#WHY ISN'T BIG BOSS METAL GEAR SOLID REAL

[foxtheroxinsanity]

oh my goodness gracious.....

Big Boss in Snake Eater Remake (2024)

[marx-soul]

Metal Gear Solid characters and their fursona (according to a non-furry who knows a lot of furries)

Solid Snake: While he may have "Snake" in his code-name, he used to be a musher with over 50 dogs. You don't do that unless you really like dogs. Husky.

Otacon: After much consideration, I have settled on an albatross. No real reason, it's mostly a vibes thing.

Meryl: A red fox, for obvious reasons.

Colonel Campbell: An old big dog, the kind that looks a bit sad, like a St. Bernard.

Gray Fox: An arctic fox, not with its fluffy white winter coat, but rather its short summer coat.

Revolver Ocelot: Ocelot.

Liquid Snake: This guy is too lame to have a fursona.

Naked Snake/Big Boss: The first Snake. Coral snake. Venomous. It will be obvious why this specific snake was chosen in the next point.

Venom Snake/V: Milk snake. Looks a lot like the coral snake due to mimicry but isn't one. Not venomous.

Kazuhira Miller: Caribou. Lives in Alaska, not to be trifled with, but ultimately a prey animal who falls to a predator.

Solidus Snake: This man is a king cobra even. Fun fact! The king cobra primarily eats other snakes, and also is not a true cobra. I felt a snake was appropriate, considering his obsession with being a perfect clone of Big Boss.

Raiden: A big ol' scruffy street cat. Aggressive, sharp, and sorely lacked love and affection when it was young, just like Jack.

Sunny: With her tech prowess, she's gotta be a sparkly blue protogen.

Sniper Wolf: Despite her name, she'd be a wolfdog, not a full wolf. Both a reference to the wolfdogs she cared for in Shadow Moses and her last conversation with Snake.

Johnny Sasaki: A bat-eared fox, because of vibes + Meryl is also a fox.

There are many many more characters but I'm tired of doing this.

[zombified-queer]

Actually I lied. I'll take a crack at Madam Hotel's riddle at the end of The Gameshow.

"I once again stand beside you in flesh and bone."

Obviously we know she can take on the forms of the guests and did take on Judy Blashy's form once before. So she isn't just a Cosmic Horror watching but a very real flesh and blood person. Further evidenced by her being referred to as "Madam Hotel" in this episode where she's "The Hotel Herself" when she's not in flesh and bone.

"Unheralded as the purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space."

Of course the Real Hotel form remains a mystery even to her Staff and New Crew. She's meat and starlight and a building and a void and infinity. But, here, she's not showing that to them. And when they finally See her and the extent of her, there will be no warning. No "Hey gang, turn your unflinching gaze" kindness.

And this line is a reference to Metal Gear Solid (2: Sons of Liberty and iirc, it's when the Colonel begins glitching out for Raiden) which is Very Cool.

"Bringing myself from indescribable to perceivable."

She's flesh and bone. A person. Not the Horror (but she's really too big to JUST be a person).

"I ask you one question. Why have I chosen this form?"

Now THIS is the real meat of the question. Assuming she's taking on the body of Judy Blashy again, she's reminding them of certain Staff issues that resulted in her one and only (that we've seen but certainly not The First Ever) "summer in a human body" to an end. It's guilt and it's a warning. But it's also familiar. The Staff have come to know her interfacing with them directly as Judy Blashy's stolen face.

Of course, she could be taking on the form of another guest. This reminds the Staff (and New Crew) to be Aware that she's here. Even when she's indulging in a bit of self-exploration, she's trying to be a sort of Undercover Boss. Experience the Service and you see the REAL problems as opposed to what goes in the reports and audits.

Anyway the question's a really difficult riddle and the Staff, having experienced the Hotel as both The Hotel Herself and as Madam Hotel, would totally get it right. They know her. She knows them. A complete little ecosystem.

[yourmajestysworld-blog]

In game UX

In game UI and UX is a bit of a tricky one. There was two things that would define this game, speed and style. Speed for the gameplay, style for the graphics. The idea is pretty simple, its everything else around it, that needs to support this ideal. This coincides with the game design choices, and just like with the gameplay, handling, sound design, the UI and UX needs to do so as well. For me, already having done a website and an app, this where the bulk of the challenge comes from for me. Other screens and UI are static. In game is not. This creates an entirely new set of challenges and considerations to tackle head on when designing the UI.

This creates an even bigger set of challenges when designing the UX for the game. The big three for this particular game are the following. How do I make the UI function without doing the following

Being too obtrusive

Being too out of the way

Being visible at all times WITHOUT interrupting gameplay (e.g. having to look away from the action at a UI element)

Breaking immersion of the games world (the “gamey” point)

Presenting the information in a way that suits the gameplay’s themes AND the UI themes at the same time

Now, to me, much of this sounds like common sense. But not everyone is a gamer to the point where they notice subtle changes, or even subtle artistic decisions to support the design. To all five of these points will need to be explained for the more casual readers. The first is being too “obtrusive”.  

Obtrusion

Obtrusive game elements are probably one of the more annoying things a gamer can experience. The thing is, there’s no imaginary slider that tells you too much is too much. You add one thing, and suddenly, the UI is clunky and cluttered. This is very prevalent in AAA games in my opinion (ironically though, MMO games have this in spades at times, as you can see from the above picture), there has to be an aiming reticle, a mini map, a health bar, and whichever additional mechanic is on the screen. The problem of all this is obvious. Information overload. The way, in my opinion to avoid this, is to only have something appear on screen if it needs to be there. Others think this way too, considering how often its been utilised.

Being too out of the way

One of the key things to take note of in games, is where the users eyes are going to be centred. This is absolutely key for several reasons. Your eyes are effectively where the action happens. Things outside of this circle of attention, unless they identify themselves, do not exist. It is impossible to overstate how important this is. Not just for the game as a whole, but for UX. Have you ever played a game where something “suddenly” hit you without a chance to react? The disregard of this principle is precisely why. This rule alone, is why many games have a sound cue that plays when important events (such as your health bar being low), otherwise you would just die “suddenly”. If you didn’t have this, you realize that you would have to take your eyes off of the action, which could lead to you making a mistake you can’t realistically react to. Think about where you would focus your eyes in that picture, and then look at where the health bar and the ammo is. 

For the record, war-frame is very much a one hit kill game at higher levels.  I can personally attest to this. Digital extremes knew this UI didn’t cut it and redone it. Sadly, the same problem persists.

The map and health bar might as well be invisible. Don’t get me started on the ammo counter neither.

See how just one small removal of an element transforms a game from “challenging” to “false difficulty” This is what happens when a UI element, is shifted out of the way without its regard for importance to the scene at large.

There is an entire page worth of these sorts of bad experiences on TV Tropes. Under the page “fake difficulty”

See here - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

Ultimate I am saying that it is imperative that the UI is visible at all times WITHOUT interrupting gameplay (e.g. having to look away from the action at a UI element)

This is the true hard part. Because not only is it somewhat subjective, but its also important to the point where it can break the experience do to what I mentioned before. The game that I look to for reference on this, is actually the street fighter series. From Super street fighter 2 turbo (where the series added supers), this was handled expertly. They’re placed in a way that you can always keep an eye on them, but not so far off to the point where again, you have to actively search for them. The health bars are handled the same, keeping the user constantly informed of what is going on, without them having to force feed it into themselves. Fighting games have this the hardest, because they’re arguably the most intense genre of competition, as they’re solely player vs player, not team vs team, so all of the work has to be done yourself.

This manifests itself into my game, because whilst its not this intense mentally, there is a lot of action In the game and it is very very fast paced, being comparable to the wipEout games of old. A split second lapse results in a crash every time in this title, so the user cannot and shouldn’t have to ever take their eye off of where the camera directs them.

Breaking immersion of the games world (the “gamey” point)

This tends to apply to more realistic games, (you wouldn’t have a mini map on the corner in real life for example) but the root of it is, anything that breaks immersion and reminds you “you’re playing a video game”. It doesn’t really matter on the direction of the game, its just a far easier rule to break when your game is realistic, because your mind will be trying to differentiate what is going on, and then notice things that are awry.

hyper realistic shooter...with a health bar. also, note where its placed. 

This doesn’t “sound” like much in the way of UX, but immersion is a key factor to video game. The user wants to be led on, they want their suspension of disbelief to be satisfied, they want to feel like their a part of the world they are interacting in, and that in a way, that world could feasibly exist. When this is done right, this difference is immeasurable. This is, ultimately what sets trend setting video games, like metal gear solid, goldeneye 64 and doom apart from other competing titles.  

Everything has to be considered here, the immersion isn’t part of the UX, it IS the UX. If this breaks at any moment, the design is a failure.

Presenting the information in a way that suits the gameplay’s themes AND the UI themes at the same time

This is another one of those “needs to be explained” sort of things. What it boils down to, effectively is this. Gaming is a medium, much like books, much like film. Gaming has a different set of tools that can be used to present its information, its story, and its theme. Once again, the main rule prevails and is always at work here.

Show, do not tell.

The problem is. Gaming is a different medium. Showing in a movie, is not the same as showing in a game. Showing in a book, is not the same as showing in a movie.  

To tell in a movie, is to have pointless expedition (normally a conversation) that just reveals a plot point. An example is someone talking about someone's abilities, but this never being shown. This is known as an informed ability.  

To show in a movie, is to have a plot point presented to you with action. Action speaks louder than words. It doesn’t have to be a big micheal bay explosion, it can be in body language. This is shown masterfully in the wire.

In games, you can not, I repeat, can NOT use this same principle. To tell the player something, often means to take control from the player, and play a cutscene.

Nine times out of ten, this cutscene can be playable.

To show a player, have them experience what you want them to experience. The designer is the master of the show, he can dictate what the user needs to feel and when.

Always show, never tell.

This distinction is absolutely important to make, because it a lost art in gaming. Many of the most iconic moments, are cinematic in ways only gaming can be. Let’s take a look at this iconic scene. The psycho mantis boss fight. Half way through the boss fight he scans your memory card and reads it. For reference. Psycho mantis is a psychic who reads and controls the minds of his foes. For any first time player, this throws you in a loop. The user isn't’ told he is psychic, they’re merely shown it when they have to fight their friend. But in this moment? The player is SHOWN that the man is a psychic. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0oHnGM_iQw

This, in any other medium is simply not possible. The character is reading game data,  and using it to comment upon the player. This was ground breaking at the time, and in many ways it still is. It highlights how to “tell” in a game and how to “show” in a game (because the scene where he possesses the woman COULD be done with gameplay, simply have her attack you out of nowhere whilst on your side, but I digress. it’s a classic moment regardless)

So how does this apply to my game? Simple, the game is stylish and fast. The UI and UX needs to convey that in a way that only a game can. This means that with the design of the UI the user at all times must have control, even something small like manipulating the UI to coincide with the speed of the game, adds to the dramatic effect that I am trying to sell to the user.

Once again, immersion isn’t part of the UX. Immersion IS the UX.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

 [Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include CIA board games, the art of escape rooms and The Oregon Trail's genesis.

Huzzah - have managed to get the newsletter out extra early this weekend - wonder if it helps with open rate? There's over 400 of you on this list currently, by the way, plus I tend to get 700-1,000 page views on the Gamasutra crossposted version. I'd call that a good result in today's micro-attention intellectual economy. (But I want more, of course.)

Anyhow, quite a bit happening this week - and in addition to the YouTube GDC talks I posted below, the GDC Vault is up, with 170+ free videos from the 2017 show, hundred of free slide decks - and 500+ videos in total if you were a select GDC passholder. Not linking individual lectures from there because I'll be adding the YouTube versions as they gradually get xposted over the next few months, but there's some amazing talks out there - thanks again to all our speakers.

- Simon, curator.]

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Escape to another world (Ryan Avent / The Economist 1843 Magazine) "Like millions of people of a certain age, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) had occupied a crucial place in Mullings’s childhood. It introduced him to video gaming, gave him a taste for it, made him aware of the fact that he was good at it: a “born gamer”, in his words. Yet the pixelated worlds of the Mario brothers, for all their delights, were nothing like the experiences available to gamers today."

'Witcher' Studio Boss Marcin Iwinski: 'We Had No Clue How To Make Games' (Chris Suellentrop / Glixel) ""We were small, unknown guys from Poland," Marcin Iwiński, the co-founder of CD Projekt Red, said last year when The Witcher 3 beat out games like Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid V, and Bloodborne for the Game of the Year award at the Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco."

The Shrouded Isle and embracing darkness in games (Katherine Cross / Gamasutra) "PAX East’s indie offerings sometimes have unexpected themes emerge from the potpourri; a couple of years ago it was young women as detectives. This year, a subtle current among the games on offer was exploring life in cults from the inside."

Why math is strangling videogame morality (Jody Macgregor / PC Gamer) "What's disappointing is that in the 22 years since Ultima IV, the math governing most morality systems in games has gotten more complicated, but it's still math. And it's still there. When our behavior is tied to an equation we've been trained to understand over the past two decades of gaming, the exciting nuance that should lie at the heart of moral decisions tends to disappear."

The CIA uses board games to train officers—and I got to play them (Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica) "The two groups of South By Southwest attendees split up in this conference room hesitate to get up. They were testing out the weirdest training exercise the CIA has ever publicly revealed: board games. These aren't off-the-shelf games; instead, CIA officers designed and assembled these elaborate tabletop games to reflect the realities of the CIA's day-to-day operations."

Balancing survival gameplay and RPG progression in Conan Exiles (Alan Bradley / Gamasutra) "Funcom's Conan Exiles, one of the latest challengers to the throne that Minecraft built, pushes this kind of progression to the logical extreme, not only tying player’s stats -- things like strength and stamina -- to its leveling, but also locking the majority of its buildings and tools behind it."

What it’s like making games in Pakistan (Basim Usmani / Polygon) "Chappal Strike, a play on shooter Counter-Strike, is a student-made game in which the player launches chappals — Pakistani sandals — to take down army helicopters. The game is rooted in one of Pakistan's darkest moments of 2016."

Are Teenagers Replacing Drugs With Smartphones? (Matt Richtel / New York Times) "With experts in the field exploring reasons for what they describe as a clear trend, the novel notion that ever-growing phone use may be more than coincidental is gaining some traction. Dr. Volkow described interactive media as “an alternative reinforcer” to drugs, adding that “teens can get literally high when playing these games.” [SIMON'S NOTE: not really sure where this theory fits into app refreshing, games and endorphins, but flagging it as intriguing.]"

Arcade Photographs, Arcade Comics, Arcade Tales – A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade (Alan Meades / mediaXstanford / YouTube) "Alan Meades, Senior Lecturer in New Media Theory in Canterbury Christ Church University’s Department of Media, Art and Design presents his arcade culture research project, Arcade Tales, which uses comic books as a way of communicating and capturing oral histories from British arcades, and also a selection of rare and previously unseen arcade photographs from Canterbury Christ Church University’s George Wilson Archive."

The story of Crash magazine (Graeme Mason / Eurogamer) "If, like me, you were a ZX Spectrum fan growing up in the 80s, one of its trio of passionately assembled and dedicated magazines was an indispensable read... Sinclair User was the longest serving, and had a drier tone; Your Sinclair (formerly Your Spectrum) gleefully brandished its off-the-wall humour in each issue, and is especially revered today. But for me, and many others, our magazine of choice was the appropriately-titled Crash, published by Ludlow-based Newsfield."

Choices, Episode (Emily Short / Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling) "There are several thriving brands of interactive fiction on mobile that tend not to get a huge amount of coverage in the traditional IF community, despite their large player base. They’re placing well on the app store, though, and GDC talks increasingly cover them — so I went and had a look at a couple of the main contenders. [SIMON'S NOTE: Also see How Episode became the world's biggest interactive fiction platform.]"

Board Game Design Day: The Making Of 'Pandemic Legacy' (Matt Leacock & Rob Daviau / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 talk, 'Pandemic Legacy' creators Matt Leacock and Rob Daviau walk through the thought process of creating the popular board game, looking at the design challenges (and solutions), where the team behind Pandemic went right, and where they went wrong."

How to Make an Escape Room (Laura Hudson / Feminist Frequency) "Laura E. Hall wants you to get out; she really does. As an escape room designer, she’s created numerous live-action mysteries where teams of intrepid players sealed in a real-life room must rifle through clues and solve puzzles in hopes of getting out before time runs out."

Meet the Swedish Politician Who Streams 'Hearthstone' (Luke Winkie / Glixel) "There is a unique tranquility in watching a man calmly break down Scandinavian political policy while piloting a Beast Druid deck. So if you're like me and you're in need of a reminder that government isn't always stupid and evil, I highly recommend the Hearthstone Twitch stream of Rickard Nordin."

LawBreakers isn't trying to be an Overwatch killer (Tom Marks, Mark Paget / PC Gamer) "First-person shooters had a big year in 2016, something that wasn't necessarily expected when Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski and Boss Key Productions revealed LawBreakers in 2014. Since then, Overwatch has sort of become the de facto leader of the character-based shooter movement, but when we met up with Bleszinski at PAX East 2017, he told us that he isn't trying to make an Overwatch killer."

Prompto's Facebook: How a Buddy-AI Auto-Snapshots Your Adventure in FFXV (Prasert Prasertvithyakarn / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, Square Enix designer Prasert Prasertvithyakarn describes the creation of Final Fantasy XV's photo system that allows Prompto to document your epic road trip on a quest to save the world."

Classic Game Postmortem: Oregon Trail (Don Rawitsch / GDC / YouTube) "In this GDC 2017 postmortem, Oregon Trail creator Don Rawitsch sets off on a journey to explore the development of this classic educational game that took the world by storm."

How Osiris: New Dawn calculates monster crab scuttling (Philippa Warr / RockPaperShotgun) "So I’ve played enough of Osiris to know that you’ll be minding your own business, looking at a tree, and then a crab will come and try to cave your skull in. It’s not a proper crab in the sense of earth taxonomy because it has four legs, but it has a carapace and a set of angular legs that have a very crab-ish/lobster-y aesthetic."

Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams talks about simulating the most complex magic system ever (Wes Fenlon / PC Gamer) "Forget what you thought you knew about the infamous complexity of Dwarf Fortress. We haven't seen anything yet. Dwarf Fortress hasn't been updated for a year, because developers Tarn and Zach Adams have been preparing it for the most ambitious magic system ever implemented in a videogame."

'Nier: Automata' Director Taro Yoko Doesn't Envision a Happy Ending for Humanity (Matthew Walden / Glixel) "Nier: Automata has finally thrust the reclusive Yoko into the spotlight, with its impeccably polished action offering a more accessible entry point to his fascinating universe filled with heartbreak and introspection. Recently, Yoko has become equally recognized for the grinning, skeletal mask he dons in public, as well as his cryptic and playful answers to interview questions. So it's a particular treat to have a candid conversation with him about his career and legacy so far."

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to vgdeepcuts@simoncarless.com. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]