Retronauts Podcast Thread

[Deleted member 30913]

I hear Jeff Gerstmann talk about Vectrex a lot on the Bombcast.

I don't know much about that other than it's a special monitor and that vectors are being drawn rather than polygons.

I'd love a Retronauts teaching me about what the heck it is!

 

[Balbanes]

So I'm sorta LTTP on podcasts in general and have been working through old Retronauts and Watch out for Fireballs episodes trying to get caught up. Once I got to the episode when they changed over to podcastone, I ran into a really weird issue with my Pocket Casts app. It would seemingly download the whole episode, and even show the correct length of the podcast on the list screen, but once I hit play the run time would instantly shrink and the episode would end during their advertisement break. It appears I'm the only person on the internet with this issue, as I tried researching a work around for a long time and couldn't find anything. After taking a break for awhile to get caught up with WOFF, I finally figured out an obvious workaround. Streaming seems to work just fine. So, if you end up having the same issue as me.. try streaming instead of downloading the episode.

Anyway, glad to be listening again!

 

[Goonopher]

How popular was the Vectrex in the states? Quite a few of my friends had them here in the UK, I bought one much later from a car boot sale for £10. It's such a timeless machine, even today it looks lovely with those clean vector lines. Home to my favourite version of Pole Position too.

 

[Watershed]

So many video game podcasters, including the retronauts people seem to over-emphasize how developers are influenced by other games. While external influences the the form of other games definitely factor into game development, the truth is a game really takes its shape by looking inward. It's an interesting contrast between game journalist and game developers. For developers the process is very much an internal one, where you solve problems with your game, iterate, refine, etc. A great deal of what a game ends up being comes out of this process. But game journalists rarely talk about this and instead focus on external factors like other games. I guess that is partly down to the difference between creators and critiques or something.

 

[quincognito]

So many video game podcasters, including the retronauts people seem to over-emphasize how developers are influenced by other games.

Click to shrink...

Nah. Art is approximately zero percent people coming up with their own shit and a huge part of it is always people synthesizing stuff they've seen and experienced before into new shapes. Game design has such a heavy craft element that it's even more true than for other forms like literature or music. There's a tendency, especially with Japanese developers, that involves basically lying about influences -- deciding it's unseemly to refer to other people's work so you just have to pretend you've never seen anything else and even ideas that are visibly and obviously cribbed or adapted from another work just sprung fully from the ether. It's ultimately quite disrespectful to others in the field and makes for completely useless discussion about the process and details of a game's actual design, so I'm all in favorr of Retronauts' tendency to put people on blast for it.

 

[Deleted member 30913]

Nah. Art is approximately zero percent people coming up with their own shit and a huge part of it is always people synthesizing stuff they've seen and experienced before into new shapes. Game design has such a heavy craft element that it's even more true than for other forms like literature or music. There's a tendency, especially with Japanese developers, that involves basically lying about influences -- deciding it's unseemly to refer to other people's work so you just have to pretend you've never seen anything else and even ideas that are visibly and obviously cribbed or adapted from another work just sprung fully from the ether. It's ultimately quite disrespectful to others in the field and makes for completely useless discussion about the process and details of a game's actual design, so I'm all in favorr of Retronauts' tendency to put people on blast for it.

Click to shrink...

I'm with ya.

Frank Cifaldi in this GDC Talk: https://youtu.be/HLWY7fCXUwE

Mentions that in creating the Criterion Collection of video games for Mega Man, something is missing from the overall package. Every Criterion disc has multiple commentaries: director, DP, maybe even actors.

He wanted the developer perspective to be reflected in MMLC1. But he says something to the effect of, "Capcom said no and I'm not allowed to say why."

How can journalists and analysts talk about developers' inward gaze when we don't get these stories... ever?

It's changed recently somewhat. See: Jason Schrier's book "Blood, Sweat, and Pixels" or "Indie Game the Movie."

But the sadly concluded Iwata Asks is the only thing I can think of that has someone talking to people in this detailed way who worked on retro games that we don't come across often.

When all people today have is access to just the carts and no contact with any human who made the software what other insights can we have other than comparing it to other contemporary works?

I get that devs working on projects right now don't wanna open up for fear of over promising. And I get that game creation is vastly different from books or TV or film... but something feels missing.

 

[bobservo]

So many video game podcasters, including the retronauts people seem to over-emphasize how developers are influenced by other games.

Click to shrink...

As pointed out above, the problem is developers citing other games as influences is pretty much verboten. We basically have to make educated guesses based on the evidence provided and hope we make a compelling case for our listeners.

 

[Watershed]

As pointed out above, the problem is developers citing other games as influences is pretty much verboten. We basically have to make educated guesses based on the evidence provided and hope we make a compelling case for our listeners.

Click to shrink...

There are no doubt developers being influenced by other games. I said that clearly. But the kind of details that rarely come out of journalist interviews is stuff like how each game approaches similar elements differently, for example a platformer that places collectables at ground level so that they are collected by running into them vs having collectables float in the air which encourages jumping. Most games have these unique design decisions that journalists almost never explore. I think there is a consistent overlooking of these interesting (to me) details in favor of talk of outside influences.

 

[rdbaaa]

But the kind of details that rarely come out of journalist interviews is stuff like how each game approaches similar elements differently, for example a platformer that places collectables at ground level so that they are collected by running into them vs having collectables float in the air which encourages jumping. Most games have these unique design decisions that journalists almost never explore. I think there is a consistent overlooking of these interesting (to me) details in favor of talk of outside influences.

Click to shrink...

That kind of thing is extreme minutiae that doesn't make for good reading or listening. It's part of a pile of intuitive choices by the designer(s) based on their experience that often even they can't/don't want to explain. Unless it's on the job or in the classroom, getting a serious discussion with a designer on specific choices isn't likely. And don't lay the blame on journalists for not being academic enough.

 

[JeremyParish]

It's also difficult to expect developers to remember such minute details about games they created under incredible time constraints 20 or 30 years ago. The reality is that you, the person who last played the game in 2018, can recall a lot more of the moment-to-moment particulars of a game than the person who helped put it together in 1988. I've had many, many interviews where I ask about something fairly specific and the dev has to think back to what I meant — e.g., I mentioned something about the Beast race in SaGa games to Akitoshi Kawazu and he had to think for a moment to remember what makes Beasts unique. That's a pretty fundamental trait of a game that launched his life work! But you know, he helps run a major corporation, and he worked on dozens of games in his career.

You could probably have a meaningful conversation about a game's design if you sat down with a dev with the game and let them discuss elements as they see them, but the expectation for a meaningful academic discussion like that in a standard "empty conference room with a half-dozen PR handlers hovering nearby" is something that actual interview experience will quickly disabuse you of.

 

[daydream]

I think it's due to the way PodcastOne splices in news and ads. The audio files are made on the fly as you hit download. So different ads and news are put in depending on when you download the show and your geographic location.

Because the ads and news are different the duration changes. I assume a similar reason is there for file name changes.

I think that's all correct!

Click to shrink...

that makes sense, thanks!

 

[Deleted member 30913]

You could probably have a meaningful conversation about a game's design if you sat down with a dev with the game and let them discuss elements as they see them,

Click to shrink...

And sometimes we luckily get this scenario!

Anna at DoubleFine sat down with Igarashi and SotN and they talked about it a while back: https://youtu.be/bqheYYeA4k4

that makes sense, thanks!

Click to shrink...

You're welcome.

 

[JeremyParish]

And sometimes we luckily get this scenario!

Anna at DoubleFine sat down with Igarashi and SotN and they talked about it a while back: https://youtu.be/bqheYYeA4k4

Click to shrink...

I actually did this back at 1UP… unfortunately, all we could get running was the Saturn version, which he hates, and now I think he hates me, too.

 

[Deleted member 30913]

I actually did this back at 1UP… unfortunately, all we could get running was the Saturn version, which he hates, and now I think he hates me, too.

Click to shrink...

Oh no!

Not both Miyamoto and Wii Music and Iga and Saturn SotN.

Poor GameSpite.

 

[xir]

oh man, vectrex episode coming up? I have like 3 of these in my closet. such a cool system. still sad i lost polar rescue.

as for modern day Bushido Blade.... i hate to say it, but the Deadliest Warrior XBLA came 'evoke' it

 

[Radarscope1]

So many video game podcasters, including the retronauts people seem to over-emphasize how developers are influenced by other games. While external influences the the form of other games definitely factor into game development, the truth is a game really takes its shape by looking inward. It's an interesting contrast between game journalist and game developers. For developers the process is very much an internal one, where you solve problems with your game, iterate, refine, etc. A great deal of what a game ends up being comes out of this process. But game journalists rarely talk about this and instead focus on external factors like other games. I guess that is partly down to the difference between creators and critiques or something.

Click to shrink...

I'm curious, what do you create?

 

[Watershed]

I'm curious, what do you create?

Click to shrink...

Visual arts and design but I'm mainly speaking based on what my friends in game development tell me or more accurately how they talk about their work.

 

[Radarscope1]

Visual arts and design but I'm mainly speaking based on what my friends in game development tell me or more accurately how they talk about their work.

Click to shrink...

I see, thanks. I gotta say I have to agree with quincognito above. Nearly all art and science is built upon what's come before. To think that somehow game development is an outlier and creators just keep coming up with their own ideas from the ground-up over and over seems .... pretty weird and not likely. This is of course not to say that lots of original ideas don't spring up all the time. That happens in music, art and science, etc, too. A lot. But on the whole things build upon themselves. It gets even less likely when you consider what a copy cat industry gaming is. Super Mario Bros takes the world by storm in 1985 and the torrential flood of platformers released in the late 80s weren't influenced by that at all? Street Fighter II takes arcades by storm in the early 90s and yet SNK just happens to make all those fighters in the years after? Ehhhhhh... And in your work as a visual artist you don't spend any time looking at design books, award winners, and the work of others? You just wake up each day and create things out of whole cloth?

 

[Watershed]

I see, thanks. I gotta say I have to agree with quincognito above. Nearly all art and science is built upon what's come before. To think that somehow game development is an outlier and creators just keep coming up with their own ideas from the ground-up over and over seems .... pretty weird and not likely. This is of course not to say that lots of original ideas don't spring up all the time. That happens in music, art and science, etc, too. A lot. But on the whole things build upon themselves. It gets even less likely when you consider what a copy cat industry gaming is. Super Mario Bros takes the world by storm in 1985 and the torrential flood of platformers released in the late 80s weren't influenced by that at all? Street Fighter II takes arcades by storm in the early 90s and yet SNK just happens to make all those fighters in the years after? Ehhhhhh... And in your work as a visual artist you don't spend any time looking at design books, award winners, and the work of others? You just wake up each day and create things out of whole cloth?

Click to shrink...

I agree and I said in my first comment that outside influences including clearly landmark games have huge ripple effects throughout the industry. But my view is that game journalists over-focus on discussing and asking questions about outside influences vs the internal process of game development specifically in regard to what shapes the final game we all play. The iterating, the problem solving, the constant asking of "what's right for this game?" is what leads to the final game. That stuff is fascinating to me and it tends to be what creators discuss vs what they take from other games. Borrowing from other games and other games influencing each other is readily acknowledged in my experience, but it's just not what interests creators. I think it is the result of the interests of creators vs critics/journalists and I think also because games journalism is such a fan industry and hasn't had the time to develop in the way film or art criticism and journalism has.

 

[JeremyParish]

I remember seeing a Peter Gabriel CD longbox, back when CD longboxes were a thing, with a note penned by Gabriel. It mentioned something about how good artists copy but great artists steal. That always stuck with me.

Later I realize he plagiarized that statement from Pablo Picasso, which made it even better.

 

[Radarscope1]

I agree and I said in my first comment that outside influences including clearly landmark games have huge ripple effects throughout the industry. But my view is that game journalists over-focus on discussing and asking questions about outside influences vs the internal process of game development specifically in regard to what shapes the final game we all play. The iterating, the problem solving, the constant asking of "what's right for this game?" is what leads to the final game. That stuff is fascinating to me and it tends to be what creators discuss vs what they take from other games. Borrowing from other games and other games influencing each other is readily acknowledged in my experience, but it's just not what interests creators. I think it is the result of the interests of creators vs critics/journalists and I think also because games journalism is such a fan industry and hasn't had the time to develop in the way film or art criticism and journalism has.

Click to shrink...

I'm with you now. Might part of this have to do with the fact that game development is pretty technical? Still, it's not like anyone can just pick up jazz or filmmaking. But journalists do focus on the internal processes pretty often in covering music, movies, etc. And, to be fair, there's a lot of pure schlock in the coverage of other mediums, too. So I really appreciate journalists who do have the access trying to ask about influences and lineage. In general, we just hear so very little from game developers. More than we used to but still very little. I think the criticism has matured quite a bit too. That is really my favorite part of the Retronauts coverage right now, I think (the "Works" video and books especially).

 

[Watershed]

I'm with you now. Might part of this have to do with the fact that game development is pretty technical? Still, it's not like anyone can just pick up jazz or filmmaking. But journalists do focus on the internal processes pretty often in covering music, movies, etc. And, to be fair, there's a lot of pure schlock in the coverage of other mediums, too. So I really appreciate journalists who do have the access trying to ask about influences and lineage. In general, we just hear so very little from game developers. More than we used to but still very little. I think the criticism has matured quite a bit too. That is really my favorite part of the Retronauts coverage right now, I think (the "Works" video and books especially).

Click to shrink...

Retronauts is great and it's one of the few video game podcasts I listen to regularly. And to your question, yes I think it absolutely has to do with how technical game development is. And I think it also has to do with what interests journalists vs creators. And also developers are also much more guarded in talking to journalists than in talking to other creators especially with the understanding that talking to journalists is a form of PR. This is partly why I really appreciate the few podcasts made by creators like Idle Thumbs and 8-4 Play. The way they talk about games, their own and other people's, tends to draw out the kind of details I find fascinating.

 

[rawhide]

So many video game podcasters, including the retronauts people seem to over-emphasize how developers are influenced by other games. While external influences the the form of other games definitely factor into game development, the truth is a game really takes its shape by looking inward. It's an interesting contrast between game journalist and game developers. For developers the process is very much an internal one, where you solve problems with your game, iterate, refine, etc. A great deal of what a game ends up being comes out of this process. But game journalists rarely talk about this and instead focus on external factors like other games. I guess that is partly down to the difference between creators and critiques or something.

Click to shrink...

This is primarily but not purely a consequence of access journalism: put simply, professional journalists stopped asking those questions because they were rarely granted the permission or the proper circumstances to ask them. It's not that journalists aren't interested in or equipped to discuss such topics, it's that they've largely been conditioned to examine games from an inferential macro perspective because it's all they were afforded for a long time, and things haven't necessarily changed as much as one might hope.

I also think people overestimate the existence of best practices among game designers, especially when it comes to retro games--the number of designers I've spoken to who couldn't articulate what they were doing or who completely and utterly deferred to someone else' edicts is not small. Sometimes you ask them and they give dud answers and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

 

[Mega Man Zero]

Hey, Jeremy. I really like the Metroidvania episodes. When do you think you'll do another?

I'd also like to suggest a Shantae episode about the original trilogy.

 

[JeremyParish]

We don't take requests, but... we're recording another metroidvania next week, and I interviewed Matt Bozon about Shantae in an episode slated for the end of the month. So you got lucky.

And yes, I asked Matt about what influences he drew on for the game. I have a genuine interest in the evolution of the medium and am always fascinated to learn how inspiration and influence drive the growth of game design.

 

[Mega Man Zero]

We don't take requests, but... we're recording another metroidvania next week, and I interviewed Matt Bozon about Shantae in an episode slated for the end of the month. So you got lucky.

And yes, I asked Matt about what influences he drew on for the game. I have a genuine interest in the evolution of the medium and am always fascinated to learn how inspiration and influence drive the growth of game design.

Click to shrink...

Cool. I've heard him say that he envisioned Shantae to be the Parodius to Castlevania, and it is Simon's Quest-ish in a lot of ways, but also very Zelda 2. I get the comparisons to the Wonder Boy in Monster World games, but they feel more like Zelda II and Castlevania to me.

 

[Radarscope1]

Agreed about access journalism. The industry is just fundamentally different in some unfortunate ways than music, movies, books, etc. Those are looked upon as creative endeavors first and people buy them because they like them. Games were meant to be products for sale first and foremost in the early days and that casts a loooooong shadow today. The PR machine around game developers is insane. Musicians, authors and film directors don't operate in such an iron bubble, for the most part.

 

[Deleted member 30913]

Here's a great article on Polygon by the creative director of XCOM talking about how Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle will influence XCOM going forward: https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/11/16869202/mario-rabbids-best-games-2017-year-in-review

Just the thing we're taking about! A creator talking about both internal and external influences.

 

[xir]

The multimedia 90s is so interesting. I always wanted to play the Laurie Anderson Puppet Motel CD-ROM:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKecYngnWSw

I spent way too much time with the Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time

Then there's the japanese output, like Gadget: Past as Future (think this got a ps1 and saturn release?) and Roger Ebert's favorite game Cosmology of Kyoto.

Also, some random links, found this blog and though posts are infrequent, they are fascinating, with a lot of interviews, his 2017 mysteries post (the latest) should fascinate any retronaut https://thehistoryofhowweplay.wordpress.com/

 

[Radarscope1]

Hey Bob! In seem to recall you urging people to check out one particular Bonk game during the Bonk retrospective episode. Was it Bonk 3? Am I misremembering this?

 

[bobservo]

Hey Bob! In seem to recall you urging people to check out one particular Bonk game during the Bonk retrospective episode. Was it Bonk 3? Am I misremembering this?

Click to shrink...

That would be Bonk's Revenge.

 

[xir]

That would be Bonk's Revenge.

Click to shrink...

the correct answer. just found in the japanese version he puts on make up and throws kisses when he eats meat instead of getting hangry.

 

[Radarscope1]

That would be Bonk's Revenge.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! I'm going though my VC wish list before service shut down.

 

[Mega Man Zero]

I really liked the Mega Man X episode. After reading that Zero was originally the main character, it makes sense that MMX introduces the dash and wall jumps, because those are very ninja-like moves, and Zero is basically a ninja.

 

[JeremyParish]

That's a relief. If someone named Mega Man Zero hated this episode, I'd have no recourse but to scream at the heavens, "WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOOOR?"

 

[Dream Machine]

Nah. Art is approximately zero percent people coming up with their own shit and a huge part of it is always people synthesizing stuff they've seen and experienced before into new shapes. Game design has such a heavy craft element that it's even more true than for other forms like literature or music. There's a tendency, especially with Japanese developers, that involves basically lying about influences -- deciding it's unseemly to refer to other people's work so you just have to pretend you've never seen anything else and even ideas that are visibly and obviously cribbed or adapted from another work just sprung fully from the ether. It's ultimately quite disrespectful to others in the field and makes for completely useless discussion about the process and details of a game's actual design, so I'm all in favorr of Retronauts' tendency to put people on blast for it.

Click to shrink...

Agreed. I just don't like it when people call influence "stealing", even when it's supposed to be a cute shorthand.

I really liked the Mega Man X episode. After reading that Zero was originally the main character, it makes sense that MMX introduces the dash and wall jumps, because those are very ninja-like moves, and Zero is basically a ninja.

Click to shrink...

I wish they would have also kept Zero's progressive ninja boobs.

 

[Mega Man Zero]

Mega Man can't hide its Mazinger Z influence.

 

[Syril]

Mega Man can't hide its Mazinger Z influence.

Click to shrink...

I don't know what you're talking about.

 

[El Pescado]

I listened to the advance feed Animaniacs episode today and now I can't get that damn theme song out of my head. I've been singing it to myself all day long.

 

[Dream Machine]

Still waiting on that Mega Man vs Devilman anime.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

7 minutes in and I'm already in heaven with the Mega Man X episode

 

[Y2Kev]

Mega Man X episode was great. The format was cute but I kind of wonder if it didn't come out a little jumbled (Mega Man history like midway through...).

I was jumping up and down during the Square fighting game episode. I can't remember the exact context of the quote but Jeremy was saying something about how console games weren't really able to capture the smoothness of the action in arcades and the gouraud shading in Tobal let them amp up the framerate and the animation. I agree that Tobal was awesome looking, but come on! VF2 on Saturn! It was out almost 9 months before Tobal 1 and is mindblowing.

It may be the best looking game that gen.

 

[xir]

hey fellow retronauts,
so before the impending Wii eshop shuttering I want to pick up a few gems. I already have a handful of things, but I transferred them to my Wii U, which I understand does subpar video output emulation through the wii channel? I still have my wii.

So 1 - continue to buy things on the Wii Shop via the Wii U
or 2 - rebuy things on the Wii and get the key titles I'm missing there

Thoughts?

 

[Mega Man Zero]

hey fellow retronauts,
so before the impending Wii eshop shuttering I want to pick up a few gems. I already have a handful of things, but I transferred them to my Wii U, which I understand does subpar video output emulation through the wii channel? I still have my wii.

So 1 - continue to buy things on the Wii Shop via the Wii U
or 2 - rebuy things on the Wii and get the key titles I'm missing there

Thoughts?

Click to shrink...

Are you going to be playing Wii VC hooked up to a CRT? If not, then I don't think there's much a point in getting anything on Wii.

 

[JeremyParish]

Yeah, Wii VC on a CRT is great. Otherwise, though, it's not worth rebuying those games. Wii U VC quality varies from platform to platform – NES is junk, GBA is great. It's not perfect, but it's OK.

 

[ispendtoomuchmoneyongames]

Semi-Retronauts related but Laser Time dropped a podcast today with Bob, Henry Gilbert, and Chris Antista talking about the Bob/Colin feud and it's pretty awesome to just listen to them dunk on Colin for an hour in case anyone's interested in that.

In Retronauts related news, the Animaniacs "micro" episode last week was great and I've really enjoyed how much they've played w/the normal Retronauts format over the past year or so. like this one talking about Animaniacs games but w/a lot of history about the show, Jeremy's interviews w/gamespeople and Retronauts Radio, and the episodes tracing the genealogy of new games like BOTW using older games.

 

[Dream Machine]

I don't think Bob wanted us discussing flags and/or diapers in this thread, but thanks for the heads up.

 

[bobservo]

I don't think Bob wanted us discussing flags and/or diapers in this thread, but thanks for the heads up.

Click to shrink...

I recorded that podcast because I wanted people to hear it, but we should probably keep this thread on-topic. Restera has a Laser Time thread, which is a more appropriate place for that discussion. Thanks!

 

[ThankDougie]

glad to catch this thread. was accidentally posting about the Podcast in the Youtube "...Works" thread.

anyway, the Mega Man X podcast almost has me convinced I should get the Gunvolt Striker pack on Switch despite the price. I've been feeling the need to play more platformers ever since diving back into Shovel Knight and finishing up the DLC...

 

[El Pescado]

glad to catch this thread. was accidentally posting about the Podcast in the Youtube "...Works" thread.

anyway, the Mega Man X podcast almost has me convinced I should get the Gunvolt Striker pack on Switch despite the price. I've been feeling the need to play more platformers ever since diving back into Shovel Knight and finishing up the DLC...

Click to shrink...

Gunvolt Striker Pack is great, but it's definitely closer to Mega Man ZX than Mega Man X.