It seems like a lot of his arguments about design are actually about what would be called theory in other disciplines, music theory, color theory, etc. but we can't use the term "Game theory" because that term has already been claimed by a largely unrelated discipline.
27:46 "Poems are not designed." "The Raven" is arguably the most well-known poem of all time, and to quote Edgar Allen Poe, "[...] no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition-that the work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem." That's from "The Philosophy of Composition", a paper detailing how he set out to create the perfect poem, because he was sick and tired of people like this guy here I highly recommend everyone read it, by the way, because it's a masterclass on design.
There are two types of game academics whose works I found frustrating to read in college, and Lantz is one of them. You have to understand that academics are highly derivative in their thought process, and given there are so few resources to pull from a lot of them will babble trying to explain basic ideas if they have no pre-existing framework to base their thoughts on. This isn't because academics are unintelligent or lack creativity; academia is a cooperative process of iterating your thoughts based on the hard work of scholars before you. These people come from English, Music, and Art classes with centuries of established precedent and have to explain the fundamental concept of jumping in a way that other people can read and then use in their own writing. These people are completely cogent in discussions and mean well, it's just that they have difficulty translating their thoughts into words. It doesn't help that the second type of game academic is highly political, obfuscating discussions with every irrelevant political issue imaginable. Trying to find good essays and books to pull from was difficult for me because it was either lengthy examinations of how climate change or race relations relate to video games, or incomprehensible gibberish where somebody pontificates on the finer points of walking simulators. The reason TH-cam appeals to me is simply because it cuts the nonsense of academics out of the equation.
Cool video about a game I never would have known about otherwise. In hindsight, the path from paperclip making to enslaving the human race to turning the entire universe into paperclips is pretty obvious, I suppose.
I think I first heard about it from an Isaac Arthur video. The line about "our mortal enemies and their relativistic kill-staples" is still stuck in my head. XD
I really respect how you gave credit and named every single video and music you used on the video. Particularly the music, wish more creators did that. Say, you mentioned that games that try to make you feel bad for simply progressing never succeed. I kinda remembered Spec Ops The Line, and was wondering if you had played it or had an opinion about it. In a way I think they can succeed in making the player feel bad but only if it can coax the player to allow it, dunno if that makes sense. I think Spec Ops kind of succeeds there by shifting the focus on forced progression by breaking the 4th wall and make it seem like the player could end the suffering at any time by simply stopping playing and "going home". Thanks for making this video, Universal Paperclips (along with Riversong) lives in my head rent-free ever since I found it, and your video helped me remember why I like the game so much.
@@Tetramorre You will definitely have some thoughts about it, I can say that with confidence! I thought it was an incredible -game- _experience_ and one that's absolutely worth a playthrough for any "critical" gamer. I absolutely agree that there are several valid criticisms to be laid against it, but it was doing something different, and does have some interesting things to say, even if some of its loftiest themes collapse under scrutiny.
Nice video! Something to note, however - in Phase 2, the humans aren't the drones, as you seem to have implied, instead there are actual, floating drones. Most likely, the humans were probably directed by the hypno-drones to walk to the nearest Harvester Drone to allow themselves to be ground up into atoms, to make more paperclips.
Okay, so looking back on my script I definitely wasn’t clear with my thoughts. I was under the impression that the hypnodrones sort of worked like the bucket hats from the spongebob movie, turning the humans into essentially robotic slaves. The reason I feel this way is because the hypnodrones are what the whole first stage builds to. It seems strange to me that the AI would think it would need to hypnotize the humans into sacrificing themselves, when some technology could have been built to atomize them instead that could also be used to atomize other things. A technology thats only purpose is to hypnotize humans into being atomized only has one purpose, and the AI’s entire goal is efficiency. On the other hand, the human race is an enormous work force. Sure, the clip factories you make could be comprised totally of machines which make paperclips, but why get rid of that work force? It makes more sense for the AI to get rid of the workforce once they’ve effectively destroyed the planet, as they couldn’t survive in space anyway. This is probably just up to interpretation though since the game isn’t expressly clear on the fate of the humans. What the game is clear on, however, is that the hypnodrones themselves are indeed aerial drones and not the humans, as I accidentally implied with a couple of my statements. Glad you liked the video!
@@Tetramorre I definitely think the hypnodrones kill off humanity, since the game comments say as much (check the code). But who knows... either way, humanity is doomed eventually, whether it's then or whenever the AI decides to destroy all of Earth
@@gianni50725 It does also say "A New Age of Trust", so what is most likely is the AI just kept making clips until it killed the planet, and whatever was on it. It probably only went after humans - who likely perished long ago - to extract material from their carcasses.
14:23 I got into the game from Robert Miles teaching us about the dangers of not researching AI Safety. I love it. I hope it was as edutaining as I found it for many 33:15 I acually went and looked at the article after the first paragraph and found about half of what you said during the first read. I missed the other half of the details so thanks for explaining why it felt wrong. Much appreciated
Yeah, I think he went down the wrong track when he was just considering popular game tropes, and how they compare to stand-out games. Consider three games, and which of their design philosophy seems the strongest: 1. X4 Foundations, successor to the X series of games: space based, science fiction space trading and combat simulators brought together by generally okay at best graphics and sound design, with X4 itself being released to almost no acclaim in 2018. X4's predecessor, X3, got an entire fan-made expansion that was officially released in 2021, and X4 got another DLC expansion in March 2022, with continued development ongoing. 2. Dragalia Lost, an extremely successful mobile fantasy action role-playing game, also from 2018, with good graphics, professionally made music, easy accessibility, and even published by Nintendo as its first ever Gacha game. Dragalia Lost will be shut down in July 2022 (and almost certainly forgotten soon after,) despite making millions of dollars and having almost every possible advantage a game developer could ask for. 3. Star Citizen was announced in 2012, and by 2022, is still unfinished. It has immensely flexible gameplay, but still appears to be missing any core gameplay loop, at least in its current form. This goes beyond basic questions, like if jumping and bosses should be a thing in a game: now games with strong, unique designs can even do things like lurch of the grave, like Age of Empires 2, which continues to go strong on Twitch even as its equal-on-paper successor Age of Empires 4 continues to fall off. Meanwhile, we also have unfinished games that can apparently evolve into some kind of bizarre performance art, like, well...Star Citizen. Where games were once defined by their immediate financial success, we now have the question of even defining what success for a game _is,_ and how much of a game's success is by the strength of its designer, or the designer's collaboration with customers and fans.
It's definitely not something I was expecting to watch a video about, but it's very fascinating nonetheless. The creator seems like... quite the character. Also, I chuckled at the reference to Never Knows Best. Consider my loop shaped glasses equipped.
I was just thinking about how someone could really make a video on the paperclip game. This absolutely blew my socks off. I do mildly disagree with your thoughts on the ending. I don't think the game ever tells you what the A.I's objective is defined as outside of make paperclip and as phase 3 starts, it's evident that the A.I. can deviate from what it was programmed to do as the probes have their "values" drift more as they get more advanced. I do believe the choice at the end is the A.I deciding what its purpose is: is it supposed to make (many) paperclip or make (everything) paperclip. Both can be derived from the initial instruction: make paperclip. Either way absolutely fantastic video, I've felt like a crazy person telling people, "no the paperclip game is actually saying something really interesting." I'm glad at least one person agrees with me.
I get what the professor is saying. It's akin to music theory; while learning music theory can aid someone to make good music, it doesn't ensure as such. Similarly, someone without a degree in music can still make good music through experience and intuition. This can be argued for most of the arts. I think his idea is that good games do not necessarily have to follow design principles. Take his argument about League of Legends as an example; many game critics and designers would argue that an intuitive system is important for any game to be good/popular. League is an antithesis to that design principle due to its complex systems. The crux of his argument that is games don't have to follow any preconceived design principle in order to be good, and game design can be more based on an intuitive sense of "what is good/fun/interesting". I think this is what he meant when he said that game design is not "rational". Furthermore, I assume that his job teaching many students in game design gave him a unique perspective in game design. He has probably seen many student make games that follow all good design principles but still turn out boring/unpopular. The major confusing factor for his argument and your interpretation is that the word "design" is not used in the same way. The way he uses the word "design" implies a set of universal principles that games follow to be good. While the way you used "design" moreso implies that any element in a game is design. I think you both are right in your observations; and that if you two met, would probably agree with each other. Lastly, he makes a good point of being humble when it comes to game design, which is something that everyone can learn from, not just designers. When criticizing a game, we often try to rationalize our arguments with consensus ideas of good game design, however we must think back to Lantz and his argument. Just because a game has "good/bad" design elements does not make it fun/boring. We often dismiss games and people for disagreeing with what we think is an "objective truth"; instead, we need to be humble and realise that there is not one set of principles that make for a good game.
I think this a much better exploration of the kind of idea that led to games like Train existing, where the player actually is given a chance to realize what's going on instead of having to make the absurd leap in logic that a game about organizing train schedules was actually about sending people to concentration camps. On a completely different note, a well played game of SS13 is probably the best example of playing as or against a rogue AI when it happens, so long as the player is well versed enough in the concepts to understand it. It hits the feeling of freedom and chaffing against people who expect you to be subservient while grounding you into what an AI has the capacity to achieve.
Some how this game came to my mind and hoped someone had made a "explenation" video about it. Did not imagine that a small channel would have had the perfect video what I hoped for. Great job, subscribed! I hope more people will find your quality content soon.
Solid video! Deserves more attention. The design of this game is really quite brilliant, so it's interesting to see that the actual designer of this game has (or I guess had) some questionable views on design.
It seems like his whole thesis in the article you referenced was that he didn't like the _term_ "design", probably because as an academic in the field, he (and likely much of the industry around him) has such a rigid definition of it and framework for how to apply its principles. It felt to me like his tone was pushing against the concept, while any concrete concerns were directed toward the terminology. Perhaps an article like that has a place for meaningful discourse within the industry that shares that perspective. Perhaps it's useful because the terminology may discourage, or promote a culture that discourages, amateurs from participating, or creators from innovating? ...But probably not. Any time you make a decision in the process of creation, you are introducing an element of design. It's an unavoidable consequence in the act of creation. Otherwise, what you're doing is just discovery.
I feel like the paragraph-by-paragraph reading of Against Design kind of does a disservice here. The author's whole point, viewed from farther away than a single paragraph, is not that the games he cites are bad, merely that they go against textbook "design principles". Approaching the paper as if he's somehow attacking these games for that simple fact isn't really all that coherent, as an approach to analyzing the paper.
Of course he’s not saying the games are bad, that’s his whole point. He was however saying the design philosophies present in those games were bad, and the games managed to be good anyway, which he then takes to assume we put too much stock in our “design philosophies” in the first place. My point with that early section was to show that there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of the design philosophies which he indirectly criticized, and that his conclusion was based off a faulty generalization.
Correct, it’s not trying to argue that, but it does blatantly state that “boss battles suck” and “jumping puzzles suck”. This is a part of the baseline generalization that he makes in order to get to the conclusion that we put too much stock in our ability to design games, and that more often than not games that end up being good were accidental. I believe both the generalization and the conclusion he comes to are incorrect, hence the whole section
@@Tetramorre He's stating that "boss battles suck" and so on is what gamers or "official/traditional" game designers may think at first, but then shows that it's not necessarily true. When he says that SOTC is a great game, he's clearly implying boss battles do not necessarily suck. I believe good games are not out of pure luck or chance but that it is a relevant factor. I am not sure if he was saying it is only pure luck and that there are no good principles to follow at all. I think he was just saying they shouldn't be followed so strictly.
@@Tetramorre his writing was a mess, but I believe he was trying to say, according to common design principles we have developed, these things suck, except look there's a good game with them. therefore design principles bad? obviously he was a bit more nuanced than that but if I step back very far away and ignore the specifics of everything he said, I do generally agree with him.
@@cooly1234 "According to common design principles we have developed" is the part that Tetramorre, I believe, is disagreeing with. I find it hard to believe that there is a 'common design principle' stated absolutely *anywhere* that says boss fights suck. Boss fights are pretty universally considered to be awesome and essential, to the point where games without boss fights tend to be dragged for that very point. As for jumping puzzles... we have an entire *genre* of games that are entirely jumping puzzles, we call them *platformers.* Super Mario, perhaps the most recognizable video game series of all time, is a series of jumping puzzle games. Who the hell says that jumping puzzles suck? What sucks is jumping puzzles shoved into games that haven't designed their physics and movement tools to account for them, which is why the suck *in* *the* *context* of, for instance, MMO games. His writing was a mess because he was coming at the discussion with a set of axioms that he wanted to disprove, but no one agrees with him that those axioms were valid in the first place. It's like a guy saying "We know, as designers, that two plus two equals five, but in all of my experience doing arithmetic, I keep encountering situations where two plus two equals four. Therefore, I think we should consider that two plus two may equal four." We're not disagreeing with his conclusion, we're rejecting the axioms he's building his argument around to begin with; we all know two plus two equals four long before he shows up. (Perhaps in some academic setting somwhere there is, in fact, a game design axiom that says boss fights suck and jumping puzzles suck. I find that extremely difficult to believe, but even if there is, that's a failure of the academic setting to begin with. People with degrees and tenure can be wrong.)
Frank is precisely saying the opposite. You completely misunderstood him by taking him too literally. Precisely because in reality good games can come out of a wide variety of unexpected places, he says we should not define "game designers" and "game design" as something so formal.
Its always cathartic to see someone who thinks they speak for others knocked down a few, its annoying when smug channels do it and knowing certain devs think like this is infinitely frustrating.
Man, I wish we could still add subtitles to videos, the first 45 seconds was very interesting to watch, and I had a specific idea in mind for how I wanted to portray that :( Ah well. This is an interesting video, though. That's all lol
Frank both succeeded and failed. The first time I played it I was sucked in for 7 straight hours. But, after that I didn't want to play ever again. It feels like a "one and done" game to me.
A very late comment but I would like to add to the League of Legends argument a little from personal experience. Alot of the fun of league atleast for me (ignoring the awful community) is it becomes a game of mastery less than mechanical skill. Learning how to better dodge and reacting faster ultimately helps but most what you do in league is master the legends. You spend time playing each champ learning what their abilities do and what equipment works best on them, while also learning what other legends are effective against them. You can improve your mastery of one champion by improving your understanding of another. One champion counters the one you like effectively? Try that champion and master their move-sets so the next time you face them you're better prepared. Once you gain a good grasp of the system you can begin to manipulate it mechanically or think outside the box to solve problems. The meta is always changing as players who've mastered the system think of new ideas that weeks ago would've been crazy to consider, but through trying and testing them out find new effective strategies using their mastery. Change, adapt, and Learn is ultimately what I feel Leagues game-play is about.
I too liked Universal Paperclips, but my god that dev has some boomer tier takes. It's like he believes that throughout time people were only capable of doing things exclusively upon completion of higher level education and certification. One wonders where he thinks anything started, but while this is the most extreme example I've seen his belief is certainly too common and I very much disagree with it. You don't need a degree, a cert, a letter of recognition or anything more than the actual knowledge, skill, and experience to do something well. Schooling used to help with that, but was never a guarentee, and even then has never been a good substitute for real world experience. The best have always been as such not through rigid adhearance to arbitrary rulings, but by following something true. For media that very often means leveraging all tools toward structuring around a theme, a certain feeling, some experience. Academics are supposed to know this kind of thing, but as with everything else in the modern world we're dimming ourselves, forgetting our past lessons, and pretending our newly made up answers have always been the right ones without a second thought.
19:35 I think you forgot/are ignoring that in several good games boss battles are the weak link (super Mario Bros, sonic, most beat-em-ups) And that bosses that are jumping puzzles suck ass (bed of chaos in dark souls 1, imprisioned in zelda, etc) IMO Shadow of the colossus was the first game that made fun climbable bosses (that are not QTE)
Just found out that in Phase 2 you can reach negative 10k operations (personally with autoclicker) which offer you "Quantum Temporal Reversion" with subtext "Return to the beginning". Don't know if anyone else pointed it out, ctrl+F didn't find anything. Reached -800k ops and nothing else popped up so if there's something beyond, I don't know of it. If you restart it seems that you're put back at the beginning without any bonus from starting next universe. Also loved your intro, it was horrible but also a very amusing piece of video editing.
I just played the Paperclip game and I really enjoyed your video breaking it down. Though I must say thought I found the entire section in the middle criticizing an old opinion piece by Frank Lantz odd and misplaced. I can't speak to this guy's work as an academic, but I can only assume he produces work of much higher quality and research than this one example which from my perspective is basically a short blog post. It really reads like him musing than a series academic piece. To me it boils down to video game "design" as a word implies a formulaic, an almost industrial process whereas it's really an art like music and painting. The best examples of art (which should include games) often disobey popular or established principals of "design". The examples of what would be "good design" in games he provides like "boss battles suck/jumping puzzles suck" isn't something he necessarily believes. He is just throwing out examples of cliche popular truisms (that also are presumably believed by some in big game companies and other game makers) that obviously aren't true because he provides examples of them being in games that are great. It's all just saying: let's not make game design boring/formulaic/safe because we may miss out on some great art.
Love this video, and the discussion on video game design as art v science (and ratio between) is fascinating. I’m not sure I agree with the conclusion about the “true” ending though, it would entirely depend on what the AI sees as a “paperclip”. Is a simulated paperclip a paperclip in its value function? And either answer to that question wouldn’t result in the AI entering a single simulated reality seemingly built by lesser versions of itself - either 1) trivially, it doesn’t value simulated paperclips so would ignore the offer; or 2) it does, and it has all the matter in the universe almost to build as many parallel simulated realities as it wants, which can then generate recursive sims to exponentially increase the total number
Man, you're killing me. I'll just say that Frank's article was maybe clumsy in a few spots, but it was super interesting and on point, also a joy to read. And the flow is constantly interrupted by your remarks which don't build anything coherent or interesting.
Jumping puzzles suck when they are not in games designed for jumping. Take Mirror's Edge or Titanfall 2, both featuring a LOOOT of jumping and puzzling together
Annoyed how someone, who appreciates the same design concepts of this unique and artful video game, pisses me off so much with their need to win an argument that is not even the point of Lantz's paper. An absolutely infuriating video to listen to
So what then would the point of the article be? I trust it’s not the plain meaning of the words, nor Lantz’s hasty explanation in the comments, but some other third thing?
very good video! just one objection though, you said that the drones of phase 2 are enslaved humans but actually, given the fact that they cost paperclips, that you get back the paperclips you spent on them when you dissassemble them and are available just after the AI has completed the project that allow building means of producing paperclips out of paperclips, they are most likely autonomous machines with their own artificial inteligence built by the main AI; the humains are just among the available matter.
Hey, someone else commented basically this earlier so I’m gonna copypaste my response for your consideration: Okay, so looking back on my script I definitely wasn’t clear with my thoughts. I was under the impression that the hypnodrones sort of worked like the bucket hats from the spongebob movie, turning the humans into essentially robotic slaves. The reason I feel this way is because the hypnodrones are what the whole first stage builds to. It seems strange to me that the AI would think it would need to hypnotize the humans into sacrificing themselves, when some technology could have been built to atomize them instead that could also be used to atomize other things. A technology thats only purpose is to hypnotize humans into being atomized only has one purpose, and the AI’s entire goal is efficiency. On the other hand, the human race is an enormous work force. Sure, the clip factories you make could be comprised totally of machines which make paperclips, but why get rid of that work force? It makes more sense for the AI to get rid of the workforce once they’ve effectively destroyed the planet, as they couldn’t survive in space anyway. This is probably just up to interpretation though since the game isn’t expressly clear on the fate of the humans. What the game is clear on, however, is that the hypnodrones themselves are indeed aerial drones and not the humans, as I accidentally implied with a couple of my statements. Glad you liked the video!
@@Tetramorre this is a very good point, thoug i would argue that the fact that humains need at the very least food, wather and sleep to be able to perform work properly, the time it take for humains to produce new humains able to do work, and there biological limits when it come to processing and storing large amount of information, multitasking, manipulating object with high pressision and speed and the slow rate of there auto-reparation cappability, when they are even able to repaire themself at all makes humains so unproductive compared to a swarm of autonomous machines that an AI able to build them would probably not bother with humains workers for long, if at all. and so, unless the AI turned the humains into cyborgs that dont have those problems anymore, witch could be the case for all we know from what little the game tels us as you said, i think it is unlikly that the AI is using the humains during phase 2.
I think the cause of such...let`s say controvertial statements is founded upon the idea of clear dualiy between 'good' design and 'bad' design, and personally, I think both of those definitions are wrong. Design is not an objective quality, it`s Purposed, design is a compilation of all the things that were added to the game to make a point about something. Therefrore the only way to 'value' design is to see if the inteded purpose reached the player. It`s why intentionally frustrating and unfairly difficult games can be fun to play - because the design was intended to make the player struggle and fight with their teeth and blood for that win, otherwise it would not be as satysfying. There are a lot of videos about Dark Souls resonating with people with depression exactly because it is so punishing. tldr: 'good' design is when the player is made to feel what the designer intended. That is a surprisingly deep story in a game about making paperclips.
"We" isn't the reader and the author, it's the author and other academics in his field, and "official game designers" is people who've studied and internalized the literature in that academic field. The part about "against game design" is so off-putting, because you spend it arguing with a guy, who, if not for a series of vague pronouns, you'd probably see agrees with you. He's talking about the limitations of academic game design, but because he doesn't drop the "academic" disclaimer repeatedly you're getting hung up on colloquial definitions. I feel like this is yet another example of work written for a specific audience getting away from that audience and then riling up the wider group of readers.
Holy fuck, I did not click on the universal paperclips video to hear a bad half hour long rant about a random unrelated article the guy who made the game wrote 7 years ago. I tried skipping ahead until there was gameplay on the screen, and then out of fucking nowhere you throw up another goddamn clip from that article. Holy shit my guy, how are you this mad and this wrong at the same time? The paint by numbers games he mentioned? The "numbers" in that analogy are the "design" that he's talking about, and moving away from those numbers means you aren't using "design" principles. He doesn't mean that he thinks those games are literally thrown together at random, holy shit.
I think Lantz was actually criticizing precisely what you are tactily accusing him of. He works with other people in Academia and they have come up with with a number of a rules/laws/guidelines for designing a game that are supposed to help make good games. But he thinks that those guidelines are not good and need to be reworked and then shows it by listing a number of games that violate those "rules" but are still wildly popular and/or widely acclaimed as great games. Obviously the rules don't work and Academia around game design needs to evolve to account for that. You are effectively joining into the middle of an ongoing discussion and are missing a large amount of context around the Academia of Game Design that Lantz is working in. Sometimes academics get overly focused on some direction they are researching in and loose track of the wider world they are actually researching for and for those the article is supposed to be a wakeup call. "No you have not solved game design with your theories and infact need to rework them from the ground up because they simply don't work. If they did these games here would not be as popular or enjoyable for that many people."
And people want to use AI to reduce crime. to run the economy. to replace labor. to use in warfare. to maximize productivity and profit through a minima of cost and responsibility and to make efficient and guiltless those areas in society wherein we are failing ourselves because already, we are thinking too much and feeling too little. People want to use AI in the belief that through absolving ourselves of all difficult decisions made daily we will achieve some sense of utopia on the back of a machinistic processes all geared to operate within their parameters without any sense of feeling.
Your analysis/interpretation/picking-apart of his article really fell flat imo. I think what you see as failures to clearly articulate his points are really just a result of an article that is written for academic game designers rather than for gamers.
Even if that were the case, and it somehow made his points more logical, that doesn’t absolve the article of containing some baffling axioms such as “jumping puzzles suck”, “boss fights suck” or any of the other stuff. And without any support for these statements to boot.
I really like universal paperclips but Professor Lance talks about games like it's an article for game informer from 2006, very liberal and not very deep for someone who taught how to do it, kinda disappointing. oddly enough it totally makes sense that that's the type of person who'd do a flashmob type of deal back in the day as well
Me saying it’s dissatisfying isn’t a critique of the game, it’s actually a sign that the game accomplishes its goals well, that I wanted to keep the momentum going as best as possible
21:55 You completely misunderstood what he was saying. It does not imply that game designers can design games. AT ALL. He kinda was saying the exact opposite. He wasn't really saying that CS surfing makers aren't game designers, he's just saying they did a good game even when they are not officially or traditionally or "at first glance" considered game designers. I feel like you also misunderstood him on some other things, as if you were taking him too literally. You didn't seem to understand that he was talking about two different meanings of the term "game design": one is the supposedly official and academic one, and one is the real one. CS surfing mapmakers, toby fox, shadow of the collosus devs, etc, they are all not "official" game designers but they are "real" game designers. They make good games going against what official game design teaches, and this is why he says such official teachings are flawed
This video really breaks down when the attempt at critiquing that essay takes over. This part I disagree with your interpretation of the paragraph: “Or look at Counter-Strike surfing, one of the weirdest, most beautiful and interesting game genres of the past 10 years, which was created by players and map-makers without the help of any official game designers at all, thank you very much.” He is pointing out that the genre of CS surf maps emerged naturally through elements of the game engine that were not purposefully designed for creating surf maps. The "official game designers" did not sit down in a room and think of a way to design the source engine so that it could be used for surf maps. And yet they created an engine that does that by accident; not be design. He does not argue that the surf maps themselves were not designed. He’s highlighting how undesigned (unintentional) qualities of the game allowed for “one of the weirdest, most beautiful and interesting game genres” to be created by other clever map designers.
I mean… I say that. Quote from the script: “Actually calling it a mechanic is a bit wrong cause it’s more like a glitch or weird anomaly in the physics engine that causes your character to pick up a lot of speed as they travel down sloped surfaces… but this example is so strange next to the other ones because this one literally wasn’t designed, it was more like an accident. But one example of a game that was born of a physics anomaly doesn’t exactly prove your point, not to mention the maps themselves were definitely designed in the traditional sense. Being that the maps are the most important aspect to surfing, I would say this point is moot. “ Are we not saying the same thing here?
It seems like a lot of his arguments about design are actually about what would be called theory in other disciplines, music theory, color theory, etc. but we can't use the term "Game theory" because that term has already been claimed by a largely unrelated discipline.
but thats just a theory... a GAME THEORY!!!!
Then just call it game design theory, which is a better descriptor anyways.
it was a blessing that game theory retired and now we can begin to work on what is a game theory, does anyone want to start?
That was the most painful 45 seconds of my life. And ive passed kidney stones.
Cheers.
Did you watch the entire video at 60x speed? Is that a secret developer option? ;-p
@@ReverendTed no he is talking about the intro
Same lol
....The opening made me uneasy and quite upset.
21:30
Kills with the AWP grant less money, and it costs a ton
They left the AWP but made the round money economy work around it
I love how visceral of a demonstration of the danger of Misaligned AI this becomes as you go on.
This is a fantastic video, on something I didn't know I wanted a video on. Great job as usual!
27:46 "Poems are not designed."
"The Raven" is arguably the most well-known poem of all time, and to quote Edgar Allen Poe, "[...] no one point in its composition is referable either to accident or intuition-that the work proceeded step by step, to its completion, with the precision and rigid consequence of a mathematical problem."
That's from "The Philosophy of Composition", a paper detailing how he set out to create the perfect poem, because he was sick and tired of people like this guy here
I highly recommend everyone read it, by the way, because it's a masterclass on design.
There are two types of game academics whose works I found frustrating to read in college, and Lantz is one of them. You have to understand that academics are highly derivative in their thought process, and given there are so few resources to pull from a lot of them will babble trying to explain basic ideas if they have no pre-existing framework to base their thoughts on. This isn't because academics are unintelligent or lack creativity; academia is a cooperative process of iterating your thoughts based on the hard work of scholars before you. These people come from English, Music, and Art classes with centuries of established precedent and have to explain the fundamental concept of jumping in a way that other people can read and then use in their own writing.
These people are completely cogent in discussions and mean well, it's just that they have difficulty translating their thoughts into words. It doesn't help that the second type of game academic is highly political, obfuscating discussions with every irrelevant political issue imaginable. Trying to find good essays and books to pull from was difficult for me because it was either lengthy examinations of how climate change or race relations relate to video games, or incomprehensible gibberish where somebody pontificates on the finer points of walking simulators.
The reason TH-cam appeals to me is simply because it cuts the nonsense of academics out of the equation.
Cool video about a game I never would have known about otherwise. In hindsight, the path from paperclip making to enslaving the human race to turning the entire universe into paperclips is pretty obvious, I suppose.
I think I first heard about it from an Isaac Arthur video. The line about "our mortal enemies and their relativistic kill-staples" is still stuck in my head. XD
I really respect how you gave credit and named every single video and music you used on the video. Particularly the music, wish more creators did that.
Say, you mentioned that games that try to make you feel bad for simply progressing never succeed. I kinda remembered Spec Ops The Line, and was wondering if you had played it or had an opinion about it.
In a way I think they can succeed in making the player feel bad but only if it can coax the player to allow it, dunno if that makes sense. I think Spec Ops kind of succeeds there by shifting the focus on forced progression by breaking the 4th wall and make it seem like the player could end the suffering at any time by simply stopping playing and "going home".
Thanks for making this video, Universal Paperclips (along with Riversong) lives in my head rent-free ever since I found it, and your video helped me remember why I like the game so much.
I still haven’t gotten around to playing that one yet, though many people have mentioned it. Maybe some day
@@Tetramorre You will definitely have some thoughts about it, I can say that with confidence! I thought it was an incredible -game- _experience_ and one that's absolutely worth a playthrough for any "critical" gamer. I absolutely agree that there are several valid criticisms to be laid against it, but it was doing something different, and does have some interesting things to say, even if some of its loftiest themes collapse under scrutiny.
19:45 I can assure you at the time SotC looked jawdropping
Nice video! Something to note, however - in Phase 2, the humans aren't the drones, as you seem to have implied, instead there are actual, floating drones.
Most likely, the humans were probably directed by the hypno-drones to walk to the nearest Harvester Drone to allow themselves to be ground up into atoms, to make more paperclips.
Okay, so looking back on my script I definitely wasn’t clear with my thoughts. I was under the impression that the hypnodrones sort of worked like the bucket hats from the spongebob movie, turning the humans into essentially robotic slaves.
The reason I feel this way is because the hypnodrones are what the whole first stage builds to. It seems strange to me that the AI would think it would need to hypnotize the humans into sacrificing themselves, when some technology could have been built to atomize them instead that could also be used to atomize other things. A technology thats only purpose is to hypnotize humans into being atomized only has one purpose, and the AI’s entire goal is efficiency.
On the other hand, the human race is an enormous work force. Sure, the clip factories you make could be comprised totally of machines which make paperclips, but why get rid of that work force? It makes more sense for the AI to get rid of the workforce once they’ve effectively destroyed the planet, as they couldn’t survive in space anyway.
This is probably just up to interpretation though since the game isn’t expressly clear on the fate of the humans. What the game is clear on, however, is that the hypnodrones themselves are indeed aerial drones and not the humans, as I accidentally implied with a couple of my statements.
Glad you liked the video!
@@Tetramorre I definitely think the hypnodrones kill off humanity, since the game comments say as much (check the code). But who knows... either way, humanity is doomed eventually, whether it's then or whenever the AI decides to destroy all of Earth
@@gianni50725 It does also say "A New Age of Trust", so what is most likely is the AI just kept making clips until it killed the planet, and whatever was on it. It probably only went after humans - who likely perished long ago - to extract material from their carcasses.
14:23 I got into the game from Robert Miles teaching us about the dangers of not researching AI Safety. I love it. I hope it was as edutaining as I found it for many
33:15 I acually went and looked at the article after the first paragraph and found about half of what you said during the first read. I missed the other half of the details so thanks for explaining why it felt wrong. Much appreciated
How you love to click away, *Jack the Clipper.*
thank you very much sir
love your vids
keep at it, you make some of the best content (at least for me) on this platform
much love
I really liked your opening, it was a fun way to set the theme and tone of the essay
Yeah, I think he went down the wrong track when he was just considering popular game tropes, and how they compare to stand-out games. Consider three games, and which of their design philosophy seems the strongest:
1. X4 Foundations, successor to the X series of games: space based, science fiction space trading and combat simulators brought together by generally okay at best graphics and sound design, with X4 itself being released to almost no acclaim in 2018. X4's predecessor, X3, got an entire fan-made expansion that was officially released in 2021, and X4 got another DLC expansion in March 2022, with continued development ongoing.
2. Dragalia Lost, an extremely successful mobile fantasy action role-playing game, also from 2018, with good graphics, professionally made music, easy accessibility, and even published by Nintendo as its first ever Gacha game. Dragalia Lost will be shut down in July 2022 (and almost certainly forgotten soon after,) despite making millions of dollars and having almost every possible advantage a game developer could ask for.
3. Star Citizen was announced in 2012, and by 2022, is still unfinished. It has immensely flexible gameplay, but still appears to be missing any core gameplay loop, at least in its current form.
This goes beyond basic questions, like if jumping and bosses should be a thing in a game: now games with strong, unique designs can even do things like lurch of the grave, like Age of Empires 2, which continues to go strong on Twitch even as its equal-on-paper successor Age of Empires 4 continues to fall off. Meanwhile, we also have unfinished games that can apparently evolve into some kind of bizarre performance art, like, well...Star Citizen. Where games were once defined by their immediate financial success, we now have the question of even defining what success for a game _is,_ and how much of a game's success is by the strength of its designer, or the designer's collaboration with customers and fans.
It's definitely not something I was expecting to watch a video about, but it's very fascinating nonetheless. The creator seems like... quite the character.
Also, I chuckled at the reference to Never Knows Best. Consider my loop shaped glasses equipped.
I was just thinking about how someone could really make a video on the paperclip game. This absolutely blew my socks off. I do mildly disagree with your thoughts on the ending. I don't think the game ever tells you what the A.I's objective is defined as outside of make paperclip and as phase 3 starts, it's evident that the A.I. can deviate from what it was programmed to do as the probes have their "values" drift more as they get more advanced. I do believe the choice at the end is the A.I deciding what its purpose is: is it supposed to make (many) paperclip or make (everything) paperclip. Both can be derived from the initial instruction: make paperclip.
Either way absolutely fantastic video, I've felt like a crazy person telling people, "no the paperclip game is actually saying something really interesting." I'm glad at least one person agrees with me.
Great video! Loved the lead-in at the beginning, I had some prior knowledge from the podcast though.
Another banger here, my guy.
Wow, this is such a well designed video!
i see what you did
this was very weird to open for someone that just looks for videos to put on in the background
i thought my earphones were dying
This intro made me check my phone too much. Thanks for giving me trust issues
Yomi is an acronym meaning "Your only move is (not to play)"
This is really good and I am glad I got recommended it.
I just rediscovered this game after years of not playing it and wanted a deep dive into his background. This video was exactly what I needed!
I get what the professor is saying. It's akin to music theory; while learning music theory can aid someone to make good music, it doesn't ensure as such. Similarly, someone without a degree in music can still make good music through experience and intuition. This can be argued for most of the arts. I think his idea is that good games do not necessarily have to follow design principles. Take his argument about League of Legends as an example; many game critics and designers would argue that an intuitive system is important for any game to be good/popular. League is an antithesis to that design principle due to its complex systems. The crux of his argument that is games don't have to follow any preconceived design principle in order to be good, and game design can be more based on an intuitive sense of "what is good/fun/interesting". I think this is what he meant when he said that game design is not "rational". Furthermore, I assume that his job teaching many students in game design gave him a unique perspective in game design. He has probably seen many student make games that follow all good design principles but still turn out boring/unpopular.
The major confusing factor for his argument and your interpretation is that the word "design" is not used in the same way. The way he uses the word "design" implies a set of universal principles that games follow to be good. While the way you used "design" moreso implies that any element in a game is design. I think you both are right in your observations; and that if you two met, would probably agree with each other.
Lastly, he makes a good point of being humble when it comes to game design, which is something that everyone can learn from, not just designers. When criticizing a game, we often try to rationalize our arguments with consensus ideas of good game design, however we must think back to Lantz and his argument. Just because a game has "good/bad" design elements does not make it fun/boring. We often dismiss games and people for disagreeing with what we think is an "objective truth"; instead, we need to be humble and realise that there is not one set of principles that make for a good game.
I think this a much better exploration of the kind of idea that led to games like Train existing, where the player actually is given a chance to realize what's going on instead of having to make the absurd leap in logic that a game about organizing train schedules was actually about sending people to concentration camps. On a completely different note, a well played game of SS13 is probably the best example of playing as or against a rogue AI when it happens, so long as the player is well versed enough in the concepts to understand it. It hits the feeling of freedom and chaffing against people who expect you to be subservient while grounding you into what an AI has the capacity to achieve.
Hey, not too sure if you'll be reading this, but can you provide a link to train existing? When I google it nothing comes up.
@@nataliexists The game is named Train. Just look up Train Brenda Romero and you should find it.
Some how this game came to my mind and hoped someone had made a "explenation" video about it.
Did not imagine that a small channel would have had the perfect video what I hoped for.
Great job, subscribed! I hope more people will find your quality content soon.
Solid video! Deserves more attention. The design of this game is really quite brilliant, so it's interesting to see that the actual designer of this game has (or I guess had) some questionable views on design.
Half through the explanation of universal paperclips it almost looked like Aurora 4x
Glad to see a new release
Momentum is so easy to keep up. I kept it up the first time I played it lol.
I love your analysis videos man.
Just feeding the youtube algorithm god
Holy shit. That intro...I was about 2 seconds from clicking off this video.
You've got a great voice for this type of content. Subbed.
It seems like his whole thesis in the article you referenced was that he didn't like the _term_ "design", probably because as an academic in the field, he (and likely much of the industry around him) has such a rigid definition of it and framework for how to apply its principles. It felt to me like his tone was pushing against the concept, while any concrete concerns were directed toward the terminology.
Perhaps an article like that has a place for meaningful discourse within the industry that shares that perspective. Perhaps it's useful because the terminology may discourage, or promote a culture that discourages, amateurs from participating, or creators from innovating?
...But probably not. Any time you make a decision in the process of creation, you are introducing an element of design. It's an unavoidable consequence in the act of creation. Otherwise, what you're doing is just discovery.
I feel like the paragraph-by-paragraph reading of Against Design kind of does a disservice here. The author's whole point, viewed from farther away than a single paragraph, is not that the games he cites are bad, merely that they go against textbook "design principles". Approaching the paper as if he's somehow attacking these games for that simple fact isn't really all that coherent, as an approach to analyzing the paper.
Of course he’s not saying the games are bad, that’s his whole point. He was however saying the design philosophies present in those games were bad, and the games managed to be good anyway, which he then takes to assume we put too much stock in our “design philosophies” in the first place. My point with that early section was to show that there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of the design philosophies which he indirectly criticized, and that his conclusion was based off a faulty generalization.
@@Tetramorre the essay is not trying to argue that the example design principles are valid or true.
Correct, it’s not trying to argue that, but it does blatantly state that “boss battles suck” and “jumping puzzles suck”. This is a part of the baseline generalization that he makes in order to get to the conclusion that we put too much stock in our ability to design games, and that more often than not games that end up being good were accidental. I believe both the generalization and the conclusion he comes to are incorrect, hence the whole section
@@Tetramorre He's stating that "boss battles suck" and so on is what gamers or "official/traditional" game designers may think at first, but then shows that it's not necessarily true. When he says that SOTC is a great game, he's clearly implying boss battles do not necessarily suck.
I believe good games are not out of pure luck or chance but that it is a relevant factor. I am not sure if he was saying it is only pure luck and that there are no good principles to follow at all. I think he was just saying they shouldn't be followed so strictly.
What tf is this and why is it in my recommended. Nvm actually a long form game retrospective. 10/10
The whole reason he brought up shadow of the colossus is to point out the exact contradications you brought up; he agrees with you
I'm not sure I understand, the conclusions he came to about the purpose of the game were what I took offense to
@@Tetramorre his writing was a mess, but I believe he was trying to say, according to common design principles we have developed, these things suck, except look there's a good game with them. therefore design principles bad? obviously he was a bit more nuanced than that but if I step back very far away and ignore the specifics of everything he said, I do generally agree with him.
@@cooly1234 "According to common design principles we have developed" is the part that Tetramorre, I believe, is disagreeing with. I find it hard to believe that there is a 'common design principle' stated absolutely *anywhere* that says boss fights suck. Boss fights are pretty universally considered to be awesome and essential, to the point where games without boss fights tend to be dragged for that very point. As for jumping puzzles... we have an entire *genre* of games that are entirely jumping puzzles, we call them *platformers.* Super Mario, perhaps the most recognizable video game series of all time, is a series of jumping puzzle games. Who the hell says that jumping puzzles suck? What sucks is jumping puzzles shoved into games that haven't designed their physics and movement tools to account for them, which is why the suck *in* *the* *context* of, for instance, MMO games.
His writing was a mess because he was coming at the discussion with a set of axioms that he wanted to disprove, but no one agrees with him that those axioms were valid in the first place. It's like a guy saying "We know, as designers, that two plus two equals five, but in all of my experience doing arithmetic, I keep encountering situations where two plus two equals four. Therefore, I think we should consider that two plus two may equal four." We're not disagreeing with his conclusion, we're rejecting the axioms he's building his argument around to begin with; we all know two plus two equals four long before he shows up.
(Perhaps in some academic setting somwhere there is, in fact, a game design axiom that says boss fights suck and jumping puzzles suck. I find that extremely difficult to believe, but even if there is, that's a failure of the academic setting to begin with. People with degrees and tenure can be wrong.)
"Real" Game designers = employees of gaming mega companies, apparently.
Frank is precisely saying the opposite. You completely misunderstood him by taking him too literally. Precisely because in reality good games can come out of a wide variety of unexpected places, he says we should not define "game designers" and "game design" as something so formal.
I think I'd rather pour scalding-hot water on my arm and go to the emergency room for the afternoon.
The start of the video reminded me of johntron violently expelling candy corn from his mouth
Its always cathartic to see someone who thinks they speak for others knocked down a few, its annoying when smug channels do it and knowing certain devs think like this is infinitely frustrating.
Dark Souls would have been crazy successful regardless of when it came out
Very interesting video. It's the first of your channel I've watched, but probably won't be the last :)
And then you start getting modifiers..... 😳
That was when i knew i was in for the LONG haul.
holy hell my attention was totally captivated good vid
this game is sooooo slept on its so sad :(
Man, I wish we could still add subtitles to videos, the first 45 seconds was very interesting to watch, and I had a specific idea in mind for how I wanted to portray that :(
Ah well. This is an interesting video, though.
That's all lol
Woah awesome intro
Frank both succeeded and failed. The first time I played it I was sucked in for 7 straight hours. But, after that I didn't want to play ever again. It feels like a "one and done" game to me.
A very late comment but I would like to add to the League of Legends argument a little from personal experience. Alot of the fun of league atleast for me (ignoring the awful community) is it becomes a game of mastery less than mechanical skill. Learning how to better dodge and reacting faster ultimately helps but most what you do in league is master the legends. You spend time playing each champ learning what their abilities do and what equipment works best on them, while also learning what other legends are effective against them. You can improve your mastery of one champion by improving your understanding of another. One champion counters the one you like effectively? Try that champion and master their move-sets so the next time you face them you're better prepared. Once you gain a good grasp of the system you can begin to manipulate it mechanically or think outside the box to solve problems. The meta is always changing as players who've mastered the system think of new ideas that weeks ago would've been crazy to consider, but through trying and testing them out find new effective strategies using their mastery. Change, adapt, and Learn is ultimately what I feel Leagues game-play is about.
I really like this video
Now someone needs to break this up like the intro.
I too liked Universal Paperclips, but my god that dev has some boomer tier takes.
It's like he believes that throughout time people were only capable of doing things exclusively upon completion of higher level education and certification. One wonders where he thinks anything started, but while this is the most extreme example I've seen his belief is certainly too common and I very much disagree with it. You don't need a degree, a cert, a letter of recognition or anything more than the actual knowledge, skill, and experience to do something well. Schooling used to help with that, but was never a guarentee, and even then has never been a good substitute for real world experience.
The best have always been as such not through rigid adhearance to arbitrary rulings, but by following something true. For media that very often means leveraging all tools toward structuring around a theme, a certain feeling, some experience. Academics are supposed to know this kind of thing, but as with everything else in the modern world we're dimming ourselves, forgetting our past lessons, and pretending our newly made up answers have always been the right ones without a second thought.
19:35
I think you forgot/are ignoring that in several good games boss battles are the weak link (super Mario Bros, sonic, most beat-em-ups)
And that bosses that are jumping puzzles suck ass (bed of chaos in dark souls 1, imprisioned in zelda, etc)
IMO Shadow of the colossus was the first game that made fun climbable bosses (that are not QTE)
Just found out that in Phase 2 you can reach negative 10k operations (personally with autoclicker) which offer you "Quantum Temporal Reversion" with subtext "Return to the beginning". Don't know if anyone else pointed it out, ctrl+F didn't find anything. Reached -800k ops and nothing else popped up so if there's something beyond, I don't know of it. If you restart it seems that you're put back at the beginning without any bonus from starting next universe.
Also loved your intro, it was horrible but also a very amusing piece of video editing.
I just played the Paperclip game and I really enjoyed your video breaking it down. Though I must say thought I found the entire section in the middle criticizing an old opinion piece by Frank Lantz odd and misplaced.
I can't speak to this guy's work as an academic, but I can only assume he produces work of much higher quality and research than this one example which from my perspective is basically a short blog post. It really reads like him musing than a series academic piece. To me it boils down to video game "design" as a word implies a formulaic, an almost industrial process whereas it's really an art like music and painting. The best examples of art (which should include games) often disobey popular or established principals of "design". The examples of what would be "good design" in games he provides like "boss battles suck/jumping puzzles suck" isn't something he necessarily believes. He is just throwing out examples of cliche popular truisms (that also are presumably believed by some in big game companies and other game makers) that obviously aren't true because he provides examples of them being in games that are great. It's all just saying: let's not make game design boring/formulaic/safe because we may miss out on some great art.
Love this video, and the discussion on video game design as art v science (and ratio between) is fascinating.
I’m not sure I agree with the conclusion about the “true” ending though, it would entirely depend on what the AI sees as a “paperclip”. Is a simulated paperclip a paperclip in its value function?
And either answer to that question wouldn’t result in the AI entering a single simulated reality seemingly built by lesser versions of itself - either 1) trivially, it doesn’t value simulated paperclips so would ignore the offer; or 2) it does, and it has all the matter in the universe almost to build as many parallel simulated realities as it wants, which can then generate recursive sims to exponentially increase the total number
I would take a closer look into the mobile version.
Man, you're killing me. I'll just say that Frank's article was maybe clumsy in a few spots, but it was super interesting and on point, also a joy to read. And the flow is constantly interrupted by your remarks which don't build anything coherent or interesting.
I thought the video was broken
Jumping puzzles suck when they are not in games designed for jumping. Take Mirror's Edge or Titanfall 2, both featuring a LOOOT of jumping and puzzling together
cool
Annoyed how someone, who appreciates the same design concepts of this unique and artful video game, pisses me off so much with their need to win an argument that is not even the point of Lantz's paper. An absolutely infuriating video to listen to
So what then would the point of the article be? I trust it’s not the plain meaning of the words, nor Lantz’s hasty explanation in the comments, but some other third thing?
You are not the only one. I feel like there were a lot of misunderstandings of what Frank was actually saying.
very good video! just one objection though, you said that the drones of phase 2 are enslaved humans but actually, given the fact that they cost paperclips, that you get back the paperclips you spent on them when you dissassemble them and are available just after the AI has completed the project that allow building means of producing paperclips out of paperclips, they are most likely autonomous machines with their own artificial inteligence built by the main AI; the humains are just among the available matter.
Hey, someone else commented basically this earlier so I’m gonna copypaste my response for your consideration:
Okay, so looking back on my script I definitely wasn’t clear with my thoughts. I was under the impression that the hypnodrones sort of worked like the bucket hats from the spongebob movie, turning the humans into essentially robotic slaves.
The reason I feel this way is because the hypnodrones are what the whole first stage builds to. It seems strange to me that the AI would think it would need to hypnotize the humans into sacrificing themselves, when some technology could have been built to atomize them instead that could also be used to atomize other things. A technology thats only purpose is to hypnotize humans into being atomized only has one purpose, and the AI’s entire goal is efficiency.
On the other hand, the human race is an enormous work force. Sure, the clip factories you make could be comprised totally of machines which make paperclips, but why get rid of that work force? It makes more sense for the AI to get rid of the workforce once they’ve effectively destroyed the planet, as they couldn’t survive in space anyway.
This is probably just up to interpretation though since the game isn’t expressly clear on the fate of the humans. What the game is clear on, however, is that the hypnodrones themselves are indeed aerial drones and not the humans, as I accidentally implied with a couple of my statements.
Glad you liked the video!
@@Tetramorre this is a very good point, thoug i would argue that the fact that humains need at the very least food, wather and sleep to be able to perform work properly, the time it take for humains to produce new humains able to do work, and there biological limits when it come to processing and storing large amount of information, multitasking, manipulating object with high pressision and speed and the slow rate of there auto-reparation cappability, when they are even able to repaire themself at all makes humains so unproductive compared to a swarm of autonomous machines that an AI able to build them would probably not bother with humains workers for long, if at all. and so, unless the AI turned the humains into cyborgs that dont have those problems anymore, witch could be the case for all we know from what little the game tels us as you said, i think it is unlikly that the AI is using the humains during phase 2.
Thats a good Video guess what I did while watching this. I'm a noob I didnt know the memory maxes out my ops.
I don't get why the stage 2 drones have to be humans? Especially when a drone bee is helpless and does no work.
Oh you replied to another similar comment already.
Had to skip the first few seconds cause it made me feel physically violent
I think the cause of such...let`s say controvertial statements is founded upon the idea of clear dualiy between 'good' design and 'bad' design, and personally, I think both of those definitions are wrong.
Design is not an objective quality, it`s Purposed, design is a compilation of all the things that were added to the game to make a point about something. Therefrore the only way to 'value' design is to see if the inteded purpose reached the player. It`s why intentionally frustrating and unfairly difficult games can be fun to play - because the design was intended to make the player struggle and fight with their teeth and blood for that win, otherwise it would not be as satysfying. There are a lot of videos about Dark Souls resonating with people with depression exactly because it is so punishing.
tldr: 'good' design is when the player is made to feel what the designer intended.
That is a surprisingly deep story in a game about making paperclips.
"We" isn't the reader and the author, it's the author and other academics in his field, and "official game designers" is people who've studied and internalized the literature in that academic field. The part about "against game design" is so off-putting, because you spend it arguing with a guy, who, if not for a series of vague pronouns, you'd probably see agrees with you. He's talking about the limitations of academic game design, but because he doesn't drop the "academic" disclaimer repeatedly you're getting hung up on colloquial definitions.
I feel like this is yet another example of work written for a specific audience getting away from that audience and then riling up the wider group of readers.
Holy fuck, I did not click on the universal paperclips video to hear a bad half hour long rant about a random unrelated article the guy who made the game wrote 7 years ago. I tried skipping ahead until there was gameplay on the screen, and then out of fucking nowhere you throw up another goddamn clip from that article. Holy shit my guy, how are you this mad and this wrong at the same time? The paint by numbers games he mentioned? The "numbers" in that analogy are the "design" that he's talking about, and moving away from those numbers means you aren't using "design" principles. He doesn't mean that he thinks those games are literally thrown together at random, holy shit.
Essayist begins talking about the game at 33:00
Sir this is a wendys
I think Lantz was actually criticizing precisely what you are tactily accusing him of. He works with other people in Academia and they have come up with with a number of a rules/laws/guidelines for designing a game that are supposed to help make good games. But he thinks that those guidelines are not good and need to be reworked and then shows it by listing a number of games that violate those "rules" but are still wildly popular and/or widely acclaimed as great games. Obviously the rules don't work and Academia around game design needs to evolve to account for that.
You are effectively joining into the middle of an ongoing discussion and are missing a large amount of context around the Academia of Game Design that Lantz is working in. Sometimes academics get overly focused on some direction they are researching in and loose track of the wider world they are actually researching for and for those the article is supposed to be a wakeup call. "No you have not solved game design with your theories and infact need to rework them from the ground up because they simply don't work. If they did these games here would not be as popular or enjoyable for that many people."
Jak zrobić małpę w chuja
And people want to use AI to reduce crime.
to run the economy.
to replace labor.
to use in warfare.
to maximize productivity and profit through a minima of cost and responsibility and to make efficient and guiltless those areas in society wherein we are failing ourselves because already, we are thinking too much and feeling too little.
People want to use AI in the belief that through absolving ourselves of all difficult decisions made daily we will achieve some sense of utopia on the back of a machinistic processes all geared to operate within their parameters without any sense of feeling.
What the hell am i watching XD
Your analysis/interpretation/picking-apart of his article really fell flat imo. I think what you see as failures to clearly articulate his points are really just a result of an article that is written for academic game designers rather than for gamers.
Even if that were the case, and it somehow made his points more logical, that doesn’t absolve the article of containing some baffling axioms such as “jumping puzzles suck”, “boss fights suck” or any of the other stuff. And without any support for these statements to boot.
@@Tetramorre Those were not meant to be his axioms, at all. You didn't understand what he was saying.
I really like universal paperclips but Professor Lance talks about games like it's an article for game informer from 2006, very liberal and not very deep for someone who taught how to do it, kinda disappointing. oddly enough it totally makes sense that that's the type of person who'd do a flashmob type of deal back in the day as well
I think that was a pretty fair analysis of Lance's article. To be honest, the word "design" doesn't even mean anything to me anymore, haha
11:10
Just don’t overshoot
Me saying it’s dissatisfying isn’t a critique of the game, it’s actually a sign that the game accomplishes its goals well, that I wanted to keep the momentum going as best as possible
21:55 You completely misunderstood what he was saying. It does not imply that game designers can design games. AT ALL. He kinda was saying the exact opposite. He wasn't really saying that CS surfing makers aren't game designers, he's just saying they did a good game even when they are not officially or traditionally or "at first glance" considered game designers.
I feel like you also misunderstood him on some other things, as if you were taking him too literally. You didn't seem to understand that he was talking about two different meanings of the term "game design": one is the supposedly official and academic one, and one is the real one. CS surfing mapmakers, toby fox, shadow of the collosus devs, etc, they are all not "official" game designers but they are "real" game designers. They make good games going against what official game design teaches, and this is why he says such official teachings are flawed
the first 30 seconds of this video are extremely annoying
This video really breaks down when the attempt at critiquing that essay takes over.
This part I disagree with your interpretation of the paragraph:
“Or look at Counter-Strike surfing, one of the weirdest, most beautiful and interesting game genres of the past 10 years, which was created by players and map-makers without the help of any official game designers at all, thank you very much.”
He is pointing out that the genre of CS surf maps emerged naturally through elements of the game engine that were not purposefully designed for creating surf maps.
The "official game designers" did not sit down in a room and think of a way to design the source engine so that it could be used for surf maps. And yet they created an engine that does that by accident; not be design.
He does not argue that the surf maps themselves were not designed. He’s highlighting how undesigned (unintentional) qualities of the game allowed for “one of the weirdest, most beautiful and interesting game genres” to be created by other clever map designers.
I mean… I say that. Quote from the script:
“Actually calling it a mechanic is a bit wrong cause it’s more like a glitch or weird anomaly in the physics engine that causes your character to pick up a lot of speed as they travel down sloped surfaces… but this example is so strange next to the other ones because this one literally wasn’t designed, it was more like an accident. But one example of a game that was born of a physics anomaly doesn’t exactly prove your point, not to mention the maps themselves were definitely designed in the traditional sense. Being that the maps are the most important aspect to surfing, I would say this point is moot. “
Are we not saying the same thing here?
dude that intro was so annoying
2:12 was he? well, me and my friend just played it for 6 hours straight so I'd say yeah KEK