/lit/ - Literature

>>15516406
Shadow madness

>>15516406
Metal Gear Solid. All of it.

Silent Hill 1-4

Morrowind but unironically.
Read the in game books.

>>15516406
Damn that looks cool.
Haven't gamed since I was a child though.

>>15516617
Daggerfall's in-game books were better desu senpai

>>15516406
Nothing Japanese and nothing after 2007ish

Darklands
Planescape: Torment
Arcanum (with content restoration)
KOTOR1 and KOTOR2 (especially the latter with content restoration)
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (with unofficial patch)
Mask of the Betrayer (with or without playing NWN2 first, which is mediocre; NWN is worse although its expansions are sort of alright)
Deus Ex
King of Dragon Pass
Star Control 2 (Ur Quan Masters edition is free online)
Freespace / Frespace 2 (can be modded to look better than modern games)
Thief / Thief 2
Homeworld / Homeworld: Cataclysm (and maybe HW2)
Dwarf Fortress
XCOM
Daggerfall (mechanically much more ambitious than any other TES game)
Morrowind (modded)
System Shock 1 and 2
Ultima games (various)
Might and Magic games (various)
Gothic series
Jagged Alliance 2
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (only play expansion after playing base game)

>>15516649
>Darklands
Manual for that game was terrific and would have come close to satisfying the requirements for a dissertation on the period. Man, I miss the 90s. They were so much better than the future we ended up with.

Lit used to answer this question by saying “no, none. Bad habit”
Look at what we’ve become.

>>15516406
pathologic

>>15516649
Forgot to say to get the 1.13 patch for Jagged Alliance 2 and google the Drassen counter-attack so you can decide whether you want it

Also forgot:
Masters of Orion 2
Sword of the Stars
Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas (heavily modded and with the understanding that Gamebryo isn't a real game engine so you have to focus on roleplay/writing and tolerate the mechanics)

>>15516660
I think it's because video games used to be designed by a guy or a group of guys with a single vision (subjective spirit) trying to realise that vision in some concrete matter (objective spirit), and elevating the matter as a result by twisting and reverse engineering it to do what it "should" do. Nowadays game designers take the existing matter, already common and available in objective spirit (engines, expectations of graphical niceties, mechanics, tropes), assume that as their standard, and then make a game "within" that. What few geniuses and driven people still exist are accustomed to being cucked by the system and grovelling to be let loose to work passionately on a few nuances in the game, instead of being able to lead whole projects.

Just look at Kirkbride on Morrowind vs. Kirkbride on Skyrim. For Skyrim, Todd Howard "let" Kirkbride come back and polish up a low-ambition turd corridor shooter. And he did it, because creative people think they have to accommodate a broken system. Kirkbride should have executed Todd Howard.

>>15516406
Any games that feel similar to Kafka’s The Castle? When I read it last summer I kept thinking it would make a cool video game, wondering through a snowy village in perpetual night trying to make sense of your environment, running into confusing characters whose motives may be a danger to you, having to get into the castle through dialogue, alternative actions, or as a last resort, by force.

>>15516695
I'm not just referring to vidya when I say that the 90s were better than the future we ended up with. Highbrow western culture in 2020 is dead, and middlebrow culture has given up any pretense at or aspirations for respectability, and instead we live in a world where literature, cinema, games, and culture in general is simply lowest common denominator capeshit.

I suspect the root of this is economic, with everyone seeking the maximum economic return on their investment, as opposed to just a fair or respectable return. But whatever the cause, the bottom line is that the world is fucked, and culture is effectively dead.

It was a nice run while it lasted, I guess.

>>15516699
Sanitarium

>>15516649
King of Dragon Pass is such a great game, and you can play it on your phone

>>15516468
>>15516617
Both these anons are 100% correct
>>15516649
This anon is mostly right but some of those games are more /autism/core than /lit/ but I'm not criticizing as if you browse this board you'd probably enjoy them.

>>15516695
Fallout New Vegas is equivalent to a High-Schooler's fan-fiction of Fallout

>>15516725
do you think this has any relation to what anons are saying in the spengler thread up rn? As in we have culturally peaked (exhausted) and now we are stagnating in the civilization phase until a collapse.

>>15516725
There's still beauty out there you just have to really look

>>15516760
I don't know, haven't been in that thread. Will take a look.

>>15516742
The artwork and lore is pure kino

>>15516406
Astrologaster
https://youtu.be/Qpjyo5lP7Qc
It's based on some weird 17th C medical diary that was being digitised.

>>15516725
Homogenization through copycatting is a risk aversion strategy in capitalism that applies to any domain. It's fundamentally bet-hedging. Don't do anything new, do what your competition is already doing, something that already "works," just better, or more efficiently exploited. Consumer capitalism fundamentally functions by locating "raw" talent and refining it. Once you've refined enough raw talents, you can generalize the refining process even more. The same "cleaning up" processes that you applied to the raw talent of a garage punk band that you elevated to international fame can be applied, with minor modifications, to a rising rapper or a country singer. Obviously the rapper and the country singer and the punk band will all be complicit in this because they are getting rich and joining the elite.

When the managers come in, they obviously manage everything, they manage management itself until the whole world is made of managers managing management. What you're noticing is the ass-end of a process that has been going on for a century. At first the managers were just bankrollers, often wealthy friends of talented people. Then they were hip young but well-connected people who grew up in the milieus they later managed. Now they are managers with armies of committees and they actively shape consumers to be more retarded to like worse and worse slop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4wsURn3rw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vfqkvwW2fs
(5:17)

>“By artfully sanctioning the demand for trash, the system inaugurates total harmony. Connoisseurship and expertise are proscribed as the arrogance of those who think themselves superior, whereas culture distributes its privileges democratically to all.”

>>15516753
So much better writing.

>>15516760
Spengler needlessly turns it into a cyclical metaphysics of history. Check out Bambach's discussion of Heidegger's appropriation of Spengler in Heidegger's Roots.

>>15516782

>>15516796
Better in that they seem to be taking things a bit more seriously because of the absence of pop-culture references. But most of the story felt very contrived and shallow.

>>15516681
Even butterfly is right here.
Fuck you OP

>>15516681
Don't say "we" as if you've ever belonged here, discord tranny.

>>15516861
>>15516681
We used to have regular threads on whether things (especially video games) were or were not Art, and what Art even is. I don't think we really got a consensus but I like the point that there isn't really a true auteur equivalent (imo an overused term in film), and that the teams are too big and growing and the creative process too playtest/focus group led to have produced any true Art so far. This was mostly in that first year or two.

>>15516406

I know some anons will sperg out but Disco Elysium is kind of /lit/. it's not a game, as in there aren't just that many mechanics, you can play it with only a mouse essentially. it's more of an interactive graphic novel. but the writing is good, judging from other video games, not necessarily judging by /lit/ standards. it's also a lot of fun, your character debates with other people and his own body/mind.

>>15516681
it may be a bad habit but mindlessly leafing through some tome just because /lit/ told you so isn't any better, to be honest. better to devote some time to some entertainment and other time to other entertainment.

>>15516406
the bioshock series are 100% lit/pol/his approved.

>>15516406
no , fuck off

>>15516649
>Darklands
I remember Josh Sawyer saying he would like to get darklands ip.

>>15516922
I advise against Infinite Jest, but wasting time on hack and slash button mashing is just the lowest type of entertainment imo

>>15516889
Yeah, I agree. I miss the art threads. Now it’s just religious and “coomer/anti-coomer” threads.

>>15516914
>biggest pseud game
definitely /lit/

>>15516790
The beginning of that third vid is like cultural dementia.

There's this great new console called "books" where you open it up and start reading and it transports you to the fictional or even nonfictional world of your choice for about three hours (varies on the size of the console and whether you're dedicated to gameplay) and they release thousands of them every year for a fraction of the price of a Gameboy. You should check them out sometime, I think they could be a great up and comer in the industry.

>>15516950
doesn't sound like you know a lot about games really.

>>15516681
What's a bad habit? Having a pastime?

>>15516889
I think videogames have an amazing potential for being artistic, I am looking for videogames that can be considered "art" in the more traditional use of the term.

>>15516950
you can hate on religious and coomer threads all you want but bringing that up and coming in to a thread about litgames / games as art just to talk shit about hack slash isn't making this board any better.

If you haven't read a book don't post your review of it, if you haven't played any games don't come into this thread and stink it up.

>>15517003
medium is the message my man, I think games where the story is told through mechanics/gameplay instead of info dumps will make games into art. Otherwise its like going to a movie that's projecting the pages of a book

Pokemon and Octopath Traveller have plenty of words to read in them.

>>15516974
>There’s also puzzle solving!

>>15516978
Pastimes are waste-times, I understand. They become habits. Reading can be edifying if you read the right things. Video games are never edifying.

>>15517008
My opinions don’t need your approval. Stop taking it so hard.

>>15516974
>There’s also puzzle solving!

>>15516978
Pastimes are waste-times, I understand. They become habits. Reading can be an edifying habit if you read the right things. Video games are never edifying.

>>15517008
My opinions don’t need your approval. Stop taking it so hard

>>15517040
I'm only pointing out that you made up your opinions with no experience, aka pseudery

>>15517032
Reading nonfiction can unironically be a much worse habit for someone who isn't in an enterprising position of society, who has no ambitions to reach such a position, and who has debts to pay, because it'll create an inflated sense of unjustified importance in the reader.

>>15517021
The problem is that in playtesting this kind of storytelling/gameplay gets on some people's nerves. They need an immediate dopamine shot to tell them "you did good buddy!" so games tend to err on the side of heavy exposition and signposting.

>>15517032

snarky sarcasm does not help this debate a bit. why are you like this?

>>15517049
>You gotta play ALLL the video games ‘for you can talk about ‘em
No.

>>15517056
Ha! I already make room for the unproductive reader there. But I would have given Stephan King as an example. Your example is just cruel. Fuck that.

>>15517064
meant for >>15517040

>>15517064
Stop taking it so hard.
Enjoy you vidya. It just seems hollow to me now.
...posting here is just as hollow. Be honest.

>>15516693
>>15516914
Cool games, but they're closer to choose your own adventure novels than to video games.

>>15517088

>>15517074
no need to be passive aggressive, I'm not suggesting you need to do some 'start with the nintendo' shit with games.

>>15517088
so why bother posting here and agitating people. Really though, what kind of tactic is that. coming into this thread and then just dropping "lmao dont take it to hard anon" repeatedly. What did you expect.

>>15517088
God I wish that were you, butterfly.

>>15517101
agreed on Disco Elysium, Pathologic 2 has actual mechanics though.

super monkey ball
umihara kawase
marble madness
alundra
the firemen
dreamweb
goof troop

>>15517088
I think you are confusing the two different anons replying to you, nonetheless neither of us are 'taking it hard', we're already being honest, no need to get angry about it. I mean, if you don't like hollow hobbies, and you post here all the time, why even bother criticizing them. Seems like a waste of time.

>>15516681
Lit also used not to have tripfags around, and if I were to choose between that and shitting on other media for no other reason than to fuel some sense of elitism, I'd choose former in a heartbeat.

>>15517141
Newfag. Don’t even try to lie. The place was full of trips back when it was the best board.

Ladderhead

I only play videogames when I'm with my friends. I guess I don't really see the point

>>15517191
That's okay, I don't see the point in types of art that don't appeal to me either.

>>15517204
>>15517191
should the sequel thread to this be most /lit/ films or most /lit/ painters?

>>15516937
By Bioshock series do you mean Bioshock 1 and Bioshock 2? I don't know if many people approve of Bioshock Infinite.

>>15517040
I agree with you for the first time. What a time to be alive

>>15517173
> back when it was the best board
So, never, exactly.

>>15517173
>back when it was the best board.
Being the tallest of the midgets is nothing to brag about.

>>15517514
Unless you're on /fit/

>>15516406
I don't know what lit would recommend, but to recommend some i'd say SOMA, The Talos Principle, The Stanley Parable, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Witness and Braid are some great examples of what good videogames can do with the specific medium that no other mediums can, not films and not even literature, the core element being experience.

>>15516406
>>15517609
This War of Mine is another great example.

Butterfly once again proves how she's not a horrible poster and attention whore, by filling an entire thread with attention whore back-and-forth conversation with her hateclub.

Either admit you're a troll who knows what she's doing and enjoys it, or stop claiming to be a good poster when you refuse to engage with your guaranteed (You)s, such that any time you post it's a fifty percent chance the thread will devolve into your personal blog.

>>15516406
Writing AAR's based on your Crusader Kings 2 campaigns

>>15516914
i agree with you, best writing/dialogue in a game in 10 years

>>15517609
The Stanley Parable does actually something wonderful, it puts videogames into question through videogames themselves, ultimately doing much more than that. It asks some interesting questions on the nature of freedom.
Also The Beginners Guide, another great videogame that transcends videogames and treats things common tu many other mediums.

>>15516649
>All that moves is easily heard in the void, we will listen for you, farewell.
Homeworld had moments of pure beauty.

>>15516406
This board isn't your safespace. Go back.

>>15516406
The only games I've ever played that came close to having original literary merit are Pathologic and Suda51's earlier stuff. The problem is that the former is either broken or unfinished, depending on which version you're talking about, and the latter are intentionally obtuse and incoherent. None of them are that entertaining, either.
Everything else is essentially genre fiction, and I'm not saying that to bash them. There are some very well-written games out there, but none of them are all that original. The same goes for games focused on "meta" elements that assume the audience is already familiar with video game tropes/mechanics/culture/etc.
Most game devs don't care that much about the writing, and personally I'm not convinced that "interactive electronic storytelling" has that much potential. The games I mentioned above could easily be turned into books without losing anything that important.

>>15516681
There are few times when butterfly is based and this is one of them. I'll give you credit where it's due this time.

>>15516594
lol no, second one is the only good one in this overrated fucking series, but I wouldn't say it's really /lit/
>>15516617
All the books have Harry Potter tier prose. Every time I hear someone praise Morrowind on this board I can't help but imagine some fat manchild that wears suits in his home and vapes.

>>15516823
>Better in that they seem to be taking things a bit more seriously because of the absence of pop-culture references.
Did we play the same game?

>>15516649
boomers from RPG Codex have the most based taste in video games

>>15516889
>We used to have regular threads on whether things (especially video games) were or were not Art, and what Art even is.
These threads were always off-topic and were clearly not dominated by the actual core of /lit/, just vaguely interested board tourists.

>>15517713
> I'm not convinced that "interactive electronic storytelling" has that much potential. The games I mentioned above could easily be turned into books without losing anything that important.
Well, that depends on the case, most, as with everything else being bad quality ones. There are many good examples of what you may put into the "interactive electronic storytelling", category, for example what has been called "walking simulator" that are really good works that wouldn't work in any form other than videogame as it lets you have the experience in first hand, thing that's impossible in other forms of art.
Sorry for the bad english.

>>15516725
>I'm not just referring to vidya when I say that the 90s were better than the future we ended up with.
Get over yourself millennial. It's the exact same in terms of shallow consumerism present in the 2000s and 2010s.

>>15516649
>genre shit

>>15517713
>>15517775
A pretty significative evidence of this is how people usually say when they talk about what happened in videogames, it's usual to hear that people talk of themselves as "I" when narrating the experiences they had in videogames, that doesn't happen in any other medium because there's a particular form of engagement and therefore perception of the self that is specific to videogames.

>>15517747
Oh come on, Fallout 2 was filled with on-the-nose references that were nearly unavoidable. From 3 on, they were at least a bit more subtle. Most of the random encounters in the first 2 games were completely immersion breaking because of how obvious they were: bridge guardian, tardis, crashed federation ship, etc.

The first video game was created over 80 years ago and nothing the medium has produced has been of any value whatsoever other than brainless amusement for children.

It took a short fraction of that time for cinema to achieve great works.

>>15516972
This reads like the guy who made the pail of water comic wrote this post

Art allows for growth and a widening of the mind. Ultimately, games have to become less idealistic; the most essential part of games is the ruleset and instead of making games with deep and complex rules for varied play and strategising, the game must become a living ruleset. Unexpected, changing, elusive. Not subversive for the sake of being subversive but to work more intimately with moods associated with different possibility spaces
You're collecting things but it comes at the expense of not collecting other things
You're performing actions but you're not actually doing anything
You're entering a room but you don't close the door behind you

Think about The Trial by Kafka. K's entire journey is through various oppressive possibility spaces, his inner monologue stumbling through a labyrinth of physical and metaphysical obstacles like a beautiful little rat. In the case of games, the rat is the mind of the player. It must be prodded and moved in new directions

>>15516649
>>15516406
Nethack.

>>15517763
>and were clearly not dominated by the actual core of /lit/, just vaguely interested board tourists.
Apart from them being regular from the start, how would you know? Gotcha ;^)

>>15518103
You can tell the difference between an actual /lit/erari and someone who just wants to look smart on the "smart" board after a while lurking here, anon.

>>15518072
Anon, you don't have to play one single videogame, there are plenty of them, some of those great in working more intimately with moods associated with different possibility spaces.
>You're performing actions but you're not actually doing anything
I assume you are aknowledging the "thematic" nature of videogames. Videogames are mostly somewhat non-places filled with a theme, as airoports. But some videogames transcend that quality by producing significative experiences that go beyond the videogame itself. You could even say that this happens in the most "vulgar" videogames such as WoW, when people carry a symbolic practice, giving spaces and events a living nature. The game needs rules as so as freedom does, a living ruleset would just become many games in one.

>>15518168
Do go on.

>>15516406
i love suda games, but a lot of his stuff is more theatrical in regards to action, cinematography, and dialogue. now his silver case and kill the past connection are fucking nutso and intricate. if you dont want to get into all of it, at least try the silver case and maybe 25th ward. dont play flower sun rain unless you are ready for a real walking simulator and retarded puzzle reading. stories are all good, but fsr is a pain in the ass unless you know you like suda and want everything he has ever touched.

>>15518072
>Art allows for growth and a widening of the mind. Ultimately, games have to become less idealistic; the most essential part of games is the ruleset and instead of making games with deep and complex rules for varied play and strategising, the game must become a living ruleset. Unexpected, changing, elusive. Not subversive for the sake of being subversive but to work more intimately with moods associated with different possibility spaces
There's an interesting type of game called Nomic. Some of the older text based MMORPGs use them for legislation/government. I wanted to make a weird nomic mod for minecraft a little while back.

>>15516649
>Gothic series
Ya blew it
You should have said Gothic 1 and 2

No, except possibly this: play Dwarf Fortress for a while, and then watch a ton of videos from Tarn Adams where he explains how he has tried to design the game.

His ultimate vision is to create a procedural generator for fantasy stories. And so he has had to parameterize (or plan to parameterize) everything that might be an important element of such a story---everything from soil systems to weather systems to religious systems, etc. And he has to devise general-purpose rules for how these systems interact with one another. And the systems/rules have to be designed to /produce interesting stories/ whenever they are run. That's his ambition.

His parameterizations of e.g. religious or cultural systems or magical systems is still pretty superficial (I mean, of course they are). The narratives that his system spits out are, all told, pretty thin, and rely hugely on the player's imagination to fill in the gaps. He is light years away from his ultimate ambition. But nevertheless, he approaches it with an earnest love of fantasy, the mindset of a mathematician, and the diligence of a fanatic. I think anyone who is interested in literature would be fascinated (even if repulsed) by such an attempt to automate storytelling.

Pharaoh (1999)

>>15518195
I'm not the anon you're responding to. By reading the wikipedia article just seems like a direct democracy simulator or in the best case a collective videogame desing type of videogame. Which is interesting nonetheless, thanks for the information.

>>15518188
What is there to go on about? /v/edditors don't read and aren't interested in discussing literature, simple as that.

>>15516406

These are the most /lit/ games on Steam right now. Enjoy.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/582270/Everything/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/485880/L_U_N_E/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/221910/The_Stanley_Parable/

>>15518317
>https://store.steampowered.com/app/582270/Everything/
This one just seems like a game portraiting the unitary nature of the world as proposed by presocratic philosophers, i'll check it out. Thanks anon

>>15518341
But with a cartesian spin actually.

osrs

Lisa: The Painful

>>15518297
based

>>15518170
I'm mostly arguing for the kind of game that could be an artistic achievement rather than a souped up pinball machine. There's nothing wrong with pinball machines and maybe it's an impossible task but I've seen glimpses of that quality in titles such as Earthbound, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid. Glimpses of the stuff you can easily find in classic literature. I know there's a drive among certain gamers to find that game that will justify all those hours they spent playing Mario Kart (you wont find it) but it's still an interesting thought, that there could be a game that's worthwhile as high art, of universal quality
It's a thorny subject because no one can deny the masterful design of La-Mulana in the sense that it's a game that tries to be a certain thing and it is that thing expertly. I know I'm not engaging with the games in "productive" manner when I am asking for an artistic milestone. It's a thought-experiment more than anything else

>producing significative experiences that go beyond the videogame itself
It doesn't say enough about the game as a piece of art so it's not really what I'm focusing on. I like buildings, pinball machines, airports and social media platforms, whatever, but in this case I'm looking for something self-contained, something flowing from a singular artistic vision

>>15518195
Never heard of it, will have to look into it before saying anything. Also, nothing against those working with text in games but I'm a proponent of that terrible word so defiled by marketing and electronic entertainment peddlers: immersion. There's something very important to me about that vacant expression in a player's face when they're moving their little guy around on the screen. It seems like that's the most promising place to mine, the thing that sets video games apart, even if Zork is cool. It's also why I "respect" things like Dwarf Fortress but it seems to me like a technical achievement more than anything else

>>15518766
>Also, nothing against those working with text in games but I'm a proponent of that terrible word so defiled by marketing and electronic entertainment peddlers: immersion.
The text based MUDs are more like reading a book than any other text based games ime, but they're also surprisingly bad for lag.

I love how video games can be a strange combination of b-movie and /lit/. MGS2 can be pretty deep and prophetic at times but it's also so hard not to laugh at the dub and lip syncing. It's intentionally and unintentionally hilarious depending on the scene.
Pathologic 2 has mechanics based on Russian literature. The developers designed the mechanics to make you feel like a character inside a depressing novel. It's a unique game I loved a lot more than I thought I would.

>>15518784
IF and MUDs is probably my biggest blind spot with games. It's ironic because I'm also an avid reader, I just never liked mixing the two. Or maybe because I find the the text parser to be the most inelegant design solution of all, it just puts me off to always have the entire dictionary to choose from when deciding what to do next

Clearing Pathologic 1 and 2 during the quarantine was the best time I've had playing a game in a long time. The writing is pretty good, the lore in particular is fascinating. Tribal Russian Twin Peaks

This is the good stuff.

https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/books-of-sorrow

fuck off

>>15516649
crpg grognard trash

>>15517780
Get a load of the zoomer here who thinks that things haven't gotten any worse than they were.