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Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

arstechnica.com

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Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#131

Post by creata »

embedding-shape wrote: post #24
serial_dev wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Does that change how good/bad the game someone releases is? Don't get me wrong, being obviously anti-scientist isn't that great if I absolutely have to judge them, but I'm not sure if that has any impact on how fun a game is. If I'd stop consuming stuff from people/organizations I disagree with politically, I literally would have to move into a cave and start my own hunter-collector society from scratch. Is this real…

> I'm not sure if that has any impact on how fun a game is.

It might if the game has a more-than-perfunctory story, because authors often incorporate their political or religious beliefs into their stories. (This is usually a good thing: most of the novels that people love would be nothing if stripped of those themes.)

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#132

Post by jstimpfle »

latexr wrote: post #66
incrudible wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is OK in the sense that these are not fringe opinions, they are part of the mainstream political discourse that, as a serious person, you can not effectively dismiss by throwing around certain bad words like fascist.

> these are not fringe opinions Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. > throwing around certain bad words like fascist Fascism has a very clear definition. It describes a particular set of behaviours and actions, all of which you can compare to reality and determine if it’s happening or not. It’s an objective word. If anyone is trying…

The therm "fascist" is definitely being thrown around like it was nothing, for the most unnewsworthy opinions or statements. There are definitely people who call anyone fascist who would dare to claim that there might be differences between the sexes on average for example. Doing so probably has a fascist element itself (not accepting different opinions). It's also unreasonable, and let me say _ridiculous_, to even doubt that there are certain differences. To be clear, it's of course not right to make any prescriptions what any specific member of a sex should or could do -- but that's a completely different thing.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#133

Post by uragur27754 »

jabbywocker wrote: post #108
simonask wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wonder how readily people would defend this viewpoint if they belonged to any of those groups whose "feelings" are typically being "hurt". I don't know about you, but there does not exist any amount of technical achievement that will make me brush off sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, or anything else. If you are going to be disrespectful to me or people I care about, we cannot work together, period. By…

Don’t follow him much but do you got any links discussing Blow being sexist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic?

This provides a good summary of the drama that he cultivates: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/s/aB0aOJ5cas

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#134

Post by hyperbolablabla »

saberience wrote: post #111
gortok wrote: post #99

The folks that dismiss JB’s work by saying “this could have been done in ” are missing the point of why anything is done. If you are entirely utilitarian in how you approach making a game (as in this case) then you’ll want to create as little as possible to make the game. An existing game engine, an existing programming language, existing libraries, etc. If your goal is the economic return that making a game will (ho…

Blow made his own language because he's so eye-wateringly arrogant and thinks every language (that he didn't make) sucks, and only he is smart enough to design a better language for programming games. Seriously, this is why he did it. His ego and arrogance is off the charts and if it wasn't made by him, he thinks it sucks (e.g. he doesn't like Linux, probably because he realizes Torvalds is actually smarter than him)…

This is a very reductive take.

Even if you don't like Jon, calling Jai an exercise in arrogance is simply untrue. When he started making Jai in ~2014, there were very few viable alternatives to C/C++ in the systems programming space that offered the kind of expressive power becoming of a langauge built this century. Rust is great, but it prioritising correctness is not always the right choice, especially not for games. Jai introduced many ideas that languages like Zig and Odin ended up adopting.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#135

Post by hian »

torginus wrote: post #78
piker wrote: post #10

I always find Jonathan Blow and Casey Muratori to be great educators and advocates on the “simplicity” end of the spectrum. Jonathan can be super abrasive and comes with some political baggage, but does a good job advocating against what he perceives as unnecessary complexity in software. Opponents would suggest his domain and cherry-picked examples create the perfect environment for his positions and that he does ta…

Political? The most political I've seen him get was when he spoke out against the idea of accepting technical compromises for the sake of not hurting people's feelings and being PC. As in, you get to be cranky as long as you're arguing for the highest quality solution

He streams on Twitch and often talks about politics. He's a big Trump fan for example.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#136

Post by phtrivier »

progbits wrote: post #37
phtrivier wrote: post #7

I wonder how much of the 10 years spent making "a programming language, an engine, and a game" were actually spent on each slice. Hopefully, jai and the engine will help make the next game faster...

It's hilarious he had to build a new language just so he could create a sokoban game with graphics of flash era. I'm sure it builds fast and whatever, but you could make this in python in few weeks.

Pretty strong comment to make given that you have most likely played 0 minutes of the game and used 0% of the underlying engine and languages.

That being said, it's a free country (sort-of). Go ahead and devote "a few weeks" to build "the same thing". We'll be patient.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#137

Post by armitron »

perching_aix wrote: post #128
armitron wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> a basic biological fact > looks inside > opinion He literally tells you that it's his bellyfeel: "I believe it is likely that (...)". Come on...

[flagged]

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#138

Post by hyperbolablabla »

mariusor wrote: post #118
martin_balsam wrote: post #30

This interplay between different worlds reminded me of Enigmash, by Jack Lance [1] [1] https://jacklance.github.io/PuzzleScript/play.html?p=cfdcc6e...

When Lance passed, it was one of the only times when I heard Blow be actually effusive about a person and their accomplishments.

He seemed very affected by his passing. You could tell how deeply he felt the loss of such talent from the world.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#139

Post by jstimpfle »

mariusor wrote: post #122
breppp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you identify the cycle of radicalization correctly but only on a specific side. There are people in this thread comparing Trump to Hitler. I don't think Trump is the US finest president but those of my family who weren't slaves for the Germans were slaughtered. The fact that people throw comparisons that are false on some massive scale around and it's completely normalized is an example why losing touch with…

I'm not sure what you're claiming in here. Is it that deporting immigrants, and taking rights from women is as bad as trying to get billionaires to pay more taxes and reducing systemic societal biases?

That's an extremely biased presentation of things on both sides.

Re: Jonathan Blow has spent the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles

#140

Post by incrudible »

latexr wrote: post #66
incrudible wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is OK in the sense that these are not fringe opinions, they are part of the mainstream political discourse that, as a serious person, you can not effectively dismiss by throwing around certain bad words like fascist.

> these are not fringe opinions Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally. > throwing around certain bad words like fascist Fascism has a very clear definition. It describes a particular set of behaviours and actions, all of which you can compare to reality and determine if it’s happening or not. It’s an objective word. If anyone is trying…

> Neither was slavery. Was that OK too? And to clarify (though it’s worrying this point needs to be made), I mean morally.

From the perspective of a pre-abolitionist society, it evidently was, but that's not a political issue you're gonna have to deal with in 2025. Consider yourself lucky.

> Fascism has a very clear definition.

First of all, that isn't true. Secondly, even if it was true, it wouldn't matter. You are using the word as a though-terminating cliché. That doesn't work in the long run, you'll just get ignored. As a result, you can pat yourself on the back for calling out fascism while all the behaviors and actions that you believe to be fascist are mainstreamed and affecting people's lives. If I was you, I'd be more worried about criticizing those behaviors and actions on their merits (or lack thereof), rather than trying to tie them to some textbook definition fascism and dismissing them wholesale.

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