Spam Spam Spam Humbug 140 – The Fun Zone
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Podcast Topic(s)
This episode begins with Draxenath and Golem Dragon discussing Trials of Mana (the recently-released remastered version, not the original 1995 game), especially its post-game quests and the bonus character class that unlocks after it has been completed once. (You can find a number of clips of the game on Twitch.) This leads to a broader discussion about games that came out in Japan, and which were only later ported for/released in the West, and how it’s nice to see such titles enjoy success after crossing the Pacific.
Draxenath then contends that game plots will never be as good as the plots of novels, arguing that the combination of narrative with visuals in games requires developers to make certain trade offs, especially regarding the role of imagination in the experience of narrative. Golem pushes back on this idea a bit, and remarks that a game’s visuals can add to the experience of its narrative at times. They do both agree, however, that text-heavy games are not particularly suitable for streaming.
Nor, Draxenath then notes, are large, open-world games. Citing the example of Black Desert Online, she comments on the issues with navigating large expansive game worlds whilst attempting to remain engaging to the audience watching a stream. How much time are viewers willing to spend watching players traverse large in-game areas? How much time are players, cognizant of their audience, willing to spend traversing those areas?
And then…Dr. Cat joins.
A brief discussion about playing Final Fantasy 15 on stream turns into a discussion about which of the Final Fantasy games — possibly the eleventh one? Someone fact-check us! — added cat girl-type characters to the lore. You can guess who asked about that, but you don’t really need to…do you?
Dr. Cat then goes on to talk about how he plays games less since he began making them, a tendency that holds especially true, he says, for RPGs — with the exception of Furcadia (his long-running furry-themed MMO) and Runes of Virtue. What games he does play on the regular, outside of Furcadia, tend to be casual titles on mobile; he cites Magic the Gathering: Arena and Clash Royale as examples. He also talks about some of the games he has been working on lately, including a mobile game based on the The Goldbergs television show.
The discussion then turns to what Dr. Cat calls “the fun zone”, and the difficulty in balancing the challenge of a game so that it isn’t too easy, but also isn’t so difficult as to be off-putting to players. This, he notes, is something that many freemium games tend to short-circuit and upset in order to drive sales; the use of player impatience and randomness in rewards tend — in his view — to frustrate a game’s progress curve.
Later, the topic of conversation turns to Dr. Cat’s fascination with amusement parks, especially Coney Island. Golem Dragon chimes in with stories about visiting there, which leads in turn to a discussion about the history of amusement parks in the United States.
Toward the end of the episode, Golem pivots the discussion to the surprising success that Microsoft’s expanded Game Pass service has been enjoying, and makes a joke at the expense of Google’s not-as-impressive Stadia platform. This prompts Dr. Cat to discuss the many times he has interviewed for positions at Google, one of which was for the Stadia team (he turned it down because he didn’t want to move away from Austin). He also relates the story of a friend who predicted that Stadia fail based on how it was being marketed; Google, in trying to sell it, shouldn’t have focused on the cloud aspect, or even on its performance. No, Dr. Cat contends that they should have tried to sell it on the fact that game setup on Stadia was instantaneous. Consumers don’t necessarily understand the cloud, but they understand — and want — “no loading time”.
Community & Patronage
As always, this episode of Spam Spam Spam Humbug is brought to you by our Patreon backers; thank you to everyone who supports Spam Spam Spam Humbug and the Ultima Codex by that means. And, as always, a hearty thank you to our co-producers: Seth, Goldenflame, Chris, Dominik, Violation, Cranberry, Christopher, Bruce, Dark Wraith Dragon, Helgraf, Gronkh, Pascal, and Thorwan.
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Music
Ultima V – Stones 2001 Remix by DJ Lizard
Ultima VI Gates of Creation by OC ReMix
Ultima 6 Theme (from Punchfest) by Lorto Dragon
Image
Ferris Wheel Coney Island New York
Dr. Cat returns to the podcast, and discusses pretty much everything.