Trans | Lesbian | 37 | Gamedev | Co-host of @sayitinred

 


 
Currently composing music for @desiderium and writing for Become Dirt


PIZZAPRANKS
@PIZZAPRANKS

Have you considered submitting your game to Indiepocalypse (monthly game anthology) today?

-Takes a minute, no lengthy forms
-Open to all games ("game" very loosely interpreted)
-Free to submit
-Issues promoted forever
-Get paid upfront and royalties
-Requires no exclusivity, you can still distribute your games however you want

Around this award season it's also great way to potentially recoup those submission costs!

Submissions always (aside for a few hours each month) open at
indiepocalypse.com/submit



ltsquigs
@ltsquigs

I think one of the most fun parts of being a fan of turn based rpgs is the cycle of having to listen to people loudly complain that turn base rpgs have stagnated (when they havent), until some aesthetically appealing game comes out and is held up as an example of Innovation (which it often isn't). Which to be clear, isn't a stab at those games (innovation is overrated), but more about the constant cycle.


iiotenki
@iiotenki

I may have a lot more to say about That Specific Game and what it ostensibly brought to the table (and, frankly, took away from other tables by proxy) if I can hammer out how to best frame my points in an essay I've had sitting in my drafts for weeks. But, at the very least, as I've said a million times before, mainstream western game journalism has suffered ever since the big outlets stopped having people in-house dedicated to covering Japanese games. Relying on the specialist sites, as good of a job as they can do in their limited capacity, is not a substitute for nuanced, institutional knowledge of the domestic history of the industry, especially the unlocalized portions that have since gone on to matter tremendously in games with global success that now lack those threads for people to trace back. At the risk of sounding like I'm taking pot shots at many people I otherwise admire and whose expertise elsewhere is very genuine—some of whom I know and have even had the pleasure of working for!—in general, I feel pretty strongly that English-speaking journalists do not have as firm or complete of an understanding of the Japanese industry as they think they do and their audiences would be better served if they made a point to talk to more people who actually work in Japanese games today, and not just the usual suspects that get trotted out as experts when they need a quick sound bite (people who I also often have good personal and working relationships with!).

Regardless, localizations are such a narrow lens through which to view the progression of Japanese gameplay and narrative design. It's game history filtered by marketability, player demographics, and platform holder politics. The conversations those games are engaging in here in Japan can sometimes be wildly different from the ones taking place overseas, especially when it comes to the subject of "innovation." Those differences can absolutely be valuable and illuminating, but a lot of times, it can feel like I'm playing and experiencing a completely different game from what everyone else in English-speaking circles is enjoying, regardless of how good the core localization itself might well be. Those divergences tint everything from genre labels to how people even perceive the strengths, weaknesses, and potential of certain kinds of mechanics and structures and it's such a hard, vast gap to bridge. It's an important bridge and one that I'm serious about doing my part to build, both on and off the clock, but we still have such a long way to go in more ways than people abroad generally realize.