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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

#371

Post by sunrunner »

stephc_int13 wrote: post #75
dwroberts wrote: post #9

Interested to play this but I think the trailer does it a huge disservice. Just a barrage of voice clips and no real structure to it. I think it would help the game a lot if they replace that trailer ASAP

I agree, a trailer should focus on emotional reaction, not a simple display of features or quirkiness (1400 puzzles,10 years of dev). Besides, the voices and writing are generic and maybe even AI generated. The witness had a really good promotion canpaign beautiful and intriguing.

> not a simple display of features or quirkiness (1400 puzzles, 10 years of dev)

I think a 'number of features' metric can work but only for players that already know and like your game, where an expansion with 'Five exciting new areas' is understood as something that they'd enjoy, and I agree it feels odd for a new IP.

Similarly, saying how many years it took isn't remotely a selling point for a new player. If you'd been following the development process then you probably wouldn't care, and if you hadn't you also probably wouldn't care.

It does seem awkward to have to design a trailer for a pure puzzle game, something that essentially relies on things going on inside a player's mind for fun, which by definition won't be visible.

Baba Is You did have something you can show potential players, but I'm not sure there's a trailer that could convey The Witness' 'Oh, I wonder if I can...' moment as it's a very internal experience that comes from playing enough to get to that point.

The Witness was, however, visually beautiful (IMO) and its symbol-based language let the trailer keep an element of mystery and intrigue. Order of the Sinking Star, while potentially also a fantastic puzzle game, seems to not be able to hide anything by nature of it being very clearly a Sokoban-like. Even if there are as-yet-unseen depths to how it treats the Sokoban format, the trailer needs something to work with, and while I think it also looks lovely it perhaps doesn't have the The Witness visual appeal or mystery to draw people in.

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

#372

Post by dymk »

sesm wrote: post #369
dymk wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unlikely that the Rust and Zig devs are looking at one guy's gamedev focused vlog compared to feedback from tens of thousands of engineers writing tens of thousands of public projects in Rust and Zig. Have they heard of Jai? Yeah probably. But it's barely a drop in the bucket as far as the PL design community goes.

So, everybody with a toy Github repo gets a sit in a Rust/Zig design committee? Not sure about Rust, but Zig seems to explicitly follow Cathedral-style development model.

I'm confused, that's not what I said or implied?

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

#373

Post by saberience »

troupo wrote: post #295
saberience wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

I think you're projecting a lot of your own complexes and insecurities. He built a language for a very specific task: building games. There were quite a few requirements for such a language. Opinionated? Yes. But that's how you get new languages: by having opinions. Along the way he changed the design and the assumptions several times (e.g. built-in SOA structures are gone) while keeping the original goal in mind and…

Eh, I can write that comment because it's fairly easy to see this side of JBlow if you've been following his work for a while. He is so naturally abrasive about other people's work, loves shitting on things he didn't make himself, loves being the smartest guy in the room, and also is a covid is a hoax, anti-vaxxer, Trump supporter etc.

I don't think I'm the smartest guy in the room, and that's OK. I realised a long time ago that ego/arrogance isn't a great quality and it's far better to have a strong network of friends and supporters, and that doesn't happen if you're an arrogant prick.

And yes, he built the language (which is totally un-needed) because the "idiots" who made all the existing languages, didn't make one as good as in JBlows brain. Despite the fact that there are 1000s of games which are far better than anything JB has made written in C#, C++, Java, Rust, etc. Did Larian need to write a new programming language to make Baldurs Gate 3?

Only JB is arrogant to think that only a new language is good enough for him to make a game with. A game that is just a modern spin on Sokoban and where he paid a bunch of other game devs to use their puzzles! You could write this shit in three.js and it wouldnt look or feel any differently.

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

#374

Post by Capricorn2481 »

deadbabe wrote: post #330
EvilTrout wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blow and Muratori gained a following of engineers by bashing existing popular languages and engines, claiming they were all garbage. They both started this after the Witness came out, 10 years ago. Since then, guess how many games Muratori has shipped? 0. (He cancelled his announced game.) Guess how many Blow has shipped? 0 so far, but it sounds close now. These engineers spent their time ragging on other developers…

The problem with people like you is you’re all about the money, all about the end product, never about the craft .

Someone can't honestly write this unless they aren't a fan of games to begin with. Are you saying the Clair Obscur devs don't care about their craft because they used Unreal Engine?

There is a massive gap between Handmade Hero and a bloated, unoptimized game. It's one thing to be a purist that wants to do everything Handmade Hero style. It's another thing entirely to claim people who don't do that are hacks who don't care about their craft. There is A LOT to game development other than writing things from scratch.

Casey has made great resources, but I understand OPs frustration. He's created a culture of devs that think people shipping games over 100mb are soulless profit chasers. Animal Well is awesome, but not everyone wants to spend 7 years making a platformer.

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

#377

Post by CupricTea »

uragur27754 wrote: post #133
jabbywocker wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wow, what a nauseating subreddit. They are notorious for poisoning the well, bad faith cherrypicking to misrepresent positions, and blowing their positions completely out of proportion, all for the sole effort of smearing whoever or whatever they make a topic about.

And everything in that post are bad faith links to secondary reactionary sources.

I don't really know much about Jonathan Blow or Jai or really follow it but it's astonishing to me that anyone could possibly take anything from that toxic subreddit with any sort of seriousness.

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

#378

Post by viktorcode »

__alexs wrote: post #6

The Witness was a slog, maybe he's learnt how to make puzzles which are actually fun this time.

Witness for me is one of the best puzzle games ever. If you are into that genre it is very hard to dislike it by any measure. But of course, puzzles might not be your cup of tea.

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

#379

Post by sesm »

dymk wrote: post #372
sesm wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, everybody with a toy Github repo gets a sit in a Rust/Zig design committee? Not sure about Rust, but Zig seems to explicitly follow Cathedral-style development model.

I'm confused, that's not what I said or implied?

> feedback from tens of thousands of engineers writing tens of thousands of public projects in Rust and Zig

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

#380

Post by thenoblesunfish »

EvilTrout wrote: post #204
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…

Blow and Muratori gained a following of engineers by bashing existing popular languages and engines, claiming they were all garbage. They both started this after the Witness came out, 10 years ago. Since then, guess how many games Muratori has shipped? 0. (He cancelled his announced game.) Guess how many Blow has shipped? 0 so far, but it sounds close now. These engineers spent their time ragging on other developers…

These guys are more like artists than engineers, right? I don't care if my favorite band only releases one album a decade, if it's good.
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