bobby 55 wrote:Well done on the job, I'll assume it's in the gaming industry. Working provides more money to buy games and less time to play them. I'd prefer to be working than not just the same.
Thanks. Yeah I'm a game designer at Playdead, the studio that made Limbo. At least for a month, but here's hoping they'll hire me when the trial period is over - at least I'm getting paid all right for the month, and I'm learning some things (one thing I'm learning is how similar DADIU's projects are to professional game development in relatively small studios, Playdead is only about 50% larger than the DADIU productions I've been on, and the process seems really similar, just with a deadline one year out instead of a month).
On that note, I guess I'm playing "Game 2". It's a spiritual sequel to Limbo, but in 3D and with colour. Not sure how much more I should say - they haven't made me sign anything, but Danish law protects them none-the-less, and if nothing else I really fucking want to keep the job
BUT! Back on topic
I played Journey on the PS3 yesterday. I find it to be severely overpriced for a game that took me 2 hours to play through, but it was never-the-less a highly captivating experience that I expect to return to a couple of times. I totally ignored trophies the first time through, which I definitely think is how one should play Journey the first time, but they'll provide good motivation to come back to the game and spend some more time there.
The multiplayer is in the Demon's Souls vein of the game pulling random people into your game while you're playing, but whereas in Demon's Souls they come to kill you and steal your body, in Journey they just kind of tag along and you can recharge each other's jump power by touching. Because there is no character customisation and the only form of communication is a sort of instrumental singing you can make your character do when you press a button, there is literally nothing other players can do to not fit into your game.
In fact Journey provided what I think is the best multiplayer moment I've ever had if I don't count the dungeon mastered NWN campaigns I used to participate in back in the day. I had reached a stealth section where you need to go from shelter to shelter to avoid the gaze of these flying monsters that tear you apart and permanently reduce your jumping power if they spot you. Another player had been pulled into my game and we were following each other through this section, which is of course pretty tricky when no verbal coordination is possible - we just kind of had to read each other's movements and try to anticipate each other. It went extremely well - like myself, I could tell he'd made it through the last section with all his jumping power intact, so he clearly had this stealth thing under control. At the end of the section, just before the finish, we accidentally split up when we could go either left or right to the second to last shelter.
So we're standing in different shelters, pretty far from each other, with a long stretch for both of us to the last piece of shelter before the finish... and he leaves his shelter too soon. Juuuust exactly too soon, I'm looking at him go and I can see the spotlight from this giant flying monster coming up behind him, and I can tell he's not gonna make it. And I'm shouting at the screen. And it catches him out just a few meters in front of the shelter, so he makes it in. And I think... did he make it? Is it going to go away? But it keeps its light fixed on where he's hiding, then it moves backwards, and then it fucking SWOOPS down and completely
obliterates his shelter, sending him
flying. I think the server just shunts him out of my game when he gets "eaten", so all I see is him getting destroyed by this giant monster. You bet your ass I took the time to let the next monster pass over my shelter before I made a run for the finish, and I got there in one piece.
So that was awesome.
