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Deleted member 30609
Unconfirmed Member
1. Spelunky ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGrPeu5NWk0
2. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons ; A simple metaphor yields a complex epiphany, over and over again. Brothers is a reminder: a great control-scheme doesn't need to remain rigid. The "use" verb can be systemically rewarding. I chose to press and hold the left trigger -- does that actually say something about me? Does it hold, then, that it says the same thing for everyone who has finished Brothers? Does this legitimise context-sensitive input?
3. Antichamber ; Antichamber smiles down at us. Friendly, but intimidating, he suggests: "You think, Young-White-20-Something-Male, that the way you accumulate knowledge is linked to the where, when and why you learn something." We nod, not realising that over the next few hours this sound-foundation will be swept from under us, now something ethereal: a faint laugh of a mad-man echoing around a corner that leads to itself and back again.
4. Device 6 ; You duck out for a moment to relieve yourself. On your way back, you press your ear against the door. All your friends are where you left them, but they're talking to someone you can't identify. Without warning, your favourite band is playing, but you can't hear the drummer. Device Six is about presenting the familiar but suggesting the unknown, exploring the space between what we expect and what actually exists on the other side of the door.
5. Gone Home ; A door should be eight hundred and twenty millimeters wide. A queen-sized bed should be a little over two meters long. A small pot-plant should be watered twice a week. A good character should have the fortitude to prove a premise. The normal household light-bulb should shine for roughly one thousand hours. A protagonist's response to conflict should be surprising in the moment and obvious in hindsight. A combination lock should have a definite code. A great love should conquer all. There is great risk in presenting things as we suspect they must be.
6. Wonderful 101 ; It doesn't work, like, 25% of the time. Escaping a collapsing building is mostly frustrating. A recurring boss-fight remains inscrutable on its third showing. An aerial dog-fight is won by holding down a button and moving a stick back and forth. When The Wonderful 101 fails, it fails spectacularly. It pushes back. Somewhere, someone human, someone who might be *me* made a risky decision. There are stakes involved; the moments that work feel like they might fall apart at any second. When the space-shuttle lands in the ocean intact, suddenly -- vividly -- I'm alive.
7. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds ; Immediate. Definite.
8. Gunpoint ; Sympathy must be granted to the lowly security guard who patrols the halls of Gunpoint. A light-switch is flicked and a door swings open with enough force to cause a severe concussion. If he wasn't already horizontal, he might have noticed that the room was still dark. Bummer.
9. Pikmin 3 ; This is a Nintendo game that asks the player to plan ahead, make tough choices about resource-expenditure and improvise in the face of devastating loss, else completely fail.
10. The Last of Us ; I've deleted this paragraph a few times. Every time I try to say something about The Last of Us, something meaningful or charming or subtle, I realise that the text doesn't support my reading. "A great premise supported by both its fiction and its mechanics", I suppose to myself, clumsily. Minutes pass. Backspace. Delete. I guess most of what I did in the game was just take cover and shoot guys. Maybe I snuck past them? Backspace. Delete. Scrounging together supplies to use as weapons or remedies does show a bit of desperation, on the character's part, maybe. Backspace. Delete. Wait. Repeat. I realise now that the only vaguely interesting thing I have to say about the game is this: everything appealing about The Last of Us is immediately obvious on first-reading.
2. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons ; A simple metaphor yields a complex epiphany, over and over again. Brothers is a reminder: a great control-scheme doesn't need to remain rigid. The "use" verb can be systemically rewarding. I chose to press and hold the left trigger -- does that actually say something about me? Does it hold, then, that it says the same thing for everyone who has finished Brothers? Does this legitimise context-sensitive input?
3. Antichamber ; Antichamber smiles down at us. Friendly, but intimidating, he suggests: "You think, Young-White-20-Something-Male, that the way you accumulate knowledge is linked to the where, when and why you learn something." We nod, not realising that over the next few hours this sound-foundation will be swept from under us, now something ethereal: a faint laugh of a mad-man echoing around a corner that leads to itself and back again.
4. Device 6 ; You duck out for a moment to relieve yourself. On your way back, you press your ear against the door. All your friends are where you left them, but they're talking to someone you can't identify. Without warning, your favourite band is playing, but you can't hear the drummer. Device Six is about presenting the familiar but suggesting the unknown, exploring the space between what we expect and what actually exists on the other side of the door.
5. Gone Home ; A door should be eight hundred and twenty millimeters wide. A queen-sized bed should be a little over two meters long. A small pot-plant should be watered twice a week. A good character should have the fortitude to prove a premise. The normal household light-bulb should shine for roughly one thousand hours. A protagonist's response to conflict should be surprising in the moment and obvious in hindsight. A combination lock should have a definite code. A great love should conquer all. There is great risk in presenting things as we suspect they must be.
6. Wonderful 101 ; It doesn't work, like, 25% of the time. Escaping a collapsing building is mostly frustrating. A recurring boss-fight remains inscrutable on its third showing. An aerial dog-fight is won by holding down a button and moving a stick back and forth. When The Wonderful 101 fails, it fails spectacularly. It pushes back. Somewhere, someone human, someone who might be *me* made a risky decision. There are stakes involved; the moments that work feel like they might fall apart at any second. When the space-shuttle lands in the ocean intact, suddenly -- vividly -- I'm alive.
7. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds ; Immediate. Definite.
8. Gunpoint ; Sympathy must be granted to the lowly security guard who patrols the halls of Gunpoint. A light-switch is flicked and a door swings open with enough force to cause a severe concussion. If he wasn't already horizontal, he might have noticed that the room was still dark. Bummer.
9. Pikmin 3 ; This is a Nintendo game that asks the player to plan ahead, make tough choices about resource-expenditure and improvise in the face of devastating loss, else completely fail.
10. The Last of Us ; I've deleted this paragraph a few times. Every time I try to say something about The Last of Us, something meaningful or charming or subtle, I realise that the text doesn't support my reading. "A great premise supported by both its fiction and its mechanics", I suppose to myself, clumsily. Minutes pass. Backspace. Delete. I guess most of what I did in the game was just take cover and shoot guys. Maybe I snuck past them? Backspace. Delete. Scrounging together supplies to use as weapons or remedies does show a bit of desperation, on the character's part, maybe. Backspace. Delete. Wait. Repeat. I realise now that the only vaguely interesting thing I have to say about the game is this: everything appealing about The Last of Us is immediately obvious on first-reading.