I love whenever Ross goes on a tangent about how a game's setting would realistically function, because it's never some video essay thesis he starts the game trying to prove, it's just his brain automatically going there and forcing him to talk about it

I don’t think the vast majority of writers see themselves as writing in code, privately trying to convey one idea but doing so through sneaky and underhanded tactics. The readily apparent, surface level impression you get from work is often the most important one

Don't just show up for me — Skye is one of my favorite video essayists, and there'll be lots of interesting guests throughout the stream. And please support Trans Lifeline if you are able. Their cause is more vital than ever right now.

happy birthday, to one who has always inspired me to try new things and learn new skills, instead of sticking to what i'm comfortable with.

This isn't relevant in any way; my brain just did word association with God of War. But this is a good video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwBe...

Haven't played it either but Kratos has a good design! The bald head, the pale skin, the contrast of that with the thick beard. The thick red tattoos. The wide build that gives him a slightly more memorable shape (without having to do cartoonish anatomy or anything). He has bright and dark sections!

Well, whatever it is, it doesn't make me curious enough to want to play her games lmao.

Okay logging out of this site again to be productive.

I feel Aloy's design is somewhat corporate, and yet I think discounting things as corporate is a cop-out. Not every corporation makes decisions for the same reason. And I don't think lacking memorable traits is even a good path to mass appeal. So why was she designed like this?

I don't really care about Overwatch at all, and honestly I find Blizzard's character designs to be very corporate and soulless. But honestly? They're effective. When I see an OW character, I can't help but grasp their general vibe is. And then I have a form of attachment, even if I don't want it.

It's not just the individual interaction that they're easy to read and remember. It's that simplifying how information is conveyed leads to greater focus on key pieces of information, which leads to a greater emotional impression.

In other words: I have no idea what Aloy's personality is.

So rather than simplistically say, "It was better before", I'd rather focus on the purpose and intent. Because again, Sony seems to want Aloy and Horizon to be ICONIC. And memorable, distinctive character designs are a powerful vector for that. For that goal, I think her design fails.

But now we don't have to. And while limitation breads creativity, that doesn't mean we always need the same limitations. Even the limitation of needing high-fidelity game graphics for mass appeal can itself breed creativity in new directions.

When you're making animated art, you benefit from minimizing detail to make it easier to draw a character over and over. Animation is expensive and time consuming.

And in early games, the limitations were even stronger. Game graphics literally couldn't do high detail, early on.

Again, in contrast to something like BotW, realism is certainly part of Horizon's appeal (like many others). The detailed nature of the graphics contributes to that.

The benefit of having only as much detail as necessary is, well, no longer strictly necessary.