Category Archives: Gaming

Musings on my everlasting quest to slog through my backlog.

Just One More Go…

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you come across a new source of entertainment (book, movie, game, television series, music album, etc). It’s the holidays, and you have quite a few new things to experience, but you pick up this particular one to just “try out for a few minutes.”

Heh…

The next thing you know, you’ve lost hours (if not days) to this new activity, and you have no idea how. Somehow, it scratches some deep itch inside you, compels you to return again and again and again. You finally wrench yourself away to sleep, probably due to sheer exhaustion. But the next day you come back for more, and you lose even more time.

In other news, I may have a problem with roguelikes

What is a roguelike, you may ask? Well, it’s a genre of video games which share a number of attributes with an old 1980 ASCII game called Rogue. These features include random level generation (infinitely replayable) and permanent character death (don’t screw up). For some reason, this combination is like crack for me; I am compelled to keep trying over and over, repeatedly exploring, screwing up, starting over, and largely losing huge blocks of time.

My current fix is Rogue Legacy*, a game where you control a series of adventurers, each with a set of unique and humorous traits (like alektorophobia or nearsightedness) as they explore a haunted castle. When you inevitably die, the quest is taken up by your heir. You have the chance to spend gold found in the ever-shifting fortress to permanently upgrade you characters and equipment, giving your future selves a slightly less slim chance of success.

There are a few tweaks to the roguelike formula, some that I like, others that I don’t. One of the unlockables is the option to freeze the castle layout, so you can explore the same dungeon multiple times. This can be useful for practicing against bosses or finding treasure chests, but you get a penalty to gold. The one tweak that I don’t like (even though I can see that it makes sense for balance) is the inability to save your gold: each time you re-enter the castle, you lose whatever gold you haven’t spent on upgrades. Admittedly, this forces you to be more careful and get better, as later upgrades cost more.

What’s funny is I’m not that good at the game. Health pickups are rare, and I tend to forget that, making me careless. I’ll die repeatedly as I flail about, but I’ll be right back moments later to try again with the next heir. I’ve seriously lost at least a day and a half to this game.But don’t let that deter you. If random chance and blind luck sound like fun to you, you should totally try this game. I think I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth (it was on sale, but that’s a different/known issue). It’s on sale, and there’s a demo! I can also suggest Spelunky, if you prefer your masochism with a dose of bullwhips and fedoras instead of swords and wizard hats.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make a run or two before dinner. Ha, I crack myself up!

EDIT: Almost 3 hours later (I think), I am finally getting up from the computer.

 

Politics And Gaming? Say It Ain’t So!

So I realize that this may look like filler, but I want the other post I wrote for today to go live at a more reasonable time. So in lieu of some deep navel-gazing, I would encourage you to watch this video:

For those of you who don’t follow it, Extra Credits is a web series about gaming and the games industry from an insider perspective, with the goal of educating players, developers, and the like in various aspects of game development and culture. This week’s episode took a decidedly political turn, looking at the American system of government as a poorly optimized system, and started proposing ways of fixing it.

Now, I know politics can be a touchy subject, but this video is refreshingly non-partisan (at least in my opinion) in its critiques and suggestions. It reminded me of Reality is Broken, a book by game designer Jane McGonigal that talks about ways that real life could be incentivized and make as engaging as the virtual worlds we create. The big point that the video makes is the current decoupling of actions and consequences a lot of our congress critters face.

So if you are as politically disgruntled as most people of my generation and have a few minutes to spare on an interesting thought experiment, you should watch this video. It sounds like they’re going to go more in-depth next week, so maybe tune in again on their YouTube channel.

N3rd Sp33k: Newbie vs Noob

When you play a lot of video games (as I do), you come across all sorts of slang and shorthand. Things like “pwn,” “l33t,” and “w00t.” And that’s to say nothing of the liberal use of slurs and epithets that haunts certain communities. *cough*Xbox Live*cough* Using these improperly can be an awkward, since even though gamers and nerds fancy themselves outsiders from mainstream culture, they can be depressingly intolerant of outsiders themselves. This is compounded by the fact that a lot of this slang can have different meanings to different people. So today, I’d like to talk about two very similar terms that, in my mind, have two very different connotations: “newbie” and “noob.”

Both terms can be used to refer to a new, inexperienced player. We’ve all been there: bullets are flying, the body count’s rising, and you barely take your first tentative steps away from the spawn point before watching brightly colored giblets that were formerly attached to your body go flying. It can be discouraging, but like I said, we’ve all been there. And not just in gaming: think of the first few times you tried a new skill and felt completely and utterly hopeless and out of place.

For me, a newbie is someone who lacks experience. There’s no judgment inherent in the term; it just describes someone who has just started out. They don’t know much and/or aren’t very good, but that’s through no fault of their own. Newbies are to be encouraged, since they are often ready and willing to learn, eager to improve. They may have an idea of how little they know, and while their questions may seem simple or obvious to you, they are asked earnestly and honestly.

Noobs (also seen as “n00bs,” “newbs,” or other, saltier variations), on the other hand, are not so kind-hearted. These are people who revel in their ignorance, seeming to wear it as a badge of (dis)honor. They may be brand new, but they’re already convinced they know everything. These are the people that heed no advice; attempts to help, no matter how well-intentioned, are deflected by the cosmic force of their ego shield. They may completely ignore objectives, rushing straight towards some piece of equipment (weapon, vehicle, etc.) that they think is “ZOMG SOOO KEWL” but can barely use, let alone be effective with.

In other words, newbies are just new, probably ignorant. Noobs are just stupid, and stupid is really hard to cure. The latter one has a derogatory connotation in my vocabulary, while the former reflects an uncomfortable place we all started from. Telling the difference can be challenging, but as you go you’ll probably be able to tell. What if you’re a newbie? Don’t worry: ask you questions in an intelligent manner, show some respect, and the favor should be returned. And what if you’re a noob? Well, I don’t want to just say “STFU & RTFM,” but try checking your ego and get comfortable with how much you don’t know.

If not, there’s always mutes and bans.

Punching Trees Gives Me Wood: Settling In

Well, it’s been a bit longer than I would have liked since my last installment. I hope I haven’t lost the thread. It may end up being like starting over, but let’s soldier on anyway.  I’d like to have this series go up at least once a week, but I promise nothing.

You have survived your first night in this strange land, but you still have no idea where you are. You are surrounded by hills, but they are nowhere near undulating. Rather, they seem terraced, a series of one meter cubes stacked one on top of the other. Even the trees and the leaves are cubic.

You look behind you at your feeble shelter from the night before. In the daylight it looks more like a tomb, enclosing only enough space for you to stand up and move around slightly. You’re sure you can do better.

Looking around, you spy a slightly higher hill to the east. You work your way up to the top, having to hop up from one terrace level to the next. Luckily, this repetitive jumping doesn’t seem to leave you overly tired. Once you reach the summit you find a flat spot with a few trees. Without hesitation you start in on the trees, punching them until logs (one meter cubes, of course) fall into your hands. You clear out the bottom of the trees first, punching straight up from the hollow spot and effectively coring the tree. The leaves stay suspended after the trunk is gone, but quickly begin to fade. Some drop things as they disappear. You end up holding an apple and what appear to be a few saplings.

You get ready to start building house out of your logs when you stop. There must be a better way to use these resources. You close your eyes to think, and can practically see a small grid in front of your eyes. Great, even your imagination has been squared off. But this gives you an idea: you visualize one of your logs on the grid. It changes, breaking into a set of wooded planks. The vision is so strong that you can’t help but reach out your hand to the planks, and when you open your eyes, you are holding them in front of your face.

You don’t know what you just did, but it sure is useful. It looks like your resources will stretch much farther if you craft them, so you go about doing so. Logs quickly become planks, and before too long (the sun is still high, but has started its downward arc) you have created something resembling a house, complete with four walls, a roof, and even a plywood floor. It’s practically cozy.

You have some planks left over, and you can’t help but feel there’s even more you could be creating. You close your eyes again, and the grid returns easily enough. But you notice it’s only got four spots, in a 2 by 2 layout. Maybe that’s what’s limiting you. Is there any way you could expand the grid? You tug on it with your mind, but all you succeed in doing is giving yourself the start of what could be a very bad headache.

On a whim, you visualize four stacks of planks (in one meter cubes, of course) on the grid. Sure enough, this gets you a result: a crafting table! You open your eyes and place it in a corner of your shack. Looking closely, you can see a small grid inlaid on the surface, but this one has nine slots. The possibilities are endless!.

You quickly get to work with this new grid, trying combinations in an almost random fashion. The dirt blocks you have don’t seem to be of any use, but wood is proving to be quite useful. And the more you experiment, the more you come to get a feel for the logic of crafting. Things seem to be roughly visual: you can use the grid to visualize a rough approximation of the object you desire. Sticks are the result of stacking two planks into a stick shape. A door is crafted using six wood plank blocks laid out in the shape of a door.

You can even craft tools. By the time the sun sets, you have managed to craft yourself a wooden sword, pickaxe, shovel, and axe. You are sure your knuckles, square as they may be, will thank you in the long run.

But the moon is rising in the east, and you can already hear the monsters stirring. You pass the night experimenting with more crafting recipes, although it gets hard to see in the dark. You decide: first thing tomorrow, you’re going to go looking for a light.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Avatar

In what is becoming an all-too-common occurrence, Minecraft is once again eating away at my free time, time which should have been spent cleaning. In fact, it might not be too much of a stretch to say that whenever I write about Minecraft, it’s likely because the game has sucked me in again.

But Minecraft is not all fun and games, building and exploring. There is the ever-present risk that you may die.

Yes, this is going to be a rant.

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Minecraft Modding Madness

Well, it happened again: the afternoon got away from me, and it’s all because of Minecraft.

Now don’t worry, I fully intend to continue the Punching Trees Gives Me Wood saga, but since the day is drawing to a close and I still need to post something, we’ll jump ahead a bit and talk about how I spent my afternoon.

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Punching Trees Gives Me Wood – Part 1: The First Night

Even though I have a bunch of serious topics I’d like to talk about, I’m feeling the need to write something more lighthearted. So let’s talk about games. People like games, right?

Let’s talk about Minecraft.

What is Minecraft? I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you if you’re anything like me, I’d never see you again. At its most basic level, Minecraft is a pretty much what it says on the tin: a game about mining and crafting. But that comes nowhere close do doing it justice. Instead, I will attempt to communicate a small fraction of the wonder (and addicting qualities) this game can instill through a series of vignettes. Imagine if you will:

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