vae

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sustainability researcher,
shitposter about futures, games, music, mechs


Kinsie
@Kinsie

CONFORM WITH OUR SYSTEM UI.

BE A GOOD CITIZEN.


saykah
@saykah

ooooh boy this shit is always so lovely. It can make any game, whatever it may be, look so professional and cold and un-fun, love it to bits.

a screenshot of an early build of unreal™ by epic megagames®

a screenshot of a classic video gaem "simcity™ classic for windows™ 95"

a screenshot of a classic video gmae "star wars®: yoda© stories™"

these are probably not even the best examples, i want more, please show me more

these are probably not even the best examples, i want more, please show me more


five
@five
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nex3
@nex3

undoubtedly I am a more-than-typically spreadsheet-brained individual, but I find that rather than looking cold and un-fun this intersection of game and OS UI bespeaks a thrilling mode of interaction. The applications for which this UI was intended are tools to complete tasks and so the design language they speak seeks to lay their functions bare at the user's fingertips. To use this language in play suggests a game toothsome enough to remain joyous even when (ideally because) its interactions are utilitarian in the extreme.

Although this particular cross-pollination is now visible only in the fossil record, I've returned recently to Death Stranding, a game which revels in the tangible interfaciness of every moment. Last week I played Armored Core, a love letter to menus and stats and overwhelming persnickety detail. These games extend play beyond simply moments of action or puzzles to solve into the texture of interactions with a system. Our lives force us to touch so many systems that treat us as raw and inhuman fuel. It's nice to remember that computers can contain joy as well.


vae
@vae

this is a half-formed thought that has been a half-formed thought for about 10 years, but:

I am convinced that if Yoda Stories had come out in 2014 on iOS instead of in 1997 on Windows (and used touchscreen instead of keyboard and mouse), it would be hailed as one of the most influential experiments in short-form-but-connected adventure stories in games.

Not least because it integrates a persistent-upgrades, mission-inventory-reset system in a very roguelite-like way, at a time long before "roguelite" had become a point of discussion.

(I also feel like classic turn-based tactics games, especially the JRPG ones like Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, etc., are another flavour of this interfaciness that is massively underrated.)


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in reply to @Kinsie's post:

Fun fact, this game runs perfectly in Wine EXCEPT that it requires a real CDROM drive to detect the CD and play background music and will absolutely not let you play with an emulated drive. (I have a legit copy, I just don't want the CD to explode due to age and the garbage drive in my desktop.)

in reply to @nex3's post:

There's this old game called "Three in 3" that is diegetically set inside of a one-piece Macintosh that is glitching out because of a power surge. The game menus are named "File" "-1-" "-2-" "-3-" "-4-" and "-5-" and menus 1 through 5 are a world map. There's a menu item for each location in the game, and the up/down/left/right relationships of the items in the menus are the same as the actual physical relationships between the game locations. If an area is currently blocked off to the protagonist the menu item is grayed out, and there are certain events and interactions that can only be unlocked if you use the menus to revisit an area after the protagonist has left it. It's adorable.