VVVVVV – RELEASED!

By: Xander

On: January 11th, 2010

VVVVVV

So you find yourself between two sets of pylons which effortlessly inverse the laws of gravity and no less than five sets of absolutely fatal spike traps. Somehow, this is actually close to the safest you’ve felt since you left the ship.

Welcome to VVVVVV, the eagerly anticipated platform adventure from the brainly fantastocity of Terry Cavanagh whose work last year with Judith and Don’t Look Back sowed the seeds of anticipation for this his biggest title to date.

To surmise, your ship has befallen some sort of disasterous event and your crew have become separated across a strange dimension. It’s your job to reunite them and possibly pick up some secret trinkets along the way. Aside from your ability to walk either left and/or right, you also have the power to flip gravity at your will. The rest of the adventure then builds on this power again and again, adding new and interesting ways to solve puzzles with no small quantity of intelligence or dexterity.

There’s a demo available online which contains two levels for you to sink your teeth into, and the full version is available through the main site at the generously quaint sum of $15/£8.99 (For both Mac and PC, with the Linux version coming VERY SOON), and the game does seem rather packed full of extras for those of you brave enough to seek out all those trinkets. You’ll probably struggle, you will definitely die and you will absolutely do it all with an unrelenting grin on your face.

Congratulations to Terry, and happy V-Day everyone!

TIGdb: Entry for VVVVVV

  • Troll

    @d2king10
    I CALL YOUR BLUFF. YOU HAVE ONE WEEK TO MAKE A SUPERIOR PRODUCT.

  • Davide “Gendo Ikari” Mascolo

    @Dodger

    I understand your point better now, and I make my excuses for the bad quosting. I was fresh from a discussion on a forum where a lot of people made extreme mirror-climbing to justify piracy (and it was on the forum of a gaming magazine, not some warez site) so I got a bit worked up.

    P.S.: it’s “Davide”. I’m Italian not italo-american :D

  • Anthony Flack

    Since I’m somebody who DID quit their job to make games full-time, I’m sorry to report that I literally do not have $15 to spend on this (or, indeed to buy food with) right now. But I also don’t think it’s unreasonable, so I will wait, and as soon as I do have $15 to spare I will buy it. Well, okay, I’m actually waiting to buy Machinarium first, but right after that.

    And again, to those that insist that this is a lot of hype for what is just another average game: sorry, but I think you are suffering from the video game equivalent of tone-deafness. If you can’t see it, that’s cool, but please stop insulting our intelligence – we didn’t all just decide to start praising some unremarkable game at random.

  • paul eres

    “Honestly, after playing the demo, I can say that this game wouldn’t really take that much time or effort to make (especially not graphically, and the coding isn’t that difficult for something of this scale). So why should I pay $15 for a game that I could easily create at the same or better quality?”

    yes the graphics could have been done by any programmer. yes the coding could have have been done by any old programmer. but those aren’t the game’s distinguishing features, it’s the game design and level design that are of value here (regardless of how much value you’d place on it), not the graphics or the code. are you saying that if someone improves the code or graphics of their game, it’s worth additional money, even if the game design and levels remain exactly the same?

  • lp

    wow the final challenge sure was challenging!

  • ingram

    Dodger, do you know of a game called Bionic Commando? It flopped completely. So bad that the entire development team was laid off and the company that made it (GRIN) had to close its doors.

    Even in cases not as extreme as that, it’s pretty much common sense that when something doesn’t sell, something has to give in order to recuperate costs. And believe me, it’s not the CEOs who lose anything. It’s usually the little guy who loses big.

  • Anarkex

    Paul Eres, actually, I would say that a game with better graphics and coding is pretty much automatically “better” than the same game with lousy graphics and coding. Of course, the most important part is the game itself, its rules, its design, et cetera, but even if the game is a complete failure in those aspects it’s still “better” when the graphics and coding are improved (note that what constitutes a graphical “improvement” is up to debate).

    As for whether or not it’s worth additional money, commercial devs release their old games with updated graphics all the time and make a profit. Sounds good to me.

  • Anarkex

    And a response to Anthony Flack:

    Please stop insulting my intelligence by implying that I can’t identify a decent game when I play it. If you’re going to make an argument for this game’s sake, make it a better one than “lol you guys just don’t get it”. This is exactly what I was talking about before. Unless you are seriously going to tell me that video games have a magical quality aura that only some people can detect, you should be able to put some logic behind your opinion.

  • Dodger

    @ingram,

    You just contradicted your own comment. I asked you which game it was that had been pirated so much that the entire dev time got fired or laid. So you’re absolutely misunderstanding my point and didn’t comprehend what I was trying to say about the “little guys” out there.

    Yes I do know of Bionic Commando. Yes it was a flop mostly because the game lacked any depth and the mechanics were unfriendly to say the least. The devs got laid off? I’m sorry to hear that. That still has nothing to do with piracy though.

    I personally wouldn’t pay full price for Bionic Commando after I had tried the demo out but I did pick it up for $14.97 at my local Movie Gallery. Bionic Commando Rearmed was a better game than this Next Gen Bionic Commando and to be perfectly honest, VVVVVV is a much better game than Bionic Commando in my opinion. Graphically Bionic Commando looked like it had everything but considering the gameplay mechanics were severely Fubar’d and the game world was extremely limited it only left players with a shell of a game that lead more to frustration making even the convoluted story and cutscenes not worth the time or effort.

    So perhaps it’s for those reasons that Bionic Commando failed… I can’t say for sure, but I can confidently say that it’s not because it was so pirated that it put the devs and company out of business.

    I don’t want to go off topic any more though, hopefully I’ve been able to explain myself in a way that’s understandable. I get what you’re trying to say, I just don’t appreciate the way you tried to make me look when you didn’t get what I was trying to say.

  • Dodger

    Paul had a very good point as well. Just because someone has the knowledge to come up with a game that is for lack of a better word – “simple”, doesn’t mean that that same person has the creativity to create an appealing game that’s both interesting and fun. Terry brought his own ideas to the game and made it something special because it hasn’t been done this way before. Just like Paul, he created Immortal Defense, it’s a tower defense game which are now a dime a dozen. Paul however, has created a unique tower defense that can’t really be compared to other Tower Defense games aside from the standard mechanics of a TD game, everything else became so interesting because of Paul’s creativity and imagination. Someone else could have put together a game that may have looked similar, but I don’t think the same person could have made the same intriguing story and elements that enhance the standard TD mechanics. It takes imagination and creativity to come up with those things and last but not least, a lot of work.

  • Anthony Flack

    And why buy books? After all, they’re just words and anybody can write them.

    “Please stop insulting my intelligence by implying that I can’t identify a decent game when I play it. If you’re going to make an argument for this game’s sake, make it a better one than “lol you guys just don’t get it”. This is exactly what I was talking about before. Unless you are seriously going to tell me that video games have a magical quality aura that only some people can detect, you should be able to put some logic behind your opinion.”

    Is there any point making an argument, though? I mean, I could say for instance that I thought the graphics were not at all bad, and in fact are very stylish and evocative, nice use of colour, appealingly minimalist, lots of sly nods to 80s games, etc. But is there any point making that argument to somebody who didn’t already feel that? It’s like trying to convince somebody, with words, to appreciate a particular piece of music or combination of colours.

    But I know I’m not the only person who sees it. It’s not hype, it’s a whole lot of people responding individually to a quality piece of work. And if you’re not feeling it, then, I dunno, not for you I guess.

  • junker

    Yeah, I agree with Anthony. Fuck logic. We should all appeal to emotion. That’s the way things ought to work.

  • Anarkex

    Anthony Flack, a person can’t be “video game blind” in the same way that a person can be colorblind. A video game is a composite of many things we already are familiar with: text, graphical art, and – most importantly – rules (which exist in basically everything, not just games). Though I can’t imagine a color I can’t see, I CAN imagine a game I can’t play. We can easily criticize a game by comparing it to the ones we’ve already played, realizing where it breaks new ground or improves, as well as where it fails to present anything we haven’t seen before, better.

    What you have said about the graphics is a well-constructed argument, and in the world of aesthetics in games there isn’t a whole lot more to it than that. I can say that I thought the graphics were pretty half-assed, uninspired, ugly, and occasionally even pretentious (dangers include words like “truth” and “lies”, factories, coins…ugh) and well, you wouldn’t have much to say about that besides “that’s what you think”. No matter how much I cite other games with better aesthetic design (even from as far back as the 8-bit era), I’d never really be able to prove I’m right. And it’s fine.

    But the more important thing to look at here is the game’s depth and design, which we can easily evaluate. Just compare this game to similar games: in this case, platformers. Narrow it down, and we’re basically comparing it with frustration platformers. There are TONS of them out there, many of which play off of clever little elements like flipping onto the ceiling, and a lot of them are FREE and I still wouldn’t waste my time playing through them all. If you can make a decent argument how this game deviates from all that mindless drek, then we’d be cooking with gas here. As an example, “this game features a lot of exploration, so at least you can choose which tunnel you want to checkpoint-hop your way down until you get sick of it all and go play something fun.”

    It’s fine if you want to chalk it up to just “that’s YOUR opinion” (it certainly is easier for me, I don’t have to type anymore), but in that case you don’t get to imply that the only reason I think differently from you is that I’m stupid and blind.

    >”But I know I’m not the only person who sees it. It’s not hype, it’s a whole lot of people responding individually to a quality piece of work”

    Yeah, and I’m not the only person criticizing the game either, bro. But I suppose we’re just the stupid masses and you’re the enlightened gaming master race for some reason.

  • Dusty Spur

    oh for the love of fuck. Over 200 comments, seriously?

  • dudeman

    @junker:
    “Yeah, I agree with Anthony. Fuck logic. We should all appeal to emotion. That’s the way things ought to work.”
    when discussing the quality of a game, yes.

  • d2king10

    There is a difference between style and good graphics. These graphics might be stylized, but in a day and age of HD quality art, he could have gone, at the very least, a higher resolution with the game. It isn’t like he had some complex animations and sprites to make.

  • Dodger

    @d2king10,

    He could have made the game look numerous different ways, instead he chose a classic C64 look. He didn’t just throw this thing together, he used what he knew. It’s like Anthony said earlier, why buy a book when anyone can write words? Good analogy.

  • dudeman

    It’s a bit like saying “why should you bother with playing an acoustic guitar in an age where a synthesizer can imitate almost anything?”

  • d2king10

    Why should he bother to make better graphics when he can get away with making the game look “old school” by spending 30 minutes on the art. Uh no, there are plenty of $15 games out there that took the time to polish everything. It isn’t so much to ask from a developer that is going to make a classic look, to at least make the graphics high res or something. I am tired of indie developers using that “retro” crutch and getting away with it.

    The bottom line, he was too lazy to try and get better art and that is that. The games value would be worth more, in my eyes, if he had spent a lot more time making those “retro” graphics higher resolution or something.

    And btw, there is a reason those graphics are called “retro”.

  • Dodger

    @d2king10,

    Not to insult you or anything, but, you really sound like you’re talking out your ass now. Terry never claimed to be great at making graphics. Have you even played any of his other games?!?!? Have you even played VVVVVV? Do the graphics kill the gameplay? If so then you probably wouldn’t want to post comments for most of the front page TIGSource stuff, or at indiegames. Some people were good at art before they started making games, others have had to learn the art of making art to fit their game. There are talents and skills that each developer can bring to the table. Terry happens to be pretty darn good at level design and thinking out what he wants to do with a game. He might have been able to make better graphics but that could have been much more time consuming. It’s not that he’s lazy, perhaps he just wants to be able to pay his rent and eat. He said himself that VVVVVV became a much bigger project that he had first foreseen. He’s put a lot of time into the gameplay already and as much time as he could afford into the graphics. People were already patiently waiting for this to be released because they like Terry’s other games so much. The only other option he would have had would be to hire an artist, and on no budget, that’s unlikely to happen. Beyond that, I think Terry had an idea of how he wanted to make it look to accompany how it played. In the end, it works, otherwise nobody would have bought it. Maybe he’ll have a head start on his future games now that VVVVVV has been released if he finds commercial success that can sustain him in his own little niche of the interwebs and indie game development.

    Since you’re so good at making games though, please bestow upon us your Rembrandt so we can learn from your work. I’m curious d2king10, how did you come up with a game that was both fun to play and was graphically amazing in a matter of no time or budget?

  • junker
  • junker

    @dudeman go to Google. type “appeal to emotion fallacy” and click “I’m feeling lucky.”

    Tell me what you see.

  • junker

    I’d post a link but the overaggressive spam filters won’t let me.

  • dudeman

    ok, I get it now. English isn’t my native language so I sometimes don’t understand or misinterpret phrases.

    Also @d2king10: Why are only hi-res graphics good graphics? I don’t think there’s an objective judgement to be made. Terry said numerous times that he’s not good at art. He probably just tried to make something aesthetically appealing with the talent he has, at which he’s succeeded in my opinion.

  • trialbyicecream

    I hope terry feels like a star. this is one of the longest threads that’s been on tigsource’s front page in a LONG time.
    also, six vs is the first indie game i’ve ever bought. i’ve been playing indie games for 10 years or so.

  • The Vagrant Werewolf

    @d2king10

    You’re totally coming over as a graphics whore, here. I’m sorry, but you are.

    You’re ignoring accessibility, level design, writing, controls, and failing to understand art aesthetics.

    If you’ve just come over to the indie scene from Gears of war, I suppose I could understand, but there’s not a great deal of difference between, say, VVVVVV and Knytt Stories. Are you going to condemn Knytt Stories, too?

    VVVVVV was supposed to look like an old home computer game, but a bit modernised, and it achieves that goal perfectly. It doesn’t have a high pixel count, and it doesn’t push polygons. But all of the other things I mentioned it does right.

    It’s clever, it’s pick up and play, it’s fun, funny, earnest, honest, and charming. The level design is genius, and taxing, and yet thanks to the inventive checkpoint system it’s never punishing.

    If you’re looking at graphics instead of a game that’s fun to play, then I can’t take you too seriously.

    And as others have pointed out, perhaps he could have added different graphics, but that would have cost him, and it might have made the game worse. It would’ve robbed the game of its beautiful visual aesthetic (yes, I like it), and it might have suffered a problem that a number of polished indie games do.

    Look at Zero Gear, for example. It looks great, but it’s not a whole lot of fun to play.

    So indeed, if graphics are all that you care about in a game, then you can’t really like the vast majority of the games that you’d see at TIGSource and the Indie Games blog. If that’s the case, why post about something that you have no comprehension of?

  • The Vagrant Werewolf

    @Junker

    That fallacy doesn’t apply in a discussion like this, I find the application of it here tantamount to insipidity.

    Simplified, here’s what you’re implying: We should all listen to an opera, and then provide an emotionless, logical write-up on the efficiency of the display, how exact the notes where, whether people were standing in exactly the right places, and so on.

    We can’t all be art critics, or robots. Some of us do appreciate things on a more emotional level. Entertainment especially so, as it quite often is designed to provoke some kind of emotional response.

    In the case of VVVVVV it evokes anger sometimes, jubilation, satisfaction, awe, and appreciation. And that’s what’s meant by feeling a game. If you play it and you don’t feel these things then you’re not going to get the same thing out of the game that peoople who do, and no amount of explaining is going to convey these emotions to you.

    I’m sorry, Mr. Data, but really… trying to apply that fallacy here is funny. We’re not debating over scripture, or Scientific theory, or even politics. We’re talking about whether we like a game or not.

    And of course you can “feel” a piece of entertainment.

    Gods, when pseudo-intellectual undergrads pull this nonsense in a completely out of context way, I end up facepalming so much that it leaves this nasty red mark on my head. It’s really embarrassing, I wish you wouldn’t do that.

    Lrn2TheoryOfKnowledge

  • dbb

    I was going to buy Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” on CD, but the guy at the record shop pointed out I could get the best of the Spice Girls for the same price. The Bach is just one guy playing a piano, whereas there are five Spice Girls, not to mention all the session musicians and backing singers and stuff. And the production is way more high-tech, with autotune and drum machines and everything.

    So I got the Spice Girls, because it’s better value. Don’t really see how that Bach guy can justify charging full price for a solo piano recording. And it’s all just variations on the one theme anyway.

  • Anarkex

    >That fallacy doesn’t apply in a discussion like this, I find the application of it here tantamount to insipidity.

    Hurp derp derp more syllables means more knowledge.

    >Simplified, here’s what you’re implying: We should all listen to an opera, and then provide an emotionless, logical write-up on the efficiency of the display, how exact the notes where, whether people were standing in exactly the right places, and so on.

    Implying that’s what he was implying.

    >We can’t all be art critics, or robots. Some of us do appreciate things on a more emotional level. Entertainment especially so, as it quite often is designed to provoke some kind of emotional response.

    Once again, you are pitching me the “this game is god and we are its true believers” argument. I’d recommend reading my above post, if you haven’t. It got flagged as spam, I guess because it was really long, but it’s up now at number 213.

    >In the case of VVVVVV it evokes anger sometimes, jubilation, satisfaction, awe, and appreciation.

    So does taking a dump. If this is the only game that has made you feel these emotions, seriously, play more video games before you say shit like this.

    >I’m sorry, Mr. Data, but really… trying to apply that fallacy here is funny. We’re not debating over scripture, or Scientific theory, or even politics. We’re talking about whether we like a game or not.

    No, we are talking about if the game is GOOD or not. I like plenty of bad games. I would not recommend a game to a person solely because it has sentimental value to me.

    >And of course you can “feel” a piece of entertainment.

    You can feel things ABOUT a piece of entertainment, but the emotions are yours. Do you go around “feeling” books or movies? Even if you’re calling games a “medium for storytelling” or something, that still sounds pretty stupid.

    >Gods, when pseudo-intellectual undergrads pull this nonsense in a completely out of context way

    Heh “Gods”. No, Werewolf, you are the pseudo-intellectual undergrads.

    >Lrn2TheoryOfKnowledge

    And then Werewolf was a 4chan.

  • Dodger

    @dbb,

    o.O :-/ Whoa! That’s probably the most sarcastic comment ever made… EvArr!

    :)

  • http://vacuumflowers.com/ Sparky

    I just wanted to drop by and mention that I’ve played the full game now, and really enjoyed it.

    Props to Terry for polishing this as much as he did. I love to see games that get this kind of treatment. I haven’t played all the IGF design finalists yet, but I’d be extremely surprised if this isn’t more solid than most of them.

  • junker

    If you can’t logically express why you are having the emotions you have over something, then it’s called insanity. At which point, you should seek help, not think you can win an argument without logic.

    What about the opera made you feel that way? The singing? The lighting or stage design? Maybe it invoked some memory of your past, or reminded you of something?

    Nothing is beyond explanation or reasoning. That has to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

  • junker

    Also for that last point, if it reminded you of something, what exactly did it remind you of and how is it relevant to the subject at hand?

    If “well, that’s just my opinion man” is the best you can do, then you really don’t have much of a solid reason for liking this game, do you?

  • daigo

    Christ, this is worse than people on DA who say that’s just my style when people try to point out flaws in anatomy or proportion. well thats just ur opinion, i cant be wrong cuz it looks gud to me im immune to logic srry ^_^

  • nobody

    Christ, this is worse than people on DeviantArt who say “that’s just my style” when people try to point out flaws in anatomy or proportion. WELL THATS JUST UR OPINION, I CANT BE WRONG CUZ IT LOOKS GUD TO ME. IM IMMUNE TO LOGIC SORRY.

  • fuzz

    @junker: “nothing is beyond explanation or reasoning”

    that sentence has to be the most ridiculous thing _i’ve_ ever heard.

    there is something called the unconscious mind, see. and emotions are a component of this. unconscious response to external stimuli. if you could explain your emotions rationally then you really would be insane. rationality and emotion are two entirely different things; while one’s morals can be very different from those of other people, emotional responses are generally similar. sure, there may be something that could be explained about your emotions, but that’s completely impossible to do using language

  • nobody

    GUYS VVVVVV TRANSCENDS LOGIC, IT EFFECTS PEOPLES LIFES ON A PERSONAL LEVEL MAN. HOLY SHIT. ITS LIKE THE MOTHERFUCKING JESUSGAME OR SOMESHIT

  • somebody

    i can tell fuzz is a creationist

  • ingram

    Aren’t we getting a bit off topic here? The subject is VVVVVV and it’s pricing.

    Not whether logical fallacies are actually fallacies (good god, I can’t believe I’m reading any of this. How could something get so sidetracked?)

  • Anarkex

    >if you could explain your emotions rationally then you really would be insane.

    Fuzz, is that a joke? If my dog died, and I was depressed as a result, and my friend came up to me and said “dude, are you depressed? Why are you depressed?”, I would be able to say “My dog died” and he would understand, because that’s a good REASON to have that EMOTION.

    There are things beyond explanation and reasoning, the miracles and the mystical, but believe me these things are a bit too off-topic to bother with here. Hell, even if we were in a position to talk about them, we wouldn’t be able to; they’re outside the scope of our reasoning.

    But yeah, VVVVVV isn’t one of those things. Nothing created by a human being can be one of those things. I swear to god you guys. Once again: “this game is god, and we are its true believers.”

  • Dusty Spur

    >The subject is VVVVVV and it’s pricing.

    It’s overpriced.

    I figured this many comments in everyone would have reached that conclusion!

    But apparently I overestimate people because I guess we are talking about the emotional reaction we have to a *fucking frustration platformer*.

    PROTIP: It’s “fun” and/or “frustration”. MYSTERY FUCKING SOLVED

  • fuzz

    actually this has nothing to do with mysticality and etc, just that the mind isn’t advanced enough to comprehend how emotion works or what causes it- eg. if we could comprehend our emotions, then they would not exist. essentially a thing cannot contain itself.

    yes, there are vague reasons, but even those are suppositions and not entirely correct. you can say, “my dog died”, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the sole reason that you’re depressed, it’s just that your dog’s death exacerbated existing emotions, along with other factors- death tends to clarify emotions, rather than cause them.

    @somebody- i’m an atheist, but that’s derived from a complex set of values that i couldn’t outline in this comment section, not from “hey god doesn’t exist”

  • ingram

    @fuzz, what does this have to do with VVVVVV’s pricing?

  • d2king10

    I am not saying that a game needs great graphics, and if this game was free – $5 I would be okay with what is in the game, however, if he is going to be charging $15, then he can spend a lot more time into the graphics or get someone to do them for him.

  • Anarkex

    >actually this has nothing to do with mysticality and etc, just that the mind isn’t advanced enough to comprehend how emotion works or what causes it- eg. if we could comprehend our emotions, then they would not exist. essentially a thing cannot contain itself.

    Fuzz, of course we can’t get it perfectly, in the same way that any communication is imperfect. We can safely come up with simplified models, though, in the same way we’ve come up with words. I can assume that if I punch someone in the gut out on the street, nine times out of ten it will inspire his anger. And if we couldn’t properly predict emotions in this way, a work such as a book or a movie or this game wouldn’t be able to cause anyone to feel anything with any accuracy.

    Honestly though, we’re getting way off topic. This shit has nothing to do with the game. Emotions have nothing to do with the game, even. As I said before, when coming up with a decent criticism, you have to figure that your personal sentimental value of that game might not apply to other people. Your emotions don’t indicate the way other people will react; the only thing that remains constant is the game itself. So, what’s worth explaining about this game when criticizing it CAN be explained, because it was created by a human mind and can be circumscribed by one.

  • Anarkex

    I’ve made a mistake here, because I was trying to avoid an issue. As it goes, a book or movie or, well, a medium, can communicate an emotion in accordance with my first paragraph above, because that’s what a medium does. A medium is a method for communication.

    A game is not a medium. A game is a simulation, that is, a game creates a small world and simple rules that everything within that world abides by. And it plops you into that world, and says “do what you want”. Because no matter who the main character of the game is THE PLAYER is still ultimately the protagonist, there’s no predicting how the main character will respond and how he will go about his business in the game world. And in the end, that’s why a game can’t really “communicate” (except through movies and text and maybe graphics (media) coded in it). For instance, I never got angry at VVVVVV, nor did it make me especially happy. I just stopped playing it.

    This stuff is still irrelevant, but I thought I’d clarify so nobody thinks I didn’t know the above post was inconsistent.

  • fuzz

    anyway, i think this comment thread has run its course. the issue of pricing has been discussed at length (unresolved), as have the issues of graphics and overall quality (both unresolved). people have different opinions, and trying to reconcile theirs to yours won’t usually make a big difference.

    which is why it seems perfectly suitable to discuss emotions v. rationality here

  • fuzz

    ah, but linearity in games allows them to be a medium, doesn’t it?

  • Anarkex

    Not really, fuzz, because the player still has control over his actions. It remains a simulation of a world. If it’s linear, well, that just means it’s simulating a world that just happens to be a hallway. The player can still act upon the world in a multitude of ways, depending on the game, and it’s his choice which way he acts. I can play through a shmup collecting all the items, for example, or I can choose to only use the alt fire. And if I’m not very good, I won’t last very long. The game isn’t forcing me to do any of these things, hell, it isn’t even forcing me to live. And nothing really works as a metaphor, either, because the world of the game is a substitute for reality. The player rejects reality in favor of the world of the game.

    I mean, in the long run, this can potentially lead to more powerful experiences than in books or movies (or cutscene-heavy games), because rather than watch someone overcome challenges, simulations allow us to overcome those challenges themselves. And the more immersive the simulation is, the closer we get to actually doing it. Doing is always better than watching.

    Still, this is all unrelated to what we were talking about. I was just making sure my ass was covered. As far as I’m concerned, the issue of pricing is certainly “resolved”, and so is the issue of the graphics overall quality of the game. I don’t expect to convince everyone, but if the discussion is finally over I think I’ve made my points as clear as possible and am pretty much done here. And I’d rather not keep bothering with emotions and rationality. I was only ever talking about them because they were key to an opposing point about the game.

  • Anarkex

    edit: should be

    >simulations allow us to overcome those challenges ourselves.