X is for X

X is the unofficial handle of a certain YouTube user who submits recordings of him playing video games with funny commentary.  To the initiated, these are called “Let’s Plays” and X did not invent them.  But he, along with a few others LPers, was responsible for a sizable portion of Minecraft’s explosive growth.

If you have any interest in Minecraft, I’d recommend you watch some of his adventures through the game.  Now this is, notably, from an earlier version but they are all fun, informative, and entertaining.  As X learns and triumphs and fails and learns, we learn along with him.  And it’s mostly clean from what I remember.  Here’s the first episode:

I do wonder where the future of Let’s Plays will head in the future.  StarCraft is a televised, national sport in South Korea because it’s so ingrained into their culture.  Minecraft may never reach that level of popularity, but I’m curious to see if people like X could make a decent living just off producing Let’s Plays.

R is for Roguelikes

The computer game Rogue was developed circa 1980 by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman.  You played as an adventurer seeking the Amulet of Yendor (Rodney backwards) and traversed a dungeon that had randomly generated levels.  Rogue, by comparison to most of its contemporary arcade cousins like Space Invaders, was mean and inhuman.  There were no “graphics” aside from an ASCII interface, the controls were complex and unintuitive, and there was never a second life or continue.  What happened if your hero happens to get killed off by something puny like a bat?  Well, your character’s dead now.  Have a nice day!

Rogue was, in some ways, an interesting way to simulate tabletop rpg’s like D&D on a computer.  The genre of games that it spawned (called “roguelikes”) took on this call more thoroughly as they allowed for greater customization of the character (such as class and race).  What I find fascinating is that Rogue’s features like permadeath, ASCII, or starvation (yes, you have to eat) have been faithfully carried on into modern roguelikes.  Games like Angband or NetHack are more advanced in form and features (there is, for example, a myriad of magical items and monsters), but they still have that old school feel.

Most roguelikes are released for free by the genre’s community of developers, but some have achieved commercial success (such as the Mystery Dungeon franchise or the recent Dungeons of Dredmor).  Where most people encounter the influence of roguelikes is through games like the Diablo franchise which takes place in randomly generated dungeons and the option (at least in part 2) of permadeath.  The recent indie sandbox Minecraft is spiritually similar to roguelikes because it’s a randomly generated adventure game with the option of permadeath.

(More on Diablo:  We wouldn’t have World of Warcraft without it.  Yet it makes me wonder, what if WoW had a single server with a few gameplay tweaks to be more aligned with its ancestor?  If there was a permadeath and starvation, going outside the town would be a risk and going into a dungeon would be a major gamble.  Leveling up to 20 or so would be an accomplishment and hitting max level would be amazing.  Dying in a full size raid would be crushing and the whole serve (both factions) would sings songs of lament.  Not dying in a full size raid would likely be impossible.  But let’s say they went all the way and slew the dragon…they would be spoken of in hushed whispers as legends.  In short, the game would be really, really cool.)