What are you playing? (2023 Edition)

Sulphur on 3/1/2024 at 03:16

Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom actually do have imsim elements to them. But we know they're not imsims, because they don't really place a priority on imnersion.

Well, at least until you start swimming, at which point they're Full Body Immersive Simulators, so really they're in the same ballpark. So confusing!

vurt on 3/1/2024 at 03:38

so could mario 64, notice how he doesn't say the game (deux ex) is an immersive sim, but partially that and part RPG, part something else. Some of the things those genres (which are mixed in) goes against some of the immersive sim philosophy. lol. if you also mix in "typically" and "preferably" for the genre then it gets really messy and super broad.

The description he used for immersive sim is also player goal before developer goal, very few immsims would fit in here, this fits in better for games like perhaps Ultima Online or a modded Skyrim or FO where you can do pretty much do, and be, whatever you want, be a fisherman or do something that the developer didn't really intend or even knew you could do.

Starker on 3/1/2024 at 04:12

Quote Posted by Twist

While you're digging up old interviews with Doug Church, maybe you can find the one where he described why Thief had no inventory screen and such a minimalist HUD.

I'm getting flashbacks to Tom Leonard's Thief Postmortem and the Warren Spector Doug Church joint GDC session, but I suspect neither of those is what you're talking about.

A diegetic interface seems to be such a perfect fit for immersive sims, but I suspect player convenience still trumps it in a lot of cases. I think Gloomwood is pretty safe though, since it also seems to be something of a survival horror, and a small degree of inconvenience is well established in that genre. At the very least the inventory system looks very cool, but it's difficult to say how it plays at the moment.

Jason Moyer on 3/1/2024 at 04:26

As someone above pointed out, it's about systemic gameplay, but using systems that work for the genre you're working with. If someone tried to make a game that simulated every aspect of the world, it would never be finished. So you build out the systems that matter and help trick your brain into being immersed in the world, like the AI, lighting and sound systems in Thief. Thief also is a *masterclass* in immersive sim level design, because the levels make you feel like you're in real places that could exist in that universe, while simultaneously doing that thing Valve loves where they're training you how to play the game. But unlike a Valve game, Thief does it without ever breaking immersion or taking control away from the player. And the gameplay is entirely systemic and emergent; your success or failure depends on how you use game's systems/tools to overcome its obstacles, without a developer's hand guiding you.

vurt on 3/1/2024 at 11:45

It's what basically most games does though. Traditionally Simulators go a bit beyond it though, that's why we like to call them Sims. I'm not sure i think Thief goes beyond the norm of what most other games does in terms of its mechanics to make them work and also feel immersive.

Like i said, it's just too broad to really work as a genre name. I think i'm just repeating myself at this point though so i'll stop here.

Malf on 3/1/2024 at 12:45

Quote Posted by Jason Moyer

If someone tried to make a game that simulated every aspect of the world, it would never be finished.

See Dwarf Fortress :D
See, there's no way in hell I'd describe DF as an Imm Sim, but by vurt's definition, it's probably the truest Imm Sim ever.

demagogue on 3/1/2024 at 18:47

Also Caves of Qud. One of them does a pod cast, I think the DF guys, and when they talked with the CoQ devs, it was pretty fun and interesting because they got deep into the trenches on simulating systems and emergent gameplay. ((https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dwarf-fortress-talk-26/id427145565?i=1000489823968) Link for great justice. (https://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-and-caves-of-qud-roundtable-the-masters-of-simulation-talk-roguelikes-ai-and-making-the-infinite-compelling/) This also popped up in my search and looks interesting.)

I think both of those games are imm sims in the original sense in the period following Ultima 7 and that zeitgeist, but not in the sense we think of it today with Arkane games. So in that way they're the poster children for what's changed in the idea of an imm sim over the last 30 odd years.

Sulphur on 3/1/2024 at 18:50

vurt doesn't have a definition, he has a literalism issue with a moniker. Also comprehension skills at fourth grade reading levels and an inability to construct and/or articulate thoughts consistently, but I'll be generous and put that down to any sort of language apparently not being his first language.

For the sake of accommodation (not one of my new year's resolutions, but hey, I can be flexible), I propose we take his criticism on board and attack the source of the problem, which is the simulator genre, games of which should be called Sim Sims from hereon out to ensure there's a clear and discrete separation of game design philosophies, and hence no more confusion.

Thirith on 3/1/2024 at 19:23

I finally finished Assassin's Creed Valhalla - and by finishing it, I mean that I played through the main game but not the DLCs and I ended all the members of the Order of the Ancients. Like so many Assassin's Creed games, there's a lot here I like, but it's buried under shallow, repetitive gameplay and systems and the writing is offputtingly uneven. There'd be potential in the story they're telling, but they still don't know how to blend the game they have and the story they want to tell to good effect. Honestly, I'm not sure it could be done, but it could be done better than here. They've got themes, they've got interesting character constellations, but everything feels so goddamn static. And yet... while I was tired of the whole thing in the last ten hours or so, I still enjoyed Valhalla's England, much more so than Odyssey's Aegean Sea, and I liked the individual story arcs better than Odyssey's story too. But yes, I am glad it's over for now. I might return to the DLC eventually, but there's an equal chance I'll forget it even exists.

And now I'm playing this Cocoon game I've been hearing so much about. Puzzles, but not overly taxing ones, sounds like just the right thing for the beginning of 2024.

Starker on 3/1/2024 at 21:56

LGS games have gotten such an avid and long-lasting following precisely because there aren't many games out there that can offer something like it. There are too many games that instead try to make fun happen for you. From that perspective, I think a lot of people here can see and appreciate the difference between a game like Thief and, say, Half-Life.