See, you are right and that’s exactly why I started with “This might be a little on the side of the main topic”…
See, you are right and that’s exactly why I started with “This might be a little on the side of the main topic”…
This is a fantastic timeline if you want to go into details.
Well then… To stay true to the history, we probably would have to go back to Galaxian from ‘79, which introduced 1-UPs / additional lives, bonus stages and player upgrades, plus simple summary / statistics for hits and misses.
Well, when I was writing that, after midnight I will add, I had this feeling that Mario was doing this thing earlier but for me Mario stands as an icon for the first level design overall as a golden standard for introduction to mechanics and really efficient use of memory for data, and one of the first uses of dynamic music… So you are totally right, Mario brought a lot of things, I’ve just played Crash much more.
This might be a little on the side of the main topic but there was always something cool about Crash Bandicoot 100 Apples > 1 Life, and you could grind more to make some levels more forgiving, like semi-adjustable difficulty level based on your previous approach… And later on — warp zones, you get to choose from a few options so the progression has variation.
Another thing that comes to mind, not sure if a first game to do it, THPS for unlocking movies and later cheat codes, modes and characters for finishing the career. Plus the whole gap marathon for Private Carrera.
Oh, and chanting from Oddword where it had various uses, for saving friends or for changing into enemies, or using special abilities. This definitely was something, because I still remember thinking as a kid, “how cool is that this one ability has so many different uses”.
With the original they wanted the immersion part to feel like you are actually racing with toy cars and make everyday / mundane surroundings feel unique from this perspective and scale — I guess they still want this to be the main fun factor / appeal.
For me the amazing part was somehow pacing. Every single time I felt like I am starting to cruise through levels, I was knocked down really hard… and my brain exploded more than a few times.
Stunningly, this created one of the best mechanics for me — “if it was too easy, you probably missed a valuable lesson there”.
Arvi created something special, where every bit of that frustration pays off at least tenfold.
Same unfortunately goes for a big chunk of the law on a global scale… Constant progress, new possibilities and technologies, changes in general are really outpacing some dusted and constantly abused solutions. Every second goes by and any “somehow still holding” relic is under more pressure. As a species we can have some really great ideas but the long-term planning or future-proofing is still not our strongest suit.
Let me take a personal spin on that question.
This wasn’t the first game that I played but it was the first game that I PLAYED. It really got me, made me draw stuff from the game, scratch my head and glued me to the screen.
My little brain melted from not understanding. The bitterness of every mistake and death was sprinkled by some mysterious force with the most magical feeling of solving the next level. This game explained by the example how games can be and are amazing. Before it, I just enjoyed the fun aspects of playing but here I was gaming and every level felt like a real achievement.
Now, when I think about it, this game made me skip building with LEGO for some time.
Oh, the title? Gobliiins.
First, first? Some bootleg version of Tetris.
Oh, no worries, I’ve read it. What I meant by the quote is, you are not stuck anywhere, you are just camping in one of the best spots in the game…
I can only hope you had the polaroid and some charcoal on you to map out that great vista in the meantime, between all that looting the cargo containers.
Well, as the devs wanted the visual feeling of the game to resemble a painting — then it only fits to say “there are no mistakes here, just happy accidents”…
For over a decade now, I am fortunate enough to just let my body decide, so I go to sleep whenever I feel like I want to sleep and wake up whenever it happens…
Hours are funny tho, middle point is probably somewhere around 6, sometimes there are times when it is closer to 4, and less often but it happens, around 8.
From my observations and whenever I talk with anyone invested in their routines, it mostly boils down to quality over quantity. Shitty 9 or 10 hours might feel terribly unpleasant and 30 min power nap can do wonders sometimes.
I always believed to be the night owl until I discovered it can switch for me and then I figured out a new option of being a morning lark — I must say, both have some benefits actually but the whole day timetable changes dramatically.
Some say they are Nokias 3310 among laptops.
From all the people I knew that ever had them, they still have, very often still use and eventually compare any other / newer laptops with them.
Well, yes. This exist — I am really grateful for that, but… This audio library now contains 15M positions. It is a big number, no doubt about it.
Then, Spotify has over 80M files in the library with around 4M podcasts.
Estimated existing music amount is unclear but around 90-200M and growing all the time.
And suddenly 15M is getting somehow small in terms of preserving, and this is with music only.
With movies I even remember some interviews with Tarantino and Nolan talking about how badly some movies are being mistreated, lost cuts, not even close to proper/safe long time storing, fires, accidents and so on…
The only thing I would (totally naively and magically) wish for is some kind of really well organized and curated time capsule mainly for movies and music preservation.
I don’t want all the music and movies for myself, I wouldn’t be able to watch/hear it all but I wish for anyone from any time in the future — to have a simple/legal option to just dig anything out, public domain or whatever will work best.
People have created some amazing gems.
With all the other comments, it becomes pretty obvious that the easiest way to do it, would be being a multi-billionaire in the first place… Wait a second…