Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[PapaPetro]

Disco Elysium already did this and it worked.

It's a lot of work for designers though since they have to create a bunch of possible outcome branches that don't just lazily/mindlessly lead to fail-states (as is tradition).
Worth the

You can make really bad luck fun as Chris pointed out in one of his many videos.
I recall that bad rolls in Disco were more often as worthwhile as the good ones (You even get kinda punished for "succeeding" the mirror roll at the start of the game that turns off your smile/"charm" and makes you appear sullen the rest of it).
You could even create an inverse normal distribution where having both really good and/or bad luck is desirable, with average luck being just meh (thus eliminating the "bad luck" feeling as a negative gaming experience).

 

[Roguey]

On why Tim didn't burn out early


Like Sawyer, he doesn't know how to do anything else and he's passionate about games. He also mentioned that he checked out of participating in forums because he got tired of all the negativity.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about how my development experience changed over time, depending on how people viewed my past work.

p.s. I had some audio synch issues on this video...but a solution is on the way and coming soon!

 

[Roguey]

The four groups of coworkers Tim's run across this past decade:

a) People who don't know who he is, which would be fine except a lot of these people have also never heard of or played any of the games he's worked on or are even familiar with their elements despite working on RPGs now

b) Sycophants who agree with every word he says which frustrates him because he wants feedback (this is why he likes Leonard who will passionately argue with him)

c) People who know who he is and are deliberately disrespectful and dismissive of the things he has to say

d) People who know who he is and want to build off what he's done, his favorite group obviously

 

[Quillon]

tim will talk to buncha turkish fans(a movie director, a script writer and a twitch streamer) here in a few: https://www.twitch.tv/aircaglar

 

[PapaPetro]

I don't see a guy who's "Retired".
He seems to be growing stronger with each vid.

 

[PapaPetro]

tim will talk to buncha turkish fans here in a few: https://www.twitch.tv/aircaglar

You can just translate the Twitch chat in any language real-time in Edge using Translate Page:
(it'll translate new messages that come thru)

(this RT translate trick doesn't work in Firefox or Chrome as far as I've tried so far)

 

[Quillon]

That was much better than I expected, they talked in english 99% of the time; mostly about tabletop stuff, fallout 1-2, arcanum & bloodlines.

He said Wildstar broke him for being a lead that it took half a decade for him to recover and be a lead again and Private Division let them do whatever they wanted but their only condition was making TOW casual friendly.

 

[Roguey]

Player engagement


"I'm not that good at balance, I often relied on other people to help me balance my games."

Tim also praises Nintendo. Additionally, it's ironic that the one game of his that intentionally focused on player engagement is the one that engaged the Codex the least.

 

[Butter]

"Player engagement is a modern concept. We never thought about it when we were making Fallout or any of the Troika games. We just thought about What would be fun? or What would we want to play? and then we did that."

Is it any wonder that those old games were better? What is this circuitous bullshit where designers think they have to trick players with "engagement" instead of just making a quality game that people naturally want to continue playing?

 

[MerchantKing]

Tim also praises Nintendo. Additionally, it's ironic that the one game of his that intentionally focused on player engagement is the one that engaged the Codex the least.

That's because many of the "sciences" are a scam.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

A good rule of thumb is that any discipline that explicitly puts the word "science" in its name is not a science.

 

[Bad Sector]

"Player engagement is a modern concept. We never thought about it when we were making Fallout or any of the Troika games. We just thought about What would be fun? or What would we want to play? and then we did that."

Is it any wonder that those old games were better? What is this circuitous bullshit where designers think they have to trick players with "engagement" instead of just making a quality game that people naturally want to continue playing?

My understanding of that part was that the term "player engangement" is new, not the approaches they were taking. In other words it is something that to help designers figure out what makes games fun - both before and after the designers were trying to make fun games, but previously they had no "language" to talk with each other about what makes games fun and exchange ideas.

As an example color theory is a relatively (in the context of human history) modern concept that helps artists to understand better how humans perceive color combinations, but that doesn't mean no artists had some understanding of the ideas behind it, it only meant that each one had their own understanding - often out of intuitition and trial and error that everyone had to repeat or somehow find another to learn - and was harder for them to exchange that knowledge.

Keep in mind that this isn't anything new, you'll find game designers come up with terms to describe things going back decades, at the end of the day people want to exchange information with others and this can be done only with a common language.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

"Player engagement" seems like a broader concept than "fun". You might keep playing a game because it's fun, but you can also keep playing for other, less wholesome reasons - FOMO, habit, social interaction, etc.

The shift to engagement as the integrating concept encourages game designs that don't rely exclusively on fun to keep players playing.

 

[Roguey]

My understanding of that part was that the term "player engangement" is new, not the approaches they were taking. In other words it is something that to help designers figure out what makes games fun - both before and after the designers were trying to make fun games, but previously they had no "language" to talk with each other about what makes games fun and exchange ideas.

As an example color theory is a relatively (in the context of human history) modern concept that helps artists to understand better how humans perceive color combinations, but that doesn't mean no artists had some understanding of the ideas behind it, it only meant that each one had their own understanding - often out of intuitition and trial and error that everyone had to repeat or somehow find another to learn - and was harder for them to exchange that knowledge.

Keep in mind that this isn't anything new, you'll find game designers come up with terms to describe things going back decades, at the end of the day people want to exchange information with others and this can be done only with a common language.

I would argue that the more recent fixation with rigidly adhering to the same gameplay loops makes the experience feel artificial.

 

[PapaPetro]

"Player engagement" seems like a broader concept than "fun". You might keep playing a game because it's fun, but you can also keep playing for other, less wholesome reasons - FOMO, habit, social interaction, etc.

The shift to engagement as the integrating concept encourages game designs that don't rely exclusively on fun to keep players playing.

aka "work"

I think Tim (or was it Josh Strife Hayes?) alluded to this sunk cost behavior in gamers:
self-justified suffering.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

As an example color theory is a relatively (in the context of human history) modern concept that helps artists to understand better how humans perceive color combinations, but that doesn't mean no artists had some understanding of the ideas behind it, it only meant that each one had their own understanding - often out of intuitition and trial and error that everyone had to repeat or somehow find another to learn - and was harder for them to exchange that knowledge.

Isn't color theory the reason why so many movie posters have the same yellow blue color scheme?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Tim got a new equipment, but he can't use it properly so video quality decreased

 

[Bad Sector]

"Player engagement" seems like a broader concept than "fun". You might keep playing a game because it's fun, but you can also keep playing for other, less wholesome reasons - FOMO, habit, social interaction, etc.

At least in his video he called that as "player addiction", not sure if that is a real term or something he came up with though.

Isn't color theory the reason why so many movie posters have the same yellow blue color scheme?

No but color theory can explain why the color scheme was originally picked. However saying that color theory is the reason why so many movie posters have the same color scheme is like saying physics is the reason so many people die from gunshots.

 

[PapaPetro]

Tim got a new equipment, but he can't use it properly so video quality decreased

Looks like Tim discovered the concept of Overworld Maps in the late 70s.
For me it was from Nintendo games in the late 80s.

Who doesn't like variable granularity?
It makes small games/simulations feel HUGE.
Makes up for all the liminal distance between stuff.
(Since there's stuff to do inbetween stuff to do)

New Vid

 

[Infinitron]

Create new posts.

I talk about my thoughts on player level progression, including how experience points are earned, what is awarded to players when their levels advance, and how players spend those awards.

p.s. I think I fixed my camera settings right after I filmed this video. We will see tomorrow!

 

[Butter]

Talks about skills improving through use, but wants learning to come from failure rather than success. Grimoire actually features both, with your INT and WIS scores determining how much you learn from each outcome. The common criticism of this system is it can get grindy, and I don't think learning through failure changes anything about that.

 

[PapaPetro]

Create new posts

But think of the clutter!

 

[Wesp5]

I talk about my thoughts on player level progression, including how experience points are earned, what is awarded to players when their levels advance, and how players spend those awards.

In my opinion Bloodlines worked fine without any levels, the whole player-needs-to-see-progression-and-wants-to-level-up is very close to using rewards-to-keep-the-player-playing tricks...

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Tim pulling the old Troika T-shirt with the "funny smell" out of his garage and wearing it for one of his chats despite being 2 sizes too small was amusing, with the last few seconds of the video Tim being, like, "I gotta get out of this before I suffocate!" hah