[HN Gopher] Jerk
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Jerk
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 138 points
Date : 2024-08-04 17:10 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ivanish.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (ivanish.ca)
| pokpokpok wrote:
| I really enjoyed the story and music in this post!
|
| If anyone was intrigued by the idea of a game about shrinking, I
| wanted to recommend this tiny indie game about using laboratory
| equipment as your body gets smaller and smaller:
|
| https://darelooks.itch.io/inch-by-inch
| thih9 wrote:
| I enjoyed reading that!
|
| > I haven't seen anyone do a shrinking game.
|
| While I'm also not aware of a shrinking game, there are more than
| a few[1] growing games. Some aspects of the mechanic are the same
| - "what was dangerous before is not a problem now and vice
| versa"; it's just the plot that changes.
|
| So: in a shrinking game a small enemy will become a large threat
| and a narrow passage will become a large escape route - and in a
| growing game a large enemy will turn into a small threat and a
| previously large passage will become inaccessible.
|
| [1]: E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katamari_Damacy
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| It's not exactly either a shrinking or growing game but maybe a
| bit of both: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superliminal.
|
| (Ostensibly, in a growing game you get bigger as the game
| progresses and vice versa for a shrinking game; this lets one
| play with perspective to make things bigger or smaller as
| needed.)
| derefr wrote:
| Reminds me of a proposal I've seen floating around for a
| Metroidvania game where you _lose_ abilities as you progress
| (never gaining them back.)
|
| IIRC the idea is that it would still be a game with progressive
| exploration (if not necessarily Metroidvania-style
| exploration), as terrain-navigation-gated area design would be
| combined with more-mainstream keys-and-locks area design -- so
| while you're losing your abilities that allow you to "sneak in
| through the back door" of areas, you're gaining key
| items/flipping switches/making friends that enable you to "come
| in through the front door" instead.
|
| Also, as with a "shrinking game", you'd see things you're
| currently "too powerful" to enter and need to come back when
| you're "weaker." In this case, because some abilities you start
| with would be too powerful -- trading that power off for having
| too little precision/finesse -- and so would be preventing you
| from entering some areas because every time you try to do so,
| the ability kicks in and pushes you past the gap you were
| trying to fit into (or whatever.) It's only once you lose the
| ability that you _gain_ the precision required to aim for the
| gap.
| spiralganglion wrote:
| > Metroidvania game where you lose abilities as you progress
|
| This is brilliant. It solves the inherent tension of
| metroidvanias wanting both ever-increasing power and ever-
| increasing challenge. Rather than unlocking new areas, each
| time you lose abilities, it changes your relationship to
| existing areas. But the knowledge you gain -- room layouts,
| enemy placement, hazards, short cuts, etc -- becomes way more
| helpful when you can't just fly (perhaps literally) across
| the map.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| This idea is really interesting to me but it seems like it
| would be hard to capture a similar kind of fun as progressing
| in a traditional metroidvania. That there is a trade-off
| between player movement abilities and map shortcuts is
| interesting enough to warrant a purchase (big fan of the
| genre, personally) but "100%" saves and the like could
| possibly be un-fun to make.
|
| Although, I'm already imagining a sequence where you trade
| away your last movement ability and walk down some long-ish
| path to a place where you get all or most of them back (or
| different ones!). That could be fun and rewarding but it
| would definitely have to be done right.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Seems very unlikely to work. Most metroidvania mechanics are
| not "useful", they're just "required" like barrier breakers
| or hazard resistances. Players don't actually care about
| having the latter. Taking away the ability open orange doors
| isn't really different from introducing new purple doors that
| you can't open.
|
| The tech that is useful, like dashes and double jumps, is
| really nice to have but not especially interesting to lose
| imo. If you "need" the dash then it's just a key. If you
| don't need the dash then losing it is just less satisfying
| movement.
| rawcal wrote:
| My boss and a long time good friend developed one[1] with his
| previous indie studio. Originally VR but playable with mouse
| and keyboard too, player can shrink both themselves and their
| enemies.
|
| (Not trying to advertise for sales as the company went under
| years ago)
|
| [1]https://store.steampowered.com/app/754850/The_Spy_Who_Shrunk
| ...
| j1mmie wrote:
| There was a game called Specter Spelunker Shrinks that required
| arbitrary shrinking and growing. It's more of a prototype than
| a full game, but I could imagine this exact mechanic working in
| a more fleshed out setting.
|
| A cool thing about the game is that time also scales with size.
| So the challenge provided by moving objects also scales with
| the character's size (sometimes beneficially, sometimes not).
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ65SWBb1Kg
| calmbonsai wrote:
| A wonderful example of fictional use of scale is Greg Egan's
| sci-fi novel "Scale" https://a.co/d/8t2LLwk .
|
| It also touches on the real thorny issues of metabolism, heat
| transfer, and density, aside from the obvious geometry and
| ergonomic concerns.
| lisper wrote:
| This is a great example of why HN's policy of not changing
| headlines from the originals doesn't work well sometimes. This
| headline is almost necessarily clickbait. There is nothihng this
| article could possibly be about that is actually related to the
| four-letter title, except maybe this:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_%28physics%29
|
| But that is not what this article is about. It's about (spoiler
| alert) quitting your job to write games.
| growt wrote:
| No the article is about the quest to make music that changed
| tempo, exactly the kind of jerk you linked (the author even
| links the same Wikipedia page towards the end).
| digging wrote:
| I mean, it's still a poor title for HN.
| sctb wrote:
| It's a great title/article pair for HN because it's
| unexpected/good, as opposed to clickbait which is
| unexpected/bad. The guidelines permit changing the original
| title in the case of clickbait anyways.
| hatthew wrote:
| [delayed]
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Why is the audio player askew? It's mildly disconcerting until
| you know that's the issue. Is that the point?
| spiralganglion wrote:
| (Author here)
|
| Yes that's the point. Tried it on a lark, and it created weird
| feelings so I leaned into it. This is my personal website, and
| I've been trying to make it more deeply personal lately.
|
| Talked about it a bit in this thread:
| https://mastodon.social/@spiralganglion/112747815905067127
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| I like it. I mean, I like the why. It's not so offensive as
| to make me turn and run from your site, but it's definitely
| odd. To me, it actually makes it feel as if the text is
| askew.
|
| One of my eyes sees things kind of slanted when I'm not
| wearing my glasses - I felt like I was seeing that when I was
| on the mastodon thread and trying to observe the change the
| server admin suggested...
| gary_0 wrote:
| It makes me feel like Scottish pornography: off-kilter!
| singleshot_ wrote:
| > You don't hear distorted bass all that often
|
| Cliff would like a word with you, sir.
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(page generated 2024-08-09 23:00 UTC)