Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 434

Dying Light, Life is Strange Episode 1, Projects Cars, Your Emails and more!

This week Shawn, Cory, Rob Zacny and Elysium talk games and lots of your emails!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

Harrys Razors Use Promo Code: GWJ
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Chairman_Mao's Timestamps

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Covered in Oil - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 36:18

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Comments

Oh wow, I know exactly what Rob means when he talked about not being able to go sleep after finishing a game, just walking, pacing, thinking about it. Dragon Age: Inquisition did that to me a few weeks ago, and Life Is Strange as well last night. Mass Effect 3 too, and Transistor. Gemini Rue, though perhaps not as strongly.

A lot of people keep mentioning the Last Express, I need to get on that...

ETA: I just thought of one story in which you play the sidekick. Well, kinda. It's in Guild Wars 2. Spoilers ahead:

Spoiler:

Sure, it's your story, it's your personal story, how you leave your home and end up fighting dragons all with the best and greatest in Tyria. But you essentially play second fiddle to Trahearne, something a lot of players have been known to complain about.

Eleima wrote:

Oh wow, I know exactly what Rob means when he talked about not being able to go sleep after finishing a game, just walking, pacing, thinking about it. Dragon Age: Inquisition did that to me a few weeks ago, and Life Is Strange as well last night. Mass Effect 3 too, and Transistor. Gemini Rue, though perhaps not as strongly.

A lot of people keep mentioning the Last Express, I need to get on that...

It's so good. Rob also wrote a fantastic article on the game for us (one of my favorites of his).

I remember that article!!! It was indeed wonderful!!!

I wanted to take a second to thank you guys for this podcast. I've listened for years and have been wanting to write in to the call for the last few months. For various reasons (mostly I keep forgetting to) I have not. But it's remarkable to me how often within a week or two the topic I wanted to ask about is addressed, either directly in the topic or by someone else's email. It's nice to be a part of a community where I know people are right along with me in their thoughts or the way discussions affect me.

Kudos to no only the members of the call, but also the community in keeping the discussions relevant and interesting to people who may not always have the time game as much as they want. You guys give me a way to feel like I'm still part of something gaming related as the time I have to dedicate to gaming shrinks more and more.

Oh... and ALL HAIL THE GAME KING!!!

Zacny's just here so he doesn't get fined.

The discussion about addiction was fascinating, thanks for that guys. I wouldn't mind hearing that turned into a more fleshed out topic.

I don't have a Kickstarter planned anytime soon, but I am working on my first board game. If you couldn't tell from my questions I'm currently wrestling with how much I can actually put into the game. I'm worried about overloading player ram during the game because I've created too many systems. I'm coming from a programing background where I can have explicit tutorials and menus for every new mechanic. That doesn't really work for board games, especially for multiplayer games.
How does everyone here go about learning and teaching new board games?

If you want the mother of all board games with incredibly complex rules & mechanics then look no further than the old SPI monster game Campaign For North Africa.

Typical playing time for the introductory scenario (a simple skirmish) is 24 hours.

A good second is their game NATO Division Commander; it seamed like there were easily 10-20 chits on the map describing various things for each active unit.

easilyBaffled wrote:

How does everyone here go about learning and teaching new board games?

I don't know what it is, but I've always seen board games as a "teach me" kind of learning experience. Generally, one person has read the rules, explains the basic mechanics to the rest of the group, and then deals with all the mid-game frantically-flip-through-the-rulebook-because-I-swore-this-was-covered moments of the game.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of that.

If a game can walk the players through a typical turn - without introducing even more questions - it's a homerun for me.

Granted, at the same time, I recall being invited up to play Dune with some of the show regulars at GenCon a few years back, and was literally told "here's the PDF of the rules, read them, because we're not going to stop to help you along the way". I mean...the hardest part of Dune is figuring out HOW to play your faction, because there's a very core set of rules, and then each faction breaks those rules differently. But that really put the fire under me to download the PDF, and read through it a few times before meeting up and playing until the wee hours of the morning.

easilyBaffled wrote:

The discussion about addiction was fascinating, thanks for that guys. I wouldn't mind hearing that turned into a more fleshed out topic.

I can understand the conversation of addiction because I was there rather recently. Damndest thing about F2P MMOs is that there's no end state, no kill the final boss and then the end credits start rolling. You keep at it and you keep at it; you lose yourself into the game to the point that's all you do with your PC gaming time even to the point of forgetting or ignoring all your other gaming contacts like GWJ. Oh, you might play the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Batman: Arkham Origins as a distraction, but you always keep coming back to the addiction. Until one day you suddenly take a step back and realize that you're not in a healthy space when it comes to your gaming; that you can exist without logging in for a day, a week, a month, or several months.

And that's when you realize there's a Skyrim or Dragon Age: Inquisition sitting out there that you might have missed out on and friends who have chatted about it for a while who've you missed and neglected.

As far as games that have knocked me on my ass, well, there are lots of games I've really loved.

But Rogue Legacy made me unable to process the passage of time. After less than six hours playing, my first session, I thought I had been playing and living, and going to work, for the past six months, or weeks.

A Link To The Past was one I had fun playing over. I had it on Super Nintendo, made it to Ganon but didn't beat him before selling it all off, then again on Gameboy Advance SP where I made sure to beat him.

Would it be fair to say that Life is Strange is a game built around quicksaves? That's kind of what it sounds like to me. It reminds me of how I got the "good" Tenpenny towers mission resolution.

Spoiler:

You remember that one: it's the one that gives you good karma for resolving discriminatory housing practices with genocide.

There was this one NPC that I kept failing speech checks on, so I kept reloading a save from just before speaking to him until I got the Success dialogue.

Interesting to see that specifically made into a game mechanic, rather than just having it be understood that everybody does it anyway. It might make for a neat meta-game where people are quick-saving before they use the time mechanic to make sure they get the resolution they want.

One thing I would say about board games being "too fiddly" - for me I think it has less to do with the number of components, and more to do with how much administration and maintenance the game asks players to do.

I tend to enjoy board games that don't have an "upkeep" phase, where players have to reset cards, restock resources, add more tiles, etc. Partly because those mean a break in the action, but mostly because I'm usually the teacher/owner of the game, and therefore the defacto GM - and have to remember everything that happens between game rounds.

Re: Games whose endings made me stop and think, there haven't been many to accomplish such a thing. In fact, I feel that most games treat their endings like most companies treat their IT departments: last to get a budget, first to get layoffs. So in recent memory, I'd have to say The Last of Us. The ending to that game completely changed my interpretation of the dynamic between Joel and Ellie, and made an okay story a real piece of digital literature.

I had a lot of love for Murdered: Soul Suspect recently, but that was following an all day marathon. Wouldn't count it up to the ending specifically. I'm also not counting Fall of Cybertron since it was more the entire final level I loved than the ending.

As for ways to learn board games, thorough video tutorials would be my preference. Sadly, the only ones by development I found helpful were the ones for Miskatonic School foe Girls and the Penny Arcade deck building game.

Playing Robinson Crusoe, which quickly leapt into my top three games of all-time, has apparently ushered in a period in board gaming for me where I actually like fiddly games with lots of bits, as long as they come with immersive gameplay. Tales of the Arabian Nights is another one. I've had Android set up on my table as I read and re-read the rules and fiddle with the pieces, getting ready to try out. Next up after that is Mage Knight.

As for games that made me stop and think, when I got to the end of the story in GTA4 something in the dialogue really made me stop and think about all the horrible horrible things my avatar and, by extension, *I* had done in the course of playing that game. I felt a little bit sick to my stomach. Like that time when I ate wayyyyy too many chocolate-covered pretzels and was on the edge of throwing up for a couple of hours. I've never eaten chocolate-covered pretzels since, and I've not been tempted to play GTA since.

This may out me as a lowbrow (too late!) but count me in the camp that doesn't like downbeat endings.

If I'm investing 8, 12 or 30+ hours in a game, I want a better payoff than "and the world sucks and everything you did was for nothing."

I knew that already. I can find out the world sucks by reading the news, and if I wanted to do something other than waste my time I would go do something instead of playing video games. Let me have my damn escapism!

Downbeat endings seem to me to be adding fabricated misery to a world that already has enough of the genuine article, and I want no part in it.

I'm still disappointed in the ending I got out of Fable 3, and it's been 3+ years. I stayed "good" to a fault, and in doing so, got such a bitter taste from the ham-fisted ending that I'm still wary of Molyneux games to this day.

Also, completely disappointed in the ending of Red Dead Redemption. The entire game is the REDEMPTION part of RDR, and then ... the ending happens and throws all that progress away. Essentially trying to say "redemption is not possible for John Marston" by putting the player in an unwinnable situation and holding you to it.

I'm a fan of what I'd like to call the appropriate ending for any narrative. Endings are tricky, and I think one of the biggest mistakes storytellers of any medium have is that they aim for a specific ending without taking into account what their narrative is actually demanding.

They go into something thinking "this will have a happy ending" or "This needs a twist ending" (M. Night...) instead of just aiming for the appropriate ending, which may or may not be some degree of bitter, sweet, happy, sad, or surprising.

Games have a harder time in some ways because so much of gaming is predicated on reward. So you play well, you want a reward, be it a loot, XP, points, etc. When you toss narrative into the mix, you then want a reward of "positive outcome" to the narrative. But narrative shouldn't always be about feeling good. That's incredibly limiting, and I think there are plenty of ways where you can have something that isn't "happy" necessarily but is "satisfying." Books, film and TV do this better right now, simply because you don't have that gaming reward dynamic at play, which gives storytellers in those mediums more freedom to source the appropriate ending rather than the bland happy ending template.

This all brings me back to the original Wing Commander (and ties into the discussion about immediately playing something again right after beating it, oddly). After winning the Vega campaign, I wondered what it was like on the losing side of the tree, and I immediately began another playthrough, this time exploring the "bad" side of the story. I found it infinitely more compelling, and getting the Tiger's Claw to escape in that final mission was one of the best gaming moments I've ever had. In part because it was so refreshing to see such a dark story. I still got the reward of living to fight another day, but I was actually a little upset that WCII made the "good" ending canon.

This isn't to say that doom and gloom is always the better choice, it is just the underused one that is every bit as valid. A quality appropriate ending, to me, pulls all of the themes together in a satisfying and unexpected way. This is why Tiger's Claw Retreats > Kilrathi defeated. It feels true to the darker undercurrents of the story the original game was telling, IMHO.

Games are about winning and losing, narrative isn't, but narrative gets conflated into that win/lose model rather easily. Seeing the ME3 ending controversy from afar (having not played the game) it feels like there is a certain amount of cultural entitlement to the "happy ending" at work. I think we've sold ourselves short in some ways and we're missing out on nuanced endings. Now, I know they are out there - I haven't played through The Last of Us yet, but from what I gather based on how people talk about it, the ending isn't all kittens and ice cream. Ditto Red Dead Redemption.

Something that occurred to me during the discussion on games and their endings:

Games have been about victory and success for a lot longer than they've been about telling stories.

If I've triumphed against the game's mechanics but my character doesn't triumph narratively, then there's going to be some cognitive dissonance there. I'm not saying that games shouldn't have down endings, but designers should be aware of that dissonance when they make their decisions.

Vargen wrote:

Something that occurred to me during the discussion on games and their endings:

Games have been about victory and success for a lot longer than they've been about telling stories.

If I've triumphed against the game's mechanics but my character doesn't triumph narratively, then there's going to be some cognitive dissonance there. I'm not saying that games shouldn't have down endings, but designers should be aware of that dissonance when they make their decisions.

Yeah, that's sort of what I was saying (though in mercifully less words) - though my conclusion was the opposite :).

Rather than putting to onus on designers to consider the cognitive dissonance before choosing the endings of their narratives, I'd rather that players recognize the dissonance in terms of how they approach the narrative aspect of games. Designers should have full freedom to do what they want and take risks, and gamers should be able to recognize that games have evolved beyond pure reward based progression, and that there is value in narrative that doesn't stick to a happy ending template for no reason.

On the topic of being burned out of games. Agreed on trying other hobbies. There are so many things to do as hobbies. Drawing/Painting, try learning an instrument, read a good novel / book, exercise , get hooked on a good TV series, learn a bit about game development instead of playing games etc...

But to re-discover games, try Nintendo again. Get a 3DS and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. This game is close to perfection and will probably make you fall in love with video games again. I recommend getting some good headphones and just enjoy.

After being burned out of shooters on Xbox One, games that are just too long (Dragonage), broken multiplayer games (Halo Anniversary), mindless grindfests (Destiny) a huge backlog on Steam, hundreds of hours on Dota, I came back to Nintendo. And while I still play Destiny for example from time to time, and PC Games too - I'm ready to give Nintendo another chance. Very soon I'm going to get a WiiU and get on the classics that I missed.

Nintendo isn't perfect but the quality in their games is so strong that this might be what you need to fall in love with games again.

One thing that I loved about A Link Between Worlds is that it respects my time. Those who have played games like Destiny will understand what I mean.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Designers should have full freedom to do what they want and take risks, and gamers should be able to recognize that games have evolved beyond pure reward based progression, and that there is value in narrative that doesn't stick to a happy ending template for no reason.

My argument is the happy ending isn't there "for no reason." It's the default because that's the kind of ending that fits the narrative of the player: they've mastered the mechanics and won.

Game designers are absolutely free to make their narrative not fit with the player's arc, but they should consider the ramifications of that choice when they do.

Another thought: as an interactive medium video games can get you to empathize with the story's protagonist in a strong and intimate way. If you give that character a bad ending, and the player feels bad, in many ways that's successful storytelling. Of course, as a player, if somebody makes a game that's designed to piss me off then I reserve the right to be pissed off...

Vargen wrote:
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Designers should have full freedom to do what they want and take risks, and gamers should be able to recognize that games have evolved beyond pure reward based progression, and that there is value in narrative that doesn't stick to a happy ending template for no reason.

My argument is the happy ending isn't there "for no reason." It's the default because that's the kind of ending that fits the narrative of the player: they've mastered the mechanics and won.

Game designers are absolutely free to make their narrative not fit with the player's arc, but they should consider the ramifications of that choice when they do.

Another thought: as an interactive medium video games can get you to empathize with the story's protagonist in a strong and intimate way. If you give that character a bad ending, and the player feels bad, in many ways that's successful storytelling. Of course, as a player, if somebody makes a game that's designed to piss me off then I reserve the right to be pissed off...

+1

To paraphrase Albert Brooks from Mother, make the game you want to make. I'll like it or not like it, and that's the end of the game thing.

I love happy endings

Mex wrote:

I love happy endings

Mex. Mex never changes.

Eleima wrote:

I have to say, I agree with you, Mex. I'm a sucker for happy endings. I love endings in which the hero goes home with her loved one, all is right with the world, the evil vanquished, and everything back as it should be. A happy ending. We're talking about worlds with magic or giant space aliens, so realism can take a hike as far as I'm concerned.

And that's why my canon ending in ME3 is:

Spoiler:

Reapers are destroyed and the Geth and EDI are rebuilt from backups. Shepard survives and nursed back to health by Kaidan. :D

Plus one.

Spoiler:

Million

.

I have to say, I agree with you, Mex. I'm a sucker for happy endings. I love endings in which the hero goes home with her loved one, all is right with the world, the evil vanquished, and everything back as it should be. A happy ending. We're talking about worlds with magic or giant space aliens, so realism can take a hike as far as I'm concerned.

And that's why my canon ending in ME3 is:

Spoiler:

Reapers are destroyed and the Geth and EDI are rebuilt from backups. Shepard survives and is nursed back to health by Kaidan. :D

I enjoy a well done happy ending. I just think it it shouldn't an automatic choice. Bitter, sweet, and bittersweet all have a place.

I hear what you're saying, Vargen, but you also empathize with the protagonist of a book or film, generally. And not everything is to everyone's taste.

Games that made me stop and think afterward:

  • Just about anything by Jason Rohrer
  • Super Columbine
  • Dragon Age 2
  • Today I Die
  • Probably a handful of other indie games.
  • Fable 2, interestingly enough.

It helps that shorter games are more likely to see me reach the end.

Also, I'm surprised, even with Elysium falling off the call, that Rob didn't mention strategy games as the sort of thing he'd dive back into. EU4 often ends, for me, with immediately wondering how things could have gone differently, or what it would feel like to try it with a different nation or a different strategy. Honestly, the Europa Universalis series probably belongs on my list above.

How was there a discussion of downbeat endings with no talk of FarCry 2?