Theory

[icycalm]

The Game Awards 2018 teases "a fuckton of new game announcements"
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-game ... D.1467860/



Don't give a crap about their stupid awards, but looking forward to making many banners for my HYPE section that day.

December 6: https://thegameawards.com/game-awards-2 ... ecember-6/

[icycalm]

Their 2021 GOTY ladies and gents:

It Takes Two – Official Gameplay Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAWHzGNcTEw



A simplistic platformer. 3D platformer too, which means boring. I thought those went extinct two decades ago?

BUT OH NOES THE GIRL'S PARENTS ARE DIVORCING AND WE NEED TO STOP THAT, GOTY MATERIAL RIGHT THERE... if you're a fag.

[icycalm]

https://twitter.com/culturevg/status/14 ... 1785595905

[icycalm]

PC Gamer picked Valheim: https://twitter.com/culturevg/status/14 ... 7804171264

It’s a pathetic choice, but way less pathetic than the Game Awards’ one. Master Race and all that.

Valheim is a 3/5 for me. I didn’t even bother trying it. Once you’ve played this type of game with thousands of people in the server, playing with just a few friends sounds borderline depressing. At least take advantage of the few players to add a cool story and setpieces then! Make a full campaign out of it! But no, they just stripped the PVP out of the game and handed us the lobotomized version of the genre. And of course the casuals declared it GOTY.

No thanks.

[icycalm]

https://twitter.com/geoffkeighley/statu ... 9907052545

1 Week until #TheGameAwards

This is the one I've been waiting to do for a while. Lots of pieces falling into place. Lots of games ready to show.

Cannot wait to share the future of this exiting industry with you all!

Can't wait to see what 85-IQ game they'll crown winner this time.

[icycalm]

The 2022 Game Awards nominees include 108 games, 31 categories
https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/news/ ... categories

BEST INDIE
Cult of the Lamb (Massive Monster/Devolver Digital)
Neon White (Angel Matrix/Annapurna)
Sifu (Sloclap)
Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
TUNIC (TUNIC Team/Finji)

BEST DEBUT INDIE
Neon White (Angel Matrix/Annapurna Interactive)
NORCO (Geography of Robots/Raw Fury)
Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna)
TUNIC (TUNIC Team/Finji)
Vampire Survivors (poncle)

These lists make a mockery of the artform.

Most of the categories are downright retarded.

"Most Anticipated" aren't even 2022 games.

MOST ANTICIPATED
FINAL FANTASY XVI (Square Enix)
Hogwarts Legacy (Avalanche Software/WB Games)
Resident Evil 4 (Capcom)
Starfield (Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda)
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo)

This is somehow even stupider than woke Oscars. The only thing that can make it worse is a woke version of the event where only brown-developed games are nominated. Thankfully there are no such games yet. Let's hope there never will be.

[icycalm]

It has been a bad year for games, by the way. Barely anything worth playing.

[icycalm]

Barren "open-world" rolling on the floor game (ROFL) got GOTY. They probably got this right. Unless we count RPGs. I haven't seen any stellar reviews for Blood Lords, but it's early days yet, and I know I'd rather play that 1,000,000x over barren "open-world" rolling on the floor game, so idk.

It's been a crap year and I'll take my time finding the real GOTY.

Maybe barren "open-world" rolling on the floor game is just very beautiful? I can see giving it GOTY if that's the reason, and considering how bad the competition is. But I'd still much rather play Blood Lords, so how is it GOTY?

I think I need to skim Blood Lords a bit. And then there's also Quest for the Frozen Flame and Outlaws of Alkenstar. If ALL of them are mediocre (which by Paizo standards is still stellar compared to everything else), AND the ROFL game is aesthetically next-next-level, then MAYBE I can see myself giving ROFL game GOTY. But I'd feel more comfortable giving it GOTY runner-up or something.

It should have been my game that's GOTY, but I don't have the energy to put in the huge amount of work that's needed before the end of the year, and I don't see a reason to destroy myself and rush my game for a meaningless stupid award, so fuck that.

It's been a miserable year for new games, but I played lots of Pathfinder early on, and lots of Rust in the middle, and lots of Star Citizen in the tail end, so I am happy. These are the GOTYs every year, the forever GOTYs.

Rainbow Six Extraction was a dud, Gotham Knights didn't deliver, Total War: Warhammer III was as boring as any Total War game even despite the big MP mode. Maybe Bayo3 was good, but beat 'em ups are an old genre now and so unless your game is out-of-this-world good, the genre just isn't exciting. Even Dying Light 2 apparently disappointed? THAT had been my GOTY favorite besides my game. I need to look into this. Maybe the reception was unwarranted. Probably not though.

Oh yeah, Sifu was a repetitive dud too. Don't even talk to me about the Sony games. Stupid awkward shit all of them. They look boring even in trailers. Midnight Suns looks okay, Warzone 2 was okay, but nothing to light up my fire.

Just off the top of my head, if I had to pick three games that I would like to try, minus RPGs, it would be Dying Light 2, Elden Ring, and Bayo3. Maybe Gotham Knights with a friend just for the unusualness of co-op open-world.

It will take a while to figure this out. Who knows, maybe I can find some smaller production that really pushed the envelope somewhere.

Drat, this should have been my year, and next year will be tough with Menyr 100% winning it. Not that anyone will know it.

[icycalm]

Alright I got the GOTY, I'll tell you what the GOTY is. It's Alex Kierkegaard's Ultimate Edition. Hear me out.

In 2020 it was Alex Kierkegaard's Battlegrounds because that's when my world/mega-campaign was launched. Ultimate Edition was launched alongside it, but none of its revolutionary mechanics were in yet. None of them saw play in 2020 or 2021, because they were still under development. Not even alpha, it was pre-alpha, I was still figuring things out, and frequently replacing or even entirely ditching mechanics.

And then earlier this year a key component of the system, the seduction mechanics, were added and used to great effect:

dndbattlegrounds.net Omnia Sandpoint Concert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNSADfcMkHY



Now shock therapy has a girlfriend, and eventually potentially a wife and kids to establish and continue his lineage in the Battlegrounds.

Moreover, before the end of the year we will have run multiple Pathfinder Scenarios with the new Ultimate Organized Play mechanics that will allow all players in the world to come to the aid of (or hinder) all others, finally bringing true multiparty mechanics to D&D.

And yeah, I think that's a development more worthy of celebration than rolling on the floor for 30 hours, call me weird, but that's just me. Your mileage may vary.

And finally, if you think a rule system shouldn't be celebrated as a "game", the entire TTRPG community will vehemently disagree with that, and their community has twice the IQ of yours (that's why you roll on the floor for 30 hours and they don't), so. I consider the matter settled.

My game is 2022 Game of the Year.

Congratulations to me! I deserved it! I'd like to thank my parents for raising me, my girlfriend for believing in me, and my penis for being so big and making me so ambitious.

Hooray for Alex Kierkegaard's Ultimate Edition!


P.S. I and my Cult Games studio are in the running for next year too with Alex Kierkegaard's West Marches, launching mid-January. Latest teaser can be seen here:

Third Teaser | Alex Kierkegaard's West Marches (2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_9rZIzZs28

[icycalm]

https://twitter.com/EVE_Tetsel/status/1 ... 2368073728



This guy knows what's up.

It's confirmed to be coming btw.

[Some guy]

The 2022 Game Awards in a Nutshell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ers7mBCjNkY

[icycalm]

lmao that’s worse than I had thought. The Oscars are now a chimp show of dancing and slapping niggers, and the game show is special needs central.

[Some guy]

The 2023 Invisible Wall Game Awards in a Nutshell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH4HzG5qHuQ

[icycalm]

Sega saved the show (note that it’s the only part of the show the guy doing the recap doesn’t ridicule). That they did it with quarter-of-a-century-old designs shows the absolute state of the invisible wall game industry. Thankfully all the good developers have left that industry, so only the bad ones are left behind and the future of videogames is secure.

That said, Baldur’s Gare III [ > ] sweeping the awards was a wise decision, given the competition, but that’s still a quarter-of-a-century-old design. So still depressing for non-midwits.

Note that not a single technological innovation was showcased. The midwits have nothing. Tech innovation has totally ceased in their world. Which tracks with midwits being unable to innovate anything.

Compare with the CitizenCon 2953 demonstrations whose tech blew minds every 5 minutes for 2 days.

The Future of Gaming: StarEngine (4K)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nWm_OhIKms8



Note how clearly Chris Roberts understands what he’s doing. Not for a moment do the midwits manage to befuddle him. He’s making the future, and loudly proclaims it, while the midwits are making forgettable rubbish that no one in the future will care about (because midwits will go extinct).

That engine showcase is merely the tip of the iceberg btw. Every real gamer needs to watch the full 10.5 hours of presentations, or you’ll still be living in the quarter-of-a-century-ago era with the midwits:

CitizenCon 2953
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV ... mL4Je1BkX3

And this is not even counting Cult Engine 3, which destroys BG3, let alone Cult Engine 4, which destroys Alan Wake II [ > ], anything Kojima has ever made or will ever make, and even Star Citizen.

But you’ll learn more about those very, very soonTM.

And, as always, if you want to know the real GOTYs, which is to say the Human ones, there’s only one page on the internet to find those:

The Insomnia Game of the Year Awards (1962-2024)
https://culture.vg/reviews/awards/game-of-the-year.html

It even has next year’s lol, because Humans can see the future (it’s a perk of making it).


P.S. Rory’s video is hilarious, don’t miss it. The sheer infantilism on display is staggering.

[Some guy]

The 2024 Invisible Wall Game Awards in a Nutshell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJHZUFKj1cI

[icycalm]

I meant to post this on December 31, but got sidetracked, and then forgot about it. Then Rory reminded me about it with his invisible wall GOTY post, so I am doing it now.

I was planning to make a big deal out of how 2024 is the first year for decades in which I played all three Insomnia Game of the Year and runner-up winners. And I even played them DURING the year. Of course, that's because I made two of them, but still. The point stands. A new era dawns on Insomnia, one in which we're super up-to-date with what's happening in the industry, because we ARE the industry now.

A 4X whose major events are SRPG levels.

An SRPG whose levels are connected by a 4X.

People don't even understand these concepts when they hear of them. Programmers especially assume the thousand-yard programmer stare: they can't understand a word that you're explaining to them, and if you hooked them up to a screen you'd get an "Abort, Retry, Fail?" prompt. These concepts are simply above their intelligence grade, as is all of art, really.



But this is the reality that gaming faced in 2024: a complete bifurcation of the artform. It's not just that high-IQ and low-IQ play different games. It's that the two groups don't even know anymore what the other group is playing. I had never even heard of "Balatro" before the invisible wall awards, and was vaguely even aware that a new Astro Bot was being made. Meanwhile, the 100 IQ crowd doesn't even know the GENRES we're playing, let alone the particular games (FP4X? Metaverse? Wot? They still don't even know what roleplaying means lmao.) Similarly, it's hilarious how Astro Bot is a 3D platformer which in itself is a BAD GENRE, all the way back to Super Mario 64. They not only picked an inferior game. They picked an INFERIOR GENRE, EVEN AMONG INVISIBLE WALL GENRES. Not to speak of "Balatro" lol which isn't even really a videogame! (Unless you think poker is, in which case you don't even have 100 IQ, more like 90.)

Couldn't they have just pumped out an expansion pack for Baldur's Gate III, just so as to have something half-decent to crown GOTY?

Ah, but you don't understand how lazy programmers are, if you're still asking such questions. The expansion will come, but you'll be half a decade older by then. Perhaps you'll even be dead. Or the programmers might be. In which case a new generation of programmers will arise to deliver the expansion to an essentially 30-year-old game.

Meanwhile Cult Games Redmond is now delivering FOUR campaigns per year, every year, without fail lol. By the time the programmers have released the BG3 expansion, we'll have pumped out a good couple dozen campaigns lol.

I won't speak more of Master of Heroes and Master of Combat in this update, the GOTY winner and first runner-up, respectively. I have full VGART essays of them coming, I am only waiting for the screenshots for them. I need the screenshots because they'll save me thousands of words. These screenshots are so revolutionary, I could get away with just posting them as reviews.

And then of course there's Star Citizen, specifically its Alpha 4.0 version, which launched just days before the end of the year, and easily won second runner-up. You'd think the 100 IQ crowd would have at least heard of THIS game, but no mention of it whatsoever was made during the invisible wall awards, probably because... it lacks invisible walls, and the 100 IQ brain therefore can't parse it. And of course everyone is aware of my VGART essay on Star Citizen which is on the verge of becoming a whole book about it, and which I will continue expanding this year and beyond until it is, indeed, a book. Certainly the first action metaverse deserves a book written about it, just as my roleplaying metaverse deserves one, and is getting it in the form of the Ultimate Edition book.

So, expect my MoH and MoC VGART essays as soon as I have the screenshots for them (a month at most), and then all eyes turn to my Kingslayer project which launches much sooner than you'd think, and which will undoubtedly be crowned 2025 Game of the Year.