What game’s release have you looked forward to the most?
In the spirit of anticipation, a long wait, and going back to school, our first stream of the year started with the question “What game’s release have you looked forward to the most?” We had a delightful catch-up, discussing what the summer had to offer and what the upcoming fall semester has in store. We then jumped to our question, recounting nostalgic memories of game releases past, as well as some less-savored memories of angry fan mobs and consumer entitlement. Keerthi had a lot to say about crowdfunding in the indie tabletop genre, and Corine weighed in on how much of a say players get to have about a game’s release, especially if they’re involved in deciding on, say, how round a cow gets to be (suuuper round).
Sidestepping the obvious (fa ri dou la si ma net), we jumped into a delightful and only slightly motion-sickness inducing playthrough of Sword of the Sea. Angus joined us for this second half, discussing Journey in its heyday, how it feels to have release fatigue, and Corine’s platformer redemption arc. Seriously, you’ve never seen a Corine this calm while sand-surfing in a time trial. That alone would make the stream worth the watch, but the striking visuals, delightful little-guy NPCs, and Keerthi’s dramatic renditions of all the stone plinth poems really bring it home. What’s your most-anticipated game release of the year? And, maybe more importantly–did it live up to the hype?
When was the last time a game made you ragequit?
This stream was surrounded with surprises: surprised that we managed to make it happen; surprised our audience with a new stream host, and surprised the surprise-stream-host with, well, being invited to our live stream (literally invited 15 minutes beforehand!). Our what’s new with us left us surprised as well as we struggled to come up with answers, but in the end Corine talked about the first-time watching of Shawshank Redemption (Keerthi actually visited this prison!) and Clueless (better late than never), we talked about the upcoming TIPC 4 conference, and Keerthi shared upcoming RMES PhD council plans and shenanigans.
Arik joined us to discuss this week’s stream question: When was the last time a game made you ragequit? We discussed gamer rage from different angles: genres, chatrooms, expectations, identity, player type, experience, and performance. Then it was time to play some Baba is You. It is a lovely game about a sheep (Baba), that the player gets to move around solving puzzles. The game is deceptively simple. There are clear instructions on screen regarding danger, win conditions, and the state of the objects at all time; but these rules can be changed. We breezed through some of the levels, although we got stuck on one particular extra level (there was no rage, but a certain degree of stubbornness and pride seemed present). Overall, we didn’t think anyone would throw a controller into a monitor because of this game, and it’s a lovely puzzle game to give a try.
