Ep. 179 - Dirtbag Deep Dive, with Tyriq Plummer

Syzygy

Q7, seeing sprites wrong is a whole genre of internet commentary, i.e.

Personally I saw Shadow with a huge grin on comparison with the Sharks:

exodus

Syzygy I didn’t know about this! This is fun stuff.

yeso

Syzygy I always thought shadow was wearing an olden days style diving mask

treefroggy

Syzygy oh my god, in regards to Agahnim, I still wasn’t seeing him properly.
A personal example was for the longest time, I saw Quote from Cave story as looking to the side instead of forward. Like, his little antennae on the “front” was his nose.

Syzygy

I have been working on a game called Catacomb Kids

Oh, hey! It was evidently not enough to recognize your voice (cacophonous show floor) but I have spent an extended session hanging out at your MAGFest booth.

treefroggy

Genre crossovers reminds me of some things that I think work to serve almost, if not every single game. As you progress, earning points or whatever the goal is, the player unlocks:

clothing, a la Splatoon or No More Heroes
music, a la Metal Gear Solid 4, or a fishing game I made where you collect music tapes
aesthetic stuff like color palettes or GUI, a la Downwell

kind of how unlockable characters and stages were a thing across all genres through most of the late 90’s, but less so now with the advent of paid DLC.

kory

Rocket League is the Bob Dylan of video games, in the sense that Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars is the Robert Allen Zimmerman of video games.

QuenchGrust

Maybe the Bob Dylan of video games is a long-running series with distinct eras where only a few of those eras are discussed by non-fans. Dylan’s folk and electric albums comprise the first five years of his career, but he went on to do country, Christian rock, and five discs worth of Sinatra covers.

milo

I just wanted to say I audibly gasped when he said he makes Catacomb Kids cause I have loved that game for years and just reinstalled Steam the other day and booted it back up right before I listened to this episode. So… cool! Thanks Tyriq for making a really cool game!!

seasons

Think Kentucky Route Zero is the Bob Dylan of games for me. I was excited about the first and second episode years ago. It’s text heavy, and it’s got that big, Americana thing going for it. Over the years, I kinda lost track and forgot about it, and I dunno that I even wanna check out how it’s progressed.

I like them good, competent but unremarkable games as before bed games. They don’t keep you up thinking about them. Wouldn’t have recommended the ones I’m currently juggling anywhere else, but hey, Hotel Dusk and For Whom the Frog Bell Tolls are pretty cool.

Adding on to the I met Tyriq stories- I talked to him briefly during a couple outside of GDC events. It was kinda late, and I had been drinking a bit. Ended up in some warehouse converted into a living space in San Francisco, not knowing what to expect. He was with a group of people, and they were all working on game related stuff excited to share and talk about it. It was great!

hellojed

Tetrastar, one of the 5 games I talk about all the time On Here, has a really good attract mode. It doesn’t get into the plot framing until after it plays some demo gameplay, but there’s art and screens that only appear in the attract mode.

exodus

hellojed Oh yeah, that is definitely a good one!
They really did quite a good job of turning this tech demo into a video game. I wish it had more original music thoughhhhhhhh

Moon

hellojed

I love it.

hellojed

What about video games still gives you hope for the medium?
I think the entire output on GloriousTrainwrecks gives me hope for the medium. I used to be pretty active there and did the annual Xmas Game Exchange where you’d make a game for someone else over a month. The games there are all really expressive, and usually pretty short and accessible, and almost always have one really good idea in them. I really like the idea of games as expression and GT’s community has been really exemplary of what that can look like.

kory

On the topic of misreading Zelda sprites, I always thought the Link sprite from Zelda II looked so doofy because I misinterpreted the flesh-colored sword as an extension of his arm, awkwardly holding the base of a stick-like representation of a shield:

Looking at it blown up like this (and not on a fuzzy little CRT) it seems like a pretty dumb misinterpretation, but to this day its still the first thing I see.

exodus

kory I think that’s what I thought too? I didn’t play this game much but I feel like that was my assumption.

Also, I really hope some insert credit likers watch On-Gaku! I think that the humans here, In Particular, will enjoy it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10487722/

hellojed

Moon this game also has the wildest cutscene I’ve ever seen in a game, and it’s not in any of the LPs I can find on youtube because you have to fail a certain part of the game.

SuperEffective

Seaman 2: Finding Nemoy

treefroggy

Ah man I remember those rocks from Centy, it’s like the first village right? Pretty fun choice for stuff that gives you hope for the video games industry, LOL. I would have picked something like that, something with soul, like cubivore. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch so say those stones from Centy are an example of low key spritiual teachings seeping into a game. Zen Buddhism in this case. Or like, any game where butterflies or dragon flies land on your head if you stand still….

Not the exact same thing but the waterfall on earthbound comes to mind where you are forced to meditate under it for three whole minutes to get into a really cool dungeon. (All the dungeons in EB are cool)

I always say this when people mention Chulip’s difficulty: Chulip is a metaphor for growing up having a hard life and being poor, that’s why it’s so unforgiving, you’re supposed to laugh when you get wrecked by a piece of big poopy. It’s an example of reverse gamification that teaches you stoicism when you step in shit in real life. A lot of what people complain about most in Chulip just reminds me of what it was like being homeless and broke after school every day, and going on adventures where sometimes I also sat there for hours doing nothing, lol. It’s about the hard knock life and I think it’s really romantic. That’s why it’s closest to my heart and soul probably more than any other game and it’ll always be my favorite over Moon.

You already know this and I’m not blaming anyone for not being a fan of Dylan but dang y’all dropped the ball way further than I’d ever expect on the Bob Dylan game! Like damn! Not even gonna attempt an impression! I think He’s a folk singert!!!! Pretty sure Jaffe was trying to send y’all an easy one there! American folk music like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie directly inspired Earthbound, I think a road trip movie game like Mother 2 is what a Bob Dylan game would feel like, personally. Again though, I aint mad that you guys aren’t into Dylan yourselves.

I should probably get on that Patreon, at this point. I’ve got some good money coming in, time to put it where my mouth is….

bodydouble

treefroggy Chulip is a metaphor for growing up having a hard life and being poor

Is it a metaphor when that’s literally what the game is?

treefroggy Solstice for NES had a great attract mode just because of the epic prog rock jam..

hell yeah, that’s Tim Follin, he wrote some of the greatest tunes on the NES (and some on the Speccy too). There’s a reason this video has 1.5 million views (it’s not because the game is any good). Listen to those C64 style arpeggios:

exodus

treefroggy Chulip is a metaphor for growing up having a hard life and being poor, that’s why it’s so unforgiving

I’m sure there’s some of that in there, but kimura has directly told me he really regrets making it difficult because he cares more about letting people have a nice time than making people do difficult things, and the difficulty was the result of him being in a bad headspace toward players. If Chulip ever gets remade it will not be so punishing.

yeso

treefroggy Chulip is a metaphor for growing up having a hard life and being poor

this is a great insight and you articulate a quality of that game I wasn’t able to solidly apprehend. Definitely a portrayal of low rung on the ladder urban/suburban childhood. The “gotcha” style difficulty of the game also reads as being sort of at the mercy of people and a social surround over which you have no influence. Which is a bit like becoming a middle school age child and having to interact with adults beyond your immediate family too

Syzygy every citizen of the upper Midwest has had at least one violent encounter with one of these assholes I tell ya