2015 Dec 12, 6:22
2014 Jun 24, 3:51
Applied game theory 101: Valve’s Steam Summer Sale involves a meta game with teams of Steam users competing for daily prizes. On Reddit the players join together to take turns winning daily.
Valve gets wise and performs an existential attack, changing the rules to make it harder for players to want to coordinate.
Still, that all the players joined together to game the system gives me hope for humanity. Its a self organized solution to a tragedy of the commons problem. Only in this case the tragedy is by
design and is updated to be more tragic.
game video-game game-theory valve 2009 Sep 23, 3:13ASCIIpOrtal is now released!
ascii text game videogame humor portal valve free via:waxy 2008 Nov 20, 11:30KITH + Portal! "We're not sure how deep into the goof juice the Kids in the Hall were when troupe funnyman Scott Thompson started sulking and playing Portal in the back of the tour bus, but something
got into Kids during this sad little gaming session. Yes, the comedic stylings of Valve writer Erik Wolpaw are most amusing, as is the struggle of watching Thompson attempt to do anything more than
move a cube - uncrouch already! - but something tells me there's something magical in those cups. Thanks for the tip, Sascha23!"
portal video humor valve kith scott-thompson 2008 Jun 30, 5:45Erik on writing for games vs books: "Even worse for game writers, the 98% garbage part of a game isn't even usually garbage because instead of reading something boring about the history of Belgium,
the "reader" probably gets to jump a Camaro over a dino
game humor interview valve portal article erik-wolpaw 2007 Nov 28, 2:09Valve shows off their cool visualizations of stats they generated from folks playing HL2E2 including heat maps of player deaths by level.
visualization statistics hl2 game games valve development 2007 Nov 27, 4:19Cool life size weighted companion cube plush toys.
humor portal weighted-companion-cube hl2 valve toy purchase via:boingboing 2007 Oct 22, 4:47
I purchased the
Orange Box off of Steam a bit ago and like
others before me who have
discussed elsewhere, I already owned two of the five games that come from the Orange Box. However, the combined price of
HL2E2 and Portal, the two games I actually wanted was supposedly equivalent to the price of the Orange Box bundle. Incidentally, if anyone would like HL2 or HL2E1 I can
gift them to you.
HL2E2 was excellent of course but the big surprise for me was Portal. (Mild spoilers follow) It has a sort of zen simplicity: there are a few simple game-play mechanics, a handful of textures and
objects, and a deceptively simple story all used well and tied together to produce an entertaining and polished game. It seems a bit short but its probably better to end with the gamer demanding
more. The humor and the sort of
play within a play aspect of the game is what really sold me though. It has the funniest
ending theme I've heard (also
blogged by the creator). The voices of the automated turrets are so adorable I would feel compelled to hug them if they weren't
always trying to kill me. Additionally the
weighted companion cube seems like an experiment in understanding gamers'
attachment to NPCs. In this case the NPC is a box and yet I still felt awful incinerating it. The whole time I was vaguely reminded of
Solitary the reality show
that sticks contestants alone in small rooms forcing them to endure various tests all the while being watched by a humorous computer with a female voice. Someone should sue...
RPS has articles on Portal including
a Portal review, a page
suggesting Portal is a tale of
lesbianism, and
others.
hl2e2 game hl2 solitary valve portal nontechnical 2007 Oct 18, 5:06More on the ending song for Portal from the creator.
portal game games music jonathan-coulton blog valve videogames song 2005 Mar 27, 5:37Tycho talks about Valve and Vivendi. Gabe likes Sandwiches
comic penny-arcade valve humor
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