GMTK Insider (March 2018)

Hey everyone. Hope everything’s going well. 

Looks like March will be a one episode month. Sorry about that - next video is underway but taking a bit longer than I wanted for lots of boring personal reasons. Luckily, the episode I did this month was a big one:

What makes a good puzzle?

So this was a really tricky video to make, as I really had very little understanding of what made good puzzles. It wasn’t something I could grasp intuitively, and there was very little information out there on the subject. 

A lot of the advice you’ll read is vague and generalised, like “don’t use red herrings” or “keep it simple” or “teach the mechanics early”. But actual design theory is hard to come by. 

So this one really involved getting stuck into various puzzle games, playing them until I hit a puzzle, and then figuring out what made it work. How was it set up? How did I try and solve it in the first place? (Recording my playthrough was important for getting an objective replay of what I tried). How many steps did it involve? And so on. 

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One thing I was aware of before I started was the assumption. The Stephen’s Sausage Roll puzzle I show, where you can easily cook the sausages but that leaves you incapable of exiting the level, really struck me when I first played it. And then I would start to notice it in lots of other games - and also be cognisant of games that don’t feature the assumption, which often makes them very easy. 

The revelation part largely came from the Jonathan Blow design philosophy video, where he talks about solving puzzles in Braid and The Witness as being like discovering something new about the universe.

And then the catch was just the outcome of looking at lots of puzzles and figuring out what makes them, well, puzzles!

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I also spoke to various developers over Skype. This is something I’m doing more often (I talked to people for the Snake Pass and Rayman videos, too), to get more insider information. I find this tricky as I’m very shy and I’m uncomfortable asking people to give up their time for me. But I’m working on it!

What I’ve been playing

Not a lot! There’s a few indie games that I’ll talk about in the playlist. Though I did just start Far Cry 5. Which is... very familiar. The game feels so similar to Far Cry 4 that I’m getting a lot of deja vu. Taking out a camp full of people with a bow and some Molotov’s... yeah, I’ve done this before. 

The game also has what I call the Prison Break Sona Problem. Okay, so I guess spoilers for a really old TV show. At the very end of Prison Break’s second season, our hero is sent to a Panamanian jail. And the teaser for this is terrifying! It’s dark, raining, prisoners are on the floor in the foetal position, there are massive fights in the yard. Woof, this is dark. 

And then in Season 3... the prison is actually fine. It’s not too scary, it’s kinda nice and sunny actually, and the big midnight brawls have apparently subsided. 

Anyway, the point is: the opening to Far Cry 5 is all about escaping into the woods from a crazy religious cult of murderers. It’s tense and scary. And then you get an assault rifle and actually it’s fine, you’re now the Uber predator who can take out the entire gang singlehandedly and nothing is remotely intimidating anymore. 

Maybe I just miss Far Cry 2, which kept me on edge until the credits rolled...

I finished Yakuza 5. As I said in the previous newsletter, the constantly shifting protagonists, cities, stories, and gameplay types made it hard to get invested in any particular aspect of the game. The more focused Yakuza 6 sounds very promising, though. 

I’ve also been playing a bunch of Fortnite on PS4 and PUBG on mobile. My buddy likes PUBG but doesn’t have a PC or an Xbox One so we’re stuck on iPad. But it’s fine: it’s nice to play in bed, and most people are incapable of moving, aiming, and firing on a touchscreen so I (with my awkward claw grip set-up) have the upper hand and have won a handful of games - often with 10 or more kills. 

Other things I’ve been doing

Well, I’ve been looking at buying a house which is super stressful. No luck right now, and besides - I need to wait until next month when I can do my second year of self assessment tax and will then be well placed to secure a mortgage. This is all very weird to me.

I went to a cool exhibition in London, where they had lots of the models used in Wes Anderson’s new stop-motion animation Isle of Dogs. But weird as I haven’t seen the film yet, but still very cool. It’s still on until early April if you’re interested - just Google Isle of Dogs exhibition The Strand or something. 

Speaking of films, I saw Black Panther which was fine. I’m pretty bored of Marvel movies but this one at least touched on some interesting themes of colonialism and slavery, and had wonderful African-style costume and set design that you don’t see very often. 

I also saw The Square. This one’s by the director of the terrific Force Majeure and it’s a satirical, black comedy about... well, loads of things. Modern art, faux humanitarianism, the bystander effect. It’s almost like a screwy Coen brothers film at times, before bouncing off to some uncomfortable cringe comedy. I dunno, I liked it. 

I caught a couple of the new Netflix films, too. Alex Garland’s Annihilation, which had some cool ideas but ultimately didn’t say much to me. And Duncan Jones’s Mute which was just nonsense. I dunno what’s going on with Netflix and movies - they can do amazing TV (caught up with Master of None while I was ill, which I really liked) but their films largely suck. 

(Though I’d be remiss not to mention some their good ones: Okja, Gerald’s Game, The Meyerowitz Stories, 13th)

What’s next for me

I’m not too sure! I need to play some more games, as that’s where I get most of my ideas. I might do something on co-op games following A Way Out, but not sure what the angle would be beyond “here are some cool co-op games”. 

I do want to get started on the mid-season Boss Keys special, too. I’m starting to get that itch. I’m also keen to do something on Yakuza, but at this point I should just play 6 and then go from there. 

I also need to get back into streaming! I keep skipping it, as I know I shouldn’t stream if I’m not in the right head space, but I’m gonna try streaming some Far Cry 5 tonight. Wish me luck!

And finally, I’ve secured a couple talking gigs. I’m going to be doing a guest lecture in a London uni in May, and a keynote at a Dutch uni in July. I can also apply for Gamescom press accreditation at the end of next month. 

Okay wow, I’m rambling like an idiot right now. So I’m gonna sign off. Playlist coming before the week is out, and then - all being well - new video will drop next week.