Random Thoughts

[Ceir]

Purely as a thought exercise, I've been trying to come up with the most fair yet mean game possible, in terms of just totally stonewalling player expectations and being sarcastic about video game tropes - basically, the ultimate streamer troll. For what I'm envisioning, it would have to be some kind of generic third-person action RPG type thing.

In some ways it would be scrupulously fair:
- generous and robust checkpoints or quicksave/load system
- if there's an RNG chance of something, the calculations will be displayed and accurate (looking at you, XCom)
- if the PC dies, there will be a death screen explaining exactly what happened
- in general, information will not be hidden
- prompts and tutorials will be prominent, exact, and highly visible

And then the sarcasm and stonewalling kicks in:
- those prompts and tutorials that are prominent and highly visible do not go away until the player does the thing, you can't just ignore them
- dodge-rolling and bunny-hopping are absolutely options; constantly doing either is slower than base walking
- there is never anything behind waterfalls
- there is never anything inside Random Containers
- there will be a lot of breakables; there will be consequences for breaking them
- there will be a lot of NPCs; there will be consequences for harassing or hitting them
- attempts to shortcut, speedrun, or sequence-break will either lead to a 'back where you started' loop, or death

Hey, I never said it was a thought exercise in developing a fun game to play...

[Ceir]

Not worth a Sickbay thread.

I just love (sarcastic) how my body's response to Too Much Slime - i.e. sinus congestion - is to Make More Slime. Burned through almost a box of tissues in less than a week!

[Jay 2K Winger]

I think my conclusion is I don't like productions that treat the audience like scatterbrained idiots.

I appreciate productions that treat the audience like they're smart, but I also understand why that's not super common, because sadly a lot of people in the audience these days are scatterbrained idiots.

I'm with you on the whole "not taking the audience's ability to predict events and endings as a bad thing" though. Just because I can tell what direction a story is going in, doesn't mean the story is bad. As the saying goes, "it's not the destination, it's the journey."

Funnily enough, I did predict that sort of thing for The Penguin TV series on Max. For those who don't know, Penguin is a TV series in the same universe as the 2022 The Batman movie, focusing on Colin Farrell's titular character, in the wake of the ending of The Batman, specifically with Penguin's rise to power as the mob kingpin in Gotham. I was talking about it with a coworker who was also watching it, and I said, "Here's what I see happening. End of the finale, Penguin's standing in what used to be Falcone's penthouse, looking out the window-- just like he was in the movie-- but now he's the guy in charge, top of the world, no one can stop him now... but then he sees the Batsignal come on in the sky, like actually, bud, there's someone who can."

And then, when the finale comes out? It's not Falcone's penthouse, and he's dancing in his penthouse with his escort/paramour/girlfriend, who is telling him the things he wants to hear, including "Nothing's standing in your way now." And then we get a shot of the exterior, them dancing in the window... and the Batsignal comes on in the sky.

My coworker saw me the next day at work and said, "You freakin' called it, man." I just shrugged and said that I understand tropes and have a good sense of how I would shoot that kind of scene.

All that being said, I don't hate it if I can see the direction a story's taking, and I don't necessarily hate it if they throw me a curveball-- so long as that curveball either does make sense narratively, or can be justified through something that comes out later in the narrative.

[Ceir]

'nother thing from a rando blog that I added to my quote file.

"I don’t know what those ‘90s sci Fi TV writers were putting in their shows but I wish they’d start doing it again

# They de-escalated the stakes every once in a while so you can see what the characters are like when they're not under duress

# They made statements about the world through allegory

# They invested in depicting developing friendships and relationships between characters

# They assumed the audience was paying attention to the screen and wanted to be there

# ...and that their audience has enough intelligence to follow narrative clues and maybe even predict things"

And I'll add things like:
- not over-explaining every little damn thing
- not making characters talk like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy
- not taking the audience's ability to predict events and ending as a bad thing

...for someone who doesn't actually watch a lot of TV and movies, I sure think about it a lot. I think my conclusion is I don't like productions that treat the audience like scatterbrained idiots.

[XCashier]

Dredging up the old meme machine: you have been kidnapped, and your rescue squad is the protagonist(s) of the last thing you watched. How does it go?

The last thing I watched was an episode of Torchwood. Everything got nuts but they saved the day, then Captain Jack Harkness chatted up everyone in sight.

[Ceir]

I think probably because the Cybertruck was probably designed by the Guy In Charge, and no one had the guts to tell him how fugly it is.

Every time I see one of those things around here-- and there are surprisingly more than a handful of them-- I find myself thinking "You perfect idiot."

I will, however, give points to the guy who was driving around in a black Cybertruck who had kitted out the lightbar headlight at the front so that it was red. I remember thinking, "This is either going to be the new enemy of KITT in the next Knight Rider remake, or you are driving a Cylontruck."

Good one, ha.

Elsewhere, I have seen them called "Deploreans", and I can't help but chuckle at that.

Also ha.

Probably the most jarring thing I've ever seen done with a Tesla car - and it's entirely innocent - was one parked with a Pixar Eyes sunshade, and a Pixar Smile sticker on the front bumper. That managed to hit the uncanny valley real hard for a damn car, and I legit did a double-take.

[Nunavut Pants]

Elsewhere, I have seen them called "Deploreans", and I can't help but chuckle at that.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Setting aside my issues with the vehicle's suitability-for-purpose (it sucks as a truck), its construction and safety (terrible), and the corporation that makes it (against board rules), why did Tesla make the Cybertruck just so damn ugly? I've seen a couple running around where I live and it looks like a low-poly model from a 1990s video game.

I think probably because the Cybertruck was probably designed by the Guy In Charge, and no one had the guts to tell him how fugly it is.

Every time I see one of those things around here-- and there are surprisingly more than a handful of them-- I find myself thinking "You perfect idiot."

I will, however, give points to the guy who was driving around in a black Cybertruck who had kitted out the lightbar headlight at the front so that it was red. I remember thinking, "This is either going to be the new enemy of KITT in the next Knight Rider remake, or you are driving a Cylontruck."

[Ceir]

Setting aside my issues with the vehicle's suitability-for-purpose (it sucks as a truck), its construction and safety (terrible), and the corporation that makes it (against board rules), why did Tesla make the Cybertruck just so damn ugly? I've seen a couple running around where I live and it looks like a low-poly model from a 1990s video game.

[Ceir]

Random info from a blog post:
"not to be a number nerd on main but 2025 (45^2) will be the only square year most of us ever experience. the last one was 1936 and the next one will be 2116"

[csquared]

I may not be any better off. Noel Stollen. He'd take out the bad guys, and possibly me.

[Seanette]

I'm in trouble, since the last thing I watched was "Ponyo". I doubt five-year-olds would be a lot of help, and the boy's mother would only really be useful if you need a lunatic driver. The fish girl's parents MIGHT be helpful, but her dad wouldn't want to bother.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Dredging up the old meme machine: you have been kidnapped, and your rescue squad is the protagonist(s) of the last thing you watched. How does it go?

The protagonist in the last movie I watched is Santa from "Violent Night." My captors will be hammered.

[Ceir]

Dredging up the old meme machine: you have been kidnapped, and your rescue squad is the protagonist(s) of the last thing you watched. How does it go?

I think my odds are generally in my favor, depending on which venue it comes from.
Broadcast TV - random rerun episode of Chicago Fire; as long as the danger is in the mundane-to-freak-accident range, I'm probably fine. Maybe up to 'severely injured but will recover'.
TV shows on disc - Star Trek Strange New Worlds; I have Chris Pike and the Enterprise after me. 95% chance of being perfectly fine, 5% chance of getting redshirted out of existence.
Actual movie - this is where my odds drop, 'cause it was Elliot Ness and The Untouchables. Coin flip whether it's cosmetic injuries or the wrong end of a Thompson.

[Ceir]

Quoting more blog posts that made me twitch in an agreeing sort of way:
"My laptop installed Copilot without telling me. Apparently it was part of the latest windows update.

It’s uninstalled now, but there’s a word we used to use for programs that secretly installed themselves on your machine.

Malware."