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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

#501

Post by eudamoniac »

embedding-shape wrote: post #23
tormeh wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the original puzzles were licensed for this game, in which case why not?

> These games are the starting point, but the bulk of the game is new puzzles combining mechanics from different games together. > I made two free games which were later licensed to be used and remixed in this project. Seems indeed to be the case. Blow designed (I guess) the mashup and "composition" if you will, but the puzzles themselves have all been designed and licensed by others, so seems the title of the HN sub…

The license was for the puzzle mechanics. Probably a few of the tutorial puzzles are the same, but Blow would not copy paste puzzles themselves. That would be both financially and artistically silly.

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

#502

Post by psyopsy »

onraglanroad wrote: post #486
psyopsy wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL. You're going to dismiss the study because of the justification for doing the study. Here, let me help you understand: "not fully understood" -> "so we studied it" -> "here's what we found" Besides that obvious point, the sentence you quoted says "not yet fully understood," not "we have no idea." Those aren't the same thing. We actually have substantial evidence pointing in a clear direction. - The most egalitari…

I didn't dismiss the study; I agree with it. Not fully understood. Think harder kid.

Gravity isn’t fully understood either. Guess we can’t say things fall down.

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

#503

Post by sunrunner »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #490
sunrunner wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not on Twitter and try hard to avoid the easy source-less Internet drama, though I recall some comments about the vaccines being rushed out and not going through the standard trial processes and periods. It doesn’t seem untrue, though given the environment at the time justified, but that comment was extrapolated to “He’s a hard-right anti vaxxer”. No citations of my own though, so this is just memory. Either way…

You are picking a small comment among a mountain of them and giving the most charitable possible interpretation of it. Strange for you to join conversation to defend the guy as you admit you have no sources to cite.

A mountain of comments that you or others are able to provide, I’m sure? You’re right, I don’t have any, I’m simply asking others that are making bold claims about so-called extremist views to provide appropriately sized sources.

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

#504

Post by jan_Inkepa »

mcphage wrote: post #241
jan_Inkepa wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interactions between the various mechanics in the games likely yield countless surprises, and let you build something considerably more elaborate than thesum of its parts..

The Puzzle Boy / Kwirk series of games is Sokoban-based, but has 3 different mechanics on top of that: turnstiles, pits (that can be filled by blocks), and blocks larger than 1x1. One of the things I love about it is that, each mechanic is interesting on its own, and each combination of mechanics results in levels with very different feels. Lots of puzzles with a bunch of mechanics try to throw tons of them into each…

(I'm a fan of Kwirk. I had it as a kid on Gameboy, and thought it would have aged badly, but no it's still good!)

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

#505

Post by Narishma »

krapp wrote: post #494
soniclettuce wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is he writing assembly for his syscalls too, or is it like, "no stdlib, except for real annoying parts"

At some point I think he caved and just started using OpenGL. I don't know because he turned off all of the comments on his youtube channel. I think the only thing he's demonstrated is how bad an idea "building a AAA game entirely from first principles" is.

He was not building a AAA game nor trying to...

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

#506

Post by jan_Inkepa »

kruuuder wrote: post #349
calmbonsai wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played The Witness and didn't find it remotely fun. I've enjoyed all of Blow's other titles. I suppose I was coming in with expectations of a modern Myst and/or Riven, but it was not that. There was not enough active narrative to keep me engaged with the puzzles and there wasn't enough "reward" in completing them.

> I've enjoyed all of Blow's other titles. "All other titles" would be just Braid, no?

I'm actually a fan of his game/prototype Painter from 2006 - was just talking about it today.

http://number-none.com/blow/prototypes/index.html

It's very different from his more recent stuff, but charming.

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

#507

Post by [deleted] »

jayd16 wrote: post #413
mvkel wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find that most development -teams- ship about one game every decade. It's hard to find examples of that not being the case.

What? Its about 3-5 years for a AAA game and you ideally pipeline things such that a studio is shipping somewhat frequently. Almost no one can front a decade worth of development without shipping anything. Where are you getting a decade from? Consoles ship more often then that.

[deleted]

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

#508

Post by bitexploder »

thrance wrote: post #450
bitexploder wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us are grossly unqualified to provide opinions on any domain save some hyper specialized domain we invest years of effort into. I always think about that when reading comments on the Internet :)

If only the tech gurus of the internet stayed in their lanes, or if people knew better than to take their beliefs from clueless entrepreneurs who got lucky once, the world would be a much better place. Alas, tis not the one we live in.

A lot of skills in say, running a business, really do transfer. It is possible to gain expertise on how to run a small business and translate that to other realms of running a business. But it is also important, perhaps critical, to recognize limitations. The less similar the situation and environment the less that will transfer. Some times enough transfers that the insights are useful. Some times it is actively harmful to apply previous approaches. Recognizing the differences and what transfers is much harder but also a skill. Becoming skilled enough to help up until your limitations is how you can continuously be successful in domains you have no right to be. The irony is even then you may still not really be able to offer helpful insight.

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

#509

Post by psyopsy »

__alexs wrote: post #477
psyopsy wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This study confirms that there is a gender difference but it doesn't explain why. I didn't claim that there were not differences, but that they were not well explained by biology.

Sex is the strongest single predictor of vocational interest orientation we’ve found. Nothing else comes close. If that’s not ‘explained by biology,’ you need to tell me what would be. Otherwise you’re operating on faith.

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

#510

Post by psyopsy »

__alexs wrote: post #475
psyopsy wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thekla currently has 10 core permanent employees. 5 of them are women, including their studio manager, creative and art Director, a programmer, and 2 additional artists. You can say whatever the hell you want. Or you could spend 3 minutes actually looking at public information to see if you're wrong.

I don't think these statements are contradictory.

Half his employees are women—including leadership, programming, and creative roles. If that doesn’t count as “thinking women have a role,” what would? 51%? 90%?

You’re relying on blatant social media mischaracterizations over real actions.

He actually employs women at parity. You feel like this is unwelcoming.

One of those statements is data. The other is fanfic.

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