GWJ Conference Call Episode 554

Dead Cell, The Surge, Nier: Automata, What Remains of Edith Finch, Tumbleseed, The Making of Perception, Your Emails and More!

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This week Julian, Shawn and Amanda are joined by former Irrational Games developer Bill Gardner who goes deep on development of his new company's game Perception which launches May 30th!

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.

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00:04:40 Dead Cells
00:08:48 Nintendo Switch
00:14:54 Tumbleseed
00:16:32 Nintendo Switch
00:18:20 Nier: Automata
00:21:54 What Remains of Edith Finch
00:29:30 The Surge
00:32:48 The Making of Perception
01:13:40 Your Emails

When you all talked about playing Zelda and Mario Kart 8 on planes, and how well it worked, I just thought "Karen, you are vindicated for bringing your Switch to that rooftop party."

And then Julian called it out.

Makes me wonder how Bill feels about Scanner Sombre.

Listened to the podcast this morning, and Perception sounds great! I'm looking forward to checking it out. I remember listening to that This American Life podcast way back when, and it really intrigued me.

I too have had the, "Damn, I'm in a Switch commercial" experience in RL. It really does draw people in.

Those switch-commercials come-to-life represent a nightmare scenario for me. If I'm playing video games in public, it's because I don't want to talk to anyone.

And if some unaccompanied 12 year old kid approaches me in an airport and starts talking to me-- about anything-- I'm running to the nearest cop before that cop starts running for me.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

And if some unaccompanied 12 year old kid approaches me in an airport and starts talking to me-- about anything-- I'm running to the nearest cop before that cop starts running for me.

IMAGE(http://madhookup.com/pics/hansenlol.jpg)

Taking about perception has reminded me of an ongoing project I'm engaged in to preserve two radio interviews with my Grandfather who was blind and who also happened to be a successful gardener. He was a market gardener selling flowers and vegetables at market before he lost his sight to a genetic condition that leads to the retinas becoming detached. He had vision in one eye for a time then he eventually lost his sight in the other eye. When I'd visit him as a little kid I was fascinated by his garden and greenhouse that was full of vegetables and by the lines of string down the side of every narrow pathway for Granddad to follow with his cane. I was also fascinated by a braille watch he had in a drawer.

The radio interviews were originally on a single tape cassette and I realised the they could easily be lost so I made several CD copies of them and distributed them around the family. Now, listening to the piece about Perception, I've released I don't (or didn't) have the files on my current computer so I found one of the old CDs and have added the files to iTunes. I think I'm now going to make a 'movie' of the recordings with the voices over shots of my own fathers vegetable garden and I'll put it on YouTube and redistribute the files.

I'd love to see/hear that, Higgledy.

I'll post it when it's done. I may need to offer some translation for his wonderful Northern accent .

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

And if some unaccompanied 12 year old kid approaches me in an airport and starts talking to me-- about anything-- I'm running to the nearest cop before that cop starts running for me.

I don't know if it's just the area where I live, but when I used to take my kids to the park I'd mess around on my phone while they frolicked. On several occasions a strange kid would come over and ask to play Angry Birds on it. Unsettling!

I can't post the link or write this properly because I'm at 38.7°C but I want to tell you that re: the experience of being blind, there is a worthwhile show on ABC right now called "You Can't Ask That" that has an episode with blind people asking what you might call dumb questions and taking about their experience. It seems to be a version of a BBC show that isn't quite as good.

Season Two isn't for sale on their YouTube channel yet, but I assume it will be in the future, for like $1.20. it's only a short episode. If you like you might also be able to "fly to Australia to watch that one episode of tv legally and then fly back" but I can't give you any advice on that other then the service it's on its called iView.

Just wanted to get that in.

I've given it more thought, and decided I'm going to do a spoiler section on What Remains of Edith Finch. It takes approximately 2-4 hours to play, so if folks are wanting to finish their plays, or pick it up and play it before the spoiler episode is released, I'm hoping this will happen in the next few weeks.

I think the notion that Infinite's Elizabeth will hold up better than Ellie from the Last of Us is very, very wrong. I guess we'll have to wait a while to find out

Amoebic wrote:

I've given it more thought, and decided I'm going to do a spoiler section on What Remains of Edith Finch. It takes approximately 2-4 hours to play, so if folks are wanting to finish their plays, or pick it up and play it before the spoiler episode is released, I'm hoping this will happen in the next few weeks.

Awesome. I'd love to hear more in-depth impressions of it. Despite taking me all of 2.5 hours to complete, I am still thinking about certain parts of that game regularly weeks after having played it.

I am also knee deep in my first play through of Nier Automata now. I really hope you enjoy it enough to see all the way through the main endings. If it's anything like the first Nier (and by most accounts, it is and then some) it will be another prime candidate for a great spoiler section.

To speak to one of the email topics, I think the worst case of "Hurry up and Have Fun!" manufactured urgency was Dead Rising. The way the game was structured, certain events would happen at specific time points, and if you spent too much time in once place, you were bound to miss them. This would mean that survivors you could have saved would die, or certain interactions would be gone for good.

Plus, you only get one save slot.

So you're split between trying to just have fun living your Zombieland / Dawn of the Dead fantasy, and racing against the clock to save as many people as you can. I found it so frustrating that I eventually just gave up playing it altogether.

Certis wrote:

I'd love to see/hear that, Higgledy.

I've posted my first go in the 'Something you've created' thread. I've learned a lot in terms of which pictures work and which don't have the right 'atmosphere.'

Amoebic wrote:

I've given it more thought, and decided I'm going to do a spoiler section on What Remains of Edith Finch. It takes approximately 2-4 hours to play, so if folks are wanting to finish their plays, or pick it up and play it before the spoiler episode is released, I'm hoping this will happen in the next few weeks.

Your description of the San Juans and Ballard and the PNW convinced me to pick this up. Looking forward to it.

Great interview on Perception. I just finished the game the other day, and posted some detailed thoughts on it in the Finish Any Games Lately thread.

As a legally blind gamer myself, I was very interested in how this game would play. I think it turned out quite well. I was actually one of the users consulted on the different aspects of blindness in the game and the smart phone apps used. It was very cool helping in a small way for this game.

I also covered Perception on my YouTube channel, IllegallySighted, and also cover lots of other tech and gaming stuff from a low vision perspective. OK, end of cheap plug...

I feel like I've been conditioned to basically ignore any urgency forced by a narrative. I'll pin it, keep it in mind, remember that it's part of the narrative, but then go off and do all the sidequests available at each step before progressing the next step of a main plot.

Unless...

Unless there's a countdown or timer.

It has become that the presence of a timer is the only way that a developer can force me to apply urgency to my progress.