Tamrielo

I started playing Dex tonight, a 2D cyberpunk sidescrolling RPG. As a bit of forewarning, I’ve only gotten a couple of hours into it, so this will not be a complete review. Expect more once I get more playtime in. Throughout this, there will be very mild spoilers, so be forewarned. I’m going to try to keep it light, but I can’t really critique a game without talking about what happens in it.

In Dex, you play as the girl on the left in the above picture. The game opens up very directly, with a short tutorial of you escaping some unknown assailants and being led to safety by a mysterious benefactor. It’s very The Matrix. I spent a little while unsure of what was going on because the initial tutorial doesn’t make it clear what I need to click on vs move through, and which of the three different interaction buttons was the appropriate one to use.

In general, I feel like the tutorial doesn’t adequately explain how to play competently, but this isn’t terribly important as the first segment of the game is extremely easy. I’m basically shunted into a quick dungeon run, as I work my way to safety through that ever so convenient escape route: the sewers. Thus far, I’ve met a grizzled old veteran who works a bar, a teenager-like hacker, and a mysterious, cryptic benefactor who everyone else reveres.

If this sounds a little cliché, you’re hearing my biggest criticism of the game thus far. It’s great that the dialogue is all voiced, but several of the characters feel like caricatures thus far, and the writing feels somewhat forced. There’s a lot of dialogue, but the quality is all over the place. Some is great, some is iffy at best. It feels like the game is trying to sell me on a dark, gritty, hedonistic future and is getting way too heavy handed with it. I’ve picked up three different items that suffice as the game’s “trash loot” that you sell to vendors for money that are all types of porn. Of the five vendors I’ve found in the game, three sell condoms for some reason. It isn’t quite enough to turn me off of the game quite yet, but the details feel very sophomoric.

That being said, the overall plot arc (such that I’ve seen) is interesting, and I want to find out what happens next. The characterizations are effective– I may dislike some of the characters but they’re better than vanilla, robotic dialogue. The biggest problem I have is that I feel like I can see the entire arc of the game within the first hour of playing it. I may be wrong, and I’m hoping I am. Expect more on that once I’ve played it a bit more.

On the other hand, the art is FANTASTIC. I’ll let it speak for itself, here’s the trailer:

The environments are evocative and stylish, the characters are varied and interesting, and the animations hit that old-school 2D platformer sweet spot– it all looks really good, and messages surprisingly well minus some of the details. I want to wander around the streets of this cyberpunk city, and that appears to be the point of the game, which is great.

The controls feel fairly tight and responsive. Movement feels fairly good, but I feel needs some more interesting options. I may be able to unlock those with time. My biggest issue is that enemies with melee weapons outrange my fists, causing me to awkwardly chase them around, but I also haven’t unlocked various weapons or anything, and the enemy variety is interesting and messaged well already, within the first hour of play. Combat is simple: attack, block, dodge-roll, with new options opening up as you level up. You can also get guns, though I haven’t figure out how to use the one I just got yet.

One of the other big gameplay features is the hacking game, which is a fairly full-featured minigame that’s akin to a scaled-down Geometry Wars. It might be interesting, but I haven’t seen enough of its features yet to make a judgement call. Currently it’s a bit underwhelming but I suspect it will scale up quickly– I haven’t done much with it yet.

As you play, you level up, and can put points into a variety of skills. These seem to have either noticeable flat bonuses (like more health) or new combos or special abilities. There are also a set of “special” skills, things like lockpicking, charisma, etc, that appear to be used to unlock additional options, whether that’s getting into a locked door or charming your way past someone. Me being me, my first two levels’ worth of skill points went into charisma and lockpicking. Thus far, I’ve already seen significant returns on these points. Multiple characters have had “charisma” dialogue options, and lockpicking has come up enough times that I’m glad I took it.

Right now, it’s a game I’m looking forward to putting more time into. It’s got some rough edges, and some questionable content choices, but none of it is enough to turn me off completely. I’ll be back with more once I’ve had more time to play it.

Source: Digital Initiative
Tam Tries: Dex (part 1 – initial impressions)

I watched The Wind Rises again last night. It’s a movie I really enjoy, though I’ve heard criticism (and heard it again last night) that the ending is weak. It reminds me of another conversation I had about the endings of long-running shows, and which ‘delivered’ and which didn’t.

It got me thinking about endings in general, for any kind of media. I think I’ve come to prefer the endings that acknowledge that time goes on after the events you’re watching have run their course, rather than the kind that tie everything up neatly and leave nothing left to worry about, until the Next Big Thing occurs (read: sequel).

It’s hard to put words to this preference. I can sense the shape of it, but it’s hard for me to define. It would be easy and simple to say that “time goes on” endings are more ‘realistic’, but that’s not really it. Nor is it accurate to say that I feel some kind of rebellious urge against the concept of “happily ever after”, though that’s not entirely wrong either.

I think it’s because I relate with things that don’t clean up nicely, but that you have to move on from anyway. I read a blog recently written by someone who had been blogging her weight loss over something like two hundred pounds. Her goal was to be in the 120-130 range from being over 300, and as of the writing of the post I read, she’d accomplished it. Rather than a victory cry, though, the post read as a profound statement of loss and uncertainty. For months or years she had blogged about weight loss, working ever closer to a goal that seemed impossible, and when she accomplished it, she realized that it doesn’t end. She couldn’t just relax, or she’d backslide. It wasn’t an ending.

When I was growing up, I used to come up with games for my friends and I to play (it’s honestly shocking that I never played D&D growing up), and when I started seriously pursuing work in the games industry, my drive was to make a big game– one people had heard of and that all of my friends would play. It was my dream, and one that seemed impossibly far off.

Last year, I did it, and the question arose: what now? I accomplished my dream, I proved to myself I could do it. I could keep doing it, but I wasn’t sure if that was what I really wanted to do. When I took a moment to relax and really think, I realized that I’d put many, many things on hold for that dream and it wasn’t like credits rolled and everyone went home afterwards. Time went on, and there are other things I want to do. I developed skills working in games that I want to build on and explore, that I didn’t realize I had, and weren’t really an important part of the job I was doing.

It’s not a story I talk about often, because I don’t feel like telling it in a nice, compact way is really accurate. There’s no real ending, and it doesn’t tie itself up cleanly. It’s an experience I value too much to reduce to a one-and-done story.

I think I like my stories that way as well. I value the experience more when I feel like there’s more to it that I’m not seeing, that comes after the end. My favorite games have extended epilogues that suggest that more happens that I don’t see, but can imagine.

I like that. Time goes on.

Source: Digital Initiative
Endings

Organizing people is hard. No matter the number of people, organization is the place where many otherwise noble endeavours fall down. I’ve had the privilege of being a part of and sometimes helping form and lead a goodly number of organizations of varying types, ranging from professional teams of 5-10 people all the way up to massive disconnected virtual teams of up to 100. They’ve all had their strengths and weaknesses, and some have fallen apart while others have come together to accomplish something awesome. Having an organization fall apart can be painful, and it’s worse when everyone involved (particularly those in charge) are trying to hold everything together. A group that works well can stay close for years or decades, and a group where everyone is invested but still winds up shredded can linger for a long time.

I’d like to talk a little bit about what I’ve learned while trying to bring people together to accomplish various goals. I’ve been reading a lot of management books as part of my studies, and they often talk about what it takes to be a successful leader. While I think that’s important, I think that the organization itself is more important than its leader, because if it can’t function without its leader it wasn’t a very solid organization to begin with.

In the various things I’ve read, there’s been a few recurring concepts that are touted as important things for a leader to develop. I think they make a good set of pillars for an organization as well, but I also think they’re double-edged swords. Everything requires moderation, and these ‘swords’ can help your organization cut through obstacles in its path or they can shred your group to pieces.

Here are the ‘swords’ that need to be wielded by successful organizations:

Communication

This is the first, most important thing. Everyone in the group needs to be able to communicate. The more open the communication, the better, to a point. Organizations with insufficient communication see drama, siloing, and inefficiencies borne of a lack of spread knowledge. We live in a world where a quick chat with someone should be a couple of keystrokes away, but we often fall into patterns of noncommunication for various reasons.

A healthy organization needs to be able to communicate, which is more than just status reports. Praise and criticism need to be available, and the most successful groups I’ve worked with are able to handle both. This isn’t something a leader can accomplish on their own; it requires that the group develop an atmosphere where speaking one’s mind, whether that’s to praise someone, provide constructive criticism, or ask for help is not just allowed but encouraged. Sometimes, this communication may need to be private or anonymous, but the the very best groups it doesn’t need to be, and either way it should exist.

Communication has a downside, though. There is a time to talk and a time to act, and any organization needs to know the difference. Planning is very important, but it’s vital not to get bogged down. One of my rules as a raid leader is that any explanation of any boss fight can last no longer than thirty seconds. I’ve (frequently) made exceptions to this, and they’ve always been mistakes. Often we face encounters that require more than thirty seconds of explanation, but this doesn’t change the rule. I’ll explain everything I can in thirty seconds, we’ll take a crack at it, fail, and move forward with another thirty seconds of explanation. More than that and people lose interest.

As the stakes get higher (in, say, a professional environment with money on the line), that threshold increases, but there’s still a limit to how much talking can occur before most people tune out. Agile development operates on a similar concept, with “sprints” being a small subset of a larger picture and covering that attention threshold. In the raid, we explain a bit, pull, wipe, then course correct. In Agile development, you plan a bit, execute for a few weeks, then come back, see what worked, then course correct. Same strategy, broader application.

Direction

This is almost as important as communication, and is kind of a “well, duh” concept. A group needs a task, a goal that it’s working towards. This can be as specific as “complete this assignment” or “defeat this boss” or it can be as vague as “make a place to call home” or “support each other through hard times”. A really solid group can be pointed in a direction and go, getting everything necessary done along the way.

An idea that I’ve found difficult to internalize is that a lot of times, simply telling people what to do is extremely effective. I’ve been a part of and even led a lot of groups that have fallen apart because the directing force is too weak. Sometimes it’s trying too hard to accommodate everyone’s schedules, or it’s overly worried about what everyone in the group wants to do, and winds up doing nothing. I personally spend a lot of time trying to work out what everyone in my groups wants if I’m leading them, and sometimes I just need to tell people what’s going on and let them figure out the details for themselves. The key to this is to respect and appreciate the people on your team, understanding that they’re often trying to make things work. A secret I’ve found out about myself, and that I suspect is true of others, is that when I’m told where to be, what to do, and when, and I have to change my plans to make that work, I’m a lot more invested in what happens, so I’m more into it.

The dark side of this is twofold. When direction is wielded as a weapon, it leads to micromanagement or closed communication. People in the organization should be capable of knowing what needs to be done and doing it without needing excessive oversight– if this isn’t the case, that’s what training is for. If direction is used to excessively shut out avenues of communication or topics raised, it closes communication lines. Obviously some suggestions, comments, and ideas won’t work or aren’t appropriate, but there’s a line between staying focused and clamping down that shouldn’t be crossed.

Motivation

Motivation is the last ‘sword’, and it’s the trickiest one. It’s important that everyone in the group is motivated, but it’s also important that the motivation is genuine and not forced. When I posted a few weeks ago about limiting my raid’s focus on a given encounter to two weeks at a time and no more (there’s that direction thing again), it was the result of a vibe I was getting that mirrored my own feelings. We weren’t making progress because we were all bored of the same thing, but we wanted to raid together and so were all forcing the motivation.

In the past few weeks, we’ve hit other targets, and beaten every single one. We’ve progressed through a ton of bosses that we’d never seen before, and when we returned to the original boss we’d been fighting, we instantly made progress into a portion of the fight we’d never really cracked open. I’m confident that we’ll have the boss down soon, just from the break and the breather we’ve had.

My motivation for the “two weeks” rule was partly selfish. I was getting bored of the same boss week after week, and at the time I wondered if I was misreading the vibe I was getting– projecting my lack of motivation onto everyone else. As the group’s leader, I’m not sure there’s a difference. Motivation in a group often trickles down from the leadership, and I think it’s significantly more important as a leader to motivate yourself than try to motivate your team when you aren’t fully invested yourself.

This can backfire on you– you need to be empathetic to your group’s needs and desires beyond your own– this much is obvious. Trying to force motivation is the more insidious trap, though. Every group needs to be motivated, but trying to force it feels shallow and will quickly make your team bitter, which undermines both your communication and your direction. Motivating people is often about being motivated yourself and letting that energy flow outwards, rather than trying to create it from nothing. In a good group, however, this can often become a positive feedback loop, which is ideal.

This is just scratching the surface of my take on managing an organization, but hopefully it was interesting for someone.

Source: Digital Initiative
Successful Organization With Three (double-edged) Swords