Hello and welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past. to discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duvall, and I'm joined as always by my co-host, a man who, well, it's his turn now. I'm tired. Plus, there's the eye thing. Nice. Tim Longo. Yeah, I was a little stuck for... It's a game that doesn't have a lot of dialogue in it, so it's a little...
Hard to come up with the intros that are relevant to Fez that we're playing. Also, I didn't play a ton this week because we had another plan that we were working on that kind of fell through at the last moment. Well, you've played it before. I have played it before. And like when, when we were talking pre-show about possible topics, I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, for sure. I can talk about that. So I'm not worried about that. And I did play it quite in depth. So I'm ready.
But we should definitely dive into your... I mean, you were working out your thoughts earlier today via text, you know, and we should probably start on the platforming. It's really funny because I'm thinking of you playing Hollow Knight. And then playing this. And I'm like, yeah, those things, this one of these tastes is not like the other or whatever, because they are very different sorts of platforming experiences. So you want to talk a little bit about your.
your feel for the platforming and then i can i can maybe chime in with my own Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's specifically about the platforming, but also, I guess I put it in the context of the game as a cohesive piece or, you know, cohesive experience as well, because. You know, you would assume that the platforming that they have created is very intentional based on the kind of game that it is and the puzzles and the world.
you know, and manipulation and the mechanics like platforming all should go together, which they clearly do. And I think it's obviously a very brilliantly cohesive game. But also, as I've said many times when it comes on the podcast before, when it comes to sort of like what my cup of cup of tea is.
And maybe why Hollow Knight resonated so much with me is that it was sort of like a perfect combination. And so I won't talk about Hollow Knight because that's not what we're here to talk about. But in this case... I don't know the history because I haven't seen the movie and you've kind of described a little bit of sort of like, especially Phil Fish's perspective on things and some of his own sort of... persona, I guess I'll say generously.
And so when I hear puzzle platformer, my head goes to Nintendo very quickly for not fair reasons. You know what I mean? Especially with the aesthetic and the inspiration. We talked about the inspiration. last episode being three very clear and inspirational games with the exception of maybe the puzzles part, you know, which isn't as much in those games. And so I think I was coming in with maybe wrong expectations and unfair expectations on sort of the mechanical side.
And on one hand, it's very impressive to have things like... Mantle I mean this this Gomez is not many pixels and they have a lot of great pretty complex animations going on with him And, you know, he can hit a ledge. at waist height and still mantle up onto it. He can sidle around a corner. He can grab a ledge. You know, a lot of things that Mario can't do, for better or for worse. And so I think that has caught me off guard in that it is...
Compared to something like Hollow Knight or Mario, it is not about... Even his ground friction when he lands is pretty loose, you know, and so it is very much a learned behavior. to your point when we were talking about this over text it is definitely a what is your taste kind of thing because You know, there's age old debates about, you know, what is good platforming and what is, but it really is a taste thing because some games revel in the looseness of platforming.
And the fact that you have to really learn the physics of it to be good at it, et cetera. And some revel in the precision of it of like, no, it's very predictable. It's going to do exactly this thing every time. So you can learn that and it becomes. I'm just having a hard time finding my muscle memory so far for this platforming. And so luckily the death is nil. So all the falling that I'm doing, you know, which sometimes feels like, ah, that's.
i should have made that you know um and i'm not blaming the game for sure i just don't think i've gotten a feel for it yet um but luckily it's not punishing so i don't mind And I don't really think the platforming, like, I think technically you can call it a puzzle platformer, but I don't think they're hanging there. Fez on the platforming. Wow. See what I did there? I do, yeah. No, I don't think they are either. I mean, I will say it's still...
It's still precise in the sense, like, it's still repeatable. It's not like... Well, it depends, you know, you know, but it is way more floaty, like a little, little big planet than it is like a Hollow Knight, you know? Yeah. Little big planet was the example I was going to bring up too, because it was a bit of a debate. There was a lot of debate about that. Yeah, and I'm not overly fond of Little Big Planet.
physics because I think it wants more platformy challenges in a way that this doesn't like this game is really a mental game where you navigate the the levels you know through you know some simple verbs right and and one that's not super simple which is the rotate. So I kind of like...
I mean, I'm not passionate about the platforming itself. It's more the ability to explore this world that has these crazy rules and the fact that the the platforming is very forgiving i'm kind of like okay well in the sense that if you fail if you fall you know you either die or you don't go that far like it's got a height you know from which you can't fall and you know
So it's like, OK, you know, I can. And there's some ear steering. And like you said, you don't actually like if you jump up to a thing, but you don't quite make it. That's OK, because if he hits it. you know, middle of his body, he'll just kind of hit and stick on and mantle up, you know? So it's like, okay, it's pretty forgiving. It is a little floaty. It doesn't feel precise like a Mario, but I'm OK with that, you know, and because the pleasure for me is.
really not about that aspect of the navigation. I do really like the rotation, but even the rotation is not about the action of rotating. It's about the thought process of why I'm rotating. Yeah. It's not a mechanical skill. It's never a mechanical skill-based pleasure that I'm taking from the game. I've played platformers that have difficult parts in them that have similar... precedents like Guacamelee for example.
Oh, yeah. Great Metroidvania. Great Metroidvania. I started the first one. I want to play the sequel. I never got around to the sequel. I'm going to have to get on the Steam Deck. Yeah, it was so good. I loved Guacan, but that's another game that I think I got the platinum for and found all the secrets. didn't you know didn't look up a single hint you know just like Just got marinated in that game when I played it. But it's got sections that are very precise.
you know like and memory based and like it's and it is a skill oh my god it's like can you uh yeah i mean hollow knight i'm sure is yeah i mean i've played enough of hollow knight to know like i mean i i'm i'm just getting to a point where it's difficult for me to finish things like that um you know even playing 10 years ago now
super mario galaxy um and getting all the coins in it which was the only time i've ever done that with a mario game to be clear um i went and there's two there's a level where It's like pixel art of Mario. You have to get the seven coins or whatever, seven red coins. But whenever you step on or jump off of one of the pixels, the pixel starts disappearing. So you have to plot a course.
through this you know to hit all these coins on this obstacle course that's like mario but you can't go back to anything you've stepped on before and you know as you cross over things they're going to disappear so like Just figuring out a path. I mean, I think I spent two solid days doing that. And then the way you get the rest of the stars is you play the whole game again as Luigi. So I had to do it again, but the pixel art was Luigi this time. And it was a different path.
So and it was just so hard that I'm like, I don't know if I have that in me anymore to do, you know, in games. It's just like I just don't know that I can spend that kind of time. I mean, I felt this way a little bit when I played. you know like demon souls i think the you know the first time i played that before i kind of
Yeah, you know what I was going to say. Oh, I know. The irony is that us playing that, Dark Souls, has somehow like, I don't know if it's rejuvenated because I don't really know if I ever was seeking this stuff out even in the past, even in my youth. For whatever reason, it's like I've found this, I don't know, masochism or something, you know, for this kind of stuff. And it is because of the high highs.
They're low lows, but it comes with the high highs. Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's real pleasure in overcoming challenges. I'm just less and less able to either have the patience or just literally the physical skill to do them. So it's a it's a thing that I struggle with. I mean, I played something recently. I can't remember now what it was where I had a moment like that where I was like, oh, okay, I'm just going to have to be good. Oh, it was called Kena Bridge of Spirit.
and and that's a sort of aspires to be souls like um the bosses have very are very difficult and it's very much like learn the bosses like learn what the boss does and like get good at the things that you do and it it also just didn't feel quite responsive enough with some of like my understanding of the timing of things was like wow that takes
longer than i want it to to so i have to like anticipate even more you know if i'm you know so it's like i have to pick up really early the what's going to happen Um, but I did it, you know, I, I pulled through, um, and, uh, you know and i was generally you know happy and enjoy the game but and i did have moments where i was like man i yeah i did that and then but there are other times where i was like yeah but it took me 30 tries you know and i just
like it wasn't good enough like the combat didn't feel like that really and you know and so I'm I'm kind of I tend to be more like Yeah, I'm okay with a little sloppiness as long as it's forgiving. You know, that's fine with me, you know, as a player these days. Well, yeah, and I think, and that's why I don't want to be too overly critical of it. I think, like I was trying to caveat, it was more of a wrong expectation coming in, which is always challenging for any game. Um, when you.
attempt well I don't even know if the studio did this but the public you know has classified this game as a puzzle platformer and so I came in you know I came in with again, unfair expectations. But in their defense, the one thing I will say is that ultimately does, based on my taste or not, ultimately it feels appropriate for the game and appropriate for the character and the context.
the world you know because he he is an unlikely hero in my mind at least right he has been given the fez he doesn't know what's going on he's not like He's not like a plumber, for Christ's sake. I mean, he's not like a professional platformer or a bug that isn't really a bug. No spoilers. But yeah, so...
It fits still for me, and I think because of the nature of... this game is really trying to do something else like the platforming is almost like a means to an end anyway you know it's just like it's a it's just an additional like secondary challenge to do what you're really doing, like you said earlier, and it is a puzzle game. I mean, it is just a very brilliantly crafted puzzle game.
that happens to have a character that's moving around in it as the main... Because when you have basically a two-axis game, your challenges are going to end up being something in those realms.
you're always looking at a flat version of the world and so you got to navigate that world. The irony is that I actually worked on a game In that our goals for the Tomb Raider reboot, because we added air steering, we added things to give player more agency, but it was intentionally sloppy and it was intentionally, there's a lot of like guidance that the engine gives.
the player to make it feel like they're doing good stuff you know what i mean but yeah you're still you're still make you feel like you can move but you're still gonna hit that yeah as long as you're heading in the right direction right just out of reach and then her hand just happens to grab it right but you're still air staring and you still as opposed to the previous
two-meter games where they were predetermined. So we added all that in to make it feel more platformy. We actually used platforming games. inspiration so it's not a platformer but the irony is that yeah i mean again my point is in that case the goals i think were appropriate for what what was trying to be done and same here um So I like Gomez a lot. And again, the animations and all the stuff that Mario doesn't do.
really stellar. And there's times when I really love it because it has saved me because I've hit the ledge at the edge and he luckily grabs it or whatever, which is like I'm not used to in a game like this. Yeah, I really enjoy that part of it. And it does kind of free me up. to think right which is i think the you know the the challenge i have with the more precise games is that
I have to actually become pure animal like, you know, in a way, right? It becomes very difficult to think strategically or even just reflect on what I'm seeing. Like, I'm looking for very specific things in the environment. I'm mentioning that sort of Souls-like game, Kena.
is, you know, it's like I'm looking for specifically like a flash or, you know, whatever, all the tells, you know, an animation thing. Like, is he going to do this next or is he going to do this next? I know it could be either one. So I'm looking for those and I've stopped actually seeing the work.
you know, in front of me. And this is very much like, no, because it's kind of, you know, easygoing on the platforming, you can see the world. In fact, you can stop and rotate it at any moment, you know, and he'll just stop moving, you know, which I think also. because of the rhythms of platformers.
The fact that you have to be able to pause him in the middle of any action to rotate the world means you can't rely on precision because the player is going to be interrupting that precision and never really have a rhythm. Yeah, you need some forgiveness there. Yeah, I think it supports it in that way as well. I mean, to your point, again, we're contrasting Hollow Knight maybe obviously a lot just because it is such a good contrast and it's also top of my mind.
There was, what was it? I was, well, I won't even say what boss, but I was playing a boss the other day and it is, you know, it's the souls like model, as you mentioned, and it is about repetition and muscle memory. harder ones. And, you know, I, I had played it probably more than 30 times and I'm just like over and over and just, I'm basically practicing. Right. Yeah. And there was a point when I realized there's always this point when I realized.
I'm almost not even watching the boss anymore. When you first start a boss, you're trying to really like dissect and analyze what's happening so you can like find the patterns. But once you've played it and you're like getting into the rhythm of it, it's almost like through audio, through animation, through effects, like all the different packages come together and you're it's not it is sort of like the matrix in a way right you're like
It's just become such muscle memory where like my eyes blur out almost and I'm not actually focusing on the screen. I'm just like, you know, like doing this dance and it's, it's really an interesting feeling. Yeah, it's like dancing, but the dancer's hideous. Yeah, exactly. Somebody's going to kill the other one. That's a deep thought from Jack Handy. Oh, is it? Wow. Boxing is like dancing, except the dancers hit each other. That was a deep cut of a deep thought. A deep cut thought.
Yeah, no, it is very much like that. You are trying to pick up, even in your peripheral, because when you're staring at something to interpret it, to read it... It actually, you know, you can't engage your muscle memory because you put your brain in the... So you actually have to disengage that part. Right. Right. And I love that this game doesn't have that, you know, because the pleasures are really meant to be. I mean.
I mean, it's, it's fine. Some of the platforming is fine, you know, but it's like the pleasure really meant to be the pleasure of figuring things out, which is a, you know, it's a very different sort of pleasure. So, yeah, it's, I mean, we. We haven't played a lot of puzzle games on the podcast, I feel like, but...
It is, you know, the bread and butter of these games is to make the player feel smart, right? And to make them feel like, oh my, there's no way I could have ever solved that. And then you do. Probably talked about it with Myst a little bit, but it's like... You know, you don't want them to be impossible. You want people to finish. Though I will say, because I did look up. the achievements. So I'm not looking anything up, but I did look those, I just looked at them in Steam.
So I just, what was revealed? And apparently the one, the quote unquote platinum that you got, at least on Steam, 7%. Yeah. That is low for a game. That is very low. And in fact, what was the other one? I'm sure it's around the same on the PlayStation. I wish I could look. I'm surprised to hear this, but I guess there's only five portals, teleporters or whatever. And even just finding all five of them was like 20%, 25%, which is also low.
So, yeah, I mean, maybe this is a pretty, I'm sure it scales, right? So you can probably not do, you know. You can still feel fulfilled not finding all of it. Yeah, I mean, as I was mentioning in pre-show, this is a game that has, yeah, sure, you can get 100%, but you can also get 209.4%, I think, is the max. um so there's you know there's a whole like After you finish the game, there's a whole other game worth of stuff in a manner of speaking.
you know finding all of those secrets i mean and and at that point you're like you're looking at the map you're you know you're like okay here's this one i haven't figured out yet you know here's this question mark on some world somewhere like what am i what am i missing there let me go back and look at it see if we can figure things out there is there are definitely moments where you're like
You finally figure something out and you're like, oh, man, that makes it possible to figure out all these other things that I didn't even realize were there, you know, which is just an amazing.
like you know things that you'll think was are just i don't know like decoration or just not that important just like yeah just kind of theming you know turn out to actually have real meaning and you you know you're like oh my god what you know what does that mean um yeah so it it has that going for it too which you know i think a good puzzle game generally does yeah yeah yeah
Well, I mean, that's, I mean, if I can segue. Yeah, absolutely. That's a segue to one of the other topics that I wrote down in my notes was just, and I don't think we even have to spend too much time on it because I actually don't know what it means, what any of that means yet. Mostly, but I do very clearly feel what you're just saying in that. There are layers of mystery in the world that do feel intentional.
And even though they might look like, so now I've kind of become a little bit paranoid and then I'm trying to keep track of a lot because any of it really, it looks so intentional that any of it could be intentional. And, you know, like the example I gave in pre-show was like the color purple, you know, a structure that has purple, that is purple colored seems to have meaning of some kind. And I could be wrong, but it's like.
tend to be more ancient you know and like kind of like uh you know um more archaeologically you know focused or something like that for lack of a better term. And so now I look for those. There could be a world or a level that has fairly seemingly modern elements. in the context of the game at least. But then there's a purple door or a purple section of it that's a purple lock. And I'm like, oh, I wonder what that's about. And sometimes they end up being secrets. Sometimes they end up being.
a bomb door or something like that. So it's just really, you can tell the craft that was put into it and the real attention to detail, at least for my only 16 cubes in. Yeah. So, yeah, it's very admirable in that regard. And it gives me a lot of anxiety, though, too, because I'm not typically good at these games. I'm always worried because I'm a completionist as well. I'm always worried.
that I'm missing something that I should... These games make me feel like I'm not smart, and so I always feel like I'm missing something. Yeah, I mean... There's a topic there, too, in that you don't always know in this game if you need to move on or not. Right, yeah. And it's a similar sort of... I guess what we're really talking about is sort of capability. You kind of come to games and you want to feel capable.
You know, and whether that's a physical challenge, you know, you know, are reading the systems challenge, a mix of the two, or just like the intellectual capability of picking out what's going on. I mean, I do think that this. One of the things that I think good puzzle games do, and my recollection is that this mostly does it. I think there's some puzzles that are very esoteric.
you you know eventually you'll you might see it and go oh my god i can't believe how many times i've looked at it and not understood what it meant i can remember a very one thing that happened very late in my original play of this game Whereas like, oh my God, that I've been looking at, I've looked at that so many times and not known that it was telling me something. And, you know, maybe on the last episode. Because you might have already actually seen the thing I'm thinking of that I didn't.
Like I just couldn't believe it. And I just was laid bare. I was just like, you know, sitting on the couch, like I can't believe that, you know, and I didn't recognize it for what it was. And in fact, I think in that particular case, I had almost. what that information was telling me in such an easy way.
Like, oh, if I had known that, I knew I would have everything I needed to know that I was trying to solve. I'm trying to not. Wow, you're really dancing around this way. I'm really dancing around it because it's a great moment if you have it. But I had used other methods of cracking. It's sort of like, I don't know if you've heard of Fermat's Last Theorem.
I've heard of it, but yeah. So anyway, this mathematician wrote this equation in his, in his, in the liner notes or in the, you know, margins of some book, you know, like, you know, I forget what it is. It's like... I'm not going to try to reproduce formats at nearly 10 o'clock at night. I'm not at my best. But anyway, it's a very simple, elegant formulation. And he writes underneath it neat proof, but not enough room for it here. And like it went unsolved.
For like, I don't know, a couple hundred years. And finally somebody did solve it. But at the end, like of this extremely esoteric solution, they wrote, you know, and people agreed, like this was clearly not Fermat. solution you know this was not his proof because it used all these branches of you know mathematics that he didn't have access to it that didn't exist you know at the time or vermont it's like we've solved it and proved it to be true, but... It's clearly not Fermat's solution.
There's a much more elegant solution, and we still haven't found that to this day. However he came to it. Yeah. It's still kind of a mystery. It's still a mystery. And it was sort of like that as I was solving it in this other way. Yeah. Right. Right. And the solution was, you know, right there in front of me if I had just seen it, you know, and I was pretty.
Pretty near to a complete solution, I think. And, you know, I'll maybe drop that in the last episode and I'll put spoilers around it for people who haven't played Fez. you know, just to say, Hey, forward, you know, half a minute or a minute or whatever, uh, to skip over this part. But, um, you know, a definite moment. I was just like, oh man, you know, and I, I felt humbled, honestly, you know, which is not, not a thing I normally feel, Tim. I don't know if you know this.
Well, yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, the... The other part that relates a little bit to the platforming conversation because, again, to me, it's not really about specifically the platforming. It's about the choices that designers make. in a holistic way, right? Like why was this the platforming that needed to be in this?
we talked that through and i think there are good reasons there um but as i i've said many times and i think again not to come back to hollow knight but i think you know for me as a gamer My sweet spot, which is just a taste thing, is when... As many of those sort of core... design aesthetics come together in a very cohesive way and kind of... complement each other kind of equally and this one is obviously very dominated by the puzzle side which is is fine and good and it's good for this game
But then by doing that, you end up sort of focusing in a certain area of player space, right? Right. And that's also fine. And every game picks its audience. And, you know, a shooter is the same thing. It's like once you're a shooter, you have chosen your audience, right, to somebody. Um, and you've, you've alienated others and that's.
And so I think for, because Hollow Knight checks so many of my boxes and then does it in a very cohesive kind of equally balanced way, you know, cause there's, there's not puzzles in there, but there are kind of.
that you're like, huh, I wonder what this, especially with the true ending, you're like, I wonder what this is all about, you know? Right. And I'm only now kind of getting... I love when that was kind of, you know, I love it when the plan comes together kind of stuff for me, for me, because you, you came into Fez saying, you said a couple of times, this is one of the greatest games ever made. And I was like, whoa, okay, that ratchets it up for me.
And I think I'll put a qualifier on that for you. Yeah, exactly. You know, which is relative for everybody. But it's really cool to come into a game to have you say that and for me to say, oh, okay. wow okay so i need to make i need to pay attention because this is this is something special and it is it is Yeah, I mean, and I feel that way too about Hollow Knight, but also like if I were to make a list of all timers.
Hall and I wouldn't be on it for me because I can't do it. Right. The Pogo in particular, I just like, for whatever reason, I just cannot nail the timing on that. Yeah. The Pogo is. Yeah. I mean, there was one like area I couldn't get across consistently. Like. Oh, no, I get it. You don't have to. No, I understand. It is a punishment. But similar to your point about the revelation you had in Fez, there have been moments in...
in the sort of milieu, I guess I'll say, of Hollow Knight for me, where my jaw has dropped. And just like some of the... the, the moments in the other game. I won't mention again that I had where I will never forget, you know, where I'm like the first time I got to this place or the first time I'd be like, Oh my God, that connects to that. Like. Holy mackerel. Yeah, exactly. That just happened? Yeah. I mean, I got that far in Olenite where there were things where I was like,
no way. So I've definitely gotten that far. And I do want to go back to that. And maybe it will end up being on my list. bully through but i just those are the yeah those are the the main those are the amazing moments for people those are why they get they stick with you yeah all timers you know so yeah um anyway um Well, let's talk a little bit about the sort of design element.
uh or design elements of the like the sort of escalation of rules i think is how you put it in the pre-show of just like You know, like, well, once this, therefore that, you know, and then we were talking about our proof earlier. It's very it's very kind of similar in that you're exploring a space. It's like, well, I can do this. Well, that means I would be able to do this. Yeah, but you didn't think.
you'd also be able to do this, you know, it's kind of like that piling things up. So what are, you know, are there, can you think of any like specific things where you're like, oh, I didn't expect like. It wasn't obvious to me that that was going to fall out of this kind of decision, right? That you can rotate. Well, the easy one, and again, I'm only 16 cubes in, so I just got to, I just opened the 16 cube door, which apparently takes me to this village of...
of people who are all speaking in that language. So I can't understand them. So it's like a fun, that was a fun reveal.
um really really cool with real because they they do the whole spinning the whole you know world to show you so i'm not that far in but but these examples are pretty i think easy in this regard and i and we've talked about on the podcast a lot and i think to some degree for me at least it's one of the corners of the podcast for me is we're playing these classic games of really high quality and there's reasons that they are considered classic.
And oftentimes for me, I love, especially because of my day job, seeing how somebody comes up with this kernel of an idea. that is interesting and trying to do something specific and then you take that one simple thing and you build upon it right um to extend it into a full game not just an idea for a prototype or something even i won't even say idea but something on screen that's
and then you want to make it into a full game. How do you do that while keeping the player's interest and surprising them and making the difficulty curve appropriate and all these sorts of things? things you want to do for a game to be like fully fleshed out. And so when they, you know, I'm obviously thinking about it from their perspective, does somebody had the idea of spinning the world? Okay. We're going to make a puzzle platformer where you.
spin this two-dimensional world in three dimensions. Okay, so now I can see how I can jump and then spin the world and then land on a platform. You know, like there's these escalating elements where you're like, okay, simple concept. Let's roll it out to them over time. And the example, the reason I put this on my notes is that, okay, yes, you can spin the world, but what if you could spin things inside the spinning world?
You know, and so they introduced this concept of rotating objects. And I think it does start like, well, the first ones that I found were these skulls, these like skull, stone skull. and you had to face them all the same direction and then it opened a door so they're okay i get the concept of that and then they introduce these pillars that you can you hold on to the you know the bar and then you can
push them and then spin them around and then also spin the world. So you kind of got to do both. So now you have like, I guess, eight perspectives. I mean, it's, I know it's multiplying more than that, but you, you know, you have the four directions you can spin the world, but then you also have four directions.
And then they have one tower that has a door hidden inside of it, but it's nested. Two different rooms are nested. And each of the rooms spins, the outside room and the inside room spins. So you have to spin them on different locations. So you have to spin one and then go up and spin the other. And then you obviously have to line up both of them to get into the door, which you don't know there's a door there until you find it.
And you're spinning the world. So it's like these awesome and. And then my favorite one is that right next, I think literally right next to that tower or maybe in an adjacent world. there's this large screw basically with threads and And I get to it initially because I've done all this spinning in other ways. And then there's bars down there that he grabs onto. And I'm like, OK, I'm going to spin this. And I spin it and nothing.
moves and nothing spinning. I'm pushing and I'm like, what's happening? Am I doing this wrong? I go to the other side and I push and I'm like, Gomez. Spin this thing. What are you doing? And then I realized you have to hold the bar on the threaded screw and you spin the world. So it doesn't spin because you're holding it. And it's like, you know, mind blown. They're like, oh, right. I'm not actually spinning this thing. And so then you corkscrew up and it raises the platform because it's a...
you know, it's a thread. So I'm spinning, spinning, spinning as I raise myself up to a level that I can do the jump. So it's like these escalating mechanics, you know, on this puzzle system that is the genesis of is just this simple concept of spitting the world. But then they're like, okay, now that we know we can do that. What else can we do? Right. Yeah. It's like this chain of implication, right? It's like, well, this implies that.
But if we added this element, then that would imply, you know, and you just kind of like add these implications up. And the genius of a good puzzle game is like... presenting those in a series of ways that the player can encounter them and again this is non-linear right yeah it's non-linear in that some things you're going to come back to like you can
you can skip some things, I guess, because the economy is loose enough, like the platforming, that you can proceed further without getting all the things, even if you have all the skills.
um you know when you when you start out you just can't you yeah i haven't quite figured out how to do that yet and so you can't get the one little cube bit or whatever um in that one place and it's okay there's others right and so you can get to your 16 or whatever um But the genius of a puzzle game is to present those implications in such a way that you're never at a point where the leap of logic is too far for you to make.
that you can look at it and it might take some fiddling, right? And you might have to experiment and all of that, you know, like you were doing with the screw. Like, huh, that's really weird. Why won't he just hold it or whatever or just push it? And then making that next step is like, ah, you've now learned.
something inherent about the world that you didn't understand before, you know, this world, you know, and that's really a great moment, you know, and I, I remember that that screw when you were describing in pre-show. Oh, I remember figuring that out. I remember the moment of life.
oh wow if i hold it it's not going to move because i'm not really moving you know and therefore it's going to go up this thread you know this threaded screw that's amazing you know i can totally remember that you know and that one stands out and i'm sure there's going to be others you know because i don't you know
I don't I don't remember lots of particulars, but as soon as I see things, I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember this. This was super cool, you know, whatever. So I'm sure I'll have a lot more of that to come as well. Yeah, the ladder thing, I really liked the ladders where there's like, I think, four ladders on top of another.
And they were mechanically, you know, whatever, by some machine in the world. Yeah, it's the lighthouse. They were counter rotating. Yeah, it was the lighthouse, which is a section I like generally. It's just picturesque. But the so like sections one and three were rotating. If you look down from the top clockwise and two and four were rotating counterclockwise, but they'd line up every other rotation. Right. Because I think there are ladders on both sides.
So, you know, you'd be climbing up the ladder and the world would spin and now there'd be a ladder you could continue on to and then the world would spin again and now there wouldn't. So you were like timing the movement. And.
you know and it wasn't difficult it wasn't that it was difficult it was just neat you know and um you know again it kind of taught you something about how to think about the world and like what you might need to do when you encounter or whatever, things that were automated that you were not doing. in the world as well so and i think that that stuff is super Yeah, it's just are just great moments of like.
Oh, I, you know, I didn't think about that as a thing I'd be able to do in this game. Like, because I was thinking platformer, you know, or whatever. And, you know, the movement that it allows is just super cool, I think. Yeah, another one I just thought of is there's – that's to your point on automation. There's – Suspended in thin air rotating platforms that I've seen recently that when you land on them, they spin the world for you. So, you have to-
It adds in timing elements, I guess, right? Because they're spinning on a rhythm. And so if you jump at the wrong time, the thing you're jumping to may not be there, right? Because it spun the way you would normally control it. But now they've taken it. away from you. So it adds in some of that Mario timing. platforming. It's interesting having a platform in Mario move back and forth in a two-dimensional way and you have to time when to jump on.
or mega man or something right like we all get that but how would you do that in a game where the world spins it's like oh well you make The platform stays in place. And it is spinning the world. But by doing that, it's moving the things around it.
relative to gomez so the thing you're jumping to actually the timing element comes into oh that thing might be behind you because it just spun you know on a on a clock so it's like it's taking also taking these these conceits from traditional platformers and, and turning them on it on there, literally turning them on, on its head. And it's a simple concept, but again, once you, I just love, and I think every great game will have this, this, this sense of.
balance sort of escalation where it doesn't feel unfair, but you're like you said earlier, you're doling this stuff out at a pace that makes the player feel like you're learning more, overcoming more. And, yeah, being smart and being clever and, like, overcoming these challenges. And so far, at least, with the exception of the times when I know there's stuff left in an area that I haven't found. And I'm not sure if I have the tools I need to find it.
That's pretty frustrating. Yeah. But I don't know. See, that's my anxieties. I don't know if it's just me not being smart or if I actually don't have a tool. Yeah. And honestly, I can't remember. My thinking is that there are cases in which there's information that you don't know yet. And because you don't know it.
It's probably theoretically possible to do, you know, what's there, but it's just like... the point like the point is to occasionally have new lenses on which you can view the game i mean the point is really at sometimes to to get an aha moment of like oh that thing i couldn't figure out a couple levels back that i left
I know what to do now. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's valuable. But you don't want to throw that away. I definitely don't want to, I don't want them to over tell me. It's a hard, it's a hard. Like, it's hard to know where to draw that line and like how much of that to have. And like, and I just wouldn't be anxious about it. It's like, I mean, if you get to the point where you're like, well, I don't have enough cubes to do whatever, you know, I can't move forward.
then that's the point where you have to like, okay, well, let me re-examine some of the places I've been. Yeah, and that's what I'm doing. Yeah, I mean, it's the backtracking of that when you're... Yeah, it's, you know, we talked about them with the various Resident Evils.
I don't know if it would have been... worse if they would have given you an indication of that or not I guess like you said it diminishes the revelation part of it If it was easier to navigate the world, they do have fast travel in some cases, but it's sort of a backtracking of like, oh, shoot, that one over there on the map is white and it's pretty far away. I don't know if I have what I need. I don't know. It's definitely a hard problem. It's a hard problem.
But I mean, the reason, one of the reasons I looked at the achievements wasn't to spoil anything. I did a little bit of spoiler by looking. Not too much, but it was to see the percentages. And we talk about wall missions all the time. You know, it's like if you have some, if you have a, if I do hit a wall, which I likely will. And there's a bunch of white spaces on the map.
uh those are the times when i usually put puzzle games down right because it's like oh man i have i have myself you know for sure yeah yeah yeah but but to your point if you soldier on And, you know, let it stew. Usually with puzzle games, for me at least, like if I simmer. You know, something will come to me. Yeah, and I have put down puzzle games. You know, there are some... I don't believe it. I've never finished The Witness or Brain.
Oh, interesting. Okay. So you didn't see the ending of Braid. No, I've seen it because... Because I went to a talk he gave and talked all the way through it. And I was like, oh, huh. And with the witness. I mean, The Witness is much bigger, so it was more just kind of exhaustion at a certain point. Like, there's something I don't find.
That one's almost purely like buying a book of Sudoku puzzles or something like that. You just like sit down and... it's like well i'm just going to do some of these you know every day and you have 500 of them and you're after you've done 200 you're like i kind of want to break from sudoku now you know and you never go back you know and that's kind of kind of what happened there for me more than anything um
Although there were some puzzles that were extremely difficult, it was more that I was like, I'm just not enjoying this. the play of this anymore and the intellectual aspect is too it's too just like i look at this pattern and solve the pattern um and i've figured out you know and i just keep going i figure out things i liked when it was more world inflected but there are points where
here's a big complicated puzzle that I know all the pieces of, but working out the logic of it, it's just going to take me a while. And I'm, I don't feel like I'm going to get much out of it anymore. You know, and I'm trying to think of other ones I haven't finished. The Talos principle was another one where you're like, it's like.
Sort of like laser maze type puzzles, you know, some of them anyway. I don't, you know, not all of them probably. And I don't remember the game very well, but it was a similar thing where I only played a little bit. That one actually made me a little motion sick as well. And actually the witness did. uh, before he, they added some, uh, some field of view or, or, uh, and, uh, and a pointer, you know, a, a pip, a reticle. you know, because I am very prone to motion sickness in games.
Um, and it's like, it's the worst thing, especially one on a TV. That's pretty rare for me to sit on the TV and feel it. Um, so it was like, oh man, that's not good when I'm feeling it from that. And who knows why, you know? I think it's when the worlds are really stark like that that makes it accentuated.
so yeah but anyway so those are a few I know I've never finished but then like I played all of the missed games I could get to run as well as abduction and I can't remember if there was another one but I played all of those and like you know no hints muscled my way through all of them and loved them you know um they weren't very deep in terms of But the world was really cool to move around in and like making the connections.
uncovering the stories and yeah understanding what happened i love that stuff they're special yeah those are those are really special unique kinds of puzzle yeah yeah and they harken back to as well right even though the you know the sort of style of uh of what you're doing is very different right i mean in in text adventures you know there can be wordplay there can be you know there's but there's also often just sort of the logical connections you know that i i really appreciate and that's why
since that's where i started it's also a big part of what i you know We played Abduction as a bonus episode, didn't we? I think we did, yeah, but I played it all the way through. Yeah, yeah, but I remember liking it. Now that you mention it, I have fond memories of it. Yeah, I hope Scion Worlds manages to survive. Yeah, they're going through some stuff. Like everybody.
Yeah, I think there's an important, and we don't have to talk about it now or long or really ever, but I think there isn't, to your point on the difficulty and sort of even for you putting down some puzzle game. or any genre, I think that's actually an important topic for this series.
And maybe we talked about it last episode when we kicked it off, but I think that the interesting thing about the indie game space is, as opposed to... you know, I guess the, whatever the opposite of that is, I'll just say generally is that. When you have more cooks in the kitchen in like a publishing model or something, you know, you're not spending your own money or whatever it is, right? Or they have their own goals. And so that goes through sort of a...
being generous, I'll call it an editorial sort of process, right? Where it's like they're going to make something that they want to be achieving certain metrics. you know, the fancy pants would say KPI. But in an indie game space, I would assume there's freedom if you want to make a game very specifically for a very specific audience who loves Sudoku. and wants to play 500 sudokus,
in a row that get very, very difficult. That is up to you. You can do that. You know, there isn't, there isn't a CFO someplace or some marketing department who is trying to like, you know, figure out how to sell this game, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. hundreds thousands of reasons but i think there's that huge fork in the road even you know even fez is an unorthodox kind of game very good but I don't mean to be coming back to the percentage of completion from the
But I think it is a good example of like, it's okay. This is what they wanted to make. Nobody was telling them what to do. They did what they wanted to do. And so 7% finished the game. That's okay. That is what this is all about. Versus like those metrics are very scrutinized on a AAA game of like, you know, you need people to get to a certain, whatever, you know, that's.
So for folks who don't know, KPI, key performance indicator, for those who not, because sometimes Tim just drops this stuff in here. I'm sorry. It's all right. I hate that term too, but yeah, key performance indicator. But yeah, I mean, it's very common, especially with service games to like be tracking your key performance indicators and picking them is really important. But but yeah, it's also just like.
A game like this, because it is only a couple of people, a handful of people, the budget is small. They can actually, in some respects, find their audience, you know, like. you you're making the world's best sudoku game like you can go out and find the sudoku forums you know and like find your tribe you know and as long as you can
reasonably estimate the size of that tribe, then you'll probably do okay. Now I think, you know, Fez did a lot better than okay uh in large part because of the of the movie right and you know sort of it was very well and and it's of course very very good right but um you know those two things i think uh collided you know and and i think the same was true also of braid and super meat boy the other two games
featured in the film right right well yeah and i think seven percent says that it a lot of people bought it yeah exactly right and and it's okay i'm not saying people need to finish games lord knows i don't but um But to your point, finding your audience is a different proposition in an indie space. And it's a lot more in the developer's hands. where you can succeed but also fail, right? Completely on your own. In the AAA space, you have more of a security net there, right?
Well, in theory. In theory, the idea is to try to use as much as you can to de-risk things, right? By making something that will at least make its money back. But it doesn't always happen. Yeah, it's just a big fork in the road there that we just don't talk a lot about. We've talked a lot about. We're in a pretty traditional approach and they go through a process. Unlike, you know, except for like the stories we got for like...
Fallout, for instance, right? That was like sort of this side thing. Yeah, yeah. Or XCOM, right? That was like, shouldn't have come out.
Yeah. And I think the further we go back to the less people kind of knew, right? There weren't channels to know, right? There was no internet to... you know there if you weren't getting you know seeing mail and you know nintendo power or whatever like you didn't know you know what what problems people had so um and and the markets of course were smaller as well right so there was also
It could be a smaller, more cohesive team. You know, we've talked about all that's well, well covered ground by us at this point. But it's, you know, it's. So in a way, it's a fork in the road, but in another way, it's kind of a return to basic principles where it's just that the overall market isn't as much larger, therefore having a very small piece of it.
you know is a is something you can live on you know uh you know and in some cases get rich on you know depending on the success of your game um so you know and and and i think these three games uh you know achieve that kind of level um i don't know too much i mean just because they were fairly low cost and and uh in sold pretty wildly you know for for those kind of expectations so it's um yeah they really worked out well
Let's put a pin in it there because I want to get to an email that I think we're going to have to read twice. once maybe for each of us. I'm going to have to take some notes here as we do it. This was, of course, sent to devgameclub at gmail.com. Could you read this email? And I'm going to need you to... the call-out choices you make as we go. Go ahead and get started. We'll see how it goes. Jeez. Talk about a puzzle. Yep.
Even our email is a game. Thank you, one mystery dip. Subject, choose your own email. Where did he come up with this? Jokester. By the way, as an aside for anyone who is a plug for the discord, you'll plug it later. We had a sort of accidental... Like just a few of us getting into the voice channel and then we just more streamed his Minecraft that way because we didn't get to stream last week. I want to try to do more of that. It was just fun to just do like a discord only.
you know, small stream, just jumping on and chatting. So Mystery came in. it oh okay cool yeah he also also i think that this email actually came out of a discussion in one of the channels in there as well i think that's where The sort of term of this idea came from, although its particular presentation is its own thing. But enough preamble about the UN. Okay, so, okay.
I don't know sure how to read this, but it said number one, warning to readers, do not read this email straight through from beginning to end. These paragraphs contain many different questions you can think on. From time to time as you read along, you will be asked to make a choice. Your choice may lead to success or disaster. The paragraphs you read are a result of your choice. After you make your choice, follow the instructions to see what you'll...
What you're asked next remember you cannot go back think carefully before you make a move one mistake can be your last For full disclosure, I was one of those kids that read the whole Choose Your Own Adventure book. Yeah. Straight through. I didn't want to go by the rules. Okay, so turn, it already says turn to paragraph seven.
Okay. Hey, Brett and Tim. This is paragraph seven. That's what I said to do. There were some conversations on the Discord a few weeks ago about games with choices and how meaningful they can be, especially with a series of games. in a choose-your-own-adventure format. Did you, Mr. E. Derp? You thought it would be fun. Turn to paragraph five, okay?
All right, so here's going to be your first branch point. Okay, do you think if given the chance, players would rather have a story that is unique to them or one that is similar as a similar experience across playthroughs? which they can use to relate to other players. so yeah you have to answer this question tim okay unique turn page paragraph nine same Oh my gosh. Or you sighed before answering. I just sighed. I just sighed. Did you hear it?
He knew. He knows you, yeah. He knows. Oh, man, mystery. This is meta. I'm going to go with unique. Turn to paragraph nine. Despite the fact that you sighed, I guess you'll go to nine. Okay. Oh, I see. I see. Or you sighed before answering. Same. Okay. I see what he meant there. No, I'm sticking with my choice. Nine, it seems like systemic procedural content would be an answer to the amount of dev work permutations create. But when endless stories can be generated, do they lose their value?
No. Turn to page 15 or paragraph 15. Okay. With increased buzz around... Crap. Oh no, what have I done? With increased buzz around AI content generation, specifically storytelling, do you think if it reaches a certain ability level, players will enjoy playing a dynamic story with no human involvement or would the game feel hollow? Ah, a hollow. Turn to paragraph three. You see I'm even turning this into a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
How do you feel about the illusion of choice as a dev and a player when presented with multiple options that lead to the same conclusion? boss fight where the character dies anyway. Oh, I don't like them. Turn to paragraph 10. The pressure's mounting. 10, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions. I wish I knew how you handled the other ones you didn't get to, but I guess you'll never, we'll never know.
Read the PS. Turn to paragraph four. Had enough. Turn to paragraph 12. I've had enough mystery. Regards. Mystery dip. Email over. Oh, my God. That's one of the best emails. Yeah, that's pretty great. It's pretty great. Well, now I have to do it. Yes, you do it. Okay. I have to maybe branch differently. Okay. One is the warning. So I'm going to skip over that because there's no...
There's nothing new to be gained there. Same with seven. It goes to five. But it's, hey, Brett and Tim, there were some conversations, et cetera. Choose your own adventure. Go to paragraph five. Do you think, if given the chance, Players would rather have a story that is unique to them or one that is a similar experience across playthroughs, which they can use to relate to other players.
My thinking on this is, unless you're going to play it again, what difference does it make? So I'm kind of in a... I don't know. I, I almost like people will talk about unique as well. I realize, but I also think that like, For me, I never... I actually prefer an authored story most of the time because it feels better. So in general, I'm just going to branch here. I'm going to go to 11. Yeah, do it, do it. In part, just to have the different experience.
What happens when a successful game with hard choices gets a sequel? I should caveat or clarify at this point that the discussion was around... the mass effect series yeah which i had said something like well i played mass effect 3 i don't remember too much about it except i got the good ending which you know you if you remember the whole there's a whole thing about the ending of mass effect 3 in fact
It is to date, I think, the only certainly mass market game that has been patched to change the ending because players were so up in arms. Anyway. Hmm. Hmm. I'm going to say yes, it is possible. It's just difficult. Is there a way to keep optional DLC expansion content meaningful when not everyone will purchase? Yes, of course. Yes. Yes. And now we go to...
Not only that, but you probably want it to be so more people purchase it. Well, yeah, true. But yes, yes, I do. And actually, what I would say about this... And I would say about any of these, you know, sort of narrative like, well, does it matter this or, you know, if you have choices and if they're meaningful, I would say just making the choice, even if the same result occurs, is meaningful. Because you still had the experience of making a choice. Like that's the experience, right?
So if you pick, for example, I'm about to hit a choice. I'm replaying the first Wolfenstein reboot game. And there's a choice early in the game where... you can either pick one character or the other who's going to basically get killed by the Nazis immediately in front of you, grotesquely. And...
And it kind of doesn't matter because the mission is about to end and some big story thing is going to happen. It really doesn't matter. There is a mechanical difference in how the game plays, but it really doesn't matter to the story, let's say. What choice you make there is still a choice you made for a reason. And the fact that you made that choice is an experience that you had. And so I always feel like... Even if a choice has no, quote unquote, objective, you know, impact.
It still has a subjective impact. And I don't play games for objective impact. I play them because of what they do for me. So anyway. uh anyway now we're at 10 which is thanks for taking the time to answer some questions i wish i knew how you handled the other ones you didn't get to but i guess we'll never know um and then i will read the ps since he was he had had enough
And I skipped a little faster over mine. Oh my God. Some of the ones we didn't hit though. Yeah. I'm not sure they're all reachable. P.S., this option is to be filled in by the P.S. DLC, which I'll no doubt be sending as a follow-up email later. Wow. And then he says, turn to paragraph 12 regards, mystery dip, email. I will say there was a separate PS email that came later in the week.
Oh, PS. This is the PS DLC. Do you think it's better for a game to be a self-contained narrative or swing for the fences? He puts in quotes, making an epic expecting sequels or expansions to come. What if they don't come? So I don't know, as you're a guy who is routinely set up a sequel that never came, what are your thoughts on this, sir? I hate to say that depends, but it does depend.
There are times when I think you just got to go for it. Because it's a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy problem, right? Or maybe not a problem. When you think there might be the ability, and then it's a bummer, obviously, for the audience when it doesn't happen. But then there are times when you're like, you know what? I don't know. Let's just make sure that this is good and not worry about the future. So yeah, it does depend for me. It's a lot of...
I am, you know, and I take this more from other media than I take it from games, because in games, I kind of really don't care, honestly. But, you know, I've just rewatched all of Twin Peaks. And that is two series that ends on basically an unresolved question. I mean, I guess the second, like when it ended the first time, we did not think we were ever getting any more Twin Peaks.
And so it was, in a sense, never resolved, not to ever be resolved. And for 25 years, it wasn't. And I was fine with it. I loved it. despite the fact that it opened up a whole Pandora's box of additional.
questions and like what would happen next kind of kind of things and i was great i i don't mind an unresolved ending So I guess I would tend to lean towards unresolved is fine, you know, and if you get a chance to work with it again in the future, like we're still all waiting for Half-Life 3 or whatever.
And then the series ended again with the return and also opened up a whole Pandora's box of questions in that final episode, which I just watched last night. So it's very much on my mind of just like... Oh my God. You know, and I love it. You know, I, I love that stuff. Um, you know, and I, I don't mind that I'm never going to get answers. I can sit with that, like not knowing. You know, there's a moment. I can't remember the name of the movie, but it's Adam Driver and Ben Stiller.
And the whole thing is about how they're very different sorts of people because of their generations. And, you know, Ben Still is a documentary filmmaker and Adam Driver is like an up and coming one and their wives are there. And there's a point at which they're trying to remember something. And Ben Stiller goes to look it up on his phone and Ham Driver says, no, let's. Let's just not know. That's a great moment in a movie. Wow, that's really profound in this day and age. That sounds like it.
That's perfect, yeah. I think it was called While We're Young. I've heard that's good. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty good. I think it's Noah Baumbach maybe. Oh yeah. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. As a quick aside though, I will say that I'm looking at the original email. Passage 14 and 6 are inaccessible. Yeah, I have a flowchart email that followed because he had to make his own.
flowchart so he can make sure things connected back so he sent me i i congratulated him via the via discord private message on his email The PS DLC is brilliant. Yeah, of course. Well, there's always a PS. So I like that you didn't want it. And I was like, well, I'll read it. And then I had to go download the DLC.
okay well let's uh that was of course sent to dev game club thanks very much mystery dip uh for the entertainment to devgameclub at gmail.com also in the google system how's that for segue and this is the last time i'm going to say it because i don't know why i'm saying it we recently added ourselves to youtube you should be able to get all the shows there
I should probably check and make sure these new shows have been going there. But I know a few people, three at last check, have subscribed there. I guess if you mostly get your podcast via YouTube, you wouldn't know that we're on YouTube. So I'm not sure who I'm talking to, but congrats. It's there now. Yeah. Organically. Yeah. We're organically served up this.
uh we'd also love to have your reviews i check the ios uh you know infrastructure and all that but anywhere you use them we think we're a five-star podcast and uh we hope that you think the same uh you find us on the web at dev game club or you can find my co-host twitching at twitch.tv slash
Tim Longo Jr. with the JR at the end. And I gather I need to react. That reminds me. Yeah, the Minecraft. We got some stuff to do. Yeah, I got to arrange that tomorrow. I mean, I'll just re-add you and we'll. figure out the rest of it later and i know they want me to turn on various add-ons and things but Yeah, remind me tomorrow at work. I will. Yeah. Because I have to download it because the laptop that I had Minecraft on has died.
Uh, and I haven't taken it to be serviced yet. Um, anyway, we're also on the discord, uh, that is a fan run discord and there is a link in the show notes. It's a good time. as you can hear. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by friend of the cast Aaron Evers, and our logo, that Discord, our merch store, which you can find through that Discord, are all by Mark Garcia.
Have fun tilting at windmills or even just tilting windmills this week. And good night. Good night.