Red page/blue page.
So which game does define the videogame genre in the 90s? Myst, or Doom?
Also known as: how “gamers” forged themselves a history… and an identity.
Roll Therapy DC 20.
So I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m not… always enthusiastic about the trend in indie tabletop RPGs towards making deeply intimate games that focus on psychological trauma and interpersonal drama (see Monsterhearts, Bluebeard’s Bride, and Ten Candles, for example). Not to deny that these games can be fun, but they’re also sort of the TTRPG equivalent of Oscar bait; focusing on the cheap evocation of emotion rather than anything necessarily substantial.
Oh, and also? They’re an absolute nightmare when it comes to people using them as an inappropriate form of therapy. So, yanno. There’s that.
Things I care about in RPGs:
- What awesome race can I play? (Horns/tails preferred.)
- What awesome clothes can my PC wear to look awesome at all times?
- Who are my love interests and what tragic story can I console them through?
[…]
- Combat, I guess.
So, like. In Oldschool Adventure Games there’s basically two “types”: the King’s Quest and the Monkey Island.
In the Monkey Island, failure in a puzzle means you just get to try the puzzle again. Maybe you get some funny dialogue, or a cutscene, but there’s no real punishment for mistakes.
In the King’s Quest, mistakes (usually) mean you die.
One of those series was developed by a woman. I’ll let you work out for yourselves which one.
It’s not cheating… it’s IP infringement!
Here’s a question for you: is cheating in games (specifically, using third-party cheat programs that alter the game in -memory) copyright infringement?
This is, I think, what one would call a “novel” approach to combating cheating in a online game. I’m also kind of reminded of the fandom C&D days (specifically, the Harry Potter wars) of the early 2000s.
And while it’s kinda lulz to watch some 1337 h4xx0r kid get, quite literally, served in Fortnight, if the legal argument holds up (i.e. that using trainers is copyright infringement), then places that deal in single player game cheats are also at risk and, shit. That basically means I will never play a video game ever again.1
- “You could just not cheat!” Yeah, and you could mind your own goddamn business. ^
The worst RPG.
I’m sure no one had high hopes for anything called Fantasy Adventure to Adult Lechery, but oh my god does it get so much worse than you could imagine. [Massive content warning for just about everything, but specifically misogyny, sexual assault, racism, and homophobia. The dudes writing the review are also, uh, doing so In The Style of The Time, i.e. the early 00s, meaning there’s a lot of casual ableism thrown in on their end, too…]
Thought One: I’m sure that there’s a market out there for indie adult-themed RPGs that, like, aren’t racist, misogynist, cissexist, heteronormative messes. Surely these must exist, right? Like, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having an RPG that focuses on sex and the mechanics thereof; even weird sadomasochistic noncon body-horror nightmare-fuel transformation fetish sex.1 So why is it that whenever I hear about one of these games—and, yes, I’ve heard of more than one—it’s because they’re not just awful, but always awful in exactly the same way?
Haha. Yeah, that was a rhetorical question. We all know why.
Thought Two: It was coincidence that I happened to stumble across this review—months ago, by the time this posts—at the same time incel terrorism happened to be in the news, but I couldn’t help but think about the latter while I was reading the former. It’s not just the raging misogyny, either, but something about the whole… I dunno. Pungent mix of misapplied pseudo-academic bullshit and walking Dunning–Kruger cluelessness.
Thought Three: On the plus side, this review lead me to the game KULT, which, while it will not be Everybody’s Bag Baby, is definitely mine. So… there’s that, at least.
- Like, there is a non-negligible market for this stuff in the erotica space, that’s both written by and for women. So it’s not like it’s some exclusively male thing. But what does seem to be “exclusively male” is the whole “trying to pass off your sexual fetishes as ‘historically/biologically accurate” thing. ^
The most realistic flight simulator, coming soon to a VR headset near you!
An artist is YOU!
How we say what we’re saying. Warning for spoilers for The Beginner’s Guide, obviously.
Incidentally, this Let’s Play of the Guide has the most pitch-perfect blend of viewer-player-game interaction during the final “reveal” that you will probably ever see in any media ever.
Laundry lists.
Alex Acks on writing for games.
I think my main take-home from this is that maybe, just maybe, microtransaction-based puzzle games are not, yanno. “Story-first” experiences…