DGC Ep 080: X-COM: UFO Defense (part four) - a podcast by Brett Douville and Tim Longo

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where we are in our third in a series of episodes about 1994's X-COM: UFO Defense. We talk about our plans of attack for the game, whether the game is reacting to our plans, and how sim games make an argument. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Who even knows anymore?

Podcast breakdown:
0:31 Game discussion
39:19 Break
39:45 Feedback/email

Issues covered: Tim's death of dysentery, Tim's approach and Brett's approach, reserving time for opportunity fire, how time units scale, ranking soldiers and hierarchy, mastery of sims, taking down a much larger UFO, is it dynamically scaling?, algorithms and tables, board game systems, complexity from simplicity, how a simulation makes an argument, visibility of rules and systems, how X-COM promotes anxiety, lack of telegraphing, wasting a player's time, the RNG and drama, strategy and planning and percentages, entertainment vs anxiety, do aliens panic?, flocking/herding/schooling behaviors, learning the AI's rules, looking forward to a modern version, exploits vs learning behaviors, empowerment of setting a trap, naming your troops and telling stories about them, streaming's impacts on games development, increasing player customization as a means of authoring, MOBAs as streaming games, shooters having difficulty crossing over, randomness in games, rewarding success because of the possibility of failure, RNG and the level layout, accessibility vs complexity and depth, transparency and mystery, over-indexing on accessibility working against aesthetics, diving deeper into games, thinking ahead to making a sim game of my own.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Oregon Trail, Ken Levine, Pandemic, Sim City, Mario vs Rabbids, Sid Meier, Randy Quaid, Johan Huizinga, Pac-Man, Clint Hocking, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Ubisoft, Super Mario World, Final Fantasy IX, Dan Hunter, The X-Files, Julian Gollop, RebelStar Raiders, Laser Squad, Dark Souls, Guernsey College (of Further Education), No One Lives Forever, Warcraft, Edge of Tomorrow, Player Unknown's BattleGrounds, Minecraft, Nuclear Throne, Vlambeer, Forza, Overwatch, Lucas Rizoli, D&D, Invisible Inc, World of Warcraft, Spelunky, Bjorn Johannson, Firaxis, GTA III, Recettar, Receiver, Surgeon Simulator, Reed Knight, Trespasser, Jurassic Park, Far Cry, Civilization, Michael Sew, Hitman 2, Hitman 2016.

BrettYK: 1
TimYK: 45

Next time:
Finish the game? (Narrator: They will not finish the game.)

Links:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/07/05/no-one-will-sell-no-one-lives-forever-so-lets-download-it/

@brett_douville, @timlongojr, and @devgameclub
DevGameClub@gmail.com

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