Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be • Hacker News Board

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#161

Post by Retric » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC

lione wrote: post #149

Retric wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest difference is most games tend to have anything not dead + positive resource stream = a win. People tend to build city's / county's / etc that go through a major such phase to maximize resource collection. In reality you generally don't want to have 40 years of suck to get to some long term gain, because you need to live those 40 years.

You mean some sort of great leap forward produces negative results for your citizens until it's completed? I swear I heard a story similar to that in reality.

The thing is relative to most developing nations China has had very slow economic growth. Yes, with a massive population, but China ranks 110 by purchasing power per person. It's economy is terrible, the only thing it has going for it is scale. And it's not like it has a massive population density either ranking at #80 world wide.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#162

Post by kuzimoto » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 1:34 AM UTC

m3kw9 wrote: post #146

m3kw9 wrote: post #145

I’ve play so many games and had every system that came out up to ps3, Xbox 360 from NES. I still don’t know how to properly play Minecraft. Is one of those game I feel sorry for myself for still now knowing how to play lol!

Every time I start a new Minecraft game, I would start throwing random bricks and beating up chcickens and saying to myself, that’s it?

I think the open-endedness of Minecraft isn't for everyone. When I started I just enjoyed exploring and trying to make fun little houses/buildings/etc. Every world gave way to a new landscapes and designs. The cave systems in particular were a lot of fun.

Then when redstone came out you had the ability to create some seriously cool contraptions (though I was never particularly good at that).

Playing with friends is much more fun, and there are a lot of cool adventure maps around if you're into those.

I guess playing on PC has a lot more perks when it comes to custom worlds and mods. Certain Modpacks introduced oil, gass, and engines and all kind of cool stuff.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#163

Post by animal531 » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 1:27 PM UTC

FPGAhacker wrote: post #75

jsemrau wrote: post #13

There should be more collaborative games rather than competitive games. One of my fondest memories is playing Quake 2 in COOP mode at a LAN Party back in the 90s getting stuck in a mineshaft with the group way past midnight. Extremely immersive and bonding experience. We still talk about this moment years later.

I definitely wish there were more collaborative games. I like to game with my wife, and we don’t prefer games where the objective is defeating each other. Minecraft far and away is the game we play together most of the time. Alas it has finally gotten old to us. One Christmas we played eve online. That was a great bit of fun. Bit of a time sink though. I wish The Long Dark had coop.

Stardew Valley once its multiplayer launches. Magicka for weirdness.

Warhammer Vermintide 2, Left For Dead 1/2 or Borderlands 2 for FPS coop. Dead Space 3 if you don't mind a few scares. Ark is decent for PvE coop.

Portal 2 for puzzles. Rocket League for sporty action (albeit coop vs other people). Throw in Factorio for building.

Path of Exile/Diablo 3/Torchlight 2 for ARPG. StarCraft 2 for RTS.

But overall I'm with you, I feel all games can be enhanced with coop.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#164

Post by Grangar » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

tgb wrote: post #135

Oddly, my favorite memories of playing games with my parents were of the Myst series. We huddled around our computer, took turns "driving" and taking notes and managing the CD changes (in Riven at least) and just generating ideas to try. It was exhilarating and great bonding time. Like exploring a new world together and piecing together mysteries.

Yes! Helping my dad with point and click games is a very fond memory of mine. Especially Rama (game based on the books by Arthur C. Clarke)

I should try getting it to run again sometime.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#165

Post by wilsonnb » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

otabdeveloper2 wrote: post #131

RomanPushkin wrote: post #52

I tried to play with my 4 y.o. son to NES classic games. He loved Donkey Kong County, and some other arcades, but I found games affects his behavior in a bad way. He was always asking to play more, refusing to go and play outside, working at home with books, paper, and color pens and water paints. So we're not playing for 6 months or more. He loved plasticine, and makes some really fancy and realistic animals. He lik…

Video games are a vice, not a hobby. Giving your child video games is like giving him beer. (I learned this from bitter experience.)

Like most things, video games are a hobby for some and a vice for others. It has more to do with the person than the activity.

Also, a four year old is probably too young to be drinking beer but I don't think beer with a low ABV (0.5-2.5%) is particularly bad for older children as long as they don't drink enough to get drunk. I could be wrong about that though.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#166

Post by PhasmaFelis » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 7:16 PM UTC

pasabagi wrote: post #32

reificator wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't like that the developer ripped off the idea Minecraft and Infiniminer are two very different games, similar in superficial visuals and technological implementation but completely different in terms of gameplay. Besides, if you enjoy a game and then development of that game stops, what's wrong with making your own?

I guess I think it's a bit of a tragedy that the most successful game since Doom was a copycat. It's also a shame that really creative game-makers, like ToadyOne or Zach, tend to not do that well - while Notch, who basically copied an entire game, presumably having even read the source code, is now made out of money. I've no idea about the exact mechanics of the copying - whether he just copied the idea, or copied th…

> I guess I think it's a bit of a tragedy that the most successful game since Doom was a copycat.

Infiniminer is a class-based team FPS in a closed arena. The only thing Minecraft shares with it is the block mechanic.

There's a mental quirk that seems to happen with game mechanics. Do something first, you're a genius; do it for the 100th time, you're iterating on classic gameplay; but do it for the second time, and you're a thief. I don't think it has to be that way.

> It's also a shame that really creative game-makers, like ToadyOne or Zach, tend to not do that well - while Notch, who basically copied an entire game, presumably having even read the source code, is now made out of money.

Last I heard, Toady was making $100,000+ a year off of Dwarf Fortress donations. Zach Barth has been making games full-time since SpaceChem, cranking out successful titles once every year or two for most of the decade. Notch, meanwhile, appears to be miserable, bitter, and directionless.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#167

Post by PhasmaFelis » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

earenndil wrote: post #45

gowld wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't infiniminer just a computerized copy of Lego. As the old saying goes, "If you could have invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook". Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything.

It's not even execution, it's luck (and marketing). Minecraft was marketed as a toy, even though 3d modeling tools already existed (I'm assuming) but they were marketed as professional tools for trained artists.

Minecraft wasn't marketed at all, outside of some posts on the Indie Gaming Source dev forums. Its explosive success was entirely word-of-mouth. Of course Microsoft is pushing it all over now that they own it, but it was a megahit long before that happened.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#168

Post by earenndil » Mon, Mar 12, 2018, 10:37 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #167

earenndil wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even execution, it's luck (and marketing). Minecraft was marketed as a toy, even though 3d modeling tools already existed (I'm assuming) but they were marketed as professional tools for trained artists.

Minecraft wasn't marketed at all, outside of some posts on the Indie Gaming Source dev forums. Its explosive success was entirely word-of-mouth. Of course Microsoft is pushing it all over now that they own it, but it was a megahit long before that happened.

I don't mean marketed as in they advertised it or whatever, I mean what it was presented as.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#169

Post by icelancer » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 5:27 AM UTC

gowld wrote: post #87

icelancer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Keynesian Economics, which ended the Great Depression This is a pretty bold claim and not one that should be stated as fact.

What are the competing theories? The most common one is "WWII", which is another way of saying "Keynesian Economics"

Luck and variance are pretty good explanations, though people tend to hate them. The idea that every thing in the universe has to have a specific cause and effect plagues a lot of "analysis" in today's world. We simply aren't built for accepting luck.

Re: Playing Video Games with My Son Isn’t What I Thought It Would Be

#170

Post by pasabagi » Tue, Mar 13, 2018, 11:00 AM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #166

pasabagi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I think it's a bit of a tragedy that the most successful game since Doom was a copycat. It's also a shame that really creative game-makers, like ToadyOne or Zach, tend to not do that well - while Notch, who basically copied an entire game, presumably having even read the source code, is now made out of money. I've no idea about the exact mechanics of the copying - whether he just copied the idea, or copied th…

> I guess I think it's a bit of a tragedy that the most successful game since Doom was a copycat. Infiniminer is a class-based team FPS in a closed arena. The only thing Minecraft shares with it is the block mechanic. There's a mental quirk that seems to happen with game mechanics. Do something first, you're a genius; do it for the 100th time, you're iterating on classic gameplay; but do it for the second time, and y…

I think the thing is, you give Zach money, he uses it to make even better games. He's clearly had a good artist helping him out with some of his recent stuff. You give ToadyOne money, he uses it to say 'I'm gonna spend the next ten years developing the magic system'. That's because they're exceptionally creative people. Notch comes across as more of an ordinary guy - smart, sure, capable, also, but fundamentally ordinary. So while if you gave Zach Notch-level money, I'd expect him to make Zachatronics into a game studio, or if you gave ToadyOne - I can't even imagine where that would lead. On the other hand, if you give most ordinary people shitloads of cash, it just makes them directionless, and puts them in a nasty position where they don't work on other people's projects because they don't have to, but they don't enjoy working on their own, because they're fundamentally not too good on new ideas.

So that's why it'd be nice when somebody who's come up with a really new idea meet some success - they'd probably have some ideas about what to do with it.