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Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

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Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#121

Post by arrrg »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #97
arrrg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was pretty clear that I was not talking about muscle strength, you know. (And if you want to get down that route, I’m willing to bet that in general, overweight plumbers have less jumping ability than fit women.) Also, I’m a shy introvert and I certainly do not want to demean anyone who is also that – I don’t think I did, actually. There is nothing wrong with shy and introverted characters, even weak chara…

Nintendo's Metroid franchise has already been mentioned, and then there's the Zelda franchise (where despite the fact that the main character is male, Zelda is actually a strong character who tends to be a victim of circumstances beyond anyone's ability to control, and in some instances fights shoulder-to-shoulder with the protagonist), and others outside of Nintendo as well (Tomb Raider?). It may seem like a larger…

Zelda? Zelda?!

You are ridiculous in bringing that up as a positive example. I’m baffled. Also, Tomb Raider has quite the problematic history (that the new game luckily avoids).

Obviously, counter-examples do exist. It has been getting better. All that is true.

But we aren’t there yet.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#122

Post by anon808 »

Camillo wrote: post #75
arrrg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s pretty normal if you are tired of the constant portrayal of women as weak, helpless and passive in certain media. What’s so wrong with calling out lazy storytelling based on dumb stereotypes? How can you even have a problem with that? I also like how you just declare something harmless. Why, exactly? It’s a part of video game history that lives on and is anything but harmless. Calling out crap is wrong –…

First, women are smaller and weaker than men, on average, and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes reality has a conservative bias, you know? (But it would be more accurate to say that traditional ideas often have some basis in reality.) Second, I don't see why you have to demean all the men and women who are weak and passive. Their lives are perfectly worthwhile too, and they have something to contribute other…

instead of focusing on groups why not focus on individuals. women as a group maybe have specific characteristics, but when was the last time you had to deal with women as a group? you deal with individuals, so why not focus on individuals?

I'm sure i could find a woman that's stronger than you, in that circumstance, it doesn't matter that men as a group are on average stronger than women as a group.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#123

Post by boomlinde »

newnewnew wrote: post #53
arrrg wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s pretty normal if you are tired of the constant portrayal of women as weak, helpless and passive in certain media. What’s so wrong with calling out lazy storytelling based on dumb stereotypes? How can you even have a problem with that? I also like how you just declare something harmless. Why, exactly? It’s a part of video game history that lives on and is anything but harmless. Calling out crap is wrong –…

Down with the sexists who believe that humans exhibit sexual dimorphism!

Yes, let's be realistic here. Men are a lot more likely to end up in situations where they'll have to save someone from a giant gorilla. To put sexual dimorphism into question by suggesting that a woman could as well save a man from the giant gorilla is a slap in the face of biology! That would be unrealistic and unfair to men, women and giant gorillas alike.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#124

Post by alanctgardner2 »

sophacles wrote: post #80
alanctgardner2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people insist on foisting "software literacy" on the general populace? In terms of skills, financial planning, cooking, interpersonal skills are all more essential than reading and writing code. The writing analogy is off anyways: not everyone can write very well. People would upvote -and buy- a children's story by, say, neil gaiman. This is not the equivalent of a throwaway story made up on the spot.

I will never ever publish for money. WTF do i need to write for? I will never ever work in finance. WTF do I need financial planning for? Oh, I need to write because it is a common form of communication, whether or not I'm a writer. Oh, I need to understand how to my money, even if I pay a guy to do my taxes, and help me plan my retirement, because I need to have basic abilities in budgeting, understanding consequenc…

Cars are also very prevalent, and surprisingly most of the people in my mandatory auto class in high school didn't give a shit. Just like the compulsory computing class they had to take.

How much programming knowledge is required to use a smartphone? This is the thing nobody in the software literacy camp seems to acknowledge: tightly integrated devices with walled-garden software ecosystems are the industry trend. Yes, some people in maths-heavy fields will need computing more and more: financial analysts, engineers. These people are already taking intro computing classes at the undergrad level (engineering computation is a prereq for mech eng where I study). But the average person with an iPhone isn't going to put up a hundred extra dollars to write an iPhone app to fix their own problems.

I think the longer you've been out of high school, especially if you're working or studying in an insular environment, you forget just how broad 'everybody' is. I know lots of people from my school who are now bricklayers, or auto mechanics, or grocery store clerks. Understanding a while loop has not substantially improved their quality of life, even though we had a kickass comp sci teacher. It's just not as relevant in daily life as we want to believe.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#126

Post by qu4z-2 »

derleth wrote: post #25
healsdata wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'll take his word at face value, the father didn't really have any motives aside from making his daughter happy. "My three year old daughter and I play a lot of old games. Her favorite is Donkey Kong. Two days ago, she asked if she could play as the girl and save Mario. She's played as Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2 and naturally assumed she could do the same in Donkey Kong. I told her we couldn't in that particu…

> If you'll take his word at face value, the father didn't really have any motives aside from making his daughter happy. But the author is dead, so we're bound to analyze this in terms of Theory and come to actual conclusions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author (Whether I'm being sarcastic is entirely up to you.)

> (Whether I'm being sarcastic is entirely up to you.)

This is the best part of the comment, even if there was a voice echoing in my head "What was the author's intention in writing that sentence?"

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#127

Post by qu4z-2 »

masklinn wrote: post #103
mturmon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overused in the sense of storytelling more generally, not Nintendo in particular.

Although they have certainly overused it since, Nintendo's two main franchises (Mario and Zelda) are "Damsel-in-distress" based.

I would argue that Zelda I is "explore this cool world"-based, with a bit of "damsel-in-distress" and "evil overlord" and "find the magical macguffin" bolted on.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#128

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

arrrg wrote: post #121
BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo's Metroid franchise has already been mentioned, and then there's the Zelda franchise (where despite the fact that the main character is male, Zelda is actually a strong character who tends to be a victim of circumstances beyond anyone's ability to control, and in some instances fights shoulder-to-shoulder with the protagonist), and others outside of Nintendo as well (Tomb Raider?). It may seem like a larger…

Zelda? Zelda?! You are ridiculous in bringing that up as a positive example. I’m baffled. Also, Tomb Raider has quite the problematic history (that the new game luckily avoids). Obviously, counter-examples do exist. It has been getting better. All that is true. But we aren’t there yet.

> I'm baffled.

I explained myself.

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#129

Post by Ideka »

hakaaaaak wrote: post #59

Dad of all/only girls here. Dying to get a hold of this rom. Hoping the author will post it and that Nintendo won't give him a hard time about his homebrew, considering the attention it is bringing Donkey Kong and Nintendo.

I believe posting the ROM would be ilegal. To share ROM mods, people usually share patches that can be applied with a certain program (like a binary diff, I'd assume).

Re: Dad hacks Donkey Kong for his daughter; Pauline now saves Mario

#130

Post by egypturnash »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #95
egypturnash wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding a tiny handful of female protagonists really doesn't change the fact that video games are pretty much a sausage festival, where women are typically presented as helpless prizes to be won or rescued. Despite what the high-budget video game developers think, video games are not played exclusively by guys. Girls play them too. And maybe we'd like to have some fantasies where someone like us gets to kick ass and…

If you're unhappy with the games that exist today, perhaps you could make one that suits your creative desires? (That is essentially how all of the existing games came to be.)

I'm afraid I'm too busy making the comic books I want to see in the world. (http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/)
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