Comments on: Prologue To History: Opera Omnia

By: kennycrown

kennycrown — Wed, 11 May 2011 05:37:40 +0000

The style of the interface gives it a very dark feel and the setting almost disguises the fact that it´s a puzzle game. I actually found myself thinking in terms of populations and migrations, wich was surprising: I thought it would be easier to separate those concepts from the puzzle, but it was definetly easier to think in those terms. Took quitting the game in anger a few times to get past the first famine level and understanding what it was about, but it was worth it.

By: Azazel

Azazel — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:01:37 +0000

Oh I have to!

The Holy Bible
Everything Must Go
Generation Terrorists
Lifeblood
Gold Against The Soul
Send Away The Tigers
This is my Truth…
Know Your Enemy

I am excited for Journal For Plague Lovers.

Actually, one of my favourite songs by the Manics in the post THB era is a b-side called Picturesque. It was tremendous, and I can’t find it anywhere. /sad face

By: Flint

Flint — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:17:01 +0000

Kieron:

I’d go like this:
Lifeblood (which is prolly my favourite album of all time as well, or at least one of them)
This Is My Truth
Know Your Enemy
The Holy Bible
Everything Must Go
Gold Against the Soul
Generation Terrorists
Send Away the Tigers

Yes yes I know I’m weird.

By: unique_identifier

unique_identifier — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:39:59 +0000

@deadend: I agree with your feeling about the message of the game. what the player’s doing is essentially in complete disagreement with scientific method: we’ve decided on the conclusions a priori, and then we construct the theory to “prove” the “truth” of our conclusions. The developer writes a little bit about the inspiration of the game in the tigsource forum thread, that’s interesting too…

re: level 18

i suspect the purpose of this level might be to emphasise limitations of the simulation model, and make the player question what they’re doing in their “historian” role, if they haven’t done so already.

the implementation seems to be a little broken unfortunately. I too worked out the general idea for completing level 18, but couldn’t be bothered fiddling with the simulation given the rather clumsy interface, so i just edited the level victory conditions in levels/level18.lua

[ i think there's an issue with the disconnect between the game's internal population counts (floating point) and the ones presented to the user (rounded to nearest integer, i guess). In level 18 I ended up with zero Other population in every city, but 2 net Other population... the victory conditions should be based on the values presented to the user, not the values that are invisible and hidden inside the simulation. ]

By: roBurky

roBurky — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:26:12 +0000

Is level 18 just broken in the current version?

By: Deadend

Deadend — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:33:11 +0000

There is a message in there. I am not sure exactly what it is, but I think it has something to do with working backwards from a solution taints the methods. Or something. I beat the game at 3am after cheating lv 18 as I figured out HOW to do it, I just really didn’t want to take the time to get it exactly right.

By: apnea

apnea — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:55:56 +0000

While we’re all off-topic, pray tell Sir Gillen, why would you sign your blog comments twice?

Or is that some in-character onomatopoeic gastric condition?

‘kg !’ (?)

By: Ecko

Ecko — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:00:21 +0000

Done, done and done. I will vigilantly watch for the first addition of new blood to the playlist!

EDIT: Oo, I didn’t know that if I logged in, I could edit my posts, wonderful.

And yes, I appreciate that, the vision can get somewhat diluted, as I’ve found trying to make a playlist with some of my friends.

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:57:25 +0000

More that it’s difficult to keep an aesthetic core when it’s a free for all. When someone was putting half-albums of Muse records on, it was clear it had gone awry.

By: Ecko

Ecko — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:53:20 +0000

Ah, the great democratic experiment failed then? Q.Q

Righto, I have my first task for this sunny saturday then! Time for a miserable failure!

By: Kieron Gillen

Kieron Gillen — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:51:11 +0000

The playlist was originally collaborative, but – er – we didn’t like most of the music that was being put on it. The idea of the RPS playlist was that it was RPS-ish music, not just music we dug (There’s certainly stuff we love we wouldn’t put on it). And someone kept on deleting some songs Alec and I wanted on it. Pah!

That said, creating an RPS READER COLLABORATIVE PLAYLIST and then linking it on the forum would be a splendid thing to do. Do it, Ecko!

By: Ecko

Ecko — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:47:24 +0000

Completely unrelated, but I just noticed the Spotify playlist link, and decided to have a brilliant thought.

Could we not have a collaborative playlist for all RPSer’s to pitch in on?