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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

#391

Post by psyopsy »

__alexs wrote: post #156
mariusor wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share why these statements are controversial? They might be misguided or misinformed, but the underlying fact is that women are not as well represented in stem. Just because the reason it's more likely to be misogyny rather than any biological inclination, doesn't make it an outrageous statement in my opinion.

The difference in participation within STEM between men and women is not well explained by biological differences. Blow has repeatedly claimed that it is actually the primary factor and seems actively disinterested in other explanations. This is "controversial" in that it's a position that is not well supported by evidence and he has repeatedly used his platform in the past to make unsupported claims to the contrary.

When you say, "not well support by evidence," you're either wrong, anti-science, or lying. Numerous studies absolutely show very large average differences in interests based on sex. And those carry over into occupation preferences. Just one more recent study:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016726812...

Plus: Jon never said it's the "primary" factor, as you claim. He said it's a large factor, that doesn't apply at the individual level, but on average. Which is entirely factual and supported by copious amounts of research.

Just because people like you want to be offended by science, doesn't make it wrong, or controversial.

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

#392

Post by Capricorn2481 »

tommica wrote: post #360
ex-aws-dude wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, its completely ridiculous to rag on other programmers practices so much while you can't even finish your own project Its like everything these guys rant about you could add on the tagline "...yet the world keeps spinning and we all keep shipping things"

Not really. Let's reverse the situation on you - why should we take your opinion seriously, we have no idea how much you have shipped, if anything at all, so by your logic, your ragging on the other programmers practices is ridiculous. I've shipped a few things over the years, but doubt I have strong takes in programming, besides 'the "properness" of a variables name is dependent on the amount of lines between it's d…

It's not really the same. Casey is suggesting people that don't spend 10 years crafting everything from scratch are somehow "lesser than." The user you're replying to is pointing out that Casey has set a completely arbitrary rule for game quality that conveniently leaves out his inability to ship something, and that's funny.

We're not saying games taking longer than a few years are failures, we're saying good games can encompass both approaches. But Casey, and his followers, are doing purity tests to feel good about themselves.

And this is assuming the games they ship are even good or noticeable to the user. I don't much care for Braid or The Witness, and I don't want my favorite dev studios to suddenly write everything from scratch every time. I would have a lot less fun things to play.

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

#393

Post by Trasmatta »

hyperbolablabla wrote: post #134
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)…

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 game…

I've watched enough hours of his streams to know that this is NOT a reductive take. Blow is one of the most arrogant developers and game designers, and believes that nearly everyone else is an idiot.

He's somewhat Musk adjacent in his need to be viewed as smart (but I guess he does so least have way more programming chops than Musk, so I'll give him that).

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

#395

Post by [deleted] »

thenoblesunfish wrote: post #380
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…

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.

[deleted]

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

#396

Post by [deleted] »

jackling wrote: post #338
jsheard wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's no coincidence, Thekla employed Jack Lance to work on Sinking Star until his death in 2023. Not that you'd know from the marketing, which doesn't mention any of the puzzle designers involved aside from Jon Blow.

Is it typical for the marketing for a game to reference those who worked on the game? Those designers were employees of Thekla as far as I can tell, why would they get a shout out?

[deleted]

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

#398

Post by tzcnt »

blarg1 wrote: post #274
eps wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own. I found the Witness to be excruciatingly monotonous, forced and, ultimately, boring.

What did you think of the puzzles?

I found them quite boring since they are all repetitions on the same theme - just drawing lines on a square. It could have been a mobile game. The world doesn't feel connected to the puzzles, and the exploration aspect of it could have been a completely separate game. It feels like two games glued together, which is IMO not a good design.

It's also not a game that's very demanding from a technical performance perspective, and really has very limited numbers of active entities / animations, so why should I care about his opinions on game architecture or anything else?

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

#399

Post by Trasmatta »

saberience wrote: post #373
troupo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

+1 to all of this. I can no longer deal seriously with Blow's ideas, programming language, or games because he can't present any idea without being highly condescending and critical of just about everyone else. I'm glad I've never had to work for or with him, because he's the type of coworker or boss that constantly makes everyone's lives miserable.

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

#400

Post by psyopsy »

breppp wrote: post #113
mariusor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been watching Blow work on his compiler and game for many years. He has gone the deep end in his sympathies for Trump and Trump adjacents, but misogyny I've never witnessed from him. I think he is the latest victim of the Notch-Rowling slide into rightism. It happens when a relatively benign conservatives have opinions that get the internet mob riled up, bullies them, cancels them and thus makes them dig deeper…

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…

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