what you want them to.

You can measure whether or not the player "expresses" himself through equipment load-outs just by his success with them - measurable in various ways. If he is successful in particular ways, then you give him more freedom somehow. Sometimes you restrict it just because i.e. Minecraft restricts travel with nighttime. Sometimes you do it as a response to something the player did i.e. taking a hit in Mario and becoming small. The constraint can be a base mechanic, or doled out by an NPC or whatever. The more it is intertwined with the mechanics of the game the better.

You can even offer controls that let the player choose which freedom he can pursue. If a player prefers the freedom of a mushroom, and the danger of getting one, he may go for a trickier one. Though he may not. Normally in Mario it is: mushroom or no-mushroom. You usually can't choose anything else. But what if you could? I suppose in Super Mario Bros 3 you can choose an item at the beginning of a level, but that's not really that different.

You want to design the game in such a way so that the player "produces" "good expression." Measure that however you want.

... ok. I could do this all day. But I won't, probably.

It's your move.

@toast

I think the main difference is that I focus on grammar and syntax where you focus more on semantic and lexicon.

For example in the sentence: colorless green sleep furiously, you will say it does not make sense because green can't sleep nor be colorless because they denote color, myself I would point that the syntax is correct but unlikely to make sense because of a lack of ontological continuity between argument.

It may seem that we say the same thing but what matter is where the focus of the analysis really is.

For example I would not look at what anger mean but what convey it structurally. I'm also an artist (well i do have dropped a lot in pure technical skill), art is certainly the most solid structurally so we can now mostly focus just on content. When dealing with anger, outside of meaning, you can instantly know that structurally it's unlikely the composition will be based on thin regularly spaced horizontal. Anger would likely embrace pointy broken line and bold contrast. All those are only structural aspect.

By the way there is already many model of emotions that work without the vagueness of constant introspection. Anger can be define by a high energy with negative tone, replace high energy with low you have sadness, if you replace the negative tone with postive you get joy. Using a bidimensional scale you can have range of nuance. Now using this model you use it to drive music (minor vs major + tempo), you can use it to drive facial animation, or any composition actually.

Now that model does not represent every emotion but it is still pretty solid both for analysis and generation, it's not driven by philosophy nor semantics, how you use this model is what constitute the philosophy, it's just a tool. I'm driven to create tools and leave bullshit for later, at the creation process, the bullshit is what you express WITH the tools, not the tools themselves.

... Holy shit 9 posts while I was writing!!

Nah, you missed my point. I like that, because it's more subtle than I thought.

I've been interested in AI as long as I've been interested in games. We're a computer family, I studied CS at Uni etc. My particular favourite section of AI is the soft-logic kind i.e. producing human like emotions, understanding humans etc.

I know what you mean with the tools and everything, and I'm saying that my direction is more on target. You can't separate the tool from the problem. This is what all AI designers focus on. They think about the tool and problem as separate ideas and don't understand that the problem is so different from any other one that our AIs handle, that you need a whole new way of thinking about it to build the right tools to tackle it. So we flounder. AI is in the stone age. Decisions trees are in the stone age.

For example, in my Poker AI, I generate decision trees. I say 13 trillion nodes please, optimized for X scenario, and it pumps it out.

So you have an art background? I'm assuming its more technical than otherwise though, just from the way you speak. Programmer right?

Your example sentence.... I wouldn't say anything. I'd interpret its meaning based on context. If I understood, then fine. If I didn't, and I felt it was important, I'd ask a question. The "correctness" isn't relevant unless we're writing a mass-appeal novel together or something and that's in your draft.

Yeah, the focus of the analysis, is always what it's about.

Existing models of emotion aren't very good. They are useful starting points, but they don't give a lot of meaning. They don't suggest how to measure anger in a useful way, how to invoke it etc. You can do "high energy" all you want but that won't write you Taxi Driver. What? You have your "high energy" generator in a game and just use it? What does that even mean?

Emotions are defined abstractly. "High energy" means nothing. It is a property of anger, but analyzes such a small portion of it. When I get angry because you cut me off, or because I deleted my whole hard drive, or a friend belittles me, it all feels different. In what ways does it feel different? Can you distinguish using "energy?" I don't even know where you are coming from.

Give me an example of your attempt to deconstruct a particular thing, and I will bridge the gap really quickly. Right now I'm sort of guessing.

Your bi-dimensional scale will only produce weak, artificially constructed music. The joy of music comes in the nuance. Some human went out in the world, lived life, then compressed his perceptions into an abstract form that I can relate to. There is detail and bias all over the thing. The notes relate to each other in a way that the artist understands intuitively. Make your 2-d music generator and you'll feel really safe, but it won't produce anything interesting. It's not like, "oh, once we have 2 directions, then we have 3, then the next 30,000 will come easily." You'll bury yourself in logic. Art is inherently intuitive. When you start with logic you end up with something that isn't personal.

Program your painting generator to understand thin lines and stuff. How much of that will go towards producing an interesting painting? An interesting painting is about life, about you. The generator has to understand that. That's the whole point of art.

Your music program effectively only shaves some of the technical work off what is happening. It's a tool, but only a marginally useful one. It is nothing compared to a good teacher. That tool won't help you create a hit, or relive your childhood through your music.

The principles that define your tool won't help you dissect games in the most important ways either. If you want the player to express himself in a meaningful way, then you need constructs that express meaningful emotions. Not some "3 point energy, 1 dash of slo-mo" emotions. I mean the kind you experience in your life. Watch a good movie. That framework will deconstruct 4% of what's happening inside you.

If you want to trivialize an emotion you'll get a trivial framework. If you want to respect emotion you'll get a powerful framework. Emotion is inherently abstract. Don't shy away from it just because it's difficult to dissect.

AI programmers always want to "program" their way to a good story without having to go through the pains that a story writer goes through to write something personal. This is not possible. There's is no shortcut, no logic that will deconstruct the meaningful side of games in a significant way without getting your hands dirty. This is why AIs suck, because they need the technical mind of a programmer in-sync the abstract mind of an artist or humanities expert.

God. I know what logic is. I program too. I am very good at it.

Games are about people. If you want a design theory that you can manipulate, that translates a "design" into a predicted experience, you need a theory that takes into account the most important parts of people: our non-definitive nature.

What's the biggest difference between man and machine? Machines are purely logic. Man is abstract. Brains are literally abstraction devices. That's what a neural network is. It forms "fuzzy" connections between other fuzzy connections, based off of real experience.

You keep going machine, machine. No! At some point, yes, everything has to be a 1 and a 0. But driving around from the machine's perspective will just produce an AI like every other AI out there: useless. Design theory is the exact same thing: the logical analysis for the construction of experiences.

Experience: human.
Theory: logical.

Design theory will need both. It needs to tie definitions to the inherently abstract, so that you can take your personal feelings about an incredible event in your life, in all of its abstract, personalized, nuanced, beauty and convert that into a solid design that within a measurable, statistical, certainty transmits that experience to another person.

We can dance around logic all you want, we'll get right back to the abstract. A tool that doesn't consider the way we really feel things will be sub-par.

You are welcome to pursue such a tool in the conversation and I'll follow you along. I'm just clarifying where I'm coming from.

I feel a great deal of value in talking to you.

Show me the lead and I'll start generating principles wherever you point. You've just got to give me a little insight into where your theory is at, or a particular part of it. We can dissect any game you are up for. And I'll try to produce the theory that you are looking for.

Conversations take two people, so I'll go where you go.

---

edit:

I in no way mean the tools/theory you describe is useless. It is very useful. That's why I don't mind talking from your angle. We never have to get back to the abstract if you don't want to. I was just trying to clarify how distinctly different our positions are. So you'll have to specifically tell me what piece of the framework you're trying to develop and I'll be able to fill it with something.

In the end it is all the same. The starting point is non-critical. More important that it's mutual than anything.

I'm going to make a statement that I often think about, just for fun.

Determining what it is you like and do not like about a game is an order of magnitude more complex than it is for a movie.

Maybe that phrasing is wrong, but there is something there. So I like this topic.

@Charlie

I think some people would disagree with saying Spyro beats Flower. But that might be because of Flower's role in the "games as a respectable art form" argument.

There are objective qualities that make something better, just by drawing a lot of generalities about people. We are very different, but still very much the same, at least in large groups if not everyone.

There are a lot of lurking variables. I mean, just try and tell an interesting story to a person on the subway. They all have unique tastes. But we can uncover them one at a time, strengthen our understanding of them.

To launch a single game you only have to worry about a few, the ones your audience will be affected by, so the problem becomes easier. You just have to understand them better than your competitors, or understand a particular angle of them in a better way.


---
@Paul

You can't tell diff between Star Wars fans and Star Trek? Maybe I can't either. Get 'em in a room. There's a difference. I can't put my finger on what is, but it is very visceral. You've gotta see 'em all at once.

Star Wars and Star Trek produce very different feelings in me. I like them for different reasons. Star Trek, for example, focuses a lot on "international politics" or the "ethics of advanced technology." It's also about teamwork, the military, exploration, solving science puzzles etc. Star Wars is about the boy and the girl and the fight for the universe. Good and evil is clear. Everyone fights in a romantic way. The heroes are these Samurai monk people who meditate their way into superpowers. Something about a person is going to determine which of those two things he/she prefers.

I like eastern philosophy and fairy tales, with grand adventure. I also love science, and rigid social hierarchies (i.e. Star Trek military). But I do know guys who fall on one side of the fence or the other because they can only relate to one. Taste is just complicated to dissect. That's why writing and game design and all these things are challenging.

Would you prefer to believe that we're random, or our tastes mean something? I mean the former produces a very random-like design environment. It's not very positive. If we are the way we are for a reason, then that makes our opinions more valuable, and actually possible to dissect.

Thank you.

No, there is nothing. I've been straight up designing for 3 years (plus a little). I worked small business to get the right things I needed to do this. As in, I didn't release games. I launched straight into this. So there's nothing until I start sharing a pre-pre-pre-alpha or something.

We've got a ways. I'll make a lot of noise when I get there.

it seems like blaming the quality of a person or their honesty seems too convenient of an explanation for the complicated problem of taste. i don't doubt that there is an explanation, but i think the explanation has more to do with largely neutral arbitrary factors (such as which similar games they have previously played) rather than their morality, mental health, or temperament

Trivialities sometimes separate us, and in particular, blossom in character traits. But I think most of the time that we do something consistently, or better said, when we perceive value in something we do consistently, it's because of a significant part of who we are.

Fighting game fans are very different from RPG fans. Gamers are very different from non-gamers. Western fans are different from Sci-Fi, or modern Western, or whatever. Put people in a room, group us by our interests, and you'll be able to see patterns, even if you can't describe them, that define us beyond the actual interest we are grouped by.

@Paul

Sorry, I wasn't trying to pick a fight.

I'll post my lengthy stuff over here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=post;topic=27499.0;num_replies=0.

Gimmy, if you want to keep doing our thing, do it in there.

---

Caruso, I replied to you in the new thread.

---

@Paul's next post.

People are terrible reports of why they like something. They're biased, and incorrect, and spontaneous, and straight-up liers, and unperceptive.

That's why it's the designers job to figure it out.

Yeah, familiarity is a big one (habituation).

I'll make one correction. The Minecraft stuff. Games haven't been doing that for years.

I said "computer programs," not games. I realize that the appeal of Minecraft is that (up to a certain relatively small-scale point, at least) it's easier to learn and build things with than 3D modelers, construction programs, etc. and I can appreciate that, but holding it as something extremely special for that is like saying that, say, Scratch is superior to C++ as a programming language because it's extremely easy for beginners to latch on to. It might be better for those beginners, but if I'm interested in building cool 3D models and sharing them with the world (which I'd imagine most people regularly playing Minecraft are, given how that's what they use it for) it doesn't make much sense to put it on a pedestal to the degree that many, many people have (since at that point, due to your reasons for liking it and how you use it it makes more sense to think about it as a design tool vs. other design tools than a game vs. other games...really there's no huge difference between these two things and you could even argue they're the same because a design tool is basically a sandbox game, but you get the point.) And hey, look how we're brought right back to perspectivism and deciding which perspective is the most useful for a given situation.

Yeah, good points.

The difference between game and design tool: one requires the user to operate it i.e. structure his own experience with it, not have goals directly/indirectly implanted in his head in order to use it.

An instrument is a tool for music. It isn't a game. Guitar Hero is a game because it guides the player through playing an instrument (it sets goals for them). A person might pick up a guitar and accomplish something, but that requires a whole lot of stuff unique to that person. A person could close their eyes and imagine the whole plot-line to FF7, but they don't, because it's too hard. Games take the wisdom of the creators to help us (players) create experiences we could otherwise create on our own, but don't have the guidance to do so.

Minecraft is excellent because it makes construction accessible. Construction programs are all over the place. Minecraft is a hit though. It's not like Youtube was invented yesterday. Minecraft's a hit because so many people get it naturally. It doesn't intimidate them, or stall them. A person plays, then very likely creates. That's a big difference to say Photoshop. A random person given Photoshop wouldn't see it as anything. The joy of creating a digital image is a hard thing to learn. Minecraft sort-of teaches you. It is hard to teach a person to do anything.

Accessibility is as hard of a problem as depth.

I'll put it this way: how many kids are creative thanks to Minecraft? How many sales has it hit relative to its budget? How can you say its not special from that alone? If a game creates a positive experience for a large group of people, then I think it's worth something. Why don't similar products impact people as much (that ones that don't)? It has to be in the design.

I always take games and strip them for design ideas. I do it so much that it just happens spontaneously. Minecraft was the biggest cow in the new release schedule in a long time. I'm not saying I enjoyed it more than others, I just learned so much more from that game than any other (in a long time). I'm just talking purely about design, not artistic intent, or tech.

why would you want to compress gilbert's points into simpler words? the fun of reading his posts is trying to figure out what he's saying, like a game

I prefer games with a win condition, or games where you can make progress and get better over time. With many Gilbert posts, the only way to win is not to play. Also the post I tried to go through was toast_trip(pin' balls) not Gilbert.

Re: perspectivism, the best approach to me seems to be to not focus on whether or not a person likes this specific thing I like as much as their reasons for doing so, or in other words extrapolating their tastes that they instinctively used to make their "decision." A person can like something that I do for utterly weird and inane reasons, and a person can hate something that I do for completely valid reasons (in fact, I think it's a pretty decent thought exercise to take a game, movie, etc. that you love and construct a good non-facetious argument for hating it.) This is even what someone does when they look at a top 100 games ever made of all time list or something (working backwards to extrapolate a set of preferences and the person's amount of experience/knowledge from the end product -- many times when you do this and find no real logic or consistency you can conclude that the person just listed a bunch of games which they already know are "universally acclaimed" (see: pretty much every top X games list ever made, at least on big game sites))

Then you get into "what are valid and invalid reasons?", which is where I'd reply that you can replace those with "useful" and "not useful" if you want. Then you get into "useful for whom?" which is where the perspective you're looking at this from comes in. The point of perspectivism (at least the way I understand it) is that the more universal your perspective becomes the less valid any value judgments become, but when your value judgments are only from the perspective of a very small part of the universe (i.e. "homo sapiens who are both reasonably intelligent and have a good amount of experience with a particular subsection of videogames") I think it's still possible to come to solid conclusions.

I'm having some trouble following you. I agree with everything you say, but I'm not sure I understand your conclusion.

Yeah, universality is inherently harder to make solid conclusions in. If you can't make confident statements about how your audience thinks, it is harder to design. That's why making a game deep and with wide appeal is so difficult.

If you want to think about your audience you can segment them. Companies do this all the time. Say you're the Father of a family. You can say, "my wife is like this, my kids are like that, I feel this way." Then make general statements about what you should do on Sunday afternoon. If it's difficult to make a good decision for everybody, think about what would be a good decision for somebody... do that for everybody, then try for the generality. You'll find the process went in a circle, but was actually necessary to make a good call.

The more you do it the easier it gets.

A valid reason is one the produces a valuable experience. If an activity makes a person better off, then their reasons for liking it are valid. Whether or not someone "likes" something is a good measure of if they have good reasons for liking it. Whether or not someone's life improves because of some activity (game, whatever) is an even better measure.

Reasons are important for finding out what someone really likes. What you really care about is whether he/she likes something or not. You need the reason to find the thing. But finding the thing is the goal.

If you like pineapple, I'll give you a pineapple. Maybe you like pineapple because it's sugary, but you don't like an aspect of its flavour. I find this out and make you grape juice, which you prefer. The reason led me to the solution. The only important result is that I gave you what satisfied you.

From: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=27383.300

Oh, I see. I thought you were poking fun at me.

No, I don't have an uncontrollable urge to write. I'm just short on time. In the put-the-food-on-the-table world I'm close to some deadlines. So I'm leveraging the energy to bust through some ideas. I just have a giant list of things that need to get done, so I'm doing them. I find the forum is stimulating in a particular way. Even small commentary on whatever I say provides enormous insight, particularly because all you guys spend so much time building games of your owns. I can extrapolate a lot.

I'll give some perspective. My current note total, not including forums or whatever, for my current game is 1600+ pages. I've been dreaming of my ultimate game since I was a child, and have done a lot of things to give me the opportunity to build it. I wish that much work wasn't necessary - I'd rather jump straight to the coding. Uncertainty is very uncomfortable. But I'd rather build the game I believe in more than anything else.

I'm more pulled by the desire to finish than anything.

"Subjecting" forum users does make me feel uncomfortable. I don't like the idea of collateral damage. So I'll keep apologizing.

Should I shift into another thread with Gimmy + interested parties? I'll probably have to start taking it easy soon anyway (maybe).

(Yeah, all my posts are huge.)

Hahahah....

Oh man. I literally can't tell how much of a joke that is.

Udderdude. I am making a game. This is how it goes.

If there's a bad etiquette or whatever, I'll spin off a thread or something. I don't know the protocol. This is my first forum.