The Texture Pop: Episode 41: Parkour Hitman

Chris and Garrett both had important reasons they could not attend. This left Sam and I to hold the fort this week.



0:01:30 Gaming News
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate revealed:
There are some interesting ideas being floated about, but time will tell with this game. After all, it IS Ubisoft we're talking about. Speaking of...

Ubisoft no longer supporting PS3/360
Honestly, that's a long time coming. We all knew this would happening sooner or later, now that the new consoles are out.



0:11:05 Sam has been playing Project Cars.
And I don't have a whole lot to say about it. We do end up talking about steering wheel peripherals though.



0:16:30 Sam talks about his friend playing Bloodbourne.
And how annoying it can be to watch someone else play a Souls game when you're an expert at it.
Speaking of people being bad at Souls games...



0:18:45 I have been playing Demon's Souls
Much to Sam's excitement. It's been fun so far, and very interesting from a game design perspective.
(Note: At the time of recording, I was very new to Demon's Souls had not even looked at the wiki yet. When he's saying things like "World 1-2" and "World 2-1", I know what he means by that terminology as I write this. At the time, I had NO IDEA what he was talking about. Keep that in mind when you listen to this.)



0:33:30 I bitch about Rayman:Legend's lack of online co-op.
Because I really wanted to play with my friend. It's a shame he lives in a different state entirely.



0:37:30 I have finished Resonance of Fate
WARNING: We spoil a few things from 0:40:00 to 0:46:35 and from 0:49:50 to 0:52:45
Overall, I really like the game, but I understand why I didn't catch on. Considering how much of the game's plot is unresolved, it's a real shame that we will likely never get a sequel.



0:54:00 Wrapping Up.
Interactive Friction should have some new content coming out in the next week or so. In the meantime, feel free to watch our seasons on Far Cry 3 and Tomb Raider.

The Texture Pop: Episode 40: Infection Buddies

My apologies for the late posting. I have been busy for these past few days.



0:01:33 Gaming News
Batman: Arkham Knight Season Pass (Costs $40)
I don't know whether I should have been surprised to see this or not. This is the logical extension of the pre-order/season pass system. It was bound to happen, and giving Warner Bros. awful history in its short time as a well-known publisher, they were going to be one of the ones to push as far as they did.
It is interesting how publishers don't seem to realize that this system subtly encourages consumers to just wait for the collector's edition, with all of the DLC content included. Playing the launch day-edition is almost a fool's proposition, unless you are extremely sure that you'll enjoy the content.

PT has been completely removed from the PS Store.
Even worse, all active copies now have an expiration date. It's less a condemnation of Konami, but more of an acknowledgement of the consequences of the brave, new world of digital gaming.
As an addendum: Since the time of record, SuperBunnyHop's video on Konami temporarily received a takedown notice, but Konami failed to file it correctly.



0:24:20 Sam bought a new gaming monitor.
This one specifically, or a similar model.
Sam spends the rest of this segment talking nerdy to us. And we also talk about how it's changed his gaming habits.



0:40:10 Sam purchased the New 3DS.
Ignoring the confusing name, Nintendo is terrible about the transfer process. At least the customer support was good enough.



0:51:30 Sam beat Dark Souls 2: Scholars of the First Sin
And we talk about it's differences with the base game.



0:57:35 Garrett is sick as a dog.
And a title was born.
Here is the hot kool-aid video he was talking about.



1:02:35 Garrett talks League of Legends.



1:08:55 I played Resonance of Fate
To get an idea of what kind of hilarity is in this game: Here are both the raisins scene and the hand slap scene.
Though the combat is extremely difficult to explain, it's really fun to play. There's a ton of strategy involved and it looks really stylish.
Side note: You can hear the South in Sam's voice when he pronounced "naked" as "nekkid".



1:24:50 I finished up Drakengard 3.
As we said before, this series and the world it takes place it is so very rich and fascinating. In a way, it's basically a giant criticism of video games, fantasy worlds, and the people who enjoy them. It's undeniably dark, and I love it for precisely that reason.
I also wrote a piece about how the game lampshades its mechanics. It can be found here.



1:38:35 We played more FUSE together.
The only reason parts of this game are fun and/or funny is because the rest of the game is so bland, monotonous, and boring that any sort of mildly interesting stimuli causes some sort of reaction. Those parts are less amusing in and of themselves and more interesting in light of the fact that everything else is so boring.



1:47:50 Chris has been playing Splatoon's Global Test Fire.
Sounds pretty fun.



1:59:00 Wrapping Up
Once again, my Drakengard 3 article here.
Sam's site.
Garrett's Twitch Channel.
And of course, you can e-mail us at thetexturepop@gmail.com

#89: What Drakengard 3 Teaches Us About Lampshade Hanging

The longer I play video games, and the more I continue to look at them critically, the more I begin to see ideas and concepts that crop up repeatedly. Though they come and go, most reappear often enough that they can almost always be worth discussing. After playing through Drakengard 3, a sequel to one the craziest, darkest games I played as a teenager, I noticed that there was one otherwise minor element that only grew irritating because it occurred several times over the course of the game.

Drakengard 3 seemed to love having its cast of characters acknowledge its own problematic game design in their dialogue. The practice, known as lampshade hanging, is about as old as fiction itself. In all other forms of media, from books to TV and movies, it is commonly used to point out and diffuse narrative tension by pointing out imperfections in the logic and/or internal mechanics of a story. However, the differences between gaming and other forms of media make this practice less tolerable.

Chief among them is the inherent difference between a passive medium and an interactive one. When watching a movie or a TV show, the audience is not actively participating in the events of the narrative. Rather, the characters on screen are dealing with problems, with viewers merely acting as outside observers. Therefore, whenever some event enters the story that requires the hanging of a lampshade, it is the characters in the story that are affected, not those watching it unfold from the comfort of their living room.

In an active medium like games, this is no longer the case. Video games have their players actively take part in the events in question, changing the dynamic at play. Whenever a sufficiently “immersion-breaking” mechanic appears, then it is the player who will ultimately need to deal with it. This is the difference between Spider-man getting amnesia and losing his combat prowess in a comic book versus doing the same in a video game. In a comic book, the reader, as an outside entity, can look forward to seeing how he and any accompanying characters deal with this problem. Players of a video game attempting that same trope will need to be the ones who handle getting through this problem as the amnesiac superhero. This does not necessarily have to be bad, as it could serve as a good excuse to use the game's systems in new, refreshing, and interesting way.

Drakengard 3 shows an example of what happens when this goes wrong. Over the course of the adventure, protagonist Zero will encounter floating platforms that she will need to traverse in order to progress to the next area, in a game where most of the time is spent killing enemies in a Devil May Cry-style beat'em up. After the first few occasions, she and her companions begin to point out these sections by stating things like “I'm not a fan of all this precision jumping.” and “More jumping? Whose is the asshole who designed this place.” While it seems to be another of the many gags the game uses to balance out the otherwise dark nature of its plot, the act of highlighting how dumb and annoying the floating platforms are is meant to add humor, much like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon attempted to do with its tutorial. What both of these examples fail to realize is that although they acknowledge the inferiority of these mechanics, as a player, one still has to go through the sections in order to progress. Seen in that respect, the gag quickly goes from funny to irritating.

Yet, this is not the only reason why lampshade hanging is a more tenuous prospect in video games. When a developer feels that need to point out that one of their mechanics is “bad,” or at least annoying, it implies that they are aware of how irksome said mechanics are. Otherwise, they would not have been able to bring it to the player's attention. On its own, that fact may be insignificant. It is the conclusions that one can draw from that statement, and the questions it raises, that make it so damning. If the developers have this knowledge, then why would they not alter these mechanics so that they are not as bothersome as they are? Alternatively, why include them at all? Plausible and rational answers to these inquiries do exist, but to raise the question in a player's mind is unwise, because it seeds doubt in the designers'a ability, eroding the willing suspension of disbelief. Again, this is only true because of the interactive nature of video games. Other mediums don’t require any work or input on the part of their audience.

The same precision jumping example from before can just as easily be used to represent this point, but Drakengard 3 has other examples that illustrate it just as well. In one of the missions towards the middle of the game, the player, as Zero, is attacked by a Cerberus mini-boss. Once that enemy is defeated, and Zero attempts to move on to the next section of the level, the door remains sealed and another Cerberus enemy appears. One of Zero's allies reacts by saying, “I fear they've discovered Lady Zero's weakness, a dislike for repeating the same task over and over again.” This is meant to point out how silly it is to participate in the same battle two times in a row against the same exact mini-boss. Despite this, it made me question the game designer's reason for making the choice to have two back-to-back Cerberus fights. Was the whole point to just set up that one punchline? Were they also attempting to pad out the section with some filler content? The fact that characters point out this little problem make it obvious that it was not an accident, so what was the point?

Now, I do not mean to insinuate that Drakengard 3 is a bad game. Instead, it is emblematic of a tendency games have when trying to inject a little levity. In these circumstances, it is extremely tempting for designers to intentionally include ill-fitting mechanics that are common to its contemporaries, then point them out for a laugh. Tempting as it may be, this is a mistake. Attempting to make jokes in this manner will often serve merely to bother the player, rather than make them laugh.

The Texture Pop: Episode 39: 200cc Omen

Hosts: Chris, Brandon, Garrett

0:02:05 Gaming News
Steam no longer supports paid mods in Skyrim
Thank goodness. I'm no against modders getting paid, but there was no way this was going to work. Here's Shamus's take, as promised.

What the fuck, Konami?
Clearly, they don't even care anymore.



0:21:15 Viewer Questions
"Is there anyone in the film or television field that you'd like to get involved in game design?"
This question was clearly inspired by Silent Hills. It was interesting to ruminate.

"What do you predict that Kojima's next project will be?"
I legitimately wonder this. I would assume that either way, he'll want to take some time off to recharge after what Konami did.



0:35:00 Garrett's Week



0:44:25 I player Unrest
It's a good RPG, but sadly that's all I have to say about it. I wish I had more meaningful commentary than that, and I wish the game left a bigger impression on me.



0:47:30 I played The Banner Saga
Though I played on Easy, I really enjoyed the game. Every part of it feeds into the overall tone the developers were trying for.
If you want to know more about the combat, I wrote an article about it.



0:55:40 I watched Serenity
That basically ends my Joss Whedon marathon. I've seen everything I need to know.



0:57:55 Chris played some Nintendo-DLC
In particular, we spent most of the conversation on Mario Kart DLC.



1:07:00 Wrapping Up

#88: The Banner Saga: Building on an Idea

Every once in a while, I play a game that challenges some basic notions of game design. Usually, these do not turn out to be very good, as these notions exist for a reason. On the other hand, they sometimes open up new possibilities for what game developers can do. The Banner Saga is an example of the latter. A hybrid of the Oregon Trail and classic RPGs, The Banner Saga takes place in a setting heavily inspired by classic Nordic myths. What I want to focus on is a single choice that the developers made regarding the combat. This choice informed the rest of the combat mechanics, and restructured the game in a way that I have certainly never seen before.

In The Banner Saga, the developers made the decision that Health and Damage output would be governed by the same stat. Each fighter has two major stats: Strength and Armor. When attacking another unit, one can either chip away at their Armor, or deliver damage to their Strength. The exact amount of Strength damage is equal to the aggressor's Strength, minus the Armor of the assaulted party. If Strength reaches 0, then the unit will be incapacitated, unable to participate any further in the battle. In other words, whenever somebody is attacked, not only are they that much closer to defeat, but their offensive capability is reduced. This one change to the usual RPG dynamic has a noticeable impact on the rest of combat.

The first of these changes is that players are encouraged to avoid outright killing targets in favor of crippling them and moving on to the next one. While fighting, player and enemy turns are interleaved. Players can determine the order in which their units act, but after every ally action, the enemy moves one of their units, followed by the next ally unit, and so on and so forth. Enemies with low Strength are less likely to be to do any significant damage, especially when friendlies still have Armor. As a result, leaving a weak foe alive means that units with more Strength will take longer to act, since the game still needs to cycle through the weakened enemies first. This extra breathing room makes it much easier to focus on other units, until it is finally time to start cleaning house and removing opposition. I used this very thought process myself on many large enemies, including the game's final boss. By leaving his subordinates low on Strength, I could keep him at bay long enough to finish him before he had the chance to take out too many of my own forces.

The other behavioral shift I noticed during my time with The Banner Saga is that I played a noticeably more defensive game than I typically do. Whenever a party member of mine had taken Strength damage, I always winced because I knew that the fight would be made that much more difficult with their reduced damage output. Because of this, I found myself often grouping my forces together, concentrating all of their attacks on a single unit at a time, keeping them out of range of other units. This allowed my party to maintain their strong offensive capabilities for most of a fight. Though this strategy might be seen as slower and less skillful in other tactical RPGs, The Banner Saga makes it one of the fastest and most effective tactics. Enemies do have AoE attacks, but the risk of spreading units apart too much is always there. Unless some degree of caution is taken, units can crippled just with a few well aimed Strength attacks. Given that the plot is about a group of people trying to stay alive against all odds, this appears to be intentional and a nice way to immerse players into the atmosphere of the game.

\The Banner Saga takes a lot from well known tactical RPGs. However, the choice to take health and damage output, and merge them into the same statistic is one that I have personally never seen before. Of course, there are many other ways in which the game stands out, making its worth known, but this is the one that stood out to me as something that other designers might be able to gain inspiration from. I would definitely recommend taking a look at The Banner Saga is you are looking for something different in your strategy RPGs.