ATONE: Heart of the Elder Tree

GWJ Conference Call 850

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Rich, Amanda, and Andrew are joined by special guest Beto O’Byrne from Radical Evolution to talk about games as vehicles of liberation.

Games: Wasteland 3 (Xbox), Go (Board), Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes (Mobile), DC Legends (Mobile), Atone: Heart of the Elder Tree (PC), Valheim (PC), Chained Echoes (Switch).

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Comments

00:03:51 Wasteland 3
00:05:30 DC Legends: Fight Super Heroes (mobile)
00:06:56 Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes (mobile)
00:07:25 Go (tabletop)
00:11:00 First Game You Remember Playing
00:15:32 Atone: Heart of the Elder Tree
00:22:50 Valheim
00:25:30 Chained Echoes
00:36:00 Games as Vehicles of Liberation
01:19:50 GWJ Housekeeping

Regarding the comments about Star Trek, I feel that the franchise's relationship with utopian futurism has either been not fully formed ideas on one hand versus trying to subvert utopian futurism dating back to at least the 90s. Example being in one film Captain Picard gives this vague speech about humanity not working towards accumulation of wealth but the betterment of society but around the same time you have in a couple of episodes of Deep Space Nine the population of Earth almost willingly give itself over to a police state to protect against an alien presence.

Star Trek was very much a sort of neoliberal vision of Utopia (without much direct inquiry into what that means), but it is interesting to me that, in its recent iterations, its become so much more focused on the periods of its lore that are pre-utopian.

I like the DS9 example you used a lot - I remember that episode! DS9 arguably has the most active engagement with its own politics and politics in general, and if I recall properly a lot of that was itself a struggle to bring to the air.
I know Avery Brooks personally pushed for more political stories, and I think one of the reasons that DS9 is so compelling to many is because the tension of conflicting creative impulses is baked into the work and its more more pronounced, specific POV (compare "Past Tense" to the OG series episode "Let that Be Your Last Battlefield.")

Damn, I really want to do a full TNG and DS9 rewatch now lol.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

Star Trek was very much a sort of neoliberal vision of Utopia (without much direct inquiry into what that means), but it is interesting to me that, in its recent iterations, its become so much more focused on the periods of its lore that are pre-utopian.

I've seen and heard that remark a bit lately, but to me it feels more like Star Trek Picard (a sequel) is the show that really takes a phaser to the franchise's utopian roots.

Atone looked sooo familiar to me and I said “I’ve played this game before.”

It was originally released on Apple Arcade a few years ago. It was taken off last fall (August 2022) and so far I cannot find it again for iOS. It received a lot of praise when it was released for iPad and iPhone.

I put this comment here for posterity because it was difficult to put the pieces together.

adilosphen wrote:

Atone looked sooo familiar to me and I said “I’ve played this game before.”

It was originally released on Apple Arcade a few years ago. It was taken off last fall (August 2022) and so far I cannot find it again for iOS. It received a lot of praise when it was released for iPad and iPhone.

I put this comment here for posterity because it was difficult to put the pieces together.

That makes so much sense! It does have a mobile feel to it, which is why I think it also made me think of sword & sworcery, navigationally. I imagine they pulled it for re-release to be consistent with the experience across all the different platforms.

Certainly wasn't expecting DC Legends to be mentioned! I've been playing for about 6 years, daily. Loved it. But the comment about it slowly dying are so true. I've been hanging on based on my time investment and the friends I've made playing, but it's pretty dire.

To see a game you love die slowly is worse than it just being deactivated. You can feel the dev team slowly being trimmed and new characters becoming more and more absurd. Each patch has a number of new bugs, some days I can't even log in without it hard crashing. Other days it's fine. 6 years and thousands of hours of dedicated play and just... disappointing frustration.

Something something...not with a bang, but with a whimper...