Jonathan Blow's Next Game - The Witness

DSGamer wrote:
Prof.Science wrote:

The look on his face was one of slight despair, as I recall.

I'm parafrasing, but that moment really crystalized to me what he was about.

How so? I mean, that moment would make me laugh, honestly. I can understand being frustrated because there isn't more narrative creativity in video games, but it's still a medium for having fun. Not everything has to be art. So to look like you're in despair over the state of video games, that starts to become pretentious to me.

Sounds like he's despairing because so few people are interested in what he's interested in. How is that not a desperate situation?

Disclaimer: I haven't seen the interview.

Uh oh. Topic becoming fanboyish (both ways).

Whether you think Braid is a magnus opus of artistic brilliance or a platformer with a poorly written story is all in the eyes of the beholder.

Let's not get pissy with each other over a debate about subjective aspects of a game. Just because someone didn't like the writing doesn't mean that they don't read on a tenth grade level and just because someone did doesn't mean they have been tricked by Mr. Blow into liking something crappy.

It's subjective. Some people are moved by the narrative and, to them, it is a good story. Other people feel detached from the narrative and, to them, it is ineffective.

You can't debate something like "is this art" with a closed mind.

Just sayin'.

I wasn't calling him pretentious until that comment about his reaction. Him being disappointed in being alone in his artistic vision is a little pretentious, IMHO. That and he called Peggle an "immoral game". And I loved Braid. Just when I hear something like that story about his despair I get annoyed at Jonathon Blow the person.

- Nevermind. This thread is just silly.

Um, isn't virtually every artist in the history of artists disappointed in being alone in their artistic vision?

The same way artists are generally considered pretentious.

PyromanFO wrote:

How long till msdmoney fixes his quote tags?! Grr.

If you're not sure what you did wrong, you have an extra "/quote" bit in there

Sounds like someone should have written some more input validation code for this site! :p

DSGamer wrote:

I wasn't calling him pretentious until that comment about his reaction. Him being disappointed in being alone in his artistic vision is a little pretentious, IMHO. That and he called Peggle an "immoral game". And I loved Braid. Just when I hear something like that story about his despair I get annoyed at Jonathon Blow the person.

Did he say immoral or amoral?

Switchbreak wrote:
PyromanFO wrote:

How long till msdmoney fixes his quote tags?! Grr.

If you're not sure what you did wrong, you have an extra "/quote" bit in there

Sounds like someone should have written some more input validation code for this site! :p

Hey I don't maintain the site, so I get to Female Doggo like a normal user now! Why isn't there tons of validation code? Also make the site run faster when you do this

beeporama wrote:

I thought the writing in Gears Of War 2 "struggled desperately to be meaningful, and was utterly atrocious." Nobody bothers discussing its writing at all.

Now, now. Gears of War has spawned quite a bit of commentary, specifically quoted derivations of "look'it all dat juice!"

Mystic Violet wrote:

- Nevermind. This thread is just silly.

Yeah, we should create another thread for discussion on Jonathan Blow, save this for discussion 'bout the new game.

PyromanFO wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I wasn't calling him pretentious until that comment about his reaction. Him being disappointed in being alone in his artistic vision is a little pretentious, IMHO. That and he called Peggle an "immoral game". And I loved Braid. Just when I hear something like that story about his despair I get annoyed at Jonathon Blow the person.

Did he say immoral or amoral?

I wish I could find it.

I would swear it was in this podcast. The one I link to soon. He calls WoW unethical after the 00:56:00 mark of 1UP FM - September 1, 2008

Regarding WoW (quote read by Shawn Elliot from a conference) - "World of Warcraft is unethical in that it's predicated on a kind of player exploitation. Skill and shrewdness do not count for much and what matters is how much time you sink in. You don't need to do anything exceptional because to feel good you just need to run the treadmill like everyone else."

I thought Peggle was in that discussion too...

The context being that games that simply reward people for playing the game are unethical and just waste people's time/money. That podcast is one of my favorite gaming podcasts ever, but at the end of it you just want to go play Peggle or blow stuff up in another game.

cube wrote:

The Epilogue is the breaking point for me. It lacks not only any resolution of the story, but it's also not even consistent with itself. Which is a huge issue, because the topic of the atomic bomb comes literally out of nowhere, without any foreshadowing.

The way I saw that was like an old game giving you a reason to play through again. The closest comparison I can give would be Bubble Bobble, where playing through it normally would give you the 'bad' ending and it would tell you this. Bubble Bobble needed a ton of luck and knowledge on other playthroughs to get to the 'good' ending, which I would parallel to getting the 7 stars and piecing together the 2nd plot in Braid.

The context being that games that simply reward people for playing the game are unethical and just waste people's time/money. That podcast is one of my favorite gaming podcasts ever, but at the end of it you just want to go play Peggle or blow stuff up in another game.

I wouldn't agree about the unethical part, but it does kinda suck pretty bad. I can see why someone could reasonably think WoW is exploitative. It's voluntarily exploitative, but it still doesn't actually reward anything other than time invested.

I'd be curious to know what some of you who say the writing in Braid is terrible read.

"I'd be curious to know what some of you who say the writing in Braid is terrible read."

I'm not sure how to answer this, as spitting out a huge list would look pompous and a single favorite author might not be sufficiently informative. I'll do the latter out of laziness: Italo Calvino.

Beeporama: My braid lashes at you with contempt.

Hey guys, I know how to read Chinese. Dao De Jing is written in Chinese. Notice how I spelled its title correctly. With my broad breath of literary Chinese knowledge as well as many much philosophical wisdom drawn from multiple readings of Dao De Jing and numerous discussions with various scholars about its subject matters, I can safely say that I know what it's talking about, and what I'm talking about. Therefore, Jonathan Blow's choice quote from "The Tao" (Chapter 25, “有物混成", thank you very much.) is perfectly appropriate, and you can't prove me wrong, because you don't know Chinese. If you do, you certainly don't know it as well as I do. I'm not going to sound pretentious, so I'm not going to get into the details of my reasoning. You just need to know that I'm right, because I read Dao De Jing in Chinese, and you didn't, because you can't.

IMAGE(http://driph.com/words/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/awesome.gif)

Thirteenth wrote:

Hey guys, I know how to read Chinese. Dao De Jing is written in Chinese. Notice how I spelled its title correctly. With my broad breath of literary Chinese knowledge as well as many much philosophical wisdom drawn from multiple readings of Dao De Jing and numerous discussions with various scholars about its subject matters, I can safely say that I know what it's talking about, and what I'm talking about. Therefore, Jonathan Blow's choice quote from "The Tao" (Chapter 25, “有物混成", thank you very much.) is perfectly appropriate, and you can't prove me wrong, because you don't know Chinese. If you do, you certainly don't know it as well as I do. I'm not going to sound pretentious, so I'm not going to get into the details of my reasoning. You just need to know that I'm right, because I read Dao De Jing in Chinese, and you didn't, because you can't.

Well, I'm sold. Let's all just move along folks!

I read bits of the story aloud to my girlfriend back when I was playing through Braid, and she made me stop after about three screens because it sounded "like LiveJournal poetry".

TheArtOfScience wrote:

Just because someone didn't like the writing doesn't mean that they don't read on a tenth grade level

I do apologize. While I did mean to say that the writing requires a bit of a high reading level to follow, I didn't mean to say that failing to like it means you can't read at that level. "Affirming the Consequent," or something.

What I meant to say was, if you didn't like the writing, you probably eat live kittens for breakfast. Just sayin'.

IjonTichy wrote:

Beeporama: My braid lashes at you with contempt.

Let me say unironically (but with tongue in cheek) that I stand duly chastised by this comeback. Touche!

In all seriousness, I don't want to claim the writing was spectacular or anything, but... "A" for effort at least, you know? Way better than... most everything else I've played, really.

I didn't read this thread. Someone give me the executive summary.

wordsmythe wrote:

I didn't read this thread. Someone give me the executive summary.

Jonathan Blow has a new game coming out in 2011 called The Witness.

Some people really liked Braid. Some people (including some of the same people) think Braid is shallow. Some people think Jonathan Blow thinks more highly of himself and his work than is justified by Braid. Some people debated whether or not the word "pretentious" would apply. Some people didn't like the writing in Braid.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

I didn't read this thread. Someone give me the executive summary.

Jonathan Blow has a new game coming out in 2011 called The Witness.

Some people really liked Braid. Some people (including some of the same people) think Braid is shallow. Some people think Jonathan Blow thinks more highly of himself and his work than is justified by Braid. Some people debated whether or not the word "pretentious" would apply. Some people didn't like the writing in Braid.

+1, would read BrierNotes again.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

I didn't read this thread. Someone give me the executive summary.

Jonathan Blow has a new game coming out in 2011 called The Witness.

Some people really liked Braid. Some people (including some of the same people) think Braid is shallow. Some people think Jonathan Blow thinks more highly of himself and his work than is justified by Braid. Some people debated whether or not the word "pretentious" would apply. Some people didn't like the writing in Braid.

I didn't read that either. I'm going to need a haiku.

We stand, minds unsure
Of whether it is high art
Or low wankery

Mechanics were cool
Writing was questionable
Hate Jonathan Blow

Switchbreak wrote:

I didn't read that either. I'm going to need a haiku.

Blow makes The Witness.
The rest of it is chatter
about his last game.

Pretentious douche bag
Rewinding my platformer
Fun but emo plot

Pretentious? Maybe.
Judge the game, not the writer.
He'll get my money.

JoeBedurndurn wrote:

Pretentious douche bag
Rewinding my platformer
Fun but emo plot

+1 Haikurrency!

adam.greenbrier wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:

I didn't read this thread. Someone give me the executive summary.

Jonathan Blow has a new game coming out in 2011 called The Witness.

Some people really liked Braid. Some people (including some of the same people) think Braid is shallow. Some people think Jonathan Blow thinks more highly of himself and his work than is justified by Braid. Some people debated whether or not the word "pretentious" would apply. Some people didn't like the writing in Braid.

Next time I complain about goodjers who have joined since 2007, I want you to consider yourself excepted from that group. There are some other good ones, but I'll let them wonder and fight for my affections.