Party Chat Peoples Party Chat Peoples

Party Chat Peoples discuss scale and perspective in video games. Once a major driver of innovation, scale was relegated to the indie scene after big studios lost their inner child. 

1:00 - What are scale and perspective, and why the discussion?

2:55 - One of the earliest forms of play, and it never grows old

4:00 - Child development / cognitive science - how arousal and valance spark creativity

6:30 - Scale used too cheaply if at all in big tent video games

8:15 - Adult scientists explore scale and perspective

9:10 - Scale, the original Kickstarter video game fail

10:55 - Fairy tales and superhero stories explore scale

11:20 - Portal and F-Stop, the sequel that never happened

17:25 - Maquette by Graceful Decay makes scale romantic. Also buggy

21:40 - Motion Sickness Part 1 - inherent risks when games scale objects bigger

22:30 - "I Wanna Be the Guy" The Movie: The Game's 8-bit nostalgia scales a boss fight

26:10 - Early video games using scale birthed several modern genres

29:30 - Tabletop roleplaying games added math to miniature toy fights, became RPG genre

33:30 - Maquette: What it did right, ie using scale to mirror emotional states

34:00 - Warhammer, a tabletop miniature wargame, and its math mechanics

37:15 - Superliminal, a bug-free puzzle game exploring scale and perspective well

41:40 - Motion sickness part 2 - the only issue in Superliminal and arguably out of their control

43:20 - Horizon Zero Dawn and scale of difficulty (damage scaling)

45:10 - Katamari Damacy - a comedic masterpiece of scale, but is it a game at all?

51:10 - Everything (2017), philosopher's lecture translated into a scale-based indie game

1:01:50 -  Giant Celebration (still in beta), a VR puzzle game using scale to hide objects

1:03:02 - Motion Sickness part 3 - VR's motion sickness complications, plus controls issues

1:08:45 - Augmented reality, the inevitable next frontier for scale play (See Pokemon Go)

1:09:15 - Positional audio, 7.1 surround sound headphones, console support for helpful audio

1:11:25 - Potential for immersion in VR, using the game equivalent of IMAX movies

1:13:00 - Donut County's donut hole swallows rising scale objects like Katamari's sticky ball

1:15:10 - Pokemon Sword & Shield's dynamax, another cheap big studio take on scale

1:18:20 - It Takes Two uses scale thematically and well to dramatize relationship issues

1:21:45 - The Crew 2 live map feature demonstrates what big studios can do already

1:26:15 - Older strategy video games used scale to enable multiple views of war battles

1:27:20 - Challenging major studios to create a new franchise based on scale and perspective

1:29:35 - Scale inspires creativity, using scale through both space and time

1:31:25 - Summary and exit

In this podcast, we take deep dives into two new PS5 titles. It Takes Two is a corny romantic two-person local cooperative game. Returnal is an atmospheric first person shooter featuring bullet hell difficulty and no easy mode. Both games are long, but neither outlasts its welcome. How do these very different games handle pacing and story ambiguity? There are also reviews for Killer Queen and No Man's Sky: Expedition 2 (Beachhead).

Introductions 0:00 - 3:20

Review: It Takes Two 3:21 - 7:24

It Takes Two: Cinematic style vs length vs minigames 3:22 - 15:07

It Takes Two: Local coop and communication 15:08 - 18:34

It Takes Two: Inclusivity and gender norm subversion 18:35 - 23:09

Review: Killer Queen 23:10 - 31:05

Nicole and Alex depart 31:06 - 33:20

Review: No Man's Sky: Expedition 2 / Beachhead

33:21 - 43:05 Review: Returnal (no spoilers)

43:06 - 47:38 Returnal: Theories on the story (spoilers) 47:39 - 1:06:59

Returnal: Accessibility and hardware tricks 1:07:00 - 1:10:39

Returnal: Save Issues, Rest Mode, and PS5 console lights 1:10:40 - 1:23:48

Attributions

Music information

Thank you to the following artists for allowing us to use their work in our project. 

Check out more music from them at the links below.

🎵 @visagermusic

🎵 sawsquaremusic

Attributions

Music information

Thank you to the following artists for allowing us to use their work in our project. 

Check out more music from them at the links below.

🎵 @visagermusic

🎵 sawsquaremusic

Music Attribution

Thank you to the following artists for allowing us to use their work in our project. 

Check out more music from them at the links below.

🎵 @visagermusic 🔗 https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Visager/Songs_From_An_Unmade_World_2

🎵 sawsquaremusic 🔗 https://freemusicarchive.org/music/sawsquarenoise/Towel_Defence_OST

Topics

1. 🧵 Mikey & the PS5

      a. 💭 General Impressions

      b. 👾 Demon’s Souls 🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjZIw0VUezU&ab_channel=PlayStation

2. 🧵 Stacey Cures the World

      a. 👾 Plague, Inc - Cure Mode 🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAFzwV7S1mU

      b. 📰 ESPN fires eSports staff 🔗 

https://247sports.com/Article/espn-ending-esports-coverage-media-layoff-news--154769897/

3. 👾 Spider Man: Miles Morales 🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T03PxxuCfDA



Attributions

Music information

Thank you to the following artists for allowing us to use their work in our project. 

Check out more music from them at the links below.

🎵 @visagermusic

🎵 sawsquaremusic