site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1915 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 12, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Does the manual show the places where the secrets-to-everyone are? (Edit: no, it doesn't.) My main problem with the game is the "burn the random bush that looks like every other random bush"-type things, which is something that other titles would fix with affordances like cracked walls, etc. Which is something I get is a technical limitation of the system, but then again, trying to make a game that depends on a system that can't display it properly is not exactly good design.

I guess I come more from the AVGN school of software design that demonstrates that if it's not reasonably discoverable without reading the documentation it's probably a net-negative for your game design if it's there, since it's now depending on something you thought was obvious in its balance, but nobody can access it, so you're stuck trying to work around it and your game is less fun as a consequence.

Which is something I get is a technical limitation of the system

I don't think so. The space requirements to add additional burnable bush and bombable wall sprites would have been negligible. But this would have trivialized the game's "puzzles," which consisted entirely of pushing every block, bombing every wall, and burning every bush. If the movable parts are labeled, there's nothing left.

Later games added more elaborate puzzles with multiple moving parts that could be solved without brute force, allowing them to label the moving parts without trivializing the game. I think that this probably could have been done on the NES with a 128 KB ROM, but I'm not sure.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats