290. Forever Games Are Just Rude
May 12, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Episode description
Lords:
* Lena
* Droqen
Topics:
* Kill gameplay
* https://droqen.itch.io/the-end-of-gameplay
* The thrill of firefighting on live service games, and how to stop
* It was D and K who showed me the way
* https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=705
Microtopics:
* Great content.
* Multiplayer games that are focused on human connection.
* Farmers' markets.
* Kinopio. (The mind-mapping software.)
* Just barfing stuff onto the page.
* Looking at a piece of software that someone has polished for fifteen years and being astounded.
* Weird ego boosts.
* Meeting hundreds of people whose names you recognize from the Internet and they're all like "I love the thing you made."
* Pursuing the thing that other people say is good about your work and forgetting what you liked about it yourself.
* A nebulous idea whose lot in life is to be dominated by more concrete ideas.
* Making your next game with the intention of killing your most popular game.
* Unlocking creative expression into a vessel.
* Tolerating a combat system to get to the good parts of a game.
* Playing a game because you enjoy pushing the buttons.
* A museum exhibit of a hundred different platformer control schemes.
* Using your ability to hang out with people to tell them a story.
* A list of all the ideas you've ever had.
* The safety of watching the numbers go up.
* An interaction that exists to be self-perpetuating.
* Advertising as a way to tell people that a thing exists vs. all the noxious cruft that we've grown on top of that idea.
* Game addiction as a thing that is desirable.
* Games that grip you as tightly as possible vs. games that gracefully end and allow you to stop playing.
* Game developers accidentally discovering that they can Skinner Box people and then deciding "let's build our entire industry around that forever"
* The mantra you use to remind yourself to not put gameplay in your games.
* Trying to detect the humanity in a work of art.
* Trying to express your experiences in a medium and knowing you at least have an audience of one. (Yourself.)
* Disagreeing about color names.
* It's Thanksgiving and people are at-ing you on Twitter that your online service isn't working.
* Moving fast enough that you don't have time to sit with your thoughts and second-guess yourself.
* The true meaning of a Lord.
* How to sit with the discomfort of uncertainty.
* Solving a problem before you get the chance to wonder whether solving the problem aligns with your values.
* Running an online world that gets hacked and rolling back only 98% of the hack, leaving enough to remind people that this is a world with a living history.
* Ruminating about your past actions as a way to learn how to behave in the future.
* Acting without reflection because you can't reflect and act at the same time.
* It doesn't matter what you do as long as you feel really bad about it afterwards.
* How to stop.
* Don't make live service games.
* Sitting with the knowledge that you are going to make mistakes.
* Staring at blue-green walls.
* The most juicy fire-fighting that's available.
* The horrible steak that is life.
* Trying to construct your life so that you are doing something thrilling and important for one to four hours per day and then relaxing.
* The introverted fire fighter who has his own personal cardboard box to cover his head with as he's hanging out at the station.
* What's-his-letter?
* If Heaven's so good, why haven't they made a Heaven 2?
* Making a one-user forum for yourself.
* Poetry 2: it's when you do something interesting with forum posts.
* Doing something for brain reasons and then people who you inspire do the same things to so they can pretend to have the same brain reasons.
* Adding everyone who ever influenced you to the credits of your game.
* Intentionally excluding the U.
* Suck it, English orthography!
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android
Open in Metacast