Culture

Gaming’s Tower of Babel

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A few weeks ago I discovered Rogue Legacy, a brilliant indie game that instantly became a time sink for me over vacation. I even reviewed it at NerdCaliber. No, I haven’t finished it – yet – but it is a fascinating study in getting a game “right” in a way where people “get” it. Also I want to finish it but I started a new job . . . and Cubeworld.

Rogue Legacy is a fusion of several elements:

  • Roguelike randomness (deriving from the early random-dungeon game Rogue).
  • Sidescrolling castle exploration of the “Metroidvania” type (reminiscent of some Metroid games and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
  • Brutal difficulty common to both of those games and popularized in the hardcore games Demons’ Souls and Dark Souls.
  • An aesthetic reminiscent of other hardcore games, Ghosts and Goblins and Ghouls and Ghosts.

Basically you go into a randomly generated castle, explore, die, and then a randomly generated set of ancestors are available for you to take on the journey again to get far enough to win – usually after a lot of descendants.

Now if you’re a gamer like me, you’re already responding to rods like “Roguelike” and “Metroidvania” and “Hardcore.” My choice of words – and Rogue Legacy’s ancestry – speak to powerful and popular concepts in gaming. In short, Rogue Legacy’s designers speak the language of people like me, and a language with years of history. They know what some of us want and how to do it and communicate it.

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Welcome To The Cycle, You’ll See The Bottom Of The Wheel Eventually

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Destrative Crestruction Dept.

Those who worship power and strength inevitably cast evolution and natural forces (like, say, market forces!) as being on their side. They’re never willing to entertain the possibility that one day it might be someone else’s boot on their neck — because if they did, then that would mean they weren’t worthy of calling themselves the baddest mothers in the room anymore.

Serdar was talking about people’s reactions to Detroit’s bankrupcy, and that some realized that the love of “creative destruction” meant the creative destroyers never realized they’d get their turn on the block.

I myself have watched the various pundits jump onto the detroit issues, and most of those brushing it off or laughing about it have that peculiar self-confidence of people who figure that nothing bad ever happens to them or theirs.  In fact, among the various pundits enjoying a laugh, there were no solutions, but plenty of dragging-out-the-same explanations.  They were preaching to the choir, not solving problems, with the confidence nothing would happen to them.

And there were doubtlessly people laughing along at what happened to “those people” in Detroit.  It’s always “those people” – until you become one of them.  Then you wonder why people aren’t there to help you . . .

This is why I think sustainability is an appropriate and unappreciated value.  Sustainability means that you have some surety.  Sustainability means some predictability.

However it’s not popular.  Sustainability means hard work.  Sustainability means that if you “win” you have to make sure the whole game doesn’t fall apart.  Sustainability means not always getting your way.  Sustainability isn’t a chance to do your victory dance about how you’ve won forever and are awesome.

That’s not exactly popular – especially among entitled politicians and pundits.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Right On Script, Everything’s Going To Be Terrible

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For awhile, we here at MuseHack have been discussing the checklist issue of films, how films all seem alike and follow the same beats. We’re concerned what that means for Hollywood, writers, and media. We’re also feeling just a wee bit justified now that such concerns are mainstream and in fact may be traced back to one book and writing concept, Save the Cat.

(Serdar has more to say on “Save the Cat” in his own erudite way.)

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