On the actual subject of this thread: I’ve avoided Cleve and his weirdness/insanity for years because I am legitimately interested in Grimoire itself. I know he’s an asshole, but I’ve distanced myself from it because I don’t care. It’s like people who suddenly hated Ender’s Game after they found out about Orson Scott Card’s political views. To me, that’s kind of silly. but I suppose I get it. For me though, I’m more interested in the work itself. Hitler made some beautiful paintings. Sure, he was basically the worst human being to ever exist, but he had some real skill. Heh. I can separate the artist from the art. Maybe I’m weird.
However, I was unable to ignore Cleve when he showed up in the chat of one of my favorite streamers and basically called him a bi-polar idiot who couldn’t pay attention. Which wasn’t at all true, and the stuff Cleve was trying to get him to do, Tom had already done and was trying to find something else entirely. Cleve had jumped into a stream he’d clearly not been watching, made incorrect assumptions and just… was a complete ass. Tom was really enjoying the game, too. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, not shitting on it at all, even with the bugs he was running into. He was praising the hell out of it, really. He’s really into this game genre, and so far he was really into it.
Here’s a link to the time index of the video. Watch the chat on the left. Cleve is “texasarcane.” Also, when Tom removes the chat from the screen, watch the chat replay on the right to see the rest of Cleve’s comments (and Tom’s last response to him). Tom didn’t know it was actually Cleve at the time, and talks about it at the beginning of his next stream of the game. He’s kind of upset by it, justifiably so. You can see that here. It kind of ruined his attitude toward the game and Cleve as well. Which is unfortunate, because before that he wasn’t shitting on the game AT ALL, even when it might’ve deserved it. But now he kind of does. Oh well.
Anyway, I came in here to see what people were saying about Grimoire and Cleve, but walked into a quicksave debate. On that subject, I’ve been replaying Far Cry 1, which only has autosaves. It basically ruins the game for me. The other day, I spent 30 minutes in an area systematically stealthily taking down enemies only for the really terrible AI to cheat and take me down (which is common for them, their sight mechanics are seriously bad). Had to redo it all again, and it happened again slightly differently after another 25 minutes or so. I couldn’t stomach another try. Sure, you could say “Dude, just go guns blazing” and I probably should. But I don’t find it enjoyable. If I had, I probably would’ve made it to the next checkpoint in 5 minutes. Anyhow, man, Far Cry 1 was amazing for its time, but it really hasn’t aged well at all as far gameplay goes. It is clunky as hell.
The design implications of save mechanisms are pretty interesting, I think. Theoretically, you could design a game where the information imparted to the player and the tools the player has to interact with the game world were sufficient so that you could reasonably expect the average player to succeed or fail at a particular task based on a universally accepted level of skill, awareness, and knowledge. In practice, that’s nearly impossible I find. instead, you get games full of gotchas, where you need save anywhere or frequent checkpoints because the basic design of the game is for you to learn from failure, and that’s often the only way to learn.
We’ve all fantasized about,say, an RPG where everything is so logical, integrated with the game world and backstory, and fits together rationally that if you pay attention and get in the mindset of the game context and all, you wouldn’t need to save anywhere (for gameplay purposes, not talking about real-life stuff in this thought exercise), where the traps or puzzles you encounter would be of a sort that mimic as close to a realistic situation as the game context allows, all things considered (magic, dragons, etc.) and which you could reasonably expect to have the tools and information necessary to solve or defeat “just like someone in the game world would if it were real.” But I’ve never seen anything like that.
Oh, I see what you’re saying. I guess Cleve could be making that reference. But I always assumed he was just repeating a well-worn pun on the city name “Texarkana,” which goes back at least to the “Tex Arcana” comic in Heavy Metal in the 80s, and probably was made many times long before that.
Well I guess it figures that Cleve would show up in streams to heckle the player. Seems inevitable in hindsight.
No way! Furi is brilliant! One of the best games of 2016: all killer, no filler
I can’t remember most of the supposed epic boss fights from so many games, but I’ll remember the pulse-pounding feeling of defeat and triumph in Furi. Heck, even the tutorial boss in Furi is more memorable than most final bosses.
I even like the unusual lives system: you have three lives and opponents have 4-5 phases (lifebars, really), but you regain a “life” every time you beat one boss phase. Both life bars get filled when one opponent loses all its life. So you get some leeway for hiccups, but you can’t mess up too much. It has a great tug-of-war, samurai battle feel, so it’s also epic because you either do it in one go or don’t do it at all.
As someone who makes fun of save anywhere, I already knew you thought a victory became greater based on all the tedious hoops you have to jump through to get there. I bet you even think the time punishment of retrying makes the battles more intense!
I hit alt-F4 when I goofed up the final melee phase of the third boss (I think) and realized I had to sit through the trivial shmup attack all over again. Like I said, the time investment doesn’t necessarily matter compared to the principle of disrespecting my time. I’ll set principle aside when I’m enjoying the rest of a game, but the combat didn’t grab me anyway. No big loss.
It’s helpful to think of the difference between challenge and punishment, but like I’ve alluded to, some people think a punishment hanging over you makes the thrill greater. It’s hard to argue with a value difference like that. We’re into P&R territory.
There are already too many good games that I will never play, so I am happy to have an easy reason to skip some games, like the omission of a save anywhere option.
FWIW, I’ve been watching more of that VOD of RetrogradeTom’s stream and Cleve shows back up in day 2, here. Starts with some of his weird ramblings about neanderthals and homo-sapiens but they end up coming to terms and getting along. Cleve gets very nice and complimentary even. Makes me wonder if he’s actually being nice, or people called him out on it and he’s trying to fix it. Either way, he does seem less loathsome now. Hrm. I plan to keep watching these vods over the next few days and will update if anything else interesting happens.
I’m laughing within the first 15 seconds. Streamer is making a simple inventory UI suggestion. Cleve posts some ridiculous treatise in paragraph form. Very next thing the streamer says, in reference to maybe missing some obvious improvements like he suggested, is “you’ve got a lot of things you’re thinking about when you’re developing a game.”
“Homo Sapiens don’t produce 183 IQs. Their own women admit they like the “bad boys.” The “bad boys” don’t have IQs of 183 thus intelligence is not indigenous to Homo Sapiens.”
I was a semi-normal man. Then I drank drano. It expressed my neanderthal genes. Now I have an IQ greater than anyone else in the world. I am smarter and stronger than anyone else. My bones are titanium. I think faster than anyone on the planet. You are all weaker and stupider than me. You wish that you could understand my genius.
My game is perfect. I have made the perfect game… Your weak minds can not comprehend what I have accomplished.
Oh wait. Simple issues are causing errors.
Nevermind! They are fixed in 120 minutes.
Wait more issues.
I am a superman. I will get a Whopper then I will fix them.
The silly thing is, all humans have some neanderthal DNA in them. Sure, some more than others. But what a weird notion, to think having slightly more makes you better in some way.
@RichVR Wait who wrote all that? You or Cleve? I cannot tell.
And BTW, I think Cleve has put more work into this game in the past three days than he had in the previous 15 years. At least we know he’s actually doing something now. How long he can keep it up is another matter.
Re: Save anywhere: What would be wrong with a game accommodating both camps with a check-box option before you start the game?
Save Anywhere
Hard-ass Mode
That way, if you think you might be tempted by saving anywhere, and you don’t want to be tempted, you just click Hard-ass Mode and forge ahead. No changing your mind either, unless you want to start a new game. Problem solved.
In fact, haven’t there already been games that did a version of this? Where your difficulty selection at the beginning determined how many saves you got per mission? I know I’ve played one or two games like that, but damned if I can recall them now.
So just for the record a “whopper” is what you get from burger king? Should you want that I guess. Or is it some self-flagellation thing I just don’t understand?
