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Again, I find myself in complete agreement with Radiant.  We should be besties.  Wanna come over for hot chocolate and girl-talk?

I think Vince's manifesto has a lot of merit, but a game world isn't an operating system - sometimes it makes sense that the same type of object/character/hotspot should be manipulated/interacted with differently, and in a number of ways.

Absolutely, and I think I raised that point with Vince at the time. Different UIs for different purposes. Plus, games are often about mastering skills and overcoming challenges, so you don't necessarily want to make it too easy. (Though adventure games that let you have fun with the UI are relatively rare. Interestingly, I think Vince's games tend to be among them, what with the twin cursors in Linus Bruckman, and the memory interface and all the mini-games in Resonance.)

The comparison was a poor one.  I was young and naive. Plus, things get much more complicated when you actually sit down and hammer the game out, as we all eventually figure out!  But the main point stands: If you're going to have a multi-verb interface, you must justify it.  And by that I mean having several (don't know how to quantify that) instances where you get unique and meaningful responses from using two different verbs on a single subject.  Talking to a person vs pushing them down a hill is a good example of this.

Can we not call it a manifesto?

[...] unless the game comes up with at least two interesting actions for most of the objects/hotspots, then the interface doesn't need two interaction modes. And I'm having a hard time thinking of an existing game that does that.

Yup, I'm pretty much of the same mind as Radiant on this topic.

Such a controversial standpoint for adventure gamers, though!  Let's break into tribes and duke it out!

I love immersion and think that good descriptions from the protagonist is one great way to accomplish this.  But I also think that games are getting much better at doing this via other means.  And maybe I'm just getting old and impatient (and playing the games wrong, right AGA? ) But, I almost never use the look-at verb in any game unless I'm really stuck.  The Dan & Ben games might be the last time I made it a point to look at stuff.

Maybe off topic, but- (edit: frenzykitty ninja'd me, making this somewhat relevant!  Yay!)

Even better: LMB = interact/walk/talk; RMB = interact/walk/talk

I'm questioning whether adventure games actually need the look function.  Ask yourself if it's ever actually useful in your game.  Other than comedy games where the game has genuinely funny responses for everything, I'm trying to come up with an example of a game that actually made good use of a look at function.  I guess it could be a chance to demonstrate the character's "voice".  You learn about the character by the way he/she sees his/her surroundings.  But how many games pull that off well?

I guess it makes some sense in games with very low resolutions where you can't see detail in something a few pixels wide.  But most of the time (and I'm super guilty of this), the look-at response doesn't really provide any information that a hotspot mouseover label couldn't convey more efficiently.

Awesome!  Congrats guys!

Played one game of Arkham Horror with friends who had played before.  Spent hours doing what they told me to do and had no idea what was going on.  Then we all died.

I join some friends for boardgames whenever I can.  I have some friends who are huge collectors and have a great selection.  Really enjoy Betrayal at House on the Hill, Dominion, Flux.  I've played bunches with them that I don't even remember the name of.  Plus the old standby's Carcassonne and Catan.

As a kid, my favorite was the Clue Museum Caper spinoff.  That's good stuff.

[The Fifth Head of Cerberus]

Hmmm... my to-read pile has volumes 3-4 in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, as well as his Fifth Head of Cerberus, Jack Handey's The Stench of Honolulu, Home by Marilynne Robinson and the graphic novel Habibi by Craig Thompson. Maybe The Fifth Head of Cerberus or Habibi might be suitable?

Habibi is incredible.  One of my favorite reads from last year!

I don't have time to join the book club right now (These days I fall asleep the moment my head hits a pillow. Consequently, it takes me way too long to finish a book.), just wanted to inject that endorsement.

Example Resonance. In his PDF Vince commented how the game was supposed to have a different name (I can't remember which one, and that already says something), but they used "Resonance". It is a single word, always nice. It describes a known scientific phenomena, also nice because the game tells us what it is about. But I found the other, more mundane meaning of the word really memorable: Someone does something and his/her actions have consequences, and that is a theme that's also in the game. Triple win.

During the writing process, the scientific-sounding attribute that bound the two fictional particles together (the game's MacGuffin, if you will) was called "Spin" rather than "Resonance".  One of the twin particles would have a certain degree of "Spin" and the other would have an equal but opposite "Counter-Spin".  And so, I was calling the game "Spin/Counter-Spin".

This also tied into some of the themes I was writing into the story -- namely, the theme of false dichotomy.  The first half of the game was going to be all about black and whites.  Good characters and evil characters.  Spin and Counter-Spin.  Ruined desert landscapes pockmarked by lush, domed cities.  And then the second half (after THAT scene) was going to be all about shades of grays.  Doing bad things with the best intentions.  Good of the many over good of the few.  Stuff like that.

As the game developed, this proved a bit too-ambitious for my own writing skills and the story developed in a different manner.  Plus, around this time, the words "Spin" and "Counter-Spin" became common terms describing political double-speak, and the title was feeling too clunky.

So I brainstormed up the word Resonance and loved it for the multiple meanings discussed.  I had settled on Resonance as a title before any of the game's proper development actually started.

Yeah, I'm super happy with the name Resonance because of the multi-layered meaning.  It Googles pretty well if you add the word "game" to your search, so I guess that's a success.

I like The Samaritan Paradox.  It immediately evokes "twisty mystery" for me.  Good adventure title.

I liked Boryokudan Rue too, but I understand the reason for the switch.  As Radiant so aptly demonstrated, it's really hard to spell!  And if you're making a commercial title, it has to be easy to Google (as well as simple, memorable, and unused, which is super hard).  For freeware games, I think really weird or ponderous titles can be more eye catching. 

And sometimes the title summarizes the whole game in one concise word.  That's when you know you've nailed it.

Dibs on stand-in Grundislav duties.

Are you sure this wasn't the Valentine's Day edition?

Excuse me while I get back to my Grundi/Ben slash-fiction.

One great side-effect to dedicating all your free-time for five years to making a game is the big backlog of games to play when you're done.  I used to get super psyched by game previews and buy them full-price day of release.  Now, I've got 5-years worth of reviews, word-of-mouth, and hindsight to help me play only games I think are worth it. 

Plus, all the games are now deeply discounted.  I haven't payed more than $15.00 for a AAA game since.  Some of the games aren't even that old.  Just snagged Dishonored during the Steam Sale for around $10.

 

Why don't we hear all these vile things coming out of your mouth on the podcast, Benjamin?

Thanks for throwing in a Forest review alongside the discussion of all the great OROW games!  Wait, I'm a dart board now?

Listening while working.  Thinking to myself, "If I were picking, what song would I pick?"  Conclusion: Setting Sail from Bastion.  Next song: Setting Sail from Bastion.  Well chosen.

That soundtrack is in regular rotation on my phone along with the soundtracks of Dust Force and Thomas Was Alone.  There are lots of other game soundtracks (my music collection is almost entirely game soundtracks) but those three get called back up all the time for me.

The Botanicula soundtrack is another classic.  I saw DVA perform live at Indiecade earlier this year!

This was a great idea, guys.  Some of these I've never heard and some were great shots straight in the nostalgia.

Oh, I meant the controls for using fire felt weird.  I kept accidentally moving into the bad guy instead of using fire on him.  I guess my arrow key finger was faster than my space bar finger.  I understand why you do it this way, and don't really have a suggestion for improving it. I just didn't play long enough for me to not be screwing up the controls.

Carry on!

[Draconis:]

Missed one!

Draconis:
Some more great scripting on display here!  It took me a while to get used to the rule set.  It seemed weird that falling gems would kill you and you could only collect them while they were still.  Using fire was a little weird too.  But the concept is good!  I liked the first two levels, but they were a bit hard.  I'd like to have a couple simple ones to teach the basics as you build up to the harder ones with lots of ways to die.  It also feels really bad when you get really far in a level and then make a dumb mistake and have to start over.  Bad enough to make me not try that second level for the fourth time!  But I felt like I played enough to get it and it's pretty great.  This could be refined into a very cool thing.  And you have a custom level editor text file!  That's pretty great!  A little more and it could be an in-game editor!  Sweet!  Good job!

Glad to see you continuing on this!  Promising start!

My Nebraska Driver's License.  It expires in March of 2014, so get it now.

Uh... seriously... I don't care.  Do what you will with it.  What license is that called?  I don't know anything about licenses.  If you find a way to sell it for big bucks under your own name, I wish you well.

Sheesh CaptainD, this one is huge leaps and bounds over Bubble Wrap Popping Simulator 2012.  You're going to have to wait for Bubble Wrap Popping Simulator 2014 for next-gen graphics like that.

Yeah, I didn't know if the one word instructions "Follow" would be enough to get the player into the game and figuring out what to do.  If you start off going the wrong way right off the bat, you could be wandering for a while.  There was no time for playtesting, so you're some of the first people to finish it other than myself!

Thanks, guys!  Glad you liked it.