In this episode, Joel and Tim discuss environmental multiplayer -- the form of multiplayer that happens when a game isn't directly about interactions with other players, but where other players are still present in the experience. We talk shared world states with Dark Souls' messaging system, and Elite: Dangerous and No Man's Sky's discovery system. We talk shared road paradigms in The Trail, Journey, and the TruckerMP mod for American Truck Simulator and Eurotruck Simulator 2. Finally, we talk neighbor mechanics and emergent market systems in Animal Crossing, and how Sim City's bourgeois utopic multiplayer mechanics resulted in an unintended bourgeois hell.

In this episode, Joel and Tim discuss competitive multiplayer games, including e-sports titles like Smite and Starcraft, more open sandbox matches like show favorite Hunt: Showdown, and asymmetrical matches like Dead by Daylight. We also discuss some of the technical elements of building a competitive multiplayer game, including addressing the mind-bending problem of ping.

In this episode, Tim and Joel discuss the recent Elite Squad trailer from Ubisoft, how the game's narrative partakes in the growing fascist movement in the United States, and how it all ties into the recent lethal shootings by a fascist-influenced teenager in Kenosha, WI. We also discuss how all of that connects to Ubisoft's toxic leadership culture and recent failure to innovate.

Links:

• A recording of the now-deleted Elite Squad trailer
• Ubisoft Removes Video Seen as Insensitive to Black Lives Matter, by Jason Schreier

In this episode, Joel and Tim discuss multiplayer games. We deep dive into the history of video game multiplayer, and outline some of the main forms in which multiplayer is used across gaming, including co-op games, competitive matches, and environmentally multiplayer or massively multiplayer games.

In this episode, Joel and Tim discuss recent news. We talk COVID cases in the UK and US, the Trump administration's ongoing attempt to obscure COVID data, our unhappiness with the Biden/Harris ticket and the old guard of the DNC generally, and our strong belief that we should vote for them anyway. We also discuss Trump's attacks on the USPS both to limit democratic participation now, and to provide a narrative for ignoring election results when Biden wins in November.

In this episode, Joel and Tim discuss some of the ways politics interact with games, and some of the ways different games have portrayed morality, through systems and narrative.

Topics Discussed:

• Morality in narrative branching choices (KOTOR, Jedi Academy)
• Gradient / reputation systems (Fallout, RDR)
• Frostpunk's assumption that survival requires -- and is worth -- moral compromise
• Restorative Justice (wherein we miss the opportunity to say, "He repented but it was something of a Tolkien gesture") and RDR2
• Unapologetic storytelling by Bethesda in Wolfenstein 1 and 2 vs cowardly corporate hedging by Ubisoft in Farcry 5 and the Division 2
• Does a game have a moral responsibility to tell the truth? If so, is that more or less than any other art form?
• "Liberal" impulse to censore vs conservative impulse to erase

See also:

• Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nahesi Coates
• Wolfenstein 2: Confrontational Black Panthers and very reasonable Nazis, by Rob Zacny at Vice

In this episode, Tim and Joel discuss emergent systems storytelling in games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld, as well as Sea of Thieves and reasons why that game world sometimes feels so empty. We discuss frame stories in games like Outer Wilds, Gone Home, and Return of the Obra Dinn, and how these stories are uniquely suited to being told in the medium of a game. We finish by discussing story itself as a gameplay mechanic in Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, and what might be possible (and not possible) down the road there.

Mentioned: the interview with Obra Dinn designer Lucas Pope on the Designer Notes podcast.

In this episode, Joel and Tim continue to discuss the mechanics of storytelling in games. We look at some of the specifics of why mechanics are important with an in-depth look at FTL vs. Some Distant Memory and Long Journey Home (25:15). We look at the way the deep and engaging gameplay of Return of the Obra Dinn makes the story that much more engaging (40:00). We discuss how Far Cry 5 has good gameplay undermined by an actively bad story and setting (46:00). And we begin discussing the "anthology" style of storytelling and the narrative branching mechanic in the Witcher 2 and 3 (54:00). We close with a plug of Riot Ribs and Trump's federal assault on Portland. Update: the organizers behind Riot Ribs have requested that donations instead be forwarded to Don't Shoot PDX -- if you're local go here, otherwise check out this list of where they recommend sending donations.

In this episode, Joel and Tim discuss some of the mechanics of how games tell narrative. We dip into the importance of immersive detail in games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Witcher 3, and Firewatch, the pulled-back scale of strategy games like Frostpunk and Xcom, and touch on some of the emergent storytelling that happens in games like One Hour One Life and Xcom. We also touch on ways indie games can match the expansiveness of detail often found in AAA titles.

Tim and Joel discuss the games they've been playing recently, and start digging into the topics of narrative in games, and some of the games that have done it best.