INDIGOCAST #2 | Game Design Trends w/ Mah-Dry-Bread, Sole Porpoise & GriffinMuffin

[@Indigo_Gaming]

Listen to an audio-only version on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4hLmYXJTdSEVjbNWt38oef and check out this episode's guests! Mah-Dry-Bread ► kzbin.info Sole Porpoise ► kzbin.info GriffinMuffin ► kzbin.info/door/e30SZu1k7ZZxUKIy62gFBQ

[@MrCovin]

Hey Indigo ! What kind of audio setup do you use ? Really like your content & the amount of work you put into it !!

[@Kwad_rat]

This reminds me of old co-optional podcast. RIP TB.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

Loved Co-Optional, that podcast and TB were big inspirations for me starting a KZbin channel.

[@Kwad_rat]

@@Indigo_Gaming I can feel it. I recently discovered your channel and I'm impressed by quality of your material. Good job.

[@Exilis]

TB's participation in the co-optional podcast and the roundtable podcast as a whole ending around the same time really left a void.

[@Kwad_rat]

@@Exilis I'm listening to couple of podcasts about gaming. Crate and Crowbar is interesting and also Three Moves Ahead. Is something that I really like. But this is the closest to the formula. From others that I can recommend are Giant Bomb podcasts (they have couple) and Castle Super Beast (Old Super Best Friends). It all about the personalities of casters, because they all talk about the same thing.

[@Exilis]

@@Kwad_rat Thanks, I'll definitely have a look at your mentions. What's hard to find in my opinion, are people who have a really broad interest in games and video games news. TB might have been unmatched in that. The Giant Bomb guys cover a lot of news, but stick to mainstream releases and the same genres they've always been most interested in.

[@dysonwitwer6430]

Thank you for the reupload, indigo, it shows integrity on your part. Btw you still need to finish the rpg tier ranking! Glad you are making videos again

[@Genethagenius]

Unskippable cut scenes are unforgivable in this day and age.

[@dante19890]

The only game that pulled off the open lonely empty world in a good way was Shadow of the Collossus

[@abox7825]

To an extent, though not an RPG and not entirely open-world, Halo 3 ODST really did this for me. The segments roaming the abandoned city between missions with little direction is simultaneously beautiful and full of tension.

[@origintrackz5235]

The Metro series did it for me, especially when you go outside the metro!

[@GARCIIIAmonster]

i am glad to see and hear that i am not the only one who hates those modern aspects of the games where you are in a bad movie and not into a game. but it's so sad at the same time that this is even a thing...

[@origintrackz5235]

I think its happing less at this point. it was a real f#ck!ng problem during the late ps2 and then full blown in the ps3 era. at least from my perspective!

[@LorisNoKami]

Podcast 2, finally! I've been waiting for this. Getting to hear SolePorpoise's voice again for the first time in a year was lovely.

[@SolePorpoise]

;)

[@MahDryBread]

Thanks for watching everyone, we had a great time!

[@Yusuke_Denton]

Mah-Dry-Bread if you move to America just don't move to tornado alley, that screws up your risk calculation. 😉

[@goober7535]

You talked so much.

[@Riska__]

@@goober7535 its a podcast...the point is to talk for hours

[@tyronealfonso]

One minute in and I’m already sick of the dude on the top left

[@Exilis]

Hey Indigo, I'm glad you're continueing with your podcast. I'd also like to say that timestamps have always had good value to me and many others who watch KZbin podcasts. This video is almost 4 hours long and initially, I will most likely let it run in the background while doing something else or while trying to fall asleep. But before I move on from the episode, I'd like to look at the timestamps and see if you have been talking about anything that I'd like to rewatch while giving it my full attention. Maybe timestamps could be added without too much effort by writing down the time'o clock during the live broadcast whenever you breach a new topic. It wouldn't have to be to precise. Anyway, I appreciate all your videos and keep doing what you're doing!

[@raiusdaltar1483]

MDB starts manicuring his beard and mustache halfway through. Total power move.

[@Yuudaddy]

The Fallout restoration project restored the original endings for junk town. I had no idea that it was not even in the vanilla game until you guys mentioned it.

[@Christofer_tTt]

I feel like I'm living in a Mandela Effect because I remember that being the original ending and I remember Tim Caine saying he wished he made it normal because there was really no indication to the player it'd end up that way.

[@helldotsin]

Anurati is a great font. Good design on your logo.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

I see you're a font connoisseur as well...

[@Yusuke_Denton]

Thanks for the reup! I was about to watch the original anyway!

[@Indigo_Gaming]

No problem! I was rushing to set up the new software, and in my haste I didn't do a proper sound check. Won't make that mistake again.

[@masterkriebel]

So many older games haven’t aged well, and I wish I had the time to crack the game engine secrets and remaster them. I’m more hesitant with newer games that look nice but have a garbage storyline, bad gameplay, and are incomplete on the release date.

[@joelmilten]

Dude! That Jim Butcher story is amazing! This my first time hearing it and that resulting series (Codex Alera) is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time.

[@JohnMoonlord]

[Around the 55th minute] Alpha Protocol: One of the few games I've 100%-ted the achievements! ...And I still go back to it!

[@jonathangantt7520]

Saw most of this live, glad to see it again for anything I overlooked.

[@OoO-rf2gt]

Honestly, who gives a fuck what speed runners think about game features and structur lol

[@magkai6]

Wish I could listen to this but can't stand that loud kid interrupting everyone even when he has nothing relevant to say .

[@dashboots376]

LOL that thing with the Hydroelectric plant that MAH-DRY-BREAD mentioned from Ontario Canada, there's a city in México that has a very similar problem, it's called Mexicali and they have the most expensive electricity in the whole country despite having not 1 but Thermoelectric electricity plants which are also some of the most advanced in the country, but they pretty much do the same thing they sell it to the US and then but it back at a surplus, so yeah MAH-DRY-BREAD, I may not be Canadian but I get you, been complaining about that for years though I no longer live there.

[@Lambda-J]

Love Mah-Dry-Bread's insights and enthusiasm! Though he tends to interrupt the others too much... Great podcast all round, though.

[@goober7535]

Definitely interrupts too much

[@tjakal]

Akira the movie on it's own is def a mess. If you watch it having read the manga you will appreciate it all the more. The manga is incredibly cinematic in it's artwork and framing and has a visual language much more in common with really well made western films than it does your typical manga, it reads as thumbnails to a screenplay where you can always place the actors inside of the architecture of the environment.

[@MahDryBread]

I love that one of my tangents spurred on such an insightful comment

[@harris6062]

3:15:37 Indigo starts to talk about the disappointment people feel when you don't remake something enough. This guy predicted the hellstorm that was the Warcraft 3 Reforged release.

[@Appleloucious]

Timestaps would be greatly appreciated

[@mkahvi]

Grinding is just gameplay you don't like. Because the definition of grinding matches the gameplay people also like, the only difference is that you don't like it.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

Not necessarily. You can dislike any part of a game: story moments, boss battles, tightly scripted sections, etc. Grinding is specifically repetitive gameplay that is necessary only to progress your power level enough to continue the rest of the planned game scenario.

[@joelmilten]

I played through the Mass Effect trilogy and put off finishing it for a while. When I actually got around to finishing it, I actually didn't mind the ending. I was a bit bemused looking back at the crazy backlash. I would say that if someone wants to go back and play them who hasn't; don't let that stop you.

[@casono]

Even tho I think they could have handled it differently I seriously dont feel that the reapers would be beatable

[@Qwarky]

Good Zelda items have multiple uses and feel good to use and a genuine addition to your action options, as well as opening up what is essentially another version of a lock and a key. The bad use of those is making it a blatantly obvious lock and key, and nothing else, and THEN making you do the same tedious thing over and over just to pad out the usefulness of that item. Darksiders games were a prime example of how to do it poorly. As much as I liked Darksiders 3 overall, a lot of the abilities you got were just cumbersome keys you had to use again and again without any payoff. The new God of War did this too and it was incredibly annoying. "Throw the ice axe at a thing to freeze it to get past this obstacle! Good, now do it again! Good, now do it again! Good, now do it again! Hey, here's a DIFFERENT mechanism for you to freeze, but it's still the exact same thing! Now do it agaaaaiiinn" As for the Mass Effect 3 ending thing, a lot of people said it sucked because your choices didn't matter, and I agree on that. But a lot of games, even RPGs, bottleneck the ending and most of your choices don't matter. That in itself wasn't why ME3's ending was such a huge disappointment for me. Not only did your choices not effect the ending in any meaningful way, but the choices you had made during the last three games were essentially thrown out the window, the "different" endings actively contradicting and undoing several things you'd cared about and the games had built up as things that were important. You bring about peace between the geth and the quarians, and yet the ending forces you to screw the machines over without any kind of look back. It was hugely unsatisfying.

[@brandonette9664]

Modern Warfare 2 is One of my Favorite Games of All Time.

[@casono]

New game-itis hurts so bad. I have to force myself to not restart a game to try different stuff.

[@Drez47]

Whew. 3 hours and 40 minutes. What’re the highlights? 😆

[@64bitcrafts]

I'm re-listening because I'm listening for a game rec that I forgot the name on/want to verify, so here's a rough summary as I go. Definitely more to it than this, though, so I encourage listening to it like a podcast. 0-30 min: the evolution of cutscenes into unskippable, low-yet-required interaction sequences. 30-40: Indie games are where fun new concepts/interaction methods are developed. Brothers A tale of two Sons, Octodad, etc. 40-50: In-media-res game starts have trouble working anymore, given the need to address game/graphic options before gameplay starts. Interesting patterns in which price tier games fall into versus when they allow you to get to the menu to save your ears/eyes. 50-57: Talking Alpha Protocol, Obsidian 57-65:Branching narratives , with successes and failed attempts of such (Mass Effect 3, Fallout 1&2, pre-patch Fallout 3, Pillars, New Vegas) 65-75: Game World reacting to player choices/character-traits in natural or interesting ways 75+: progress gates (think Metroid-vania style) I found what I wanted, so I'm going to end this here, but again, it's a good listen.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

I might have to post this, as I've been too busy to do a proper table of contents. Thanks, friend!

[@64bitcrafts]

@@Indigo_Gaming Go ahead, and no worries! In case it wasn't obvious, you guys covered a lot of topics, intentionally or by tangent. But I'm glad my need to figure out if it was Arcanum or Avernum 3 that you mentioned around an hour-ten into the podcast helped out. In retrospect, given your video history, I should have known it was Arcanum, haha.

[@dalhar20]

2:58 this is why I don't love The Last of Us like a lot of other people. Repeated playthroughs are a slog due to the numerous walk and talk "cutscenes". It wouldn't be so bad if I was making decisions or it required some type of skill to get through. Really wish that developers found a way to incorporate these in a more meaningful fashion, or just remove them altogether. Edit: I believe Half-Life is an exception to this. The narrative experience really seems to be the sole purpose of those games and it feels less offensive.

[@Yusuke_Denton]

Same with that more recent zombie MMO (can't remember the name) though it had the radio thing at least.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

I mostly agree. Half Life was both kind of a trendsetter, but it also did the unskippable cutscene better than most. It's nice to be in control at all times, it's just frustrating in scenes where there's very little to do.

[@Yusuke_Denton]

@@Indigo_Gaming If you can't walk away or tell the person talking to shut up, you're not really in control. ;)

[@Peremptor]

Good job with the podcast as usual but I just can't stand Bread's voice. It's just a me thing all good :)

[@nogroup5861]

I think the worst trend is how mtx affect game design: ● Annoying crafting and leveling to sell you "time savers". ● Rigged matchmaking to manipulate the player into spending more (there's leaked documents about this from Activision and EA). ● Adding mtx after getting good reviews and sales. ● Loot boxes and more... This one might not be that current, but I hate games having too much text/audio notes found in the world. It seems like lazy storytelling to me.

[@erikjohnson1684]

You should do a Not Forgotten video on the PC game Neverwinter Nights.

[@NETRUNNER2077]

why is this not on podcast apps?! :( also, are those ZMF headphones you're wearing, Indigo? Fuck im jealous as hell if so mate. Sick Neuromancer poster by the way.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

They're Fostex TH-X00 headphones. I'm working on getting audio only versions out that don't cost me a monthly fee, news about that soon I hope. And thanks!

[@NETRUNNER2077]

@@Indigo_Gaming Oh nice! The Fostex are still a killer line! and good to hear.. Excited to hear these once they come to audio platforms. until then I'll download them and listen that way :)

[@MadAtreides1]

Sole Porpoise? Is the dude still alive?

[@SolePorpoise]

still kicking!

[@MadAtreides1]

@@SolePorpoise dude, you should share your opinions and do reviews more often, I really enjoyed your videos

[@SparaPengar]

Will you continue with your old type of uploads? I'm not a fan of the podcast format but I really don't want to unsubscribe.

[@bydlaq]

I can't take serious someone who talk about games and never heard about Arcanum.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

MDB talked about several games I never heard of as well, we all have our own experiences and niches of games. To his credit, he immediately bought it!

[@Yusuke_Denton]

I was surprised multiple times at the depth of MDB's knowledge of obscure gaming history. I love Arcanum, but it wasn't exactly a best seller.

[@kanjiNaem]

i mean... i saw the Sseth review... s that enaugh?

[@MahDryBread]

@@Indigo_Gaming And I still need to find time to play it because I'm the worst!

[@luisvillarroel3543]

The big beard guy is anoying and comes out as disrespectful towards the others

[@MahDryBread]

Annoying, I agree. Disrespectful wasn't at all my intention though. I'm just a comedian having a good time with people that I respect

[@MahDryBread]

@one Politely responding with my own opinion is the farthest thing from disrespectful

[@clapointe151]

@@MahDryBread is one serious? I mean... he talk like a troll.

[@stigmaoftherose]

Mah-Dry-Bread is slightly wrong on RNG seeding in the pokemon series. It simply has garenteed RNG from any frame, its why its possible in speedruns of the first gen game to hard reset and catch a pokemon 100% of the time on a specific frame with the proper setup. In the DS games savestates save the RNG seed but you can progress the seed based on inputs and menuing to advance the RNG seed if you savestate before you select the attack but you can't savescum after the move is selected as the seed will be set at that time.

[@ethinos2719]

Did you ever play the Genesis version of Shadowrun? It was much more faithful to the RPG and had lots of character building options. I personally felt like the SNES version was more action game and the Genesis one was more RPG. The Genesis version is still one of my all-time favorite RPGs. I still have the Genesis cart but no Genesis at the moment. D'oh!

[@Indigo_Gaming]

Yes, in fact I covered the game in part 2 of my cyberpunk documentary miniseries.

[@ethinos2719]

@@Indigo_Gaming I'll have to rewatch that again!

[@doubletab88]

Usually the slow walk exposition sections in games are to hide level loading. Still shitty and tedious, but that's why games like Gears of War do it. I'd honestly rather sit through a loading screen.

[@TreuloseTomate]

Indigo not too quiet.

[@SuperSparv]

Where is the link to the audio download? Looks to be an interesting discussion.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

Finally got this up, I had to drop another provider because it was too costly. Here's a link to the Spotify playlist: open.spotify.com/show/4hLmYXJTdSEVjbNWt38oef

[@NevadaCowboy576]

1:56:22

[@four-en-tee]

cyberpunk part 2 when?

[@Bonkikavo]

Tnx

[@brandonrebecek4321]

I don't watch Mah-Dry-Bread's content but I'm curious if his ego extends past his online character.

[@MahDryBread]

I don't play a character, nor do I think I have some kind of big ego. I'm just some comedian on the internet. I'm no one special.

[@aliens5142]

devs shoehorning cards/deck building systems in their games. seems like the prioritize monetization(gachas) aka cash grabbing. they should instead consider the player's exp, the game's "replayabilty" in the long run, meeting/commiting to the designer's vision( tech if they only cared about making a quick buck wyktr) & its coherence with the rest of the game's aspects. all of this STILL equates to $$$ everything doesn't have to be a whale hunt stick to b2p

[@aliens5142]

when i say "players experience" i mean the devs should be asking themselves, "are the players gonna find this fun or am i just trying to exploit their gambling tendencies"

[@aliens5142]

in some cases whatsthe point of buying(not a rando pullout) an " upgrade"/character(card) when youre just going to shuffle it to the bottom ofthe deck every.single.fucking.time??

[@LLAAPPSSEE]

uninterruptible emotes in multiplayer games.

[@trdi]

The 4th guy failed the test. Immediately when I see some animal picture instead of camera feed I know he is not going to contribute anything. Slightly more commitment is in my opinion needed to be part of it.

[@CrimRui]

Soo, you dislike story focused stuff that put you on rails and can't skip because...? Speedruns? You must dislike so many games then.

[@MahDryBread]

No, I just dislike when there's a cutscene that I have to hold W to progress through. Either give me a regular cutscene that I can sit back and watch, or tell me the story while I have actual control. Don't do this in between thing where I have no meaningful control, but I still have to manually do it for no benefit.

[@Yusuke_Denton]

I certainly do dislike games that do that, and would avoid playing them in the first place. Fortunately there are plenty that don't!

[@luckyfox2997]

Skyrim's terrible intro comes to mind (ignoring mods that override it). It's unskippable, all you can do is move around the camera to look around, AND the intro goes on for far too long. Or unskippable cutscenes where you mash through the text prompt to make it scroll faster because it's mostly meaningless infodumps.

[@clapointe151]

@@MahDryBread well... depend on the game in particular. I mean, the last of us and gear of war didn't really bother me when they did that. I felt it add to the tension and i realized that I looked everywhere to see if there is enemy or a danger. But when ac do that, it just long and boring. I mean, when you're in a open world, until you get to a scripted event, nothing goes wrong. My biggest problem is when you replay a game just for fun and that you had to see all those cutscene again... agh!! Like darkness 2! I just want to kill stuff, its literally the 4th time that I see this exact cutscene even though, i just want to kill stuff since the combat is so good.

[@clapointe151]

@one ?