Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1999's Outcast. Tim can't get enough of the voxels, and we dive a little bit into combat, mounts, and structure. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
Mostly through Shamazaar
Issues covered: revisiting Defeating Games for Charity, the work behind the event, launch of VGHF library, accepting the voxels, possible benefits of voxels, how to represent transfer, back to metaballs, generating noise in the voxels, collision and voxels, looking unlike other games of the time, leaving out polygons for the voxels to show through, avoiding the enemies vs blasting, apparent resource scarcity, weak stealth, projectile-based shooting, combat and missing all the time, enjoying dodging but hating missing, abstraction in games, enemies dropping guns that disappear, voice work, stand-out characters, having fun with the NPCs, not being too self-serious, investigating the twon-ha, the different aesthetics of European games, a flexible mount, stumbling on the quest log, skipping ahead in the knowledge tree, seeing games in the same family, a milieu or scene, what were the game inputs that got you to this game, coming at ideas from different directions, German dubbing, the voice of Pey'j, adding legitimization, the music.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: BioStats, Mark Garcia, Artimage, Final Fantasy VI, Video Game History Foundation, Phil Salvador, Minecraft, Starfighter, Steve Ash, Spore, System Shock 2, DOOM (1993), CliffyB, Chess, Annals of the Grand Historian, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Bruce Willis, Halo, Dark Crystal, Beyond Good and Evil, Rayman, Ultima (series), Populous, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, Civilization (series), Vitor, Assassin's Creed (series), David Gasman, Star Wars, John Williams, Dark Souls 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers.
Next time:
More Outcast
Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on 1999's Outcast, from Appeal and Infogrames. We first talk about this past weekend's charity event, before setting the game in its time and discussing its early presentation. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
Through tutorial
Issues covered: Defeating Games for Charity, variety of streamers, offerings to the foundation, the speedrun seed, commenting on our own game, more memories of Jedi Starfighter, how a developer sees a game vs a player, a big doodyhead, the crossover of European games, setting the game in its time, not fitting in with others of its time, a weird company in gaming history, not being sure what's in the game, a parody of 1980s action heroes, pop culture origins, proper noun soup and a lexicon, waking up in another place, doling out too much worldbuilding at once, othering non-Western cultures, building on golden era science fiction, exploring the starting area, lots of verbs, discovering by exploring, technically first person, lack of quest markers, manipulating voxel density, using voxels differently, using voxels as rendering and simulation vs rendering only, ray-tracing, advances in hardware and looking back on old research, constructive solid geometry and tessellation, finding limitations, popularity in other regions, big in Japan.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: CalamityNolan, LostLake86, Robotspacer, N01sses, Sierra On-Line, Mystery House, Enchanted Scepters, Video Game History Foundation, Trespasser, Tower Song, Omega Intertainment, RPG Maker, Kerbal Space Program, Sol10, Kaeon, KyleAndError, Might and Magic, AgelessRPG, Minecraft, NES, Spelunky, mysterydip, Belmont, Andrew Kirmse, Chris Corry, SW: Starfighter (series), Daron Stinnett, June, Valheim, Dark Souls, Delta Force, Shenmue, System Shock2, Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Planescape: Torment, Homeworld, Johnny "Pockets", Civilization, Populous, Tomb Raider, Nintendo, Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Anachronox, Metal Gear Solid, Atari, GT Interactive, Microprose, Hasbro Interactive, Unreal, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Asteroids, Franck Sauer, Yann Robert, Yves Grolet, Lennie Moore, Beyond Good and Evil, Armageddon, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Sylvester Stallone, The A-Team, Flash Gordon, John Carter of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs, David Lynch, Dune, Mass Effect, Stephen Donaldson, Octavia Butler, Star Wars, DOOM (1993), Morrowind, Stargate, Pat Sirk, Spore, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, Red Faction, TRON, Enshrouded, Unity, Claudiu, Heroes of Might and Magic, LucasArts, Insomniac, Metroid (series), StarCraft, Uncharted 2, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Note:
The term I was looking for and remembered at 2 in the morning was "metaballs"
Next time:
More Outcast
Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we are catching up on our mailbag! Let's face it, it's mostly about Minecraft, though we spend a lot of time on video game preservation. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Issues covered: the manananggal, Defeating Games for Charity, ownership of work materials, Tim's notes on the Discord Game Club interview with Phil Salvador, our own games disappearing, the value of libraries, preserving all games, copyright lawyers, the tension between corporations and preservationists, protecting children online, defending your kids, engaging with your kids over games, external references, limits on exploration interest, Tim and Brett disagree about whether Minecraft devs relied on the existence of a wiki, older version availability in Minecraft Java Edition, speedrunning Minecraft, modding and Minecraft, YouTube and Minecraft trajectories, Lego Fortnite's means of directing you, limited building or building towards story purposes, curbing anxiety, dating the Balrog.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Dungeons & Dragons, Dark Matters/X-Files, Minecraft, CalamityNolan, Video Game History Foundation, KyleAndError, Hollow Knight, Kaeon, DuckTales, Trespasser, Tower Song, Pikmin, N0isses, Rocksmith, Robotspacer, Enchanted Scepters, Mystery House, Artimage, Jedi Starfighter, Katamari Damacy, BioStats, Phil Salvador, Midway/Bally, Nosferatu (1922/2024), Prince of Persia, Warcraft, The Sims, Tony Rowe, Microsoft, Bill Roper, Wil Wright, John Romero, Leo Tolstoy, Socrates, Frank Cifaldi, Nintendo, Tim Schafer, Double Fine, Devin Kelly-Sneed (P2 programmer), Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mickey Mouse/Disney, mysterydip, Roblox, Lego Fortnite, Just Dance, Ubisoft, Club Penguin, Luke Theriault, LostLake, Dwarf Fortress, Raymond, Mojang, Factorio, Satisfactory, Father Beast, Skyrim, Ben from Iowa, Dragon Quest Builders, The Lord of the Rings Return to Moria, The Long Dark, Pacific Drive, Valheim, Final Fantasy VI, Epic Games, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
Our next game (whatever that may be)
Defeating Games for Charity
Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we conclude our series on Minecraft. We talk about our stories, multiplayer, and other topics, before turning to our takeaways. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
A few more hours of Minecraft
Issues covered: the upcoming charity event, Tim not knowing where Site D is, milestones for Tim, an epic story of loss with Mors, having high stakes and risk, Brett makes a long deep dive into an enormous open cavern, the procedural elements of exploration, connected caverns, Lost Lake's skill and visiting his place, the causeway that takes you to Lost Lake, automating systems, never finding an emerald, ad campaigns from the 1950s, a game developer muses about his existence in the universe, terrain modeling and erosion, not being able to tell that something wasn't hand-modeled, changes in the algorithm over time, getting lost in narrow caverns, simple goals that are obvious needs for survival, the excellence of the second-to-second loop of mining and picking up, height modeling for terrain with height maps vs voxels, player goals and having the ability to make them as specific as you want, leaving off the limits in a block game, trading verisimilitude for expressivity, allowing the player to impact everything, simple creativity, continuing the server.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Lost Lake, Trespasser, Phil Salvador, Video Game History Foundation, mors_d, Buck Rogers, Disneyland, Star Trek, Burma Shave, Mad Men, Dwight Eisenhower, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Oblivion, mysterydip, Valheim, Lego, Ravenloft, Picross, Terraria, Final Fantasy VI, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
End of year review!
Links:
Defeating Games for Charity
Video Game History Foundation
Interview with Phil Salvador
Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com
Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we recap 2024 through our interviews. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
It's all about our takeaways -- I'm going to let the clips speak for themselves and remove the usual stuff from here. In the past year, we interviewed Michel Ancel, Alex Garden, Sam Lake, Jordan Mechner, and Tony Rowe, and every interview was fun to listen to again. Terrific slate. We're so lucky. It's humbling.
Next time:
Either Minecraft or a mail bag
Links:
Defeating Games for Charity
Note: Tony Rowe's whitepaper was not yet on the Internet as of this recording; we'll keep an eye out and share it when we discover its publication.
Twitch: timlongojr
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com