Animal well is great, but still has one massive problem; the keyboard controls can’t be rebound, which is an absolutely unforgivable miss in 2024. Beat the game but had to use a controller… I really don’t understand why he still hasn’t added this basic feature.
Quake was released in 1996 and if I recall correctly at the time the arrow keys were the standard but one famous Quake pro player used WASD and it helped launch it to today default.
My point is, I don’t think it was ever OK to not have customizable keyboard controls, and having it also give you permission no be perfect in your chosen default. I understand not including the option to have multiple keys assigned to the same control (although I don’t excuse it because it is not rocket science), but not have configurable controls at all? It was unforgivable in the 2000 and it is exponentially more unforgivable today.
No other game was more interesting and exciting when you found something new. Or solved a puzzle.
While on the surface it’s a simple Metroid style game, once you start noticing things it becomes so intriguing. I have a document on my iPad full of handwritten notes and maps. It felt so novel to return to a feeling of the late 80s where paper maps and notes were king.
While there were a lot of great games last year, I put so much more brainpower into Animal Well, and it felt so good to do so.
I heard one video essayist identify it as a “metroidbrainia” - a game where progression is gated not simply by items/keys, but by knowledge of systems, many of them hidden.
Although somewhat unrelated, I thought this excerpt from the article was interesting and sad.
Asked in an interview if he regrets Balatro’s success, he replied: "Honestly, yeah. Don’t get me wrong - this has changed my life in a lot of amazing ways. I’m so grateful. But I do miss that time before. It was just a hobby that recharged my batteries. Sometimes I think, ‘Maybe I would’ve been happier if I had never released this game to the public.’
The guy has all the resources to rekindle that flame by organizing game jams for example. I am sure he‘ll think much more positively about the whole thing a couple years from now when he realized opportunities granted by his success. Either that or he’ll go down the Notch route but I don’t think he’ll be that kind of stupid rich.
Yeah, but his way to relax and get away from stress was to code. Organizing game jams is a whole other world of stress. The different level of stress is like that Mitchell Hedburg joke, “You’re a great chef! Can you farm?”
If you remain fixated on the idea that your way to relax is gone, you’ll never be able to find a new way. Life changes, for good and bad. It’s on us to make the best of it.
Don’t feel sad for them! They have now reached a point in life where they get to ask these kind of what if questions and no longer need to work. I love the game they built, and hopefully if they still feel down they have to time and resources now to seek help (i.e. therapy).
In case you’re genuine and wondering why your comment also got down voted to hell, I assume it might be because many people read your comment and immediately assumed you’re yet another alt of that other user.
Whoever’s behind those accounts tends to use the latest account to “defend” the previous one after getting banned.
Then people didn’t even check and I honestly just assumed it was residual hate or an assumption of defense so while this clarifies things it doesn’t really make it any better.
If the community is going to assume everyone knows what’s going on, then that’s on them.
Genuine question coz Im not american. Whats the benefit of replacing a completely genderneutral word like ‘I’ with something else? Seems to me its just ragebait, do people actually use pronouns like that?
Also, is it even gramatically correct to use 3rd person speech when talking about yourself? Isnt that just confusing everyone?
Some people aren’t necessarily trans but don’t feel they fit gendered pronouns. I generally try to abide by their wishes because it doesn’t matter to me why, just that I be respectful to people the way I’d want them to be respectful to me. But people sure do use pronouns like that and it’s not just trans people either. I don’t care what people identify as. That’s not any of my business. But it costs me nothing to respect their choice.
Yes of course, Im not trying to invalidate genderneutral pronouns. If someone wishes to be adressed in a certain way replacing the words him/her, sure. But ‘I’ is not a gendered pronoun (at least to my understanding). Its the single universal word used to talk about oneself in the 1st person, isnt it? It is genderneutral already, so why would you feel the need to replace that?
I suppose it’s possible that that’s not how they identify and it’s not about gender at all. If someone tells me they like to be called Sara or Brad, I don’t try to figure out the how and the why. I’m probably not the best person to ask this question to because I don’t think I know the answer.
For that reason, speaking in the third person like Bot is doing doesn’t make sense to me (as a trans person myself). I can’t think of any motive for someone to want others to constantly refer to them in the third person… Except for one, but it’s controversial in some communities haha.
Looking at Bot’s comment history, they only decided to speak in the third person today, while the rest of their account’s comments are written normally. Do with that information what you will.
On one hand I‘m worried about possible game direction influence on FROM titles, on the other hand I’m hopeful that maybe we finally get competent Soulsborne PC ports if Sony acquires them even if only for upcoming titles
My money is on 3 months after the first release of a FROM title on PC, sony will come in and force them to create a sony account with crazy DRM to play it.
Then after the outrage from that, force it on all previous FROM titles.
No, it's really not. Especially since they already own 14% of FromSoftware directly. The only Sony bullshit is likely still going to be limited to any IP that Sony funds themselves.
It’s Kadokawa that forced Sony’s hands. Sony initially only wanted to acquire the anime and videogames assets. But Kadokawa told them that only acquisition offers for the entire company are accepted.
I’ve worked closely with the people that do reverse engineering and such for FromSoft games and I can damn near guarantee that any PSN requirement would be ripped out pretty quickly. At worst they might tie it to online features. My real worry is exclusivity, timed or otherwise.
Sony: Thanks for letting us know! The next FromSoft game will have zero modding support. Make sure to login using your PSN account. Remember, we love you!
Oh, make no mistake; prior FS games have no modding support. In fact, they encrypt the all game files with RSA nowadays (which is awful for read speeds because RSA is slow but whatever). Current modding support is based off of a robust reverse engineering community that’s documented most of the file formats and a significant portion of the important code. And that’s while contending with Arxan which, while not as awful as Denuvo, still impedes RE. They’d basically have to implement something as draconian as Denuvo to make things more difficult than they are.
Honestly, I am probably in the minority, but I don’t understand the hate for console exclusivity. In today’s world there is almost no reason to stick with a console outside some small stuff like pick up and go and knowing a game will just work. I say let them hold rights to games if it gets people to invest in getting one. I am not really sure why this is such a negative thing for some. It’s also odd that Sony gets the biggest blame when you have Nintendo that has zero games playable on other platforms outside emulation. At least these days 8 months after release it gets a PC release as well.
On the one hand, I can kinda get it. It must really suck to lose to a self-servicing corpo ad-a-palooza, even one as well crafted as Astrobot. It’s like losing a collectible contest to FunkoPops, just clear feelsbad.
On the other, fuck this guy for dragging nationalistic pride into a dumbass award ceremony. The Geoff-fest is always a stupid corporate cockgag that celebrates publisher money more than developers, taking it personally and trying to pretend like all of China was snubbed only serves to makes BMW look worse.
I don’t feel it was undeserved, it’s good that super productions lose to better crafted titles, maybe one day actual indie games will be on the contest for game of the gear
I’d be ashamed too, losing to astro bot. What I’ve heard from the Platformer community is that while the game is good, it’s very short and lacks in the amount of unique areas (and enemies?) and as such is more or less blitz and glamour. Like, props to sony for producing jump and runs, but still…
I just finished Astro Bot and it is a very good game. However, it is very derivative of Mario to the point where it is very clearly a Mario game, except you are collecting PlayStation member-berries instead of stars or whatever.
I loved it, but I have a hard time justifying it as GotY. IMO it should have gone to Wukong or Balatro.
While he comes off as a jerk, and possibly is one, I can understand the sentiment, having spent a few years of my life among ethnically Chinese people in Asia. There is this drive and aspiration to be recognized by leading brands in the West as equals, perhaps even betters. Due to a history of subservience and shame and a strong nationalistic current seeking to undo that.
This game is one of the most ambitious and accomplished to come out of China and they’re hungering for that kind of recognition. So it is likely that fans of the game feel it was ‘stolen’ from them and he seems to be responding to that sentiment. To us it looks petty, but to some of the game’s most ardent Chinese fans this may have been an appropriate response. Not sure how this was received in China though, just speculating.
The last three weeks or so of Chinese video game reporting has basically been:
“They’ll never shortlist us for GotY. They’ll never choose a Chinese game for GotY. It’s all a Western ploy to denigrate and deny Chinese achievement because They are jealous that the first Chinese AAA game is so good.”
It’s been tiring.
Edit: just opened up my Chinese feeds, and I’m glad to report that the first one I found was criticising netizens for review bombing BG3 and defending the Larian speech, and giving it a more detailed translation.
THAT actually probably was a translation error (unlike “oh, he is not a disgusting misogynistic piece of shit. You are just racist and so is google translate”).
Swen’s speech was (paraphrasing) about how an oracle told him that the future GOTYs will all be games made because they are games the studios wanted to make and were allowed to make without fear of layoffs (which is why it was ironic that a studio that came out of Sony gutting Team Japan won…).
But a lot of chuds and CCP mouthpieces keyed in on the “An oracle told me” narrative framing as an indication that it was all rigged. In large part because they are fucking morons who don’t realize they were voting on a different category when they rushed that vote harder than a gamefaqs poll with Aeris in it.
And Swen is head (?) of Larian who made Baldurs Gate 3.
Also: BG3 is, in scientific terms, gay as all fuck. So the chuds who were already focusing on BMWukong because “it understand that women should be sexy” and whatever other “anti-DEI” bullshit they are radicalizing people with, saw an opportunity to pick a fight now that the mass support of BG3 is somewhat waning.
Not going to lie, despite loving the stories about the monkey king, I skipped it entirely because of the notes they sent to content creators. Which would also be why I skip movies and games that take the US’ DoD money. I’m glad it got passed over.
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