hello. i do still make videos

edit: the indie game I show that you’re probably curious about is Burggeist.

I also show FlyKnight, Citizen Sleeper, Sable, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and Inscryption.

actually the best games are the ones from my childhood. MINE specifically. and they have no problems

In literature there are short stories, novellas and novels. They are rarely compared and are treated as distinct things. In cinema there are short films and feature length films. They are rarely compared and are treated as distinct things. Maybe the problem is, that games being the youngest medium, need to recognise it's own categories of scale.

Nuance?? On MY internet???

On your point about "overrated" and "underrated", I think people use those words to express frustration about feeling out of the loop. They see something that everyone else apparently enjoys, and feel bad that they are missing out because they don't. They enjoy something so much, but feel they have noone to share it with. Its a search for community.

TotK was the first game I played that made me watch practically the same cutscene 4 times. It's also the first game that let me skydive headfirst through an ice dragon when my bow broke...

I have always felt like people forget that you can absolutely adore a game and still criticize it without it tanking how you felt about it.
TOTK was so very fun but those flaws don’t outweigh the joy it brought me.

These days, especially with the internet, it is so easy to find summaries and videos about how a person didn’t like XYZ game and how it disappointed them. We focus on the negative so much, it deters people from even trying something they’d potentially love.

Take reviews with a grain of salt and try games you’re looking forward playing!

Daryl Talks Games' "Tears of the Kingdom Wants You to Cheat" really helped me appreciate Tears. It's fun to feel like you're cheating a little. It's like the devs watched people in BotW making flying machines and windbombing everywhere and said "yes and"

One thing that gets on my nerves is the way we even talk about flaws-- things we like are subjective, but flaws are obligatory and must not 'denied or excused' as you phrased it as if it means something-- someone could dislike something, so we must all pause and pay lip service to it as objective, an act of socially polite apologia that necessarily doesn't mean anything. "That's not really a problem I have" is something I find myself saying when someone insists on a flaw I genuinely didn't notice or consider one, and it pisses people off. It's to the point that I find the discussion of good and bad to be kind of... unhinged? It's obsessive and completely concerned with a kind of social deference to some notion of shared taste, and the least interesting discussion that can even be had about a text. It's a Rorschach test with a socially constructed right answer, that is simultaneously deconstructed, and reinforced in the same breath, lest the speaker be accused of getting it wrong.

"truly loving something means accepting or at least understanding its flaws"

Ok but having the shadow of the text appear on the landscape in the thumbnail is such an unnecessary, amazing detail, 10/10

something i like is that BotW and TotK are sort of opposite games that take place in the same setting.
BotW was calm, serene, reseved, at times touching, simple, scenic, made for you to ride your horse accross Hyrule and breathe in the [epic title drop]. a lot of the world is empty and panoramic, it feels grounded, massive, travel is a pain if you don't want to teleport all the time, ressources are scarce if you don't farm, and NPCs are chilled out in a state of acceptance of their world's grim fate.
TotK is hectic, adds a bagillion more stuff, and is always trying to be the biggest, most epic, most important, coolest kid around, giving you endless toys to play with, way too much shit to explore, and making you extremely OP. just looking at the scenery there's so much stuff everywhere, it's a mess. but it's also an incredible mess that gives you endless opportunities to use your powers in endless ways. it's way too much, but everything is still incredibly fun. and all the NPCs are running around trying to deal with new weird shit, being in the process of rebuilding the world.

BotW has you listening to the horse riding music accross the planes, giving you a moment to look at the scenery and contemplate life.
TotK has you jet boosting across on your improvised plane when suddenly you run into a massive dragon that leads you into the underworld to fight goofy ninjas.

This is something I've been keeping in mind for years with my game Baldi's Basics Plus. The core of the game is randomness to the point that the player can sometimes end up in unwinnable scenarios at no fault of their own. You could turn a corner and get stopped by another character you had no idea was there and lose as a result. That's bad game design!.. but if I "fixed" the issue by say, making the game played from a top down perspective, suddenly the game just becomes about maneuvering through the level to ensure you never encounter any NPCs or obstacles. That would be boring and tedious.

Instead, the solution is to lean into that broken rule by giving players a multitude of different ways to prepare for and escape those unexpected situations, which can result in some exhilarating gameplay moments. Will it frustrate some players? Sure, but to others the cursed game design will be worth the fun they have overcoming those issues.

“Because that’s not how existing works” hit kinda hard

I heard someone rate experiences that do exactly what they intended, but are not 10/10 as a 7/7 instead. A complete experience but not the best of the best.

I think every game should get to be a little bad.
Y'know, as a treat.

Im reminded of an interaction I had years ago on DeviantArt. I had drawn a character, a sort of scrappy, kind of creepy, doll. My art was kind of sketchy, not the sort of thing one would rate as "good". But I also commissioned an artist to draw a "good" version of my drawing. I was very satisfied with what they made and it was definitely better from a technical standpoint. But, I had a comment from someone saying they actually prefered my original sketchy drawing because it just "felt more alive". And looking between the two works, I eventually saw what they were talking about. My original work may have been sketchy and low detail, but there was something in the eyes and expression that made it feel like there was a person in there.

Theres something about things with a bit more roughness that makes them feel... Enhanced? I guess you could say.

Regarding what you say at 2:15, my favourite GDC talk is one titled “The Freedom Fallacy”, ironically given not by a game developer, but by a psychology researcher. In it, they say people tend to mistakenly assume that what we crave is simply freedom, when what we actually crave is agency: the feeling that we have an impact in the world around us. Which, ironically, is usually dependent on having constraints, or limited freedom, since being able to do everything means nothing gets to be that meaningful. Truly an eye-opening watch, even beyond the realm of game development. I go back to it from time to time, which I almost never do with these talks.

I've been saying it for a long time! The best games are the ones that commit to the vision of what they want to be, regardless of whether some people won't like those choices. Games that try to make every player happy will end up more bland and never hit the highs of a game that feels designed for your tastes specifically (at the cost of other players tastes).

Every "Good" design choice is bad for a different type of game, and since we don't all want the same kind of games, that means games need to make a sacrifice to be bad at some things in order to be great at the other things. And so the best games will also have much more obvious "bad" parts than a game focus tested to be acceptable to everyone.

The game that fails the least is the game that tried to do nothing.

The best games are not the ones with the fewest flaws, but the ones with the greatest successes.

Something I heard someone say is most peoples favorite games ever will be on average a 7/10 because when a game is for you Its FOR YOU and that really resonated with me, most games that are in my top 10 are kinda mid to most people but to me are amazing and some of the most amazing experiences I've ever had in gaming