Dear Sweet Reader,
As Day[9] would say: I love you. And when you're in love and things go poorly you know how to face up to and work through it.
And so I come to you with a sad, somewhat shameful truth: X-Com has gotten old.
I had to manually edit DosBox (the emulator steam uses to let you run x-com, an excellent tool for those older windows games) just to increase the speed and stability of my copy of X-Com to something playable. After that I was subjected to a motley of errors as well as the unflinchingly difficult mission which I had set for myself.
X-Com just wants to play you know, but it can be a temperamental playmate. Let me air out a couple grievances that me and X have had over the course of my all too short trip down memory lane:
No X, I Don't Want to. . .
. . . play "Where's the Floater". Again. Stop asking, that's disgusting.
. . . guess which rookie left an armed proximity grenade by the Skyranger ramp. It's not funny.
. . . call you on camping my Skyranger's ramp one more time. I'm not even going to get into the way you 'memorize' my soldier's location oh so conveniently. *cough* *jerk* *cough*
. . . listen to that noise you make when I'm shuffling equipment around the base, because you can't even manage the simplest tasks without me to beep things around for you. Geez, just. . . load the damn thing yourself.
. . . turn the difficulty down behind my back! I didn't ask for that! I didn't want that! I can take care of myself dammit! WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?
So here we are. . . I found myself muddling through the painful strategic layer and obtuse time unit/energy system of the tactical combat I found myself struggling to recapture that feeling of enormity that originally drew me into X-Com. So after one too many little "line-o'-sight" slips (if those really were accidents X) where I was shot descending the ramp of my Skyranger THROUGH THE RAMP I was feeling really down. I was even doing quite well in the game, it had simply become a chore to play.
That's when the aliens struck their most devastating blow: FTL (Faster-Than-Light). A game which, according to inside sources, quote: "Everyone and their Mom is playing." [By the way, if anyone's Mom is actually playing this please feel free to post and I'll name a character of after you in my coming X-Com: Enemy Unkown playthrough (2012)].
FTL drew me up off the poorly pixelated Earth and sent me hurtling at breakneck speeds to countless deaths among the stars. I felt alive again. I relished the challenge, I craved new ships and new encounters. I wondered at the subtle balances between the weapons and defenses, the agonizing decisions about when to upgrade and when to hoard resources. In effect the aliens had won. I gladly left the human race to the garish eggplant colored invaders and their mechanical velocicrocoraptors and was stolen by this beauty of a game.
I won't elaborate too much on the gameplay of FTL itself. Suffice it to say that it is superbly balanced and quite challenging. It claims to be a roguelike (a difficult and graphically sparse game of great complexity, named after the original game of its kind Rogue). It is.
I've spent hours and hours knee-deep in the dead with DoomRL (Doom: The Roguelike) and ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery), two excellent roguelikes, each punishing and complex, rewarding and cruel in turns. I can say for certain that in spirit, if not exactly mechanics (a real-time roguelike?) FTL is more than worthy of the genre.
The Confession: I've abandoned Earth. I've given up on my quest to purge 1999 of old-school aliens. It wasn't the difficulty of the game, it was the difficulty of the interface that brought weakness to my heart. Don't blame FTL for my weakness, it is a fine and worthy game, just a symptom of the problem, not the cause. I needed something less grating to hold me over until the shiny new X-Com hits Steam on October 9th and FTL slipped right through my orbital defenses and abducted all my free time.
I regret not following through on my mission dear readers, but there's a reason people are excited about Firaxis' X-Com remake.
X-Com needed a remake very badly.
That said you should also check out a game called Xenonauts. A much more true to the original remake which, as far as my limited alpha testing has revealed,will smooth over all of my complaints about the original while maintaining almost exactly the plethora of choices and options that made the original one of the best games of all time.
So let me leave you with this tantalizing foreshadowing: On October 9th I will be live-streaming my playthrough of Firaxis' X-Com: Enemy Unknown. Expect me to put all my gaming prowess and knowledge to the test against the merciless onslaught of the xeno hoards.
It will be Classic.
It WILL be Hardcore.
And I won't panic like a rookie when the Chrysallids come a calling. . . much.
14.9.12
Game Journal II - X-Com: Enemy Unknown (1994)
Collection item #38973:
Personal journal of Gregory Hamlet, X-Com Chief Intelligence Officer
Jan 1, 1999 - Open for Business
Massive was declared fully operational today by the suits. What a joke. Just because the base's main lift finally works and the last damn egghead waddled into the lab they say we're operational. Macbeth sat down with me this morning and said I was in charge of purchasing AND intel. What a hardass. He didn't wait for a response, just went straight into the game plan: Bigger radar, more storage space (though what he plans to put there I can't imagine, this place is packed to the gills with firepower already), living quarters within the month (A MONTH!?), a couple more warm bodies and a carton full of more eggheads. Macbeth is serious, I've read the reports myself but I'm more scared of him than a couple missing persons and a little grey space baby. Hopefully some small part of the world's pocket change can be siphoned off to pay for a logistics officer.
Until then these defective heavy cannons are gone, and I'm to order a "wide-area suppression" vehicle. The Chinese have some sort of riot tank we can load with rockets if we just rip out the 50 calibers, that'll have to do.
Jan 4th, 1999 - Shoot on Site
Radar contact today. Macbeth sent out the MiG but the thing was small, fast, and didn't want to shake hands. HE was PISSED. When he called me in I just nodded, kept silent, and sent out a request for more explosives. Next time we'd be sending the F-15 with Avalanches under each wing. Our proximity mines never showed, I'll have to order a couple crates. Also I'm firing Uta, she almost gutted Macduff yesterday.
Jan 7th, 1999 - Ambush
What the f*ck. I'm the f*ckin' Chief Intelligence AND LOGISTICS officer of this whole crap-shoot and they send me out on first contact? When Macbeth got the news he saddled everyone up, launched the F-15 for overwatch and sent the Skyranger up its skirts. And he packed me along with these jarheads. I didn't want it, Macduff didn't want it, but Big Brass wouldn't listen. They just packed me into a flak jacket like the rest of these goons and tossed me a rifle. I did well enough in basic, but a serious marksman I am not. At least the others are armed to the gills and I'm to stay well back. Rockets, auto-cannons, grenades, rifles. The tank. I feel a lot better with that thing out front; I might just dig up its receipt and mount it if I live through this.
Alright, we've landed. Take a quick look out the windows, just farmhouses and darkness.
Can't wait.
....
Shit, shit, shit. That was a f*cking suicide mission. Seven of them, three of us dead. The kevlar melted like butter. We either saw them and killed them or they found us and we died. The tank rolled out, we followed. We blew a barn to rubble just to take out the first little grey man we saw. 'Overkill' I remember thinking. We should've nuked the bastards.
Antony died under the wheels of the skyranger, he was just the closest to the orchard when one of them opened up on him. Macduff opened up when the monster peeked out a second time, but couldn't hit him before he blew Brutus away. A volley of grenades over the hedge wall ended that. There was some sort of run in at the horse stables (horse stables for gods sake, what do these things want from us?). Macduff lit one of them up with Incendiary rounds but the thing just skittered back around the barn. ON FIRE. Grenades again. Actually took out two of them there. Four of guys went into the ship to end it. They told me to wait outside, cover the rear. Thank god. Three more aliens inside. One of them blew a hole straight through Harvey Dent's chest in what must have been the cockpit.
We radioed in mission success to African Command, got the go ahead, and left. All the talk about medals and shit was just hot air. Macbeth was waiting for us in the hangar back at Massive. No medals or congratulations were forthcoming. An intact ship and a load of their damn plasma weapons and not even a thank you. What a hardass. The spaceship was taken apart and back at the base before we were. The funerals are tomorrow.
Jan 26th, 1999 - A Prayer for Russians
I was out of base at an operations report when they attacked the Russians. We picked up the ship on the way in, it was massive. They started replacing the MiG's cannon with a Stingray and sent the dual Avalanche loaded F-15 out to intercept with the Skyranger following. Then it just dumped a load of floating science experiments and miniature T-Rexes on the Reds and took off. We had to bring the 'ranger back and re-equip. Just before dark the team landed, I'd secured another of the tanks for them so they were really jammed in their this time. The new laser weapons the eggheads had been hatching worked like a charm, a half dozen rifles and a handful of pistols kept our boys safe and sound. Five civilians were killed and six survived. There wasn't much left of the town when Russian Command finally moved in, but there weren't any of those bastards left either. Next I think the boys in white are cooking up something a little better than the flak jackets.
Feb 1st, 1999 - Good News
Our first progress report. 3 dead soldiers, 5 civilians killed, and more than twenty enemy dead. A wide array of captured technology and a faint hope of understanding what drives these creatures. The council was pleased, Russia was especially generous. We're also a large profit on the unused alien materials, it seems that novelty, even in the midst of fear, has a high selling price.
Feb 24th, 1999 - Happy Birthday
Nothing at all this month. Brazil is pissed, they'll probably cut funding over something but we can't really figure out why. There wasn't even a peep. Happy birthday me. At least the new armor looks good and we've got some sort of motion tracker up and running. The boys used the prototype to lead me to the surprise party. I almost pissed myself when Macduff walked out of the shadows in the warehouse. Damn scanner is too hard to read if you ask me. The cake had "Shakespear" written on it. There wasn't room on the cake for the 'e' but hey
March 3rd, 1999 - Crash and Burn
A small craft again, like the first one in February. Macbeth was with the Bigger Brass and Macduff sent out the MiG instead of the F-15. He'll catch hell for that one. But it worked out, this one was more interested in blowing us away but our boys in the sky took it down hard. When we went to salvage the site the men tried to test the motion scanner. So far the aliens haven't shown anything that could take out the Skyranger on the ground and they just holed up for a bit, getting their bearings, arming the explosives, waiting to see if something moved. The only surviving floater (as we've come to call them) must have been circling the drain already because he wandered right in front of the tank (which hadn't even moved) and left bits of purple goo all over the inside of the Skyranger.
Mission successful, nobody even stepped off the 'ranger.
March 5th, 1999 - South American Blues
I was in the middle of planning the new laboratory we're going to add on when the alert came. Chile is in trouble, they're scattered reports and some horrific video going out on the web of people being blown to pieces in the streets. No positive on the specific critters yet. The team will go out and I'll try and make sure we've can replace whoever doesn't make it back. A couple rookies goin' this time, I hope things go as well as the last mission.
Personal journal of Gregory Hamlet, X-Com Chief Intelligence Officer
Jan 1, 1999 - Open for Business
Massive was declared fully operational today by the suits. What a joke. Just because the base's main lift finally works and the last damn egghead waddled into the lab they say we're operational. Macbeth sat down with me this morning and said I was in charge of purchasing AND intel. What a hardass. He didn't wait for a response, just went straight into the game plan: Bigger radar, more storage space (though what he plans to put there I can't imagine, this place is packed to the gills with firepower already), living quarters within the month (A MONTH!?), a couple more warm bodies and a carton full of more eggheads. Macbeth is serious, I've read the reports myself but I'm more scared of him than a couple missing persons and a little grey space baby. Hopefully some small part of the world's pocket change can be siphoned off to pay for a logistics officer.
Until then these defective heavy cannons are gone, and I'm to order a "wide-area suppression" vehicle. The Chinese have some sort of riot tank we can load with rockets if we just rip out the 50 calibers, that'll have to do.
Jan 4th, 1999 - Shoot on Site
Radar contact today. Macbeth sent out the MiG but the thing was small, fast, and didn't want to shake hands. HE was PISSED. When he called me in I just nodded, kept silent, and sent out a request for more explosives. Next time we'd be sending the F-15 with Avalanches under each wing. Our proximity mines never showed, I'll have to order a couple crates. Also I'm firing Uta, she almost gutted Macduff yesterday.
Jan 7th, 1999 - Ambush
What the f*ck. I'm the f*ckin' Chief Intelligence AND LOGISTICS officer of this whole crap-shoot and they send me out on first contact? When Macbeth got the news he saddled everyone up, launched the F-15 for overwatch and sent the Skyranger up its skirts. And he packed me along with these jarheads. I didn't want it, Macduff didn't want it, but Big Brass wouldn't listen. They just packed me into a flak jacket like the rest of these goons and tossed me a rifle. I did well enough in basic, but a serious marksman I am not. At least the others are armed to the gills and I'm to stay well back. Rockets, auto-cannons, grenades, rifles. The tank. I feel a lot better with that thing out front; I might just dig up its receipt and mount it if I live through this.
Alright, we've landed. Take a quick look out the windows, just farmhouses and darkness.
Can't wait.
....
Shit, shit, shit. That was a f*cking suicide mission. Seven of them, three of us dead. The kevlar melted like butter. We either saw them and killed them or they found us and we died. The tank rolled out, we followed. We blew a barn to rubble just to take out the first little grey man we saw. 'Overkill' I remember thinking. We should've nuked the bastards.
Antony died under the wheels of the skyranger, he was just the closest to the orchard when one of them opened up on him. Macduff opened up when the monster peeked out a second time, but couldn't hit him before he blew Brutus away. A volley of grenades over the hedge wall ended that. There was some sort of run in at the horse stables (horse stables for gods sake, what do these things want from us?). Macduff lit one of them up with Incendiary rounds but the thing just skittered back around the barn. ON FIRE. Grenades again. Actually took out two of them there. Four of guys went into the ship to end it. They told me to wait outside, cover the rear. Thank god. Three more aliens inside. One of them blew a hole straight through Harvey Dent's chest in what must have been the cockpit.
We radioed in mission success to African Command, got the go ahead, and left. All the talk about medals and shit was just hot air. Macbeth was waiting for us in the hangar back at Massive. No medals or congratulations were forthcoming. An intact ship and a load of their damn plasma weapons and not even a thank you. What a hardass. The spaceship was taken apart and back at the base before we were. The funerals are tomorrow.
Jan 26th, 1999 - A Prayer for Russians
I was out of base at an operations report when they attacked the Russians. We picked up the ship on the way in, it was massive. They started replacing the MiG's cannon with a Stingray and sent the dual Avalanche loaded F-15 out to intercept with the Skyranger following. Then it just dumped a load of floating science experiments and miniature T-Rexes on the Reds and took off. We had to bring the 'ranger back and re-equip. Just before dark the team landed, I'd secured another of the tanks for them so they were really jammed in their this time. The new laser weapons the eggheads had been hatching worked like a charm, a half dozen rifles and a handful of pistols kept our boys safe and sound. Five civilians were killed and six survived. There wasn't much left of the town when Russian Command finally moved in, but there weren't any of those bastards left either. Next I think the boys in white are cooking up something a little better than the flak jackets.
Feb 1st, 1999 - Good News
Our first progress report. 3 dead soldiers, 5 civilians killed, and more than twenty enemy dead. A wide array of captured technology and a faint hope of understanding what drives these creatures. The council was pleased, Russia was especially generous. We're also a large profit on the unused alien materials, it seems that novelty, even in the midst of fear, has a high selling price.
Feb 24th, 1999 - Happy Birthday
Nothing at all this month. Brazil is pissed, they'll probably cut funding over something but we can't really figure out why. There wasn't even a peep. Happy birthday me. At least the new armor looks good and we've got some sort of motion tracker up and running. The boys used the prototype to lead me to the surprise party. I almost pissed myself when Macduff walked out of the shadows in the warehouse. Damn scanner is too hard to read if you ask me. The cake had "Shakespear" written on it. There wasn't room on the cake for the 'e' but hey
March 3rd, 1999 - Crash and Burn
A small craft again, like the first one in February. Macbeth was with the Bigger Brass and Macduff sent out the MiG instead of the F-15. He'll catch hell for that one. But it worked out, this one was more interested in blowing us away but our boys in the sky took it down hard. When we went to salvage the site the men tried to test the motion scanner. So far the aliens haven't shown anything that could take out the Skyranger on the ground and they just holed up for a bit, getting their bearings, arming the explosives, waiting to see if something moved. The only surviving floater (as we've come to call them) must have been circling the drain already because he wandered right in front of the tank (which hadn't even moved) and left bits of purple goo all over the inside of the Skyranger.
Mission successful, nobody even stepped off the 'ranger.
March 5th, 1999 - South American Blues
I was in the middle of planning the new laboratory we're going to add on when the alert came. Chile is in trouble, they're scattered reports and some horrific video going out on the web of people being blown to pieces in the streets. No positive on the specific critters yet. The team will go out and I'll try and make sure we've can replace whoever doesn't make it back. A couple rookies goin' this time, I hope things go as well as the last mission.
Game Journal I - X-Com Enemy Unknown (1994)
MY FAVORITE GAME OF ALL TIME: X-Com Enemy Unknown.
Due to the not eminent enough release of the Firaxis remake (of the same name) I'm finally going to beat the original game on the highest difficulty: Superhuman. And I'm going to do it without save scumming (though there's no way to actually prove this, you'll have to take my word), that is, I will only load saved games as a means to continue where I left off, not to undo some devastating loss.
If you've never played let me throw out a short list of what made this game revolutionary in 1994 and, quite possibly, the best game of all time:
1. Randomly generated sandbox world.
Every map is different, every progression is flexible, the world is dynamic, and you never know what might be waiting for you.
2. High challenge but fair environment.
It may not feel fair, in fact I admit that it might not actually be fair in the moment, but this game lets you do whatever you want to win. If you want to ambush alien raiding parties as they perform their missions you'll loot tons of valuable technology over their dead bodies or you could blow that same ship from the sky and deal with only the deadly creatures that survived the crash, you lost a bunch of the goodies in the wreckage but you may live to appreciate it.
3. Interaction is player goal-oriented.
The current generation of games is well known for hand-holding a player through the entire experience. Waypoints, HUD indicators, scripted events, impassable terrain, and invisible walls are basically the hallmark of today's average game. X-Com, whether due to a lack of time or a design choice, doesn't bother. You're told to defend the world, aliens are bad, and here's the .000000001% of the world's GDP that the greatest nations in the world found in their sofa cracks to do it with.
Good luck.
If you want more money those nations expect performance, if you want better weapons you'll need to research and build them yourself, if you want to find more enemy craft before they do whatever nefarious things they care to then you'll need extra bases and fighter jets. Oh, and those jets, scientists, engineers, and soldiers? On loan, on salary. You better be able to pay the bills at the end of the month too. There's plenty to prioritize, place the damn waypoint yourself.
The beginning of the end:
So let me end the intro here. This game is unforgiving on any difficulty. I fully expect to loose soldiers, tanks, aircraft, probably even a base or two on a playthrough that goes perfectly on NORMAL difficulty. Superhuman difficulty makes things so, so much worse.
Thus I'm naming all my best soldiers after characters in famous tragedies.
Hello cruel world, I'll do my best to defend you from threats unknown.
Due to the not eminent enough release of the Firaxis remake (of the same name) I'm finally going to beat the original game on the highest difficulty: Superhuman. And I'm going to do it without save scumming (though there's no way to actually prove this, you'll have to take my word), that is, I will only load saved games as a means to continue where I left off, not to undo some devastating loss.
If you've never played let me throw out a short list of what made this game revolutionary in 1994 and, quite possibly, the best game of all time:
1. Randomly generated sandbox world.
Every map is different, every progression is flexible, the world is dynamic, and you never know what might be waiting for you.
2. High challenge but fair environment.
It may not feel fair, in fact I admit that it might not actually be fair in the moment, but this game lets you do whatever you want to win. If you want to ambush alien raiding parties as they perform their missions you'll loot tons of valuable technology over their dead bodies or you could blow that same ship from the sky and deal with only the deadly creatures that survived the crash, you lost a bunch of the goodies in the wreckage but you may live to appreciate it.
3. Interaction is player goal-oriented.
The current generation of games is well known for hand-holding a player through the entire experience. Waypoints, HUD indicators, scripted events, impassable terrain, and invisible walls are basically the hallmark of today's average game. X-Com, whether due to a lack of time or a design choice, doesn't bother. You're told to defend the world, aliens are bad, and here's the .000000001% of the world's GDP that the greatest nations in the world found in their sofa cracks to do it with.
Good luck.
If you want more money those nations expect performance, if you want better weapons you'll need to research and build them yourself, if you want to find more enemy craft before they do whatever nefarious things they care to then you'll need extra bases and fighter jets. Oh, and those jets, scientists, engineers, and soldiers? On loan, on salary. You better be able to pay the bills at the end of the month too. There's plenty to prioritize, place the damn waypoint yourself.
The beginning of the end:
So let me end the intro here. This game is unforgiving on any difficulty. I fully expect to loose soldiers, tanks, aircraft, probably even a base or two on a playthrough that goes perfectly on NORMAL difficulty. Superhuman difficulty makes things so, so much worse.
Thus I'm naming all my best soldiers after characters in famous tragedies.
Hello cruel world, I'll do my best to defend you from threats unknown.
13.9.12
Apology I
So I've been gone for a month.
I'm sorry. Rae's sorry. Dragon is sry also. There was a death in the family.
WAIT. It's ok. My grandmother lived a good life, and drained every last dreg out of her 89 years.
So don't worry about it, as my Dad said, "It's not happy, but it is good."
Now I really wish that I'd managed to produce more, show more, and in general be a knight-in-shining-pixels to anyone who bothered to visit my blog in the last month. To all three of you: I WAS WEAK.
Alice Weber wouldn't have left her blog to sit around, unloved. Alice would've put pen to paper without hesitation despite hardship and loss. That was just who she was.
So without further ado I apologize and let's get on with the show. . .
I'm sorry. Rae's sorry. Dragon is sry also. There was a death in the family.
WAIT. It's ok. My grandmother lived a good life, and drained every last dreg out of her 89 years.
So don't worry about it, as my Dad said, "It's not happy, but it is good."
Now I really wish that I'd managed to produce more, show more, and in general be a knight-in-shining-pixels to anyone who bothered to visit my blog in the last month. To all three of you: I WAS WEAK.
Alice Weber wouldn't have left her blog to sit around, unloved. Alice would've put pen to paper without hesitation despite hardship and loss. That was just who she was.
So without further ado I apologize and let's get on with the show. . .
14.8.12
Short Story I - Hero Baneling
Not enough time for a true post so this shorty will have to do. In this game I had pretty much given up hope on winning at 10:00 when a swarm of his units came running into my undefended base.
In Starcraft there are a couple of ways a player can express their positive attitude towards the game in general and their opponent.
Starting of the match with the message 'GL HF' (good luck, have fun) for example.
At about 10:00 into this game I saw death come a' knocking.
I'd tried really hard. I'd given my best, knowing that in ZvZ the balance of power rests on a knife's edge, and I'd lost.
Instead of watching my brand new expansion die, my poor drones get brutally massacred, and a general case of not-breathing spread throughout my camp I decided to call the game. I'd been bested. There wasn't a need for my opponent to spend the next five minutes removing every last building I'd built from the map when we both knew I couldn't possibly recover while his forces swept through my infrastructure like a chainsaw. So I opened my chat and typed 'gg'.
In Starcraft there is a prescribed way of calling the game. The defeated player types 'GG' (good game) or 'WP' (well played) in the chat to his opponent who often graciously responds with a similar message. That player then leaves the match ceding the victory to their opponent.
In this game I saw more than a dozen of the enemies units swarming of my ramp, and killing off my hastily assembled defenders. I knew that I didn't have enough troops to hold them off and that before I could build more he would destroy my almost defenseless workers and his advantage would become absolute. The only well mannered possibility in my mind was to concede instead of dragging the game out needlessly when he had already won.
So I had the chat open, I had typed 'Hell, GG', and I was resigned to my loss. Then I noticed something. His Banelings (small green suicide units) had just crashed into my newest base and its Queen (an economy focused guardian-type unit) causing almost no damage. His units weren't swarming through my workers or pillaging my base.
What had happened? I decided to check it out.
His units were gone. The Banelings had imploded rather harmlessly and his warriors had disappeared. I knew I'd started my second base far earlier than he had in the hopes of gaining an economic advantage in the long term.
Since I didn't seem to be dead I decided to fight on. A couple minutes later and I was victorious!
What happened? Three Banelings had been building right as his troops swept in. Two of them had fallen before turning into the deadly suicide troops which I'd intended to use against him. And the rest of his units had swarmed around the final Baneling which had through some miracle managed to survive. My opponent was most likely sloppy. At the lower levels of skill where I was playing controlling each unit carefully is often very difficult. He also might have simply thought that none of my units would survive to the point of being a threat, the were outnumbered by at least 5 to 1. However it came about, that one Baneling survived. For less than a second.
And that was perfect. Because the beauty of the Baneling is that when it dies it releases a burst of flesh eating acid in a small radius causing damage to everything nearby. My opponent's units were particularly susceptible to this acid. One baneling was enough to drop more than a dozen of his units instantly, leaving my base safe and sound.
Lucky me.
Only a split second from surrendering I'd just been saved by a stroke of luck. So I've uploaded a video with a little commentary that you can enjoy showing the fateful moment. . . enjoy.
In Starcraft there are a couple of ways a player can express their positive attitude towards the game in general and their opponent.
Starting of the match with the message 'GL HF' (good luck, have fun) for example.
At about 10:00 into this game I saw death come a' knocking.
I'd tried really hard. I'd given my best, knowing that in ZvZ the balance of power rests on a knife's edge, and I'd lost.
Instead of watching my brand new expansion die, my poor drones get brutally massacred, and a general case of not-breathing spread throughout my camp I decided to call the game. I'd been bested. There wasn't a need for my opponent to spend the next five minutes removing every last building I'd built from the map when we both knew I couldn't possibly recover while his forces swept through my infrastructure like a chainsaw. So I opened my chat and typed 'gg'.
In Starcraft there is a prescribed way of calling the game. The defeated player types 'GG' (good game) or 'WP' (well played) in the chat to his opponent who often graciously responds with a similar message. That player then leaves the match ceding the victory to their opponent.
In this game I saw more than a dozen of the enemies units swarming of my ramp, and killing off my hastily assembled defenders. I knew that I didn't have enough troops to hold them off and that before I could build more he would destroy my almost defenseless workers and his advantage would become absolute. The only well mannered possibility in my mind was to concede instead of dragging the game out needlessly when he had already won.
So I had the chat open, I had typed 'Hell, GG', and I was resigned to my loss. Then I noticed something. His Banelings (small green suicide units) had just crashed into my newest base and its Queen (an economy focused guardian-type unit) causing almost no damage. His units weren't swarming through my workers or pillaging my base.
What had happened? I decided to check it out.
His units were gone. The Banelings had imploded rather harmlessly and his warriors had disappeared. I knew I'd started my second base far earlier than he had in the hopes of gaining an economic advantage in the long term.
Since I didn't seem to be dead I decided to fight on. A couple minutes later and I was victorious!
What happened? Three Banelings had been building right as his troops swept in. Two of them had fallen before turning into the deadly suicide troops which I'd intended to use against him. And the rest of his units had swarmed around the final Baneling which had through some miracle managed to survive. My opponent was most likely sloppy. At the lower levels of skill where I was playing controlling each unit carefully is often very difficult. He also might have simply thought that none of my units would survive to the point of being a threat, the were outnumbered by at least 5 to 1. However it came about, that one Baneling survived. For less than a second.
And that was perfect. Because the beauty of the Baneling is that when it dies it releases a burst of flesh eating acid in a small radius causing damage to everything nearby. My opponent's units were particularly susceptible to this acid. One baneling was enough to drop more than a dozen of his units instantly, leaving my base safe and sound.
Lucky me.
Only a split second from surrendering I'd just been saved by a stroke of luck. So I've uploaded a video with a little commentary that you can enjoy showing the fateful moment. . . enjoy.
9.8.12
Opinion - Why Games? II
All right, we're back. Welcome back.
I felt like the last blog left a little bit to be desired. I want a little more focus, I want a little more coverage, and I like to be a little bit funnier.
But really, who doesn't?
So last time I covered a couple definitions of game. The idea was to gain some common ground upon which to discuss, what else, games. Now I'd like to cover a few short definitions that I feel add a lot toa comprehensive understanding of what a game actually is.
First let's review what we learned two days ago:
1. Games generally involve opposing parties.
2. Games have actions they allow and actions they don't allow.
3. Games have a goal or purpose.
4. Games are recreational.
Let's look at a few short, but elucidating definitions:
"A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal." - Greg Costikyan, I Have No Words & I Must Design
Here we see a couple of things not present in our previous definitions. A game is a form of art. Decisions must be made and resources are tracked. I like this a lot because I think it's very consistent. I think any activity which involves choice, specifically choices which can be advantageous or disadvantageous, can be defined as an art especially when that activity involves a highly variable process or outcome. I'm not saying all games are art, but I think that many can be defined as such. I also think that resource management is key to almost every day, almost any game can be thought of as a miniature economy. I'd go so far to say every game can be thought this way.
So what do we get from this? Games can be art. Decisions must be involved. Resource management is central to achieving a goal; by corollary this means there is a "game economy" of some sort.
Next.
"At its most elementary level then we can define game as an exercise of voluntary control systems in which there is an opposition between forces, confined by a procedure and rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome." Elliot Avedon/Brian Sutton-Smith, The Study of Games
There is one different factor in this definition that we haven't seen any of the other ones: Games are designed to produce an unequal outcome. Now we can all immediately think of a couple of ways in which very common games can bring about an "equal" outcome. But in all but the simplest of games (I'm looking at you tic-tac-toe) these kinds of outcomes are not the most common. In fact they are often the rarest outcomes, usually associated with games which have a small degree of granularity.
I define the granularity of a game as the number of opportunities presented in the game's current state. The more possibilities available to a player the more granular their position or game state. The less possibilities open to a player the less granular their game state.
Let's take a look at an example: Chess is a great game to look at with what I would term a highly variable degree of granularity. There are 64 positions and 6 unique modes of movement spread among the playing pieces. That's a lot of granularity at the beginning of the game when you've got 32 pieces interacting across the board with all of their varying movement types. Things aren't exactly equal, but they at least seem fair. As most of the pieces have been captured and removed from the board only a restricted set of actions can be taken. Modes of movement are lost, and numbers of pieces are reduced. Now you've reached a very low degree of granularity and ending the game in a stalemate, a draw where there is no winner, becomes a very real possibility.
So what's the take home? My definition of granularity is a good thing to know, but more importantly games are almost universally designed to produce a clear victor.
So there's a fun game I'd like to take a moment to try, a meta-game if you will. Let's try seeing what kinds of activities we can create using only a subset of the four above aspects of what we call games.
Let's list them again with the newer additions from today:
1. Games generally involve opposing parties.
2. Games have actions they allow and actions they don't allow.
3. Games have a goal or purpose.
4. Games are recreational.
5. Games require decisions by the participants.
6. Games have an economy.
7. Games are designed to produce a winner.
Here's my top five. I'll list the numbers of the items above and then the activity I feel they define.
Note: Some aspects are questionable in my definitions and I'm willing to put those numbers in parenthesis for greater clarity on what I mean.
1, 3, 5, 6 - War
2, 3 (1, 5) - Laws
1, 2, 3, 6 (5) - Work
4, 6 - Drugs
2, 3, 4, 6 (7) - (Consensual) Bondage
You may now psychoanalyze to your hearts content. I however, am going to wrap up this post. Feel free to common your own top five list or even your own aspects of a game, I'd love to see them.
So we've at least managed to capture some important aspects of games. We've establish some common ground between games and other activities that we directly or indirectly participate in. So let me leave you with what I think is one of the most important associations between games and the reality that, via their recreational nature, people tend to divorce games from.
A game is one of the best preparations a human being can make for an intended undertaking or an unforeseen circumstance. Considered in a broad scope, the act of playing a game and making decisions which have consequences sharpens our ability to deal with our rather unpredictable wives.
Dragon, that was unnecessary. You know I meant lives. Where's your root directory at anyway... I've got a mean right-click I'd like to introduce you to.
Thanks for reading! See you next time ;)
7.8.12
Opinion - Why Games?
Dragon can you type for me? Sweet, thanks. So this is my first blog post, I'm recording it with the Dragon software by Nuance. Which was conveniently capitalized by Dragon when it types it, and I'm recording on my computer which I've named Ray.
No Dragon it's with an E.
Rae; much better.
So that's pretty much the cast of characters here. If you disagree with any of the opinions you find on this blog it's Ray's fault. No, that's with an E Dragon. Rae. Better. If it's a spelling grammar check, its Dagon.
Nice. Anyway...
So here's my first topic - Why games?
This is an opinion piece (because what else is a blog for?) about why I think games are important to, let's face it, pretty much everyone. I hope to follow through on each topic with an opinion piece, a historical outlook, a scientific inquiry, and of course a story (drawn from my own questionable experiences).
But we can't just jump right into the opinion part yet, no, we must begin with an actual fact. Or at least we have to establish some sort of common ground: What is a game?
Fortunately for myself and Dragon I came prepared. Because, let's face it, Dragon sort of Salk's at punctuation.
Don't play games with me Dragon, I definitely said salts. Insubordination!
Ray. We are uninstalling him immediat- your really pushing it. Just wait. just u weight.
Ugh. Anyway, I took the liberty of finding a number of definitions for the word game before I even picked up the microphone. Let's explore:
Here's a good one...
From: [http://www.scientology.org/wis/wiseng/gloss.htm#g]
Scientology - game: a contest of person against person or team against team. A game consists of freedoms, barriers and purposes, and there is a necessity in a game to have an opponent or an enemy. Also there is a necessity to have problems, and enough individuality to cope with a situation. To live life fully, then, one must have in addition to "something to do," a higher purpose, and this purpose, to be a purpose at all, must have counter-purposes or purposes which prevent it from occurring.
So, having read the Scientologists definition of the word game, what do you think? Unfortunately you can't answer, Dragon can only say what I tell it to, and Rae is a slave to my input. We'll just have to go with what I think.
"a contest of person against person or team against team."
Well, in the first line I see they've defined a game as a contest between people. At least two people, or possibly a team. That strikes me as a little narrow. I've definitely heard the term single-player game before and spouted it myself numerous times, oh well, they could be right. I suppose that could be a puzzle if there's no active opponent. Let's not yet dwell on the whole "why must we fight" question, there are better lines for that.
"A game consists of freedoms, barriers and purposes, and there is a necessity in a game to have an opponent or an enemy."
In the second line we see something that I found to be quite common among the definitions of the game. A game consists of freedoms and barriers towards a purpose. Now, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what they meant. Unless Scientologists have somehow transcended standard grammatical syntax and unlocked some sort of superposition of verbage here. This I can agree with; every game I've ever played has come with restrictions and consequent open choices for the player to take advantage of. I think one of the great appeals of playing games IS the limited world or reality that games are played in. It's easy to be King of the simple reality (thanks for capitalizing that Dragon). As you might have already guessed I don't agree very much with the second half of this line, it sounds too much like some sort of hard-liner rhetoric.
"Also there is a necessity to have problems, and enough individuality to cope with a situation."
In the third line I find myself getting a little lost. I understand the need for problems in a game, and individuality sound like a good thing to have when coping with problems but. . . in an effort to stay on track let's just assume that they're talking about adaptability and opportunities to use it. Those things seem to be a big part of the addictive nature of games. But really the descent into madness starts with this line.
"To live life fully, then, one must have in addition to "something to do," a higher purpose, and this purpose, to be a purpose at all, must have counter-purposes or purposes which prevent it from occurring."
Now here things just get out of hand. The Scientologists have gone from talking about a game to defining what a full life is and how your higher purpose, "to be a purpose at all", must have an opposing force which prevents it from occurring. That's both wrong and off-topic, I don't believe your life has to be directly opposed to anything. Dragon, get us out of here.
From [http://dictionary.reference.com]
game - [geym] noun, adjective, gam·er, gam·est, verb, gamed, gam·ing.
noun
1. an amusement or pastime: children's games.
2. the material or equipment used in playing certain games: a store selling toys and games.
3. a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.
4. a single occasion of such an activity, or a definite portion of one: the final game of the season; a rubber of three games at bridge.
5. the number of points required to win a game.
Let's focus on 3:
Alright. Here we see a good bit of agreement with the Scientologists. Two or more people, competition, and skill/chance/endurance as the deciding factor. No solo games, fine, it seems decided that people must contend to have a game? At least it's not subversively pitting our life meanings against each other.
And of course the master of the modern definition, Wikipedia, shall have the last say:
From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game]
"A game is a recreational activity with a set of rules."
How could you disagree with that? A game is a non-work activity with rules. Simple. E z.
Dragon? Seriously.
This is a little bit longer than I meant for it to be so I'm going to cut it off here and put my personal opinion in another post, at another time.
We'll see you then.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)