Bringing quality back. A conversation with Jonathan Blow

[@joshuabarbour1095]

These conversations are sustaining. Thank you both.

[@Zanebrain101]

“All these people - they’d been taught weirdly in school that everything in the universe is story, at which point you can’t say anything, right? because once you define something to mean everything, you can’t use the term meaningfully.” J. Blow

[@TimmacTR]

That argument about the huge problem in game dev about complete subjectivism and nihilism in what is good or bad Art is absolutely true. It's a real infection, and has real consequences on game dev. One of which being that since everything is equal, the choice of what decision to take on the game's design is simply power moves by higher ups with higher status.

[@thoughts0utloud]

I know nothing about programming. But I love listening to him speak. Amazing communicator.

[@tripplejaz]

Few things I'd really like to hear Jon's opinion on: The nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor and its dynamic storytelling that leads to gameplay changes and various interactions. Outer Wilds and how it resembles Blow's approach to respecting players, their intellect and having them expand their knowledge of the world around them. Disco Elysium and it's narrative choices. I haven't played it myself but I've been told there's permanent choices you can't anticipate.

[@raphaeld9270]

( I like Jonathan Blow as developper, and I have not finished Outer Wilds. I have not seen the complete playthrough either, mostly the end thoughts ) On the Outer Wild one, there is a full playthrough of him here, but he did not finish it in that 5 part, got a bit fed up with the repetition, a bunch of cheap enough deaths and the groundhog day aspect of it, but he liked it overall for the exploration part : kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIrbiHemdrSHqdU And it seems that here is the timestamp for his final thoughts (at the time) on the game comment has it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHOqZ4quiqajedU&lc=UgzSexg368KMzKD2SiZ4AaABAg&list=PLOuzkDu2bbHPTF3QRIeCcRdzF0nH9NC7q ) Though he said " I like this game. It is better at the beginning than a the end. I still have a positive opinion of this game, I'm glad this game was made." - kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHOqZ4quiqajedU But he finds that there is a clash between the great exploration and the 22-minute limit nature of the loop plus a bunch of cheap-ish deaths he had. Let me know if you ever find if he finished it. Not sure about the others, I have not found them on the (unofficial) stream recordings on KZbin: www.youtube.com/@UNOFFICIALJonathanBlow Have a great day, wish you all the best.

[@jungwooyom]

I am waiting for more conversations with Jon!

[@micosair]

Carmack when?

[@clickrush]

Great conversation with a lot of interesting non-obvious points. But by now, I wish these conversations would focus more on what's actually good, why it is good and generally more steel manning. I get it, mainstream gaming, internet culture, ideologies, academics pretending to understand games etc. all kind of suck. You're problem solvers so you focus on problems. But there's also a lot of beauty that is worth exploring, analyzing and synthesizing. Stuff made by makers who deeply care about their craft. Nature, human interactions can be deeply interesting. Identifying yourselves by what you aren't is just plain snobbery. I want to hear more about what you find beautiful, well crafted and interesting, because I know there's much more of that than is revealed here.

[@Paul-to1nb]

This reminds me of one of the last audio logs in The Witness. How atheism is a belief system founded in being against some aspect of religion, and it's very hard to find people talking about creating atheism from first principles. It's not really interested in searching for truth, but rather saying this/these religion/s are stupid.

[@htpkey]

​@@Paul-to1nb Atheism is just an answer to a single question (Do you believe in gods? No). Most atheist have a philosophy on life, like "Secular Humanism".

[@dandymcgee]

Fantastic questions this time around, truly. Loved the prompts and really engaged responses to Jon's thoughts. Was a pleasure to listen to.

[@ebunny1652]

Just finished this. These are always a joy to listen to and I look forward to more from Jonathan Blow.

[@uipo1122]

Just rewatched the previous 2 parts!

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

The thing is if story is not perceived to be distinct from gameplay, the player will not see it as story but as gameplay.

[@KuroOnehalf]

As someone who does art for a living, the recent AI art thing has spooked me more than I expected. I had been fairly unphased at AI developments so far, but this one seems like it could be the harbinger of an awful era. There's already plenty of artists who manage to gather big followings from doing little more than tracing work. Just recently I tuned into a stream where this girl was discussing with her chat that you don't really need to learn anatomy and gesture anymore. That you can just find a picture you like and copy the pose and just focus on the rendering. I was stunned to hear this. She's not wrong, insofar as knowing those things intimately is not a necessity to doing certain kinds of art, but if you want to do anything a little different than your references or more advanced then you're screwed, and ethically I have huge problems with it. But to some of these new artists they seem to see no issue in putting out work like this. Like it's already becoming normalized. I could see loads of people using these AI tools to generate pictures and then trace them or just lightly touch them, and putting it out as if they were entirely of their own creation. It cheapens the worth of serious art and I hate it.

[@VinnyMickeyRickeyDickeyEddy]

Good point. I would dare say there is no such thing as AI art. AI can only aggregate art and images on the internet and create collages that look like art. If there wasn’t already millions of images for the algorithm to mash together or emulate, they wouldn’t exist. Looks cool, but not art.

[@VinnyMickeyRickeyDickeyEddy]

@championchap I've used many of the AI generators... in essence they are ultra-advanced collage makers. Not a perfect analogy, but similar in the fact that the images are not truly original, but mimicries and combinations of what's out there. It is a cool tech I'll admit that. I've made really impressive images that I like and appreciate, but they are ultimately devoid of any inherent meaning that I would call art.

[@patrolin]

@@VinnyMickeyRickeyDickeyEddy but mimicries and combinations is what everyone does...

[@natanmouradeaquino]

Stories are predefined and curated to reveal the specific wants of its characters and transform them in a compelling way. The strength of a story is directly related to how it serves the specificity of its characters. In a game, if the player is the character, the story is not going to be specific enough to have the same depth and power. Games attempting to have the player as a protagonist inevitably end up drawing superficial conclusions about them because they lack deep understanding of that person's motivations. Something like a mystery where the player gets to role-play as a sort of generic detective character can be a pretty good way to naturally embed a traditional story within a game in a more meaningful way. There is still the difference that in a traditional story a detective is a specific character and the story is often constructed to serve their very specific arc in relation to the mystery.

[@microdavid7098]

the problem with arguments like these is there is a lack of two good games of both categories. Traditional narratives can be done well, and they can be pretty good, as long as it's not fighting the gameplay but actively helping the game. I think games can get a character to do interesting things but it's hard, especially if the concept is weak. So this kind of story is hard to experiment with because it's hard to create, and if you try to create it, it'll be very superficial but if you can have every part of the story making sense and the player character having their own characteristics, it still can be interesting. Though most games do it like the main character is a husk so it's less interesting because it takes away from the story. A game where a character can have a say and the player is an in-world entity can be pretty compelling

[@The-cyber-imbiber]

i think that jonathon should have been given some time to promote his game as a favor for being on the show

[@unscene_tv]

Jonathon is very retrospective …. Badass mentality

[@GillesLouisReneDeleuze]

One of the reason, I think, why there is so few good RTS games today: Everybody use big game engines. Not a lot of people are willing to develop their own engine from scratch. RTS game usually requires to implement lockstep synchronization, otherwise it will be unplayable (in multiplayer), because the server will not be able to update all units' states in time, because internet is slow. And, for lockstep you need a 100% deterministic engine. None of the modern game engines is deterministic.

[@blarghblargh]

none of the modern engines really solve hard networking problems for you at all. or at the very least, whatever solutions they provide are all entirely optional and replaceable. determinism doesn't have to exist throughout the entire engine. it just has to exist in the game simulation, which can exist agnostic of the game engine. looking at the "engine" as a client visualization of the simulation might make this concept more clear. it doesn't strictly even need to be in the same process, which means it can be completely independent of that "engine". The problems they mention in the talk are all game design. There's nothing holding back evolution on the technology side. Just market forces and reduced interest on the developer side.

[@zvonimirkomar2309]

Excellent conversation. You guys are both great. I'd have a question for Jonathan - do you think what "Papers,please" is doing (on one level only, of course) is storytelling done well for a game as a medium?

[@PalmGroveSoftware]

welp, plz ramble away anytime Jon, always a pleasure as far as I'm concerned :)

[@TheNoFraudsClub]

Jonathan's previous appearances on this channel: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJXVZGNra8uLjNU kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJTOaqefgdSibrc

[@fleaspoon]

please bring him more, this conversations are really nice

[@MikeyJ1572]

I think games can do foreshadowing. You can foreshadow a future event between the point when the player makes a choice and when the consequence of that choice eventually manifests.

[@avery_IO]

When saying we forgo things like foreshadowing in games, they're talking about dynamic stories wherein the story is generated partially by the player. If you reference Jon's exposition on what Story is, this makes more sense and has some context. Traditional vs Dynamic storytelling are being contrasted

[@MikeyJ1572]

@@avery_IO i think someone's confused. My comment was about how to do it within dynamic stories. Does that clear it up or am i the one that's confused? :')

[@avery_IO]

@@MikeyJ1572 Ah, yeah I can see your comment for what it is now. I was reading it as a refutation, but it's adding on to the idea 👍

[@WalkOnNick]

The RTS "story" idea reminds me of the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor which I quite enjoyed.

[@MrLordFireDragon]

Is there ever gonna be more of these? Love the Blow ones, and looking forward to watching some others - but dismayed to see there haven't been any more for almost a year!

[@TheNoFraudsClub]

We've continued to reach out to prospective guests over the last year, but haven't heard back yet!

[@u9vata]

Some good AI is in aoe2 where they try to be challenging. The weird thing is that enchancing AI like that in way plays more like "pros" but as far as I see nearly all of them make AIs also more alien to reacting to "weird" or "meme" strategies. I mean even the less good, very old CD version AI acts more "realistic" when one villager rush them, TC drop them, cut on michi, etc... RTS does not seem to have died. Age2 DE is the biggest one thing that made very huge living into RTS. I think the big thing for RTS is that RTS is many times more interesting to stream than other genres so it has good chance of comeback lately.

[@Beam_Teamer]

What he's talking about is kinda like how RPGs like Gothic work where it's kind of a branching thing where the type of quests you get are based on what you choose to do or say.

[@rusi6219]

Gothic is amazing

[@rolandinnamorato1953]

1:04:46 You CAN judge things objectively! very important ideas for western man.

[@grzesfu]

I just realised, we haven't had an rts battleroyale yet!

[@Snorehog]

I'm curious about your thoughts on the rts Tooth and Tail. 🙂

[@SaintPaulus]

You can foreshadow dynamically based on player action. Player does some action A, and then throughout the story you foreshadow an effect E that will inevitably occur because of action A. Of course, this effect E must not be affected by any other actions.

[@knightoftherealm]

If it can't be affected by any other action, how is it dynamic then?

[@____uncompetative]

@@knightoftherealm Perhaps, Paul meant to say that there are a set of effect initiating actions {A, B, C, D} and they are paired with effects {E, F, G, H} so A -> E and C -> G etc. which means the dynamic aspect is the free selection of initiating action which will affect the conclusion that emerges out of the effect set. Foreshadowing can be done as the effect is known. I've yet to watch the stream, but have been working on my own game which writes its own story, so this is what I imagine may be discussed here.

[@knightoftherealm]

@@____uncompetative idk when I think of dynamic, I'm thinking of something more flexible (like A being able to affect not just E, but some other factors as well). What you're describing to me sounds like a group of linear sequences.

[@____uncompetative]

@@knightoftherealm I was outlining the simplest possible implementation. You could use complex dynamical variables to procedurally generate through an algorithm a set of narrative parameters for a climactic conclusion and what would be needed to foreshadow that. However, that would be quite complicated.

[@SaintPaulus]

@@knightoftherealm Yeah, like Uncompetative said. The dynamism, minimally, would come from numerous possible actions which each cause a different foreshadowed event.

[@chralexNET]

I wonder what these gentlemen would think about story in the sense of a pen & paper roleplaying setting. Transferring this to games, the game master is essentially replaced by the game itself, but in a games setting, I still feel like that is the best case for making a truly player-driven story. This is especially true of multiplayer roleplaying games with no NPCs and only real players. What the game can do would be to trigger some dynamic events, based on the simulated game world (the nature of the world), which is highly influenced by the players anyway. In the same way that a game master has a plan for the "adventure" or "session", which is essentially the boundaries / rough outline story.

[@DelgardAlven]

"I think this is important to a conversation, because you did bring up this idea that people have - 'you can't judge things objectively', right. And, like, that is just one of the biggest mistakes that modern western culture has made, like across the whole culture that's had incredible ramifications. So, as a designer of something, it's your job to know what's right and to have a strong opinion about that, right. And somehow people don't even understand that."

[@carterthaxton]

I’d love to hear that sentiment rephrased into something more quotable.

[@APaleDot]

24:20 I disagree with Jon that foreshadowing would be impossible in a dynamic story. All that foreshadowing requires is that the storyteller knows at some point what will happen in the future. Even if it is not known when the story starts, at some point during the gameplay what's going to happen later in the story must be known by the storyteller in order for them to tell it. There's no limit on how far ahead the storyteller could know about things. It's entirely possible that actions taken at the beginning of the game determine what happens at the end, and once the player takes those actions, the storyteller knows what the outcome will be and can thus begin foreshadowing.

[@pinockatgame8194]

I see Jon - I upvote.

[@SydneyApplebaum]

I think you should accept that what you're describing isn't story but a series of entertaining events.

[@kallehed6330]

Final fantasy 6's story was pretty good though

[@Paul-to1nb]

Can't believe you're the only FF defender in the comments. FF6 stands out for sure, especially when you consider the technical constraints. The themes are relatabled. The philosophies it draws from is deep. It couldn't be told the same way if it was a book/movie (can't believe the nonlinear WoR hasn't been replicated in a modern game). I'd argue the same for FF7, 9, and 10. It's not just people being shallow or uncultured. Blow's great and all, but his opinions on stories in games is shortsighted and narrow. Even to call indie games just as derivative as AAA is insane. Plenty of indies deeply care about what they're making. The variety and innovation in games in the last decade is surprisingly good, but maybe he missed some of the shining indie gems, especially those that further narrative in games.

[@srglmr]

Are they talking about games like RE4 ?

[@KunjaBihariKrishna]

48:15 SPOILER ALERT FOR KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO >>>> !!!!! Skip to 49:00

[@neqkk]

While I'm guilty of this sometimes, on few occasions I was unsure if the host was using words he fully understood, and just cargo-culted. Like the use of Blasé at some point

[@boot-strapper]

interviewer talked more than jonathan

[@kordanot]

It says conversation not interview

[@boot-strapper]

@@kordanot Conversator talked more than Jonathan

[@AKU666]

I don't know why there's so much videos about discussion of RTS's death. I just play Beyond All Reason, and i don't care that much...

[@liamkeough8775]

18:00 ultrakill V2

[@quantumpotato]

Re: 33:00 Last and First Men frames entire races of man as characters, tells a story of humanity through successive biological evolutions, spanning thousands of years.

[@oldsoul3539]

At first I was thinking yeah the RTS genre went away. Then I remember Halo made an RTS too. Oh and all those Warhammer ones were pretty mainstream. I watched Jon streaming Starship Troopers and I totally forgot about it until he remembered it too. Maybe they're just not that fun compared to other games now days? Just not that memorable in comparison?

[@knightoftherealm]

Some of the games you're referencing are real-time tactics or some other adjacent genre (warhammer being a grand stratey/combat simulation, if you're referring to total war), and they're not really good games to begin with.

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

Jonathan looks like someone who has been using a computer and never stopped :)

[@RenteaRadu]

I don't understand why you don't talk about sc2 and the multiplayer part of the game

[@blarghblargh]

maybe: scaling as the engine of progress and scaling as the engine of safety are bad axioms. those seem to be the axioms that are en vogue 1:47:28 I think this cultural ranting was more useful here than in ep 2. at the very least, it spent less time in aimless territory.

[@zvonimirkomar2309]

Also, when Jon was talking about his hypothetical RPG and dialogue....what do you guys thibk about Disco Elysium?

[@RogerBarraud]

I like the metadepth of this one.

[@sdhority]

If only they knew Balder's Gate was on its way...

[@thegnosticatheist]

1:05:00 I'm gonna nitpick here. While it's technically true one cannot judge work objectively people are using that statement unintelligently, disregarding any logic and proven causal chains whenever it's convenient for them. But in general I know what John is aiming at and I agree with him. Edit: at 1:07:30 John already explained that. Cool.

[@htpkey]

Jonathan Blow has interesting insights when it comes to game design, but his takes on storytelling in games leave much to be desired.

[@Daniel_Zhu_a6f]

I'd say that most games that have good stories don't have important choices, that does not make the story bad or less immersive. i don't think that choices are that important of a mechanic in games. I also think that modern conception of "art" and "objectivity" were in a way affected by ww2 experience, because fascism presented itself as "objective", "rational" and "the best of European culture". fascism (liberalism and communism did the same thing though). after ww2 claiming to be "objective" or calling something "bad art" alone was recognized by public as a suspicious thing. sadly, to this day white supremacy and racism heavily use "rationality", "skepticism" and "fight against degenerate art/culture" as a first step in their pipeline.

[@jonathangrover3176]

I used to look up to Jonathan Blow - I adore the Witness and think its lessons about game design and player instruction are deeply important - but watching him play Elden Ring was surreal and swiftly eroded my respect for the man. He knows how to make games, but he doesn't understand games. It's such bizarre cognitive dissonance. Also, the random, edgy low-key gamergate-adjacent misogynistic or "anti-woke" sort of comment he drops are, I guess, not entirely off-brand, but sill disappointing as well.

[@jasondads9509]

the definition of story is infuriating

[@KunjaBihariKrishna]

Dota is not a simple game. Even just the laning phase is mind bogglingly complex. It's not for nothing that it is used to train open AI

[@TheNoFraudsClub]

Please consider the comparison, which is obviously to a far more complex kind of game. Your reading also completely ignores the everyman, who does not engage with most of what makes mobas complex.

[@KunjaBihariKrishna]

@@TheNoFraudsClub For the sake of argument, we would have to first establish what exactly constitutes complexity. Because we can each take a legitimately different angle on that. And "the obvious" (since your statement hinges on it) is entirely subjective to the chosen angle. I can't just assume that your personal assessment of what complexity is, is the objectively correct selection. I can somewhat surmise what it is, but in doing so I would effectively be arguing with myself. Arguing with oneself is an essential part of reasoning. And in good faith, we should exhaust every possibility. But now the scope of this conversation is much too big for youtube comments. Even though I would love to have it.

[@zhulikkulik]

Difficulty levels are a lie. Not every game should be targeting every single person in the world and bend its rules to become “accessible” for people with low IQ or whatever. I'm learning programming and I might consider extra difficulty options for my game that make it harder, but definitely nothing easier than “normal”. If you want to die from a leaf falling from the tree - sure, go ahead and play on “Insane” or whatever.

[@htpkey]

Classic elitist gatekeeping. Not being interested to offer an experience to people who you consider to be beneath you is ugly.

[@muhammadchaudhary1056]

​​@htpkey I agree with you if the in game difficulty is fake (larger health pool and/or more damage dealt). In that case, its pretty bs. But a lot of games I love and enjoy and hard because they need to be hard. We don't always need to appeal to everyone when making games.

[@htpkey]

@@Shofixi OP literally argued for gatekeeping on multiple levels why games shouldn't be "easier", not only based on skills but also what he considered "low IQ".

[@htpkey]

@@Shofixi How can it not be elitist if you refer to other people as "unskilled" or "low IQ"? It is a way to elevate himself and denigrate others who he consideres beneath him.

[@PaulSebastianM]

Dude, let him speak... 😢

[@whatcanyoudo6158]

Bro just get your tooth fixed

[@htpkey]

No, not everybody needs that fake Hollywood smile. There is also nothing wrong with his teeth, you're just being weird.