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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

#571

Post by incrudible »

meheleventyone wrote: post #548
incrudible wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I can say to you is that the nonchalance with which you throw around words like slavery or fascism is gonna do nothing but get your bozo bit flipped. It is not going to help any cause you may care about, valid and righteous as it may be.

Isn’t this just telling on yourself though? If you’ll flip the “bozo bit” over mere aesthetics of word choice you’re probably not a serious person to begin with.

I don't think it's merely an "aesthetic choice" when it comes to words like slavery or fascism, but even then: aesthetics matter. We all know the guy that always speaks in hyperbole. We learn to not take anything he says seriously.

The reason the advice is "do not flip the bozo bit" is because the default is to flip it. It's what people do naturally. If you're running around getting bozo bits flipped, you better know what you're doing.

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

#572

Post by sarchertech »

bmn__ wrote: post #553
sarchertech wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People laugh at games with thousand-case switch statements or if/else chains but they shipped You have a very incorrect view of both of them if you think this is the kind of thing they are arguing against.

This refers to the decompilation of Yandere Simulator. This argument really happened. There is a whole rabbit-hole on Youtube if you care to confirm.

I can’t find anything about Casey Muratori or Jon Blow discussing Yandere Simulator.

But even if they did comment on the quality of the code, when they talk about so simplicity they are generally talking about avoiding unnecessary abstractions (usually OOP abstractions), not any of what the OP is talking about.

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

#573

Post by spicyusername »

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

He mentioned in a recent interview the trailer ended up getting rushed due to complexities working with the companies who edited it and the conference timeline, and that he is also somewhat unhappy with it.

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

#574

Post by sarchertech »

krapp wrote: post #460
TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a lot of people go after Jai because of what Jon Blow says about XYZ political issue. Jai seems perfectly reasonable for at least the narrow task of making games in an indie studio. The macro capabilities might be terrifying in a large enterprise, but if you're handrolling all your own code and don't have to worry about a software supply chain, who cares?

I go after Jai because I think the problems it is purported to solve are better and more readily solved with existing frameworks, libraries and engines, and I think the programming language itself is entirely too low a level for these things. You don't need to design a specific language to implement structs of arrays, you can just... do that.

Jai hasn’t even had the whole array of structs to struct of arrays thing in years.

Also speeding up compilation time really does require a new language or at least a new compiler.

And why would you “go after” any language. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. The only thing going after it is going to do is to drive up the engagement metrics and make it more popular.

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

#575

Post by spicyusername »

It's interesting to me how Blow seems to ruffle so many feathers.

I don't really get it.

He's made two well received games, now a third one and an entire programming language, and anytime I tune in to his content he seems like a competent programmer with the kinds of opinions you'd expect from any kind of craftsman: sharp and borne out of their own personal experience. I never hear anything that strikes me as inflammatory.

What's there to fuss about? If you disagree with one of those opinions, great!

Maybe this is just what experiencing the world solely through the internet does to people. Makes them prickly and uncalibrated.

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

#576

Post by krapp »

sarchertech wrote: post #574
krapp wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go after Jai because I think the problems it is purported to solve are better and more readily solved with existing frameworks, libraries and engines, and I think the programming language itself is entirely too low a level for these things. You don't need to design a specific language to implement structs of arrays, you can just... do that.

Jai hasn’t even had the whole array of structs to struct of arrays thing in years. Also speeding up compilation time really does require a new language or at least a new compiler. And why would you “go after” any language. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. The only thing going after it is going to do is to drive up the engagement metrics and make it more popular.

>And why would you “go after” any language. If you don’t like it, don’t use it.

We are on a discussion forum. One of the common use cases of a discussion forum is criticism and debate. Yes, we could all simply use the tools we want, and not use the tools we don't, and not waste time expressing an opinion either way, but again this is a discussion forum.

And it's not as if I posted "Jai delenda est" here, I think my opinions are mild compared to what people here have to say about javascript, or C++ or PHP or any other language. I just don't think that a gamedev specific language is a good idea, compared to implementing libraries and frameworks in an existing language. I don't like the bespoke languages used by frameworks like Godot or GameMaker either.

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

#577

Post by spicyusername »

jackling wrote: post #530
s3graham wrote: post #394

FWIW, Sean and Alan's contribution to puzzle designs: ref: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@nothings/115704420859870435 and: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@draknek/115704125102372454

Damn I thought STB and Jon were friends for a while. I find this indicative on how Jon has changed these past 5 years.

What do you mean by that?

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

#579

Post by spicyusername »

eudamoniac wrote: post #499

My seemingly unpopular opinion based on this thread: The Witness is the greatest puzzle game of all time. My spouse agrees. You either get it or you don't.

I'm having the same feeling, reading these comments, hah!

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

#580

Post by spicyusername »

socalgal2 wrote: post #417

I hate this kind of headline. No, Jonathan Blow did not spend the past decade designing 1,400 puzzles. A team of developers made 1,400 puzzles and Blow directed them. This headline is like writing "Walt Disney hand drew 60,000 frames of Snow White". (correct me if I'm wrong)

Do you have a source for that?

I always got the impression it's been mostly Blow and a partner working on Jai and this new game.

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