Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 2010's Deadly Premonition. We dig into the game further, particularly talking about how its open world works for us as opposed to the repetitive tasks of more modern open world games, among other topics. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.
Sections played:
Up past town meeting (Tim) and a little less (Brett)
Issues covered: scheduling, porting games successfully and not, engine ports and working with engines, removing an easy mode, janky controls and performance, enemy entrances and support, enemies as stories, shadow origins, enemy animation, integrating the pickups to the combat, the baby, the doorknob and the puzzle clue, being lenient with the mechanics, York the jerk, an object playing double duty, phones as save points, door interacts and knowing the player will see something, playing on player expectation, the heart rate monitor, creating dread and drama, having to retread the level while being chased, meeting the killer, disempowerment, reach exceeding grasp, hand-crafted moments, the various technical elements, the expense of polishing all these mechanics, the appreciation of surprise vs the ur-game, seeing the production methodology in the games, the anti-production of the unknown, the diminishing effect of systematizing cultural specifics, fitting the narrative to the open world, interviewing suspects and moving forward the narrative, getting the Twin Peaks experience, knowing one can do things in the living town, the task system and knowing what chapters you can visit people in, getting to locations in open world games and time having stood still for the player, homage vs theft, picking our favorite trading cards, feeling like you're solving a crime, a crime that can play out multiple ways.
Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Portal 2, Defeating Games for Charity, Nintendo Switch, Unreal, Unity, Godot, Halo (series), Republic Commando, Silent Hill (series), Alan Wake, Ico, Resident Evil (series), Hideo Kojima, Dark Souls, Metal Gear (series), Alien: Isolation, Twin Peaks, Final Fantasy IX, The Last Express, Beyond Good & Evil, Rockstar, Witness, Deadline, Infocom, Red Dead Redemption (series), Heavy Rain, Agatha Christie, Mousetrap, Batman, X-Files, Spelunky, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.
Next time:
Bonus Portal 2 LIVE STREAM
Defeating Games for Charity
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