[conspire] Dept. of Fsck It, Ship It: Cyberpunk 2077

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Nick Moffitt (nick at zork.net):

> The downside to this is that the producer of this game is no doubt
> back into counter-productive 'crunch' processes to try and send out
> updates that fix the most egregious bugs.

Imagine what sheer hell it must be to work there, at the moment.

> Personally, I remain unattracted to "AAA" games.  When the late Roger
> Ebert publicly doubted the medium's capacity to produce art, furious
> nerdboys loudly dunked his head in the proverbial toilet and hailed
> their favourite big-budget monstrosities as proof that it could.  I
> think this was a mistake, and the smaller independent games are where
> the real artistry can be found.

I can easily imagine that.

Richard Couture, before his move to The CoffeeNet building, used to host 
gaming parties at his large apartment on Upper Market on SF, and I would
drive up from San Mateo to bring potluck food and wine and hang out for
the evening and participate.  The games in question were mainly the Sierra
Online series of graphical A/V games on CD, and we would gather on cushions
in front of Richard's huge monitor, someone would at any given moment be
in charge of the console, and we would collectively solve the puzzles
and enjoy the game narrative.  

I think we may have gone through a dozen or more titles, but the biggest
hits were 'The Dagger of Amon Ra'
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dagger_of_Amon_Ra)and "Freddy
Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist'
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Pharkas:_Frontier_Pharmacist),
that might be Hollywood-pitched as, respectively, Agatha Christie meets 
Indiana Jones, and a Blazing Saddles-like adventur/comedy, each done as
a puzzle game. 

The style of game worked well for parties, and the game narrative's
writing was well enough done to hold interest for people other than
teenagers and superannuated teenagers.  

But thanks for mentioning that roguelikes are still with us.  I should
explore those.