Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Trespasser. We look through the glass darkly at the mistakes and how they illustrate some things, before turning to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
Finished the game!
Issues covered: the funhouse mirror, writing the weird things on the whiteboards, voice acting, a game lost to time, the inner monologue, some good set up of a level, the invisible blocking wall surrounding Hammond's, box lifting master, weird technical friction about saves, looking for the white keycard, a misaligned bookshelf and visual language, the green disc, the personal memoir, rubbing the disc on the drive, the keycard mess, finding an alternate solution, immersive sim stuff, parallel developments, shining a light on something you didn't know you wanted, the preset objects, restoring forces, deconstructing what the designers put to place your own, contrivances, more keys that aren't keys, not leaning on the license, a more straightforward puzzle, 526327, the extending weird finger, modeling "dexterity," throwing the keycard in the Atlantic, a helpful (?) velociraptor, pressure plates in the ruins, playing something mid-development, games that should be canceled, deals that forced the game out, breaking your game while you build it, getting better at making the game, hitting the board in the wrong place, setting up the physics and seeing the world a certain way, shaking the Jell-O, letting the Jell-O settle, learning how to kite the dinosaurs, spawning three dinosaurs, making terrible mistakes, choosing appropriate goals, not knowing if a thing is possible, mashing up things, being aspirational, leading the way, admiring the purity, dinosaur ecology, getting to see something like this, being consistent in your rules, providing clarity.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World, Through A Glass Darkly, Minnie Driver, Richard Attenborough, Jimmy Carter, Populous, Civilization, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Ultima Underworld, Half-Life 2, DOOM (1993), Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Spielbergs, Bethesda Game Studios, Call of Duty, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Skyrim, Todd Howard, Velvet Underground, Jell-O, Fallout 3, Hal Barwood, Ray Harryhausen, Land That Time Forgot, Zoo Tycoon, Far Cry 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
??
Notes:
Having not seen 1974's The Land That Time Forgot in quite some time, Brett misremembered the movie. He was actually thinking either about scenes from a movie called The Valley of Gwangi, which is from 1969, or One Million Years BC, (1966) both of which feature stop-motion animation by Harryhausen.
Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Trespasser: The Lost World. We talk more about the physics of the game, the problems of video game proprioception, and other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
To level 4 (Brett), to level 6 (Tim)
Issues covered: abracadabra, discussing fixed point vs floating point, obvious and easy-to-fix bug or patch problem, backface culling, finding a human space, inelastic collisions vs elastic collisions, physics modeling and fussiness, infinite forces, doors and jambs, physics object modeling, tech demos, the box stair stepping problem, imagining a third person view, spending an hour to get up to a second floor, box vs pill, your arm and proprioception, snaking through doors, being able to rotate the boxes, a diversion into evolutionary/genetic algorithms, the abominable procedural animation, lining up the crosshairs and weird satisfaction, learning how the guns shoot, sniper spotting, procedurally generated animation systems, what works and what looks right, unnatural alive and dead, watching two T-rexes fight, approximating with ideal objects, trees: nemesis edition, sumo or inflatable costumes, standing still and they can still see you, pathing and getting back to a player behind a tree, getting away from the T Rex, emergent behavior, recontextualizing the world to get the magic, a sticky good bad game, scaring off some velociraptors with an empty gun.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: PlayStation, Minnie Driver, Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy, GIRP, QWOP, Halo, Seamus Blackley, In the Kingdom of Dreams and Madness, Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises, JFK, Spore, No Man's Sky, Soren Johnson, Civilization, Far Cry 2, Reed Knight, TIE Fighter, Arkham Knight, Control, Alan Wake, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
Finish the game!
Notes:
Genetic algorithms was the term Brett was looking for
Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com