Everyone plays a part, obviously, but who what you see on the cover when you buy the game at the store and what the graphics reflect when you watch the videos is dictated by the concept artists (which to be fair should be given issued least some restraint from the game's directors and producers).

That's just not true. To say that concept artists working at industry studios are issued at "least some restraint" doesn't even come close. Concept artists are drawing what they are told to draw in the style they are told to draw it in. That has been my experience at least.

This is now a Superb Joe appreciation thread.  

Can I just get a clarification here... Why are you systematically trying to catch the shit with your mouth before it hits Phil Fish?

It had been suggested that Infaune gave the same comments that Fish did, however Fish was a jerk about it. Inafune said however that he thinks people need to be jerks about it.

From now on, I will no longer use reasoned argument or cite example, I will merely resort to snarky one word retorts and back-handed insults.

"There was a Canadian guy who appeared in a documentary film and did a Q&A afterwards. And a Japanese person asked what he thought of Japanese games, and he said he thought they sucked. That’s what’s necessary."

It's worth noting that Inafune even endorsed Fish's comments. Just sayin'.

jealousy, mainly

 

Sorry, I guess I should just be making inane-slightly-funny-too-many-dashes-comments-that-contribute-nothing-but-taking-easy-shots-at-Jersey-Shore-because-we-all-agree-thats-dumb-amirite?

 

Also the "choke on my dick" line was specifically to a twitter post where someone was calling him an "arrogant schmuck indie dev talking smack yet has zero released games". If I had just won the IGF for a game I'd been working on for 5 years, I'd tell him to choke on my dick too.

I was asking WHY people were shitting on him, not for a brief history lesson on the indie scene. You answered my question in your second post, which is that while even though he is technically correct you think that he's a big meanie-face while communicating those ideas.

Plus, given the situation that Fish was in he couldn't have just whipped out a video from his pocket with detailed explanations as to why the Japanese games haven't lived up to their legacy lately. He had 2 minutes to answer the guys question. He did not know this man traveled there to see him, and whether or not he is Japanese shouldn't even come into the equation. He said something factually true, in a mean way, because he had a very short period of time to answer and to have an impact. I will not fault him for taking the chance and doing something with it, rather than giving some sort of diplomatic response.

I saw this controversy go down and I think we need to really look at what he is saying before we off handedly characterize him as a big douchetard.

1) Is there a single person on this forum who doesn't have a complaint about gamers as a group? Too sexist? Too gung-ho? Too critical? Not critical enough? How many times have you ever been called a flaming fucking faggot because someone captured the digital flag you were guarding? His comment that "gamers are the worst fucking people" came as a response to people directly telling him they would pirate his game because they don't like him. Guess what? Those people are fuckers, and I think he can call them out without being a douche.

2) We can argue about this all day, but there is plenty to support the case that modern Japanese games are not particularly good on the whole. There are exceptions of course, but there is evidence for this position. I will simply link to Japan's own Keiji Inafune on that topic: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/04/keiji-inafune-qa/

Quote: "Across the world, American games are the best-selling and considered the most fun. But Japan’s gamers and game creators still won’t accept this. This is why Japan can’t win."

Granted not everyone in Japan agrees with him, but to harbor an intense dislike of Phil Fish as a person over two pretty justified public quips seems a little disingenuous.

Can I just get a clarification here... Why is everyone shitting on Phil Fish?

I have only one advice.

Come up with a game idea so good that you could even spend your whole life to make it. If you find your once great idea lousy during developing, ditch it.

Everyone keeps saying this is the best advice, but for me personally I've found that finishing what I'm working on, even if I've found some flaw in the design, is more worthwhile than just ditching the concept. Once that game is complete, you can move into a fresh project with extra coding experience and some additional design foresight now that you know an approach that didn't work in your last game.

I use just notepad (well, Notepad++). I like the simplicity of it and how flexible it is, but I've always wondered if I'd be more productive with one of those tools.

I also just use Notepad to keep track of my to dos. Occasionally it needs a little reorganization, but for me the easiest way to stay on task is to just break down my goals in a text file I can keep open in a corner on my screen. This certainly wouldn't work for very large projects, but for my small solo work its very adequate.

Cheers.  

Half-heartedly covering one special case of inexplicable behavior on the player character's part doesn't make the game more anything.

I wouldn't call talking to NPCs in the very first non-combat area of the game where the player is in control "inexplicable behavior". It set up a contrast between the player's expectations ("I have infinite time here") and the expectations people have of the character in the game's setting ("You are Chief of Security and have a situation to deal with").

It's true that time is not consistently used in the game this way, but when time doesn't affect the game play it's because time also doesn't matter for that particularly scene in world. They don't forget that they used this in the beginning and timed events that effect the story do show up again later.

I would typically start with trying to make a good game, then letting other people play it. 

animal crossing

browser strategy mmos

special timed events in "normal" mmos

every "social" facebook gam

to a lesser extent pokemans gold/silver (and after?)

Again, I feel like you guys are picking the most obvious and weakest implementations of this idea - surely there are better games than browser MMOs and social games that can be made with this mechanic. To dismiss it offhandedly because it's been abused / underused in the past would be a mistake.

Serk, I think you're being a little overly defensive. I hate scammy free to play energy systems as much as the next guy, but I don't think that's what Player 3 was trying to suggest. Maybe he picked a poor example by using the sleep at night to regenerate health mechanic, but I think he's more looking for very clever ways to include the real world time in a game - not the shallow implementations you pick apart (quite effectively I might add).

That said! What about a game about secretly being a lycanthrope? The player can interact with members of the town during the day, and you will only transform in game during actual full moons in your area. Not the most brilliant, but a better implementation than an energy bar. 

Moral ambiguity isn't depth.

Why isn't it? Or to put it more simply, what is your definition of depth?

Depth is the extent to which a work explores its themes, I suppose. Moral ambiguity isn't depth because the absence of final moral judgments doesn't shed light on anything. It doesn't necessarily harm depth either; it's a transparent gimmick employed in many contrived man that's so deep works, which is effective because people tend to conflate the two.

As an example, I just finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. While there are dilemmas throughout the book, by the end, it's unambiguous.

I would argue that DXHR IS unambiguous by the end. The game shows different characters making judgements on transhumanism, giving the player various arguments for feeling one way or the other. While it is up to the player to choose the ending they want, there are certain endings that have known, specific, consequences in the story. It's not unambiguous, it merely lets the player choose in which direction they want to explore the theme.

In a book like "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" it is written by one man with a very definite viewpoint. DXHR, being made by a massively huge team, probably had people with their own opinions on this matter - some that differed quite a bit. I think that DXHR is only taking advantage of the interactivity of games over the static nature of a book, not vaguely making skimming its themes as you suggest.

I have a B.S. in Game Design, and I work in the Game Industry - and I make tons of small indie projects, game jam games, etc. on the side. Just saying, it isn't total fail for everyone. You get out of it what you put into it, at the end of the day you're paying for 4 years of room and board at a place where you have infinite free time to practice your craft. In some cases the programs are indeed jokes, but not every college is DeVry, okay?

Nice chaos sigil. Also Vonnegut.

Playable memories is definitely something worth exploring. Chrono Trigger had a very memorable playable memory scene involving Lucca and her Mother that could effect the present. Perhaps depending on how the player acts in the first memory, it effects what options they have available in the next or which characters will appear?

Everyone has great ideas, if they know how to code - Why should they make your great idea instead of theirs?

This is the second thread you've started with a great idea, hoping other people will help you finish it. I'm just giving you fair warning that most people on this forum won't be interested in that.

You might want to focus a bit more on learning Unity instead of fishing for people to help you finish your ideas.