MeeMs Thoughts on Difficulty… Again…

So recently, I’ve been thinking about what exactly makes games hard. And, unlike my previous discussion on the matter I’ve been thinking more about this problem from a developer perspective. Particularly the notion that if you make a game too easy people will skip over it, too hard and people will ragequit (before someone mentions it, Dark Souls and similar don’t count – they’re meant to be hard). I was thinking more along the lines of simple, progression-orientated fighting games. In many games to be found there is always a few constant elements to keep said game interesting and fun… [Continue Reading]

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MeeMs Thoughts on What He Loves (Specifically About Portal)

After the release of Portal 2 I continually found myself to be more and more critical of the maps held within games, through no fault of their own. An odd realisation had come to me when I realised that the maps in Portal and the sequel have two very important core properties which I feel greatly improved my experience playing them, as well as introducing an intriguing set of rules. Beyond the simple colour scheme of the original Portal lies one key factor that is simply that the white and black zones that make up the walls are the one… [Continue Reading]

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MeeM’s Thoughts on Voxel Hat Dimension Hopper

For those of you who don’t know – That’s FEZ. FEZ is a small game about a guy, called Gomez. He has a hat. More specifically, a fez. This covers the majority of the storyline. The rest of the storyline centres around the magical ability of this fez. It allows Gomez to visit unseen dimensions. Not quite a third dimension, but simply different perspectives of the same dimension. If you get what I mean. And if you don’t… you won’t. The thing about a FEZ is that (slightly less than) half of the game can be achieved solely through the application… [Continue Reading]

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MeeMs Thoughts on Space Jump Story Simulator

(FTL) I LOVE this game. And when I say love, I got the game on the 20th: And, by the 23rd, this is what the steam page looked like: Now I don’t know about you, but I might have a problem… and too much free time. And for those of you that don’t see why, I’m averaging 6.3Hrs/day! That’s more than a quarter of a day, every day, for three days! For those of you who don’t know, the basic premise of the game is that you’re a captain seeing your ship from a top down perspective, you have the ability to… [Continue Reading]

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MeeMs Thoughts On The Balance Of Power

After the recent update (Or if you’re reading this in the future the MyM update) many of us are left questioning two things. Firstly, what the hell are the TF team doing and secondly, do they actually play this game? Well from recent discussions it seems pretty clear that Valve would likely try to break down weapon stats into more logical data. So to begin with we must query what actually makes a weapon. For most weapons in TF2 we can split it up into it’s effective range and its DPS. If we look at a simple example say… the… [Continue Reading]

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MeeM’s random SPUF article

Now, I get that as a medic main I meet a bunch of friends (perhaps more than any other class main) just from playing the game. Indeed, many of them I become really good friends with and we get along great. But, as with most friendships, eventually people drift apart. (And yes, mopey post ahead.) Now my steam friends list is full of people I’ve met from a bunch of different games. From guys I spent hundreds of hours to guys who randomly decided to help me through the first part of that game I got yesterday and spent a… [Continue Reading]

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MeeM’s Thoughts on Camaraderie

As seemingly the norm with the short articles I write, they start with an anecdote then use an example and close with a final thought. So, let’s not delay. The other night, I had a most wonderful hour and a half playing MvM with Medic and her friends. Although there were a few problems setting up, once we got everyone there the game started. Because it was Medic’s birthday we were doing medic only. Logically, we couldn’t do many hard waves like this so we started off by doing decoy. So, first round, six medics versus what 40 scouts(?). Pretty… [Continue Reading]

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MeeM’s thoughts on Personality

Recently, it dawned on me that I had some name tags lying around but no names to give to my weapons and, in true SPUF style I felt the need to tell others. Now this was all well and good but something else was pointed out to me. A few weeks before the introduction of escrow I had wanted to S. F. Crusader’s. Of course, nobody seems to have the one thing you need and I was in a terrible rush to avoid the delay. Because of this, I got a renamed/redesced crossbow for a bad price. No matter, I… [Continue Reading]

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MeeM’s thoughts on difficulty and continuity

Often, I find myself asking: “why are you still doing this” or “your team isn’t trying, why should you”. And nearly every time I fail to answer, and then consequently die for not paying attention. But that’s the thing. Why did I die? I died because I made myself die. Not directly, rather I made the decision that I should die a couple of hours before playing. Now, I’m fairly certain most people, at some point in any game, get to a point where they no longer feel challenged and quickly after they become bored. At least this was true… [Continue Reading]

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