#missed minecraft so i decided to download it again after years

[cinnamonwisp]

Minecraft house interior tour

[kriegsgeist]

It feels strange criticizing Skyrim because the game is legitimately good, yet the entire time I play it, I still can't help but feel something is really missing. You're the Dragonborn and you need to stop the end of the world, yet the game makes you feel like you're just some guy doing nothing but sidequests. I don't know if it's because I've done it a thousand times already or what, but I really can't give a shit about the story at all. If somebody ever asked me what Skyrim is even about, I don't even know what I'd tell them. I can tell them what it's ostensibly about, but is the game actually about being the world's greatest dragon slayer or is it about being a murder hobo?

The fun in Skyrim has almost nothing to do with the story but all the crap that gets you sidetracked from it. The dragons don't matter. The shouting doesn't matter. The pseudo-Viking aesthetic doesn't matter. You just build a random character and then go around doing random crap for a few hours at a time, then after a few weeks you finally get bored and stop playing the game for 8 months until you decide to start the cycle anew.

It's like Minecraft to me, where the first time you ever play, you're gonna be fucking hooked. You're gonna lose entire weeks to this goddamn game, but after awhile, the magic wears off, and you realize that this game holds no ultimate climax. It's like jerking off just to get it out of your system without a satisfying orgasm. It's an itch you just gotta scratch even though you know scratching it doesn't do what it used to. It's like getting food from McDonalds even though you know it doesn't even taste good anymore. Sometimes you try in vain to spice things up by trying to play in a new way. Maybe this time I'll download some new mods. Maybe it helps for a little bit, but ultimately it's futile. The tedium always wins.

Is this game even in any way rewarding for me to play or am I just doing it because I feel like I have to? Do I feel I owe some part of my identity to this game? Is this game, somehow, deep down, important to me, and I've just refused to let go of it, despite the fact that, consciously, I understand that playing this game will never again feel as good as it did the first time? Am I even capable of letting go of this game anymore?

I can tell myself to take a break from it, but I've done this before. It doesn't matter. Even if I do take a break from it, Skyrim is so deeply embedded in gaming's consciousness that I cannot escape it. No one will stop talking about this game. I cannot stop talking about this game. I can't get away from it even if I try. It's like Star Wars. It used to mean something to me when I would watch Revenge of the Sith after going without it for a few years, but now I can't do that because everywhere I look these days, I see fucking Star Wars somewhere. There's no break from Star Wars. There's no break from Skyrim. It won't leave. It refuses to leave.

Skyrim is now a part of me whether I want it or not. It's like the first time you jerk off when you hit puberty. You've unlocked a new need and now that it's here, you need to regularly satisfy that need in order to stop yourself from going insane. You know that, technically, physically, you don't really need to jerk off, and you don't really need to play Skyrim, but I know I can't get away from it. Everyone understands that it's only natural, but why do I feel so ashamed of it? Do I think I should be above Skyrim? I know I'm not, and I never will be. Not until I physically can't do it anymore.

[jcraftisreal]

2/07/2013

2 Years Later, Im So Glad I Haven't Forgotten About This, I Saw A Random Spanish Video From My Youtube Homepage, Showing How You Can Apparently Download "Minecraft For Free." I Don't Remember What The Title Was Called, Since I Don't Know Very Much. The Video Is What You Expect. Just A Usual "Helpful" Tutorial At Some Sort. Although, The Video Isn't Showing You How To Download Free Minecraft. But In A Different Way, The Person In The Video (Who Wasn't Talking In The Video) Is Making You Go To "www.minecraft.net/jcraft."[REDACTED] After Entering The Link, The Site Will Download A Jar File Called "jcraft.jar" Me Being Convienced I Entered The Link Myself, And As I Remembered, It Worked! The Site Did Download Something On My Computer Called "Jcraft.jar"! But, Why On Earth Though? Was Mojang Hiding This For Us Not To See!? After The Jar Fully Downloaded, It Only Took A Minute Or Second. I Went Ahead And Clicked The Jar File Myself. Seeing What It Was Like. :) After The Game Loaded. It Took Me To A Void Filled With Bedrock As Wall And Floor. You Can Move Around Too, And Its In FP. (First Person) I Went Ahead And Moved Forward, As What The Games Trying To Make Me Do. Oh Yeah! I Did Provide Screenshots, Take A Look.

After I Went Forward Like A Confused Little Mice, I Saw A Sign That Was Just There, And There Was A Huge Wall Of Wood Fences Behind The Sign For Some Odd Reason. I Went Ahead And Looked At The Sign, (See What It Says.) After I Looked, The Sign Said The Following "This Is Where Your Adventure Begins." After I Looked, The Game Was Cut To Black, And After A Second, The Game Showed A Official Menu For The Game! Welcome To Jcraft.

2/07/2013

Humble Beginning

Upon The Game Loaded Its Game Menu, I Realized The Game Was Playing A Slowed Down Version Of "Subwoofer Lullaby By C418." This Was 2011 At This Point. Here's Your Usual Game Options, 1. Start Game, 2. Options, 3. Quit Game. Then It Wasn't Very Usual When I Clicked On "Start Game." 1. 1x1 2. 2x2. 3. 3x3. 4. 8x8. Are These Generative Map Limits? Like Something YOU Would Do, I Went Ahead I Clicked On 8x8. And The Game Went Load, After The Game Had Loaded All We Now Officially See Is The Grass From "Minecraft" Itself! (Including The Trees Too.) The Gameplay Is Nothing Usual And Ordinary, But It Feels Different Though. I DON'T KNOW if Im Crazy Or Not. But, It Feels Oddly Different. All You Can Do Is Pure Minecraft, Break Things, Place Things, Break Trees Of Course. But Nothing Drops Out Of Them. Also, I Forgot To Mention These Weird Looking Steve Guys That Always Roams Around The Map. That Will Later Be Important Throughout This Story.

There Was Also A Map Barrier Which Prevents You From Leaving The Map, All You Can Only See Is Nice Blocky Water With Bedrock Under The Map. Also I Hope Im Not The Only One That Noticed This, Where Tf Is Rana? You Know, Those Cute Frog NPCs! Just Like Those Steve Guys! Unlike When I Played Minecraft, It Was Once Filled With Her! But Why In This Version Its Filled With Fucking Steves? I Guess We Will Never Know. Just Like Me Being A Silly Person, I Quit The Generated Map (I Was Playing On.) And Played The Other Maps, 1x1. You Name It. And, Its What You Expect. lol. I Got Stuck On Many Steves On 1x1. Kinda Hilarious lol. Although, This Game Doesn't Give Anything Else. Theres No Biomes Such As Sand, Just.. Grass. And Weird Steve Guys. Im Yet So Confused On Why Mojang Decided To Put The Download Link Up Publicly. I Guess We Will Never Know Further On This Point. I'm A Very Busy Man, So I'll Work On This Story Later On.

4/07/2013

Minor Discoveries (Not Yet Over.)

2 Days Later, I Decided To Play Jcraft Again. And As I Loaded The Game When I Clicked On The Jar File Again. HALF Of The Bedrock Walls Were Missing. I Go Check And See What's up, Theres A WHOLE Another Map Just Waiting To Be WALKED on! Even More Crazy Is There's A NEW NPC That Looks Like a Real Digger Unlike The STEVES. He Looked Just Like The Minecraft NPC Concept Art That I Saw 3 YEARS AGO.

He Looked He's Been Digging In The Grass! When I Walked Up To Him, He Said Something In The FUCKING CHAT. "Wanna Dig Boy?" Im Not Even Playing Multiplayer. His Name Is Literally "Digger" There's TWO NPCS ALREADY. This Literally Blow My Fucking Mind When I Played This 2 Literal Days Later. Anyway I Did What He Told Me To Do, I Thought For A Second To Wait For Him But No I Had To Go Down The Dirt Under The Grass. I Don't If The Dirt Walked Through Was A Maze, But I Walked Down Deeply, Upon Reaching To The End Of This "Dirt Maze." I Literally Saw Him Sitting In The Concrete Infront Of This.. White Abyss. Here's My Mockup Drawing Of It.

When I Saw That He Was Literally Sitting There All Alone, The Game Was Cut To Black, And The JCraft Menu Shows Up... Wtf.

I Also Forgot To Mention, I Played The Generated Maps Again And I Didn't Care Less. I Saw Literal Signs Out Of The MAP BARRIER. And They All Spelled "Nil."!

I Didn't Notice When I Played The Game, I DO Now. It Seems To Spawn In Possibly Many Occasions As We Generate A Map Again, I'll Put A Grid Up.

This Is Where The Sign Spawns Outside The Map Barrier. Here Are The Numbers: 2 3 1 4

I'm So Fucking Dumb I Haven't Realized This, When You First Load Up JCraft. Look BEHIND.

WTF WAS HE THERE WHEN I FIRST LOADED THE GAME? HOLY SHIT. you can't really walk up to him. there's an *invisible wall.*

The End

5/07/2013

Hold On, I Now Discovered That 2314 WAS A LITERAL FUCKING CODE. You Know Me, I Tried This In Game, Not In The Beginning Of The Game, MID Game. You Know, The Maps. First I Didn't Know How To Put In The Code. I Found Out You Literally Had To Type IT IN.

After Typing It In, The Game Will Look... Different.

This Weird Steve Character Just Standing There, And... He Looks All Black, Next Thing I Know. The NPC Starts Freaking Out And Says "LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE" In Chat, Shortly Later The Game Closed Itself, I Was A Little Freaked Out... wtf, I Decided To Play JCraft Again After What Happend, I Was Literally Shaking Beyond This Point.. After I Loaded JCraft Again, I Looked Behind Again. The Other Steve Wasn't There Anymore. Next Thing I Know, The Steve Ran Towards Knowing I Was Looking Behind. Once He's Finally Infront Of Me, He Said The Following Words, "What You're Seeing Isn't Real, You're Not Supposed To Be Here." I Stood Infront Of Him Literally Shaking, But I Knew I Could Type In Chat Because Y'know, Minecraft. I Said To Him, "Who Are You?" The Steve Said "Im NPC-04. I Lived Here All Alone." NPC What Now? I Actually Knew That Was More NPCS In This Game, There's More? Next Thing I Know, He Says "Follow Me." And He Went Away, Expecting Me To Follow Him, I Agreed And So I Did Follow Him, There's No Invisible Wall Anymore! I Can Fully Get Out In The Beginning Where I Couldn't Before! I Couldn't See Because Of The Fog, It Was A Long Run, And Once I Got Out Of The Bedrock Place, There Was Finally Another Map Just Like The Digger Man Maze We've Seen Before! And There Was A House Built With Stone Infront Of Me! Did He Built This When He Was Outside Of The Bedrock Place? & He's Been Staring At Me All This Time Through The Beginning? The Steve Or, NPC-04. Showed Me To His House, I Said "Did You Built This?" He Responded With "Yes, I Do Need To Talk With You." He Went Inside Of The House And Sat Down On His Stone Chair (I Didn't Know Chairs Were Implemented In This Version, lol.) I Did What He Did And We Sat Down Together, Once He Sat Down, Remember When He Was Staring At Me? I Said To Him "Why Were You Staring At Me From The Beginning?" He Responded Back With "I Was All Alone, I Felt Pretty Bad, We're All The Same." I Was Yet Confused, And I Said "What Do You Mean We're All The Same?" NPC 04 Responded With "You're Exactly Like Us, How We Look." Is He Saying We're Exactly LIKE Him? Are WE ALL STEVES? I Said, Why Weren't There No Animals? He Responded With "They're Not Here, It Depends On The Map Limit. Nothing Is Capable Beyond This Point. There's Only One Way."

I'm Still Yet Confused, I Said "What Do You Mean Nothing Is Capable, And What EXACTLY Do You Mean By One Way?" He Responded Back With "Do You Remember The Digger Man?" Yes, I Do Know Him! I Meet Him I Came Back To The Game Days Later! I Responded With "Yes." Then NPC-04 Responded With "He's More Powerful In This World, He Can Travel Through Time. He Can Reach Limits, He's Nocturnal. Can Meet Animals." I Responded To Him By Saying "What's His Real Name, NPC Whatever?" He Responded Back With "His Name Or ID Is NPC-10. He's The Tenth In This World, Not Beyond The Universe. What You Said About The Animals Is Not Beyond Either, But They Can Live Here, But They Will Die," Huh? Animals Dying In The JCraft Universe At Some Kind? How Is Digger Man Nocturnal? This Is Somewhere Relating To Death. I Said To Him "Are There Many Other Steves?" He Responded With "Yes, We're Too Many. They Didn't Mean To Create Us, Rana Is The Opposite." He Responded Again In The Chat Saying "Do You Know The Hanging NPC?" Now THIS IS GETTING Somewhere. I Said "Who Is He?" He Responded Back Saying "He's NPC-110011. He's The Real Threat To This World, He's Giving Us A Warning. We're All Gonna Die, Unless There's Hope And Rejoice." I Said To Him "What Do You Mean?" He Responded With "Life Gives Us Air, He Won't Live Without It, They Won't Care About Us." Me Having No Other Questions, I Said "Mojang?" But Then He Said "Jcraft." Huh!? Hold On, JCraft? Is It Depending On The Mojang Devs? I Said To Him "JCraft? What Do You Mean? I Hope Im Not Upsetting You." He Said "JCraft.net. They Still Haven't Cared About Us. They're Different Then Mojang, They Didn't Mean For This To Happen." He Said Something Again Saying "We're Having Support, We're Finally Getting Love, There's Hope." How!? That Hanging Guy Was A Threat To Them!? I Said "How Is There Hope?" He Said "I Wouldn't Say Because We Have You. Something That Keeps Us Track. We Geninuely Care & We're Finally Getting Rejoice, The World Knows Aswell." Does He... Know How I'm Feeling? I Was Actually Worried For Him Or What's Happening To Him I Didn't Need To Bother Mentioning This In The Story. Since Half Isn't Worth It. I Said "You Know How I'm Feeling?" He Responded Back With "We're Souls, We Do Care No Matter What, We're Rejoice." From This Point It Sounded Like A Religion. I Said To Him Since He Knows How I'm Feeling "How Are You Guys Getting Rejoice?" He Said, "We Built Something Made Up, It's Entirely Different. You Wouldn't See It In Reality, Because It Worked."

So... I Guess There's Already Hope For Them It Feels Like. Its Like A Schrodinger's Cat Situation Where They All Live. Even If They're Abandonded. I Said To Him "What About The Digger Man?" He Said "I Don't Think He Cares. He Will Die If He Doesn't Join Us." I Start To Get Pretty Bad For Digger Man, He Felt Like A God Because He Can Stay Up At Night, Apparently There's A Day And Night Cycle In Game, But Who Knows He Felt A Bit Cruel Just Because He Wasn't A God I Would Feel The Same Way Too. I Said "Is Everything Here Not Real, Are You Still Gonna Appreciate Everything We Do?" He Said "We Embrace In Our Hearts, We Don't Fear. We Rejoice." He Responded Back Saying "Theres A Downside. You Will Completely Get Taken Over." And Then The Game Closes. THIS. Was Something Unexpected. I've Never Seen A Minecraft Game Like This, Although THIS WAS ON The Minecraft Website Itself! Actually Felt Kinda Sad, And Once I Knew. I Clicked On The Game Again, The Game Was Normal Again, I Looked Behind, He's There Again, Watching Every Step I Make. :)

8/07/2013

Conclusion

Sooo, This Marks The End Of This Whole JCraft Trilogy. Through The Beginning, I Actually Knew That "Jcraft" Was A Placeholder Name For Minecraft. Heres Proof.

I Don't If Its THE REASON Why Its In The Minecraft Site In The First. But There. I Heard Rumors That The Digger Man Can Been Seen On The IOS Version Of Minecraft! The IOS Version Was Made On 2011! It Could Be Possibly Where JCraft Was Released On The Same Year Too! Was The IOS Version The Cause Of JCraft's Existence? Who Knows. I Noticed The Characters In The Game Are Docks Work! (Notch's Friend) I Have No Idea If He Has Any Afiliration With The Company JCraft.NET But Im Not Entirely Sure, Im Just Gonna Say No. EDITED: When I Played JCraft After All Of This Happend I Went To The Generative Maps. And I Actually Noticed A Quite Familiar NPC That NPC-04 Told Me, THE HANGING STEVE. I HAVE NOT SEEN HIM FROM THE BEG I Also Forgot The Mention What NPC-04 Said "We Built Something That Keeps Track." He Actually Kinda Refers To The Beacon From Minecraft That Was Worked On Last Year After I Am Writing This! This Could Mean What NPC-04 Said Was True! The Steves Are Still Alive! And Not Digger Man Though. Rest In Peace.

FIN.

[datingadviceonreddit]

So this is probably going to be like any other "Does A girl like me" post but I genuinely have no experience with relationships and the only male role model I have is unavailable ATM.So to start of the 4am tirade allow me to set the scene. I'm an 18 year old male, I would consider myself to be attractive if I wasn't overweight (6ft5 at 330lbs) I'm also a huge nerd/geek. The girl in question is an 18 year old girl I have known since middle school who I now go to the same college with who is very smart and attractive. I have liked her since 10th grade so I'm trying to figure out if she likes me as well or if I am reading to far into it as I suspect.We became good friends in sophomore year of highschool when she and her friend would hang out in my history class during their blank period. We were pretty close and we played Minecraft together (I know I'm a huge nerd). She ate lunch with a group of our mutual friends and I everyday at school. We had a snapstreak of 200 days at one point but we lost it and didn't start it back up. Something happens where we had to stop playing on that Minecraft server because of drama between a friend of hers and one of mine who also played on the server, that was the end of sophomore year.Come junior year we don't really talk as much because we aren't playing games together and our class schedule lines up less. she sti has lunch with our friend group. She gets a boyfriend and he also joins our group for lunch( pretty nice guy, nerdy and also a bit overweight thus perpetuating my hopes).Not much else happens senior year except I start Adavanced College and so does she (you get to start college a year early and go to the local community college on the schoolboards dime). Nothing really happens the first half of the year, I don't see her any because I go to a different campus half the week and our schedules don't line up. In the fall I turn 18 and around the same time frame so does she. around new years I decide I'm tired of being single and download Tinder. Within a few days I see her profile appear on my tinder. I swipe right without thinking or even reading her profile. The next day I get a message on Snapchat that says "Dude, you have a Tinder 😂" and I reply with "you have a Tinder 😂" because I'm just that smooth /s. Anyway we talk for a bit, I mention I thought she was still dating the guy from before, she says it's bold of me to assume things don't change because we don't talk much anymore. I say "that's not my fault lol, I like talking to you but then we lost our streak and stopped talking as much" I also say" we should play some Minecraft or something sometime, most of my friends just play league of legends and fortnite now and I miss building stuff. She says sure she's down for that. We play on a server and talk on discord and catch up.I go to her show she directs for the school theatre with a friend of mine who she also knows and talk to her after. My friend thought she wasn't talking to him much (my best friend and the only person who I told I like her) so that looks good for me. Both her and I got a bit busier but we still we're still messaging on Snapchat.We don't have any classes together but on Thursdays our classes let out at the same time so 2 weeks ago she said hi to me while I was walking to the bus stop( I take the town bus because I don't have a car, she drives to the college) and we had a short conversation until I got to the bus stop and she walked the rest of the way to her car. We continued to talk all week and this Thursday (Valentine's Day) we were having a Snapchat conversation about the usual stuff ( how is your day, how are your classes, what's the best super power and why, what are you doing today(she said she was working on homework and her art) and she caught me on the way to the bus stop again, and we miandered our way to the bus stop talking and then we got to the busstop and she stayed and talked with me untill the bus came (around 5 minutes) and then said she would call me on discord later.Im really bad at reading ques so I'm not sure if I'm looking to far into it and it's all confirmation bias but I felt like it might be a signal that she likes me. I haven't asked a girl out before and I'm not exactly a catch (no car, no "real job" (I build and sell custom PCs for cash) still living at home cause I'm still in highschool technically) so I don't want to ruin a perfectly good friendship if I am reading into this all wrong. I always feel like I message more but I didn't send anything a message yet today and she started the conversation up so I really don't know. Reddit what do you think? via /r/dating_advice

[gamelyplanet-blog]

Cuphead, “casual” modes and hypocrites

I don’t want to spend too much time on this, so I’ll just rant a bit about the recent nontroversy around the indie title “Cuphead”. This is off-the-cuff, blog post stuff, with minimal editing. You’ve been warned.

So, Cuphead, the charming 2D shooter that impressed everyone with its retro-cartoon presentation during E3 2017, has somehow become the center of discussion regarding difficulty in games and the value of design vs accessibility.

Or so games media claim, because make no mistake, before I write down anything else; the only reason the usual suspects opened their mouths to shit out the usual pseudo-intellectual, arrogant drivel is because this entire thing started when the Internet got wind of one journalist, Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat, having trouble with the tutorial of Cuphead during the last Tokyo Game Show.

Let’s also get this out of the way: Dean, dude, I don’t know you. I dislike what passes for games journalism these days, but I’ve never read your stuff or heard of you before. The mockery towards you for that Cuphead footage was, as far as I’m concerned, unwarranted. I don’t have the context to support or condemn you for it; it was during a con, it was an earlier build of the game, the footage looked a little pathetic, but I really don’t know. So, I didn’t say anything against you, but I’m sorry for the shit flung at you.

The problem is that the primary reason this shit even became an issue is that the representatives of games media and their indie hipster buddies started this years ago; and in the last few days, they seem hell-bent on widening the gap between media and gamers in the worst way possible. Blame GamerGate or whatever, but we all know the mocking of journalists’ gaming skills became popular when Polygon posted that pathetic footage of their playing 2016′s DOOM and failing spectacularly at what’s a very basic shooter.

It wasn’t on a whim, either; we’re talking about an entire part of the industry that for years pretended to be an authority on video games; they talked *over* their audience, they talked *down* to their audience, they mocked, they demeaned, they insulted their audience; because they thought they “knew better”. Nobody would’ve really paid any attention to Polygon’s DOOM footage and all that it represented, if Polygon wasn’t a publication that gave “Tropico 5″ a 6.5 by first prefacing the score with the claim a city-builder game should’ve included commentary on dictators and banana republics and authoritative regimes. Nobody would’ve care about Polygon’s DOOM footage (nobody would’ve even seen it, really), if a few years back Arthur Gies hadn’t literally body-shamed 2.5 points off of “Bayonetta 2″, fucking Platinum Games out of their bonus. Polygon are representative of the state of games media right now and they’re not the only ones.

No better proof of all this than how suddenly there are “editorials” on Rock Paper Shotgun and Polygon and Twitter threads by indie game devs that spend most of their time pretending they’re the bastions of intellectuality in game design, whenever they don’t spew shit at their annual circle-jerk that we refer to as the “Game Developers Conference”. John Walker of RPS, when commenting on “Assassins Creed: Origins” new “no-combat” mode, was quick to point out that gamers are hell-bent on maintaining the challenge of harder games, because they are exclusionary. Then, RPS published another article about Cuphead’s “Simple” mode (which prohibits the player from getting the true ending); oh, they were quick to note that it was “satire” toward sites like Kotaku, but any knowledge of RPS or Walker, a senior editor, raises questions to the validity of that claim. Then, Walker himself decided to challenge the term “gameplay” on Twitter because it’s a vague term, apparently never occurring to him that his criticism is pretty fucking vague in itself. Typical overcompensating with which games journalism is rife at the moment.

Rami Ismail, an indie developer who has yet to say a single thing that could be deemed correct or valuable to anyone outside his industry bubble, was quick to link that piece of shit editorial and argue for providing players with the freedom to play a game how they want. I must’ve missed that memo when the market was being flooded with third-rate crappy-looking pixel-art platformers and walking simulators. Suddenly “freedom” and “choice” matter.

Unless it’s the “Mass Effect 3″ ending; if you want choice to matter then, you’re just “entitled”.

Here’s the rub; there’s no discussion to be had. This isn’t an interesting topic or a new discovery for games development. This is as old as gaming itself. Player freedom exists within the developer’s freedom. Player agency is a component of game design, not a handicap. When someone makes a game, they don’t feed data into a generator and then the machine farts out a complete project. Every weapon, tool, and slope or bottomless pit in a level have been designed to complement each other. Difficulty options aren’t bad; quite the contrary. But they’re limited and they can harm the game’s artistic vision irreparably. Do you have any idea how many games I played and found boring on easy mode years ago, only to return and really appreciate them now that I’ve improved? That’s why Walker got shat on for his challenging the term gameplay; his criticism was off-base. The art in games is in the mechanics. Gut the mechanics and the art is degraded to popcorn shit.

Difficulty isn’t just challenge and it’s not just a means to frustrate the player; it’s a tool and it’s a component a lot of the time. The better developers know how to use it to the game’s benefit. It’s also something that’s an umbrella term; what’s difficult for one person and what’s acceptable in terms of challenge differs for someone else. Yes, I’m kind of bumped out I cannot play the Souls series; it seems like it has very interesting combat mechanics, but sparse checkpoints are a no-no for me. I’ll take any challenge you throw at me, but don’t make me retry the same thirty minutes of game all the time. Should I send an angry letter at FromSoftware for not neutering their game for my benefit? I wager those checkpoints are integral to the Souls experience; so, they can stay and I can fuck off to Twitch to watch a stream about it.

Accessibility, for that is the right word and not “inclusion”, is a moot point in this day and age. There are many games to choose from, in different genres, from different developers. There are countless people talking about them and about as many streaming them. The consumer is instantly and easily informed about the specifics and they can make an informed purchase. The notion of being “owed” game progression because you bought the game is ridiculous. Am I owed my money back for not liking that new cocktail I decided to order? Am I owed to see my team win the Champions League (google it Yanks), because I paid for a season pass?

Going back to Walker, after the butthurt for being challenged on his idiotic remarks regarding gameplay, he tweeted that he’s only trying to make gaming accessible. The problem is that gaming, as a whole, is extremely accessible; more now than ever before. All you need to do is download a free game on your phone and lo and behold; access. If you want something more serious, have a look at the simplified, free-to-play MMOs, some even published by AAA companies. The point is, there is not even an admission price to gaming anymore. One niche game for one niche audience isn’t going to turn people away from gaming. What the fuck are you even talking about, John? Nobody in the history of gaming has suggested all games should be Cuphead or Dark Souls. All they suggest is that we make whatever we want and choose what suits us best. You keep raving like a lunatic about “gaming culture” and “toxicity” and “gate keeping” and you’re the only assholes out there to consistently shout, pull rank and cause problems. You are professional trouble-makers, John!

What is fitting is that Ubisoft did indeed announce they intend to add a “skip combat” option in the upcoming “Assassins Creed: Origins”. Is that a good option? I honestly can’t tell, because I’m not familiar with the AC games. I’ve never played one, so I lack the context. If the Assassins Creed games provide a semblance of engaging gameplay by skipping combat, i.e. if exploration is as integral to the AssCreed experience as combat is, then it’s an acceptable compromise. After all, even Minecraft has a casual mode, because hiding from Creepers isn’t the point of that game; mining resources and building shit is.

When the indie portion of the industry started making its mark, we were all delighted; more choice, more games, more space for original ideas and variety, away from the boundaries of AAA publishers. But now, no; now we have a social issue in our hands, now we’re talking about how making the game you want is a matter of “culture” and it’s a discussion that we surprisingly never had before, not even when shitty Twine text apps somehow made it to Steam. Curious that.

“Inclusion” has been the industry standard since at least the days of the original Playstation, when gaming went truly mainstream and turned into a ridiculously profitable industry. The alternative is bad business. There is a reason we now have context-sensitive UIs for everything and why there are more tutorial messages than there are lines of dialogue in so many AAA titles; they want their games sold to and played by as wide an audience as possible. The indies can do something different.

What’s really getting on my nerves in all of this is the hypocrisy; Souls? Fine. Super Meatboy? Fine. Megaman 9? Fine. Bloodborne? Fine. So many hard games, but no, now it’s a “discussion” because a bunch of self-involved writers decided to shit-talk gamers and developers alike for clicks. Again. Fuck, even these very outlets reviewed Cuphead well; but then they found the chance to latch on to a bunch of innocuous tweet and demean their audience again, because presumably their traffic went down. Again. Alas, playing video games isn’t a social issue. The bullshit presentations at GDC that tell you you have a social responsibility when designing video games are lying to you. If you’re a journalist, nobody owes you shit. Do your market research before you buy and let people create and enjoy whatever the hell they want.

Walker’s “Skip Button” word vomit on AssCreed

RPS’ “satire” article on Cuphead

Ben Kuchera’s desperate effort to publish something without saying anything, but only citing what others said, on Polygon