Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg41Nmw2hxM

Hi everyone, I'm a researcher specializing in philosophy and game studies. This is a youtube video I made recently where I talk about Cogmind, ethics, and how games can make us better people. :)

I used to shoot a lot of real guns before COVID (a hobby I got into asap I entered college that was pioneered from my formative years playing House of the Dead and other lightgun shooters). If you kept up with the gaming industry, you'd know there has been attempts to create VR gun controllers that try to match realistic recoil such as the ProVolver, ForceTube Haptic Gunstock, and Striker VR.

During the time of COVID my district not only got pretty strict about quarantine and traveling around that simply going to another city often became a hassle but even at the state level, the government made pretty strict laws... I t doesn't help that over the course of the current presidential election, gun laws became stricter at both at the state and federal levels and last year even my town started becoming more gung ho about gun control. So I wasn't able to use a gun until recently my prayers were finally answered......

A new venue took up one of the empty spots in the near strip mall that was a former toy store before COVID They have created a "shooting simulator". Its gotten much stricter about hunting locally and practising marksmanship at the woods or some other property and you'd have to drive 5 hours away to use a proper shooting range. So I tried it out and was even scoffing at the idea of a shooting simulator using a wide and tall projection screen on the wall. The moment I held their glock training device I was like "wow this has the same feel and weight of the real thing!". As soon as I shot it, the kickback felt exactly the same as a real glock. Even the game program on the projection screen was a good representation of how bullets would move and be affected by various factor like wind and rain. Once I used the M16 and hunting rifles, I made my mind that I'd visit every week, more if I have freetime, and I was relieved I don't have to drive so far away to maintain my skills. Oh an extra cool part? You have to change clips in the guns (or for some specific other kind of firearms like shotguns and rifles, insert plastic bullet shells resembling real ammo) after emptying your gun. You take the clip out and but it back in or you open up the shotgun and hunting rifle, drop out the shells and grab a few more kept on a nearby rack to and insert it into the gun then close the device.

It was almost exactly as being at the gun range or practising on outdoor targets.. The only thing that stands out as blatantly unrealistic is the gun sounds are nothing near the how loud they are IRL and every now and then staff had to open up the guns and change some internal gas canister (which they told me was what provided realistic recoil to the guns). And that there were bonus games beyond shooting targets and flying disks and hunting animals and "rescue hostage" such as a "zombie survival mode" and "shoot the can nonstop to keep it flying midair" and "Area 51 exploration" and other fictional themed games. But it was the closest thing to real marksmanship I ever experienced ina video game style setup thus now!

So it makes me wonder with how gun companies and organizations now are vouching for these shooting simulators (this specific venue was supported by one of the largest local gun store chains in the state) and VR creating devices to represent a more realistic gun experience, has there ever been a game released first in arcade cabinet form that attempted to realistically simulate real guns to some degree? Obviously the shooting simulator center uses far more advanced technology (as a lot of it was based on stuff real military and police use) but was there ever attempts to at least try to replicate recoil on the plastic light guns in arcade or add a physically changing ammo function in the cabinet or other realistic stuff? Like did any company if they could not add the more physical compnents like gun kickback and clip changing because of cost and safety reason, was there at least attempts to simulate stuff in-game such as wind velocity or guns being jammed due to dirt as you drive across a jungle in the game or decreasedshooting speed and accuracy while shooting from underwater?

Its not just VR and the shooting simulation center, I remember when I used to do Airsoft and MilSim, the guns had pretty authentic recoil on top of having the same feel of the guns especially weight and there actually have been companies in recent time that have relased opaintball guns and lasertag with realistic recoil along with attempts to try to replicate the reloading aspects of real guns.

I mean I remember GameWorks had cabinets for popular flight combat games such as Crimson Skies and various Star Wars titles that spun around in 360 degrees circles to simulate movement of real planes toned down to a degree that would keep people safe as well as Nascar having training devices that uses a typical race car arcade cabinet but with vibration technology that moves the stand around to replicate realistic impact and the effects of wind speeds from driving so fast. So I'm scratching my head why the same doesn't seem to exist for the lightgun genre in the past before home VR headset gaming? Since the police and military have been experimenting with stuff like this as early as the 80s, I feel there must have been an arcade lightshooter that tried to do these stuff at least? I just cannot believe no company would try to use these innovations as a gimmick to attempt to create a giant franchise on the level of Time Crisis, Silent Scope, and House of the Dead!

Its a common cliche when in the Pachinko subculture that Pachinko filled the void for Pinball in Japan.

So I'm wondering in an alternate world where the Japanese gambling scene didn't pick up Pachinko (which would become the dominant monopoly of the gambling industry from the early mechanical days all the way up until today within Japan), would pinball end up not only being more popular thant he very tiny subculture that it is in Japan, but would it have been the dominant gaming entertainment in the recovery period and up until thepost-war economic boo that coincided with the rise of arcades? Like a hell lot more Japanese companies for developing pinball machines?

I ask because I just learned that surprisingly China has one of the largest pinball distribution in the world (though mostly focused on domestic market), and not just that China is one of the only few countries that has a native pinball factory int he world outside of the West thats not directly owned or managed by the big Western pinball companies. Something that very few countries outside of Europe could boast about esp in Asia. Not only that but the first official dedicated venue dedicated solely for pinball within China has opened last year.

Furthermore Japanese arcades were (and still are) aimed at a different demographs from the adult market that played Pachinko. On top of the arcade industry within Japan had readlly cool quirky and unique ideas that probably wouldn't have come from the West such as typing keyboard cabinets and Dance Dance Revolution. So I'm a bit skeptical of pachinko being the prime hindrance for the pinball industry in Japan.

So what do you think? Would Japan be one of the leaders of pinball manufacturing today if pachinko didn't seem like a similar kind of game in concept (esp back in the pre-flipper days in pinball)? Like would the arcade era in Japan from 80s to late 90s be filled with far more pinball cabinets ina world without pachinko?

This is something that has been a curiosity of mine for years.

One of the things I notice in 3D fighting games is that the special moves and command list techniques almost entirely consist of what we would call in normals in 2D fighters. For example every character in a 3D fighter I know have at least several attacks in their specials list that consist of "Punch Punch Kick" or "Kick Punch Punch". In addition to just being bare basic attacks with slightly different animation, they don't even do chip damage when it hits an opponent whose blocking.

In addition often attacks that still qualify as normal but do a significant different effect and have a tremendously alternate animation are also the norm in fighting games. In Guilty Gear doing a forward followed by a heavy slash would allow Ky Kiske to do a an attack with a wider angle and much more damage in addition to a much flashier animation than his regular heavy slash and as the manual says, its simply a normal attack in all its attribute (no chip damage and same penalties as regular slash), However the same command is frequently one of the special moves for many characters in the Soul series.

Don't get me started how Taki's Hurrican Punishment is executed by simply running towards the opponent and all the attacks requiring simulataneous presses of buttons that would resemble a throw command execution in 2D fighters.

In addition I also notice 3D fighters tend to lack projectiles as special moves as well as charge moves like Blanka's Rolling attack and Guile's Somersault Kick. About the only charge character I know is Hilde from Soul Calibur and even she uses a lost of regular normals combos for her command list move (not to mention almost all her charge attacks consist of holding buttons fora period).

Why did the direction of fighting games in 3D graphics proceed so differently from 2D fighters in terms of special moves and command list technique mechanics? I mean no one would think of listing a throw attack in a 2D fighter (that every other character executes their own unique thorws in the same command) as a move worthy of adding into the character's specials on the command list menus! Which Soul Calibur and many other typical 3D fighters does (under different names too!).

What is the reason for this huge difference between 2D and 3D?

Hey all, most of you often look at mobile ad games and instantly ignore or disregard it. But the way they make these ads are often super weird, and that's what gets clicks. Once they get someone in, the majority of people immediately uninstall since the ad isn't accurate to the game. Even if the game in the ad exists, it's often as a minigame and not the actual game.

The tutorial tells you every button to click, and if someone doesn't feel like clicking buttons, there's an auto-play feature to remove any decision making. Crucially, the game gives you free currency to show the player how powerful this specific click (the buy button) is. The game starts off easy with no need for in-game purchases, which hooks in the kind of player who is into "numbers go up". The entire system of a progression mechanic is hardwired into our brains which is why every game out there has some sort of leveling system. All of this is somewhat fine so far, but what mobile games do is exploit even more weaknesses in our psychology.

Variable rewards.

This is something that feels really toxic to me(subjective opinion). If you noticed, most ingame rewards in these games are random. "Oh you got a pack as a reward! What could it be?" or "Look, you won a free spin to get some free coins". It's exploiting the gambling psychology to get you to buy more packs or buy more spins. In fact, Plarium, the company that made Raid shadow legends, is a subsidiary of a gambling company. This allows them to use the marketing knowledge they have running gambling machines to run these mobile games.

FOMO

FOMO, or fear of missing out is a real thing, and its extremely effective at getting people in. How many times have you thought to yourself "Oh let me get my daily login reward" or "Damn this deal is rare, I better buy it before it goes away". We humans like stability and routine, so these games find ways to integrate themselves as a routine thing with their dailies.

Social aspect

You'll notice some games offer a social community for their players to be in, like an open world or in-game city. The most popular people in these cities are usually the highest leveled characters or the coolest/cutest looking characters. Humans crave attention, so you'll end up seeing people whale out on progression or convenience to speed up their climb towards this goal of being seen.

I can keep going on, but instead I'll show you how a game dev from one of these games does it. https://youtu.be/xNjI03CGkb4?si=M_8Eh3fP0hSaVh0X

I'm writing an essay about the video game Prey by Arkane Studios, with a large focus on its use of observation as gameplay both in its own design and also how it works in conjunction with the genre of immersive sims. But finding resources on the matter has been really difficult at least on Google Scholar. If anyone has any recommendations for keywords, other papers and books on the matter it would be greatly appreciated, especially for online resources as I am kind of short on time. Would be glad to elaborate on the ideas in replies if need be.

Hello!

Me and my friend are in the third year of our game development course, specialization within game research and we have an assignment to write an essay about a video game topic using the stimulated recall method. For those unaware, the stimulated recall method involves interviewing people by recording their gameplay and then looking back at the recorded footage to ask questions. This method is mainly used to refresh the respondents memory and ask what their thought process were during a specific time in the recording.

So I have come here to ask you all for help! What would be a good topic to explore using this method. We are a little bit lost on how to proceed forward and what to write about exactly so if there is anything you would like to suggest, please let us know!

Thank you all!

This sounds like a really effing stupid question I know but I'm sincere and serious about asking this. Because I just participated in Samurai Shodown 2 tournament yesterday and spent a whole week training earlier. And I'm feeling sensitive and numb fingers that feel cramped as I stopped the daily training regime today. So am curious if this is pretty normal for Counter-Strike champion teams and other people at the pro-level?

Removing servers from games sounds like a fool’s errand.

Users don’t want to run their own infrastructure, and there are serious fairness and scalability concerns that come from the removal of trusted central parties. It turns out there are encryption techniques to solve these problems. Here’s an introduction to how peer-to-peer gaming might actually work.

The main approach, which could be called “Generalized Mental Poker”, developed by a project called Saito, aims to create a gaming experience that can handle global traffic without relying on heavy infrastructure or centralized servers.

'Mental Poker' is a protocol for a fair game of cards over the phone, but on Saito it is generalized to enable gameplay for *any* turn-based game. Here's roughly how it works:

1. It uses encryption to shuffle and distribute game elements (like cards or resources) among players.
2. Each player's actions can be verified by each other without revealing hidden information or relying on a central server.
3. The game progresses through a series of steps where players reveal encrypted commitments to use hidden resources like cards, ensuring they can’t cheat and other players can verify moves.

Benefits for Gamers

This approach offers several potential advantages:

• No central server: Games run directly between players, potentially reducing lag and eliminating single points of failure.
• Increased privacy: No personal data is collected or stored on any servers.
• Cheat-proof: The system mathematically ensures fair play without needing a trusted third party.
• Flexible: Any turn-based game can be adapted to use this technology.
• Open Source: Games are easily moddable and auditable.
• No accounts: Players can use the system without logging in or making accounts.

Games in Action

While the technology is still new, there are already some impressive demonstrations:

• Twilight Struggle: A digital adaptation of the popular Cold War strategy board game.
• Settlers of Saitoa: A version of the classic resource management and trading game.

These games show that complex, multiplayer experiences are possible using this peer-to-peer approach.

The big UX benefit of P2P is that you can play these games without an account and without giving your data to servers. I’m usually on the Arcade offering open invites for games if anyone wants to try or chat about it.

https://saito.io/arcade/

Looking Ahead

As this technology matures, we might see more developers experimenting with decentralized game design. This could lead to new types of multiplayer experiences and potentially give players more control over their gaming environments.

While it's still early days, this innovative approach to P2P gaming is worth keeping an eye on for anyone interested in the future of multiplayer games, or for devs who want to avoid greedy publishers.

For sake of argument, I will avoid stuff like how old games were really short and were intentionally given lack of continues to extend replay value, older games had limited AI and thus could only make enemies tougher by boosting their health 5X, glitches crash saved files, and a lot of stuff people already mentioned here in the past discussion.

Instead I will point out something I notice that hardcore gamers tend to ignore when they complain new games are easier than the old "real games" and the gaming market becoming casual is making newer stuff more and more simplistic.........

Which is they ignore different genres and the existence of casual games back than. Platformers, even modern ones, always required reflexes and skill to play effectively. Fighting games since 4D Boxing had memorization of moves and timing, distance, etc when to execute them and SF2 simply made it more complex. It seems ignored that some genres have made it a traditional to require learning the inside baseball in order to be able to play. And that some genres were traditionally simplistic, even inherently easy to play such as puzzle block games (though these aren't easy at higher levels) and social sim games like the prototype to the Sims, Doll House (which arguably was far easier than The Sims, Animal Crossing, and games of that like because the AI was developed enough to handle stuff like brushing teeth on their own).

And this is not counting how some genres evolved with technology and became much harder today such as RTS (where early games limited memory severely made differences between factions almost nonexistence and AI was limited to repetitive patterns that can be spotted the first time you play a level and thus defeated easily). Prime example is the original Warcraft where the AI often wasted units by sending small units to harass you and gradually lost all their trained units so much you can just destroy them an hour later after building up your army. In addition the AI was terrible at resource management esp protecting trade caravans and it was easy to simply cut off their supply chains because the AI was so stupid it did not send units to patrol trade routes. By Warcraft 3 the AI basically did stuff like building watchtowers at mining routes and attacked in organized large combined arms. Not to mention switched tactics occasionally from raiding your barracks and destroying them to prevent unit production to changing from aerial attack to catching you off guard by a naval fleet bombarding you in a river route you didn't know about. So AI had learn to adapt to some degree.

So basically even today some genres like Survival Horror, fighting games, shmups, and so on are quite hard even today with difficulty levels and more intuitive controls being the norm. Because they became the tradition of being hard. While others like basically evolved with the technology to create superior AI and became harder as a result as seen int he Total War games. While some genre were always casual and easygoing as seen in Social Sims like Doll House and Animal Crossing as well as Adventure games a la Myst (how harder is Myst from Siberia or the latest Broken Dragon game?).

So I don't like how people complain new games have become easier because the industry dumbed down to appeal to casuals. It ignores even as early as the 80s some genres like flight sims catered to hardcore people and required hours and hours to even learn the basics while some like Adventure games did not change much. While others like wargames became much and much more harder as computers now allow far more complex mechanics and far more brutal ingenious AI.

Honestly its not so much that old games were harder but it really depended on the genre (and subgenre) you preferred. FMV games today are no more harder than they were in the past and the newest GTA games are actually easier than the early 3D era games because of far more improved control.

Whatcha thoughts?

Hi all (new here, and kinda stumbled into the group while avoiding a research statement I need to write for a job). My question though is "Is Ludology helping or hurting VR development?" The obvious answer is no, until you ponder whether VR is all a game. Its there you find (ludic) game scholars like Jesper Juul. https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/fictionalalltheway/ I think he's mistaken about VR being all fiction, as I find viewing my own virtual designs through a lens of fiction AND nonfiction helpful. Fiction being like a VR classroom that looks like a classroom. Fiction has an implied goal of creating belief, that may or may not support functional goals, like education in said classroom. A functional classroom with real learning is not a fictional space (like a castle or spaceship is fictional in a game) Echoes of this are in the old Ludic & Narrative debates (along with affordances & perceived affordances) and I think repurposing the old discussion would help VR. Yet, there's no real place to start this discussion on VR channels, as the term Ludology / Narratology is outside the scope of most (if not everyone) there ... so, well ... anyhow thoughts? (and thanks)

• High stakes: Immediate engagement through Life-and-death scenarios.
• Simple interaction: Press a button for instant, predictable feedback.
• Easy(-ish) simulation: Simple cause-and-effect dynamics reduce design complexity.

Then, the themes evolve into familiar tropes easily communicated to players. Design insights and tools developed further facilitate the proliferation of the genre.
I think we often focus on the final form of the product rather than the incentives that shape it from the start.

Hi folks!

For the past 4 years, I've been using the Zettelkasten Method to organize my game design ideas, and it's been a game-changer. I wanted to share my experience and the specific ways it has helped streamline my workflow, so I started writing this series of articles:

Taking game design notes with the Zettelkasten Methid

This is just Part 1, a general introduction to the method. In Part 2 and 3 I will go more in depth on my specific process.

[You can skip to 2nd paragraph right to the topic.]

Hi everyone,

The last discussion I posted here was about suggestions regarding a PhD entrace interview. I'd like to update you on that, I got into the course. Thanks to all of you and the discussions here. The community has been very kind to me. I'd like to think my dissertation as a kind of giving back to all of us, and gaming at large. The thought motivates me beyond anything.

Okay so, I have not yet started writing my thesis, it's just been 6 months into the course, but I kind of planned some preliminary details like chapter divisions, particular games, authors etc. And now I find myself in a bit of pickle, cause I am planning to put some screenshots of some of the games, as certain visual elements will be irreplaceable in constructing the arguement. Mostly that'd be from my playthrough, yet there will be a few (because of lack of equipments/games either outdated or not available in my country) where I would have to snap from others' youtube videos or streams etc.

Some of my friends are working in the field of Comics studies and graphic narratives, and they had to get permissions from individual publishers to use certain panels. They were aggreable as long as it is a dissertation (and they are big publishers like Fantagraphics, William Morrow etc) and not for publication, for which they have to take permission separately and probably pay.

What's the deal about that in case of games. Particularly dissertation?

Thank you all again. 🕹️🕹️

Saw a Gamespot thread months back in Jan where one person tried to argue Starcraft and and Close Combat and other real time computer games are far more realistic depictions of war and thus better for training soldiers because the fast paced nature of their gameplay matches the realities of war more.

In addtion I saw a counterargument quote saying that RTS are too arcadey in their gamepllay with unrealistic deployment mobilization and too much reliance on twitch movements. But he also called traditional hex and counter games too turn based and rigidly based on formulas combined with the other issue of being too much based on dice rolls to be accurate representations. He proposes the best of both worlds in slowly but still real time computer military strategy games such as Red Devils Over Arnhem, the Total War series, and Crusader Kings as ideal military training sims.

But I noticethe traditional Grognard community not only detest real time mix but even less traditional tabletop attempts. Either the gameplay is Hexagon and Counter or Square Grid or Kriegspiel style maps other formats made before the 2000s so commonly released by Avalon Games. Its not just them, practically near all civilian commercially released wargames that are also used by the military are Hexagon and Counter, tile grids, Kriegspiel inspired, and other kinds of games that Avalon Hill and other very old (often now defunct) companies released. That something along the lines of White Dog Games products iike The Lost Valley Dien Bien Phu are deemed as too dumbed down and civilian-geared and pretty much the same sentiment for newer formats thats not been officially used by the military.

I ask why? What is it about old forms such s grid based maps, Kriegspiel, and hex and counter that are deemed as more suitable for accurate wargaming and military realism specifically? Why is it so hard for military to move on from these old models for anything not specifically created by them esp civilian created products (despite the fact the military has been opened to using computer software to simulate firesquad tactics, real time naval battle command, and geopolitics trainer, etc)?

Been looking for an analysis of the game as a text along with it's narrative progression, character development, the emplotment along with the storyline itself as a separate text. Any leads will be a great great help. Been interested for long!

I'm working on a tabletop miniatures game that focuses on stealth, the player moves a team of agents around a map doing various things and trying to avoid detection. While I have tried various rules for how the agents may be detected I'm struggling to find something that feels right. Very subjective I know.

What I want is something that feels like being cautious and waiting for the right moment, everything I've tried still tends to play quickly. Can anyone offer any suggestions?