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Sep. 21st, 2015 07:44 amBrian came home late two nights ago, but is due to go back at four today.
Yesterday morning, I showed him the email with those issues I brought up with him and Jake. He watched a video I had linked to, and then went on in great detail about what I'm thinking of. Here is what I wrote first:
( Read more... )
The video in question talks about competence, autonomy, and relatedness. At first, Brian failed to see what those three things have to do with what I myself wrote, but I told him it has mainly to do with that second concept. The other two do factor on, though, due to what I said about economizing your resources and stuff given form respectively.
Long story short, that "paradox" is really a spectrum of agency. When you read something, the only decision you have is whether to continue or stop reading. When you write something, you have all the decisions in the world to make about what happens. Video games are more or less a compromise between producer and consumer, in that one designing a game can only program so much stuff to happen, and players can make decisions but only within boundaries of the game.
-----
Went out with him later on to the Tanger outlets. The moment we left the driveway, he yelled out "Cruis'n USA!", and then asked me if I remember that game. Somehow, he mistook it for an SNES game, but I told him he might've been thinking of Top Gear 2, which he used to borrow from Craig when they were both in 3rd grade (I was in 5th at the time). While I do recall him mentioning several things a year later about Cruis'n USA, the only similar games I remember watching him play were Cruis'n World (another year later) and what Wikipedia specified as Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA (the year after that), both for the Nintendo 64 (as was Cruis'n USA).
Moments after that discussion ended, I told Brian about how Marie had stepped in upon reading about my writer's block, and he said that Marie mentioned that to him already. I asked him if she told him anything further than that, and he said no but did tell me that when I try too hard to think of stuff, all I'm doing in practice is blocking things out, and I should instead take a break from thinking and let ideas flow in naturally.
Following that was an idea I thought up for Day of the Beehive, which felt too hard to explain verbally but did involve a form of randomization (something else I brought up briefly in the email). This led to us talking about how a lot of games process random numbers to determine certain outcomes. I told him that that's a key thing I used to like about Pokemon, and also something I mentioned last year on Christmas (I specified Getter Love!! that time, but he said he's long forgotten that whole exchange). We then went on to specify how it factors into enemy appearances throughout the Earthbound trilogy, which is different for each game (with Earthbound considered by many to have nothing but improved from Earthbound Zero). At some point, I told him that I plan for Day of the Beehive to operate most similar to Earthbound but have all enemies currently on-screen come at you, as opposed to some of them disappearing before the fight begins, due to how much larger the party will be most of the time. He commented that that always seemed like some kind of glitch to him, but I suggested it might've been intentional, so as to avoid overpowering the player or freezing the game up. He said then that it only helps how memory limitations are barely even an issue nowadays.
I took some time to let everything sink in when we were in Nike, and neither of us said anything during the ride home. However, I did pull up both some gameplay videos and the game mechanics document when we got home, and showed him later on.
Turned out that Top Gear 2 was what he was thinking of all along. He also mentioned that he had completely forgotten about Cruis'n World until then, although he doesn't remember Rush 2 at all. Be that as it may, I do distinctly remember seeing him play a mode on that last game, which involved collecting cans of Mountain Dew (which Wikipedia only mentioned for that particular game, hence my inference).
As for the other thing (which he simply thought was nifty), here's what I'm talking about, from two different parts of the file:
( A way to spice things up )
( The ultimate Metal Slime! )
Yesterday morning, I showed him the email with those issues I brought up with him and Jake. He watched a video I had linked to, and then went on in great detail about what I'm thinking of. Here is what I wrote first:
( Read more... )
The video in question talks about competence, autonomy, and relatedness. At first, Brian failed to see what those three things have to do with what I myself wrote, but I told him it has mainly to do with that second concept. The other two do factor on, though, due to what I said about economizing your resources and stuff given form respectively.
Long story short, that "paradox" is really a spectrum of agency. When you read something, the only decision you have is whether to continue or stop reading. When you write something, you have all the decisions in the world to make about what happens. Video games are more or less a compromise between producer and consumer, in that one designing a game can only program so much stuff to happen, and players can make decisions but only within boundaries of the game.
-----
Went out with him later on to the Tanger outlets. The moment we left the driveway, he yelled out "Cruis'n USA!", and then asked me if I remember that game. Somehow, he mistook it for an SNES game, but I told him he might've been thinking of Top Gear 2, which he used to borrow from Craig when they were both in 3rd grade (I was in 5th at the time). While I do recall him mentioning several things a year later about Cruis'n USA, the only similar games I remember watching him play were Cruis'n World (another year later) and what Wikipedia specified as Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA (the year after that), both for the Nintendo 64 (as was Cruis'n USA).
Moments after that discussion ended, I told Brian about how Marie had stepped in upon reading about my writer's block, and he said that Marie mentioned that to him already. I asked him if she told him anything further than that, and he said no but did tell me that when I try too hard to think of stuff, all I'm doing in practice is blocking things out, and I should instead take a break from thinking and let ideas flow in naturally.
Following that was an idea I thought up for Day of the Beehive, which felt too hard to explain verbally but did involve a form of randomization (something else I brought up briefly in the email). This led to us talking about how a lot of games process random numbers to determine certain outcomes. I told him that that's a key thing I used to like about Pokemon, and also something I mentioned last year on Christmas (I specified Getter Love!! that time, but he said he's long forgotten that whole exchange). We then went on to specify how it factors into enemy appearances throughout the Earthbound trilogy, which is different for each game (with Earthbound considered by many to have nothing but improved from Earthbound Zero). At some point, I told him that I plan for Day of the Beehive to operate most similar to Earthbound but have all enemies currently on-screen come at you, as opposed to some of them disappearing before the fight begins, due to how much larger the party will be most of the time. He commented that that always seemed like some kind of glitch to him, but I suggested it might've been intentional, so as to avoid overpowering the player or freezing the game up. He said then that it only helps how memory limitations are barely even an issue nowadays.
I took some time to let everything sink in when we were in Nike, and neither of us said anything during the ride home. However, I did pull up both some gameplay videos and the game mechanics document when we got home, and showed him later on.
Turned out that Top Gear 2 was what he was thinking of all along. He also mentioned that he had completely forgotten about Cruis'n World until then, although he doesn't remember Rush 2 at all. Be that as it may, I do distinctly remember seeing him play a mode on that last game, which involved collecting cans of Mountain Dew (which Wikipedia only mentioned for that particular game, hence my inference).
As for the other thing (which he simply thought was nifty), here's what I'm talking about, from two different parts of the file:
( A way to spice things up )
( The ultimate Metal Slime! )