An amusingly apropos subheader sometimes, if you take out the apostrophe…

It’s amazing what slips by when you’re not looking in the right place. Sony, last October, apparently filed to try and trademark the somewhat broad and generic term “Let’s Play.” They haven’t got it yet, but it’s quite clearly referring to the practice of Let’s Playing, as the service it is trademarking is:

“Electronic transmission and streaming of video games via global and local computer networks; streaming of audio, visual, and audiovisual material via global and local computer networks”

A bit generic sounding even here. Anyways, since it was only discovered yesterday, by members of the NeoGAF forums, and it requires clarification before June on the part of Sony before its finalised, it’s merely something quixotic we can point to and say… “Huh!” Here’s at least a couple of reasons why.

It’s Rather Broad

As the definition stands, it can cover a multitude of commerical services and goods, including… Game trailers. Those are streamed electronically, and consist of, funnily enough, audio/visual material of video games. This is, at a guess, at least part of the reason why a clarification has been requested.

It’s Already In Use By Several Commercial Entities

This, potentially, is the real killer. The biggest competitor for the title, as far as I understand it, would be RoosterTeeth productions, who use the channel name as a specific brand (In fact, there was much amusement among the Something Awful Let’s Play community when the channel was grabbed before anyone thought of it), and, as far as I understand things, they would then have prior rights of usage. There is also the fact that many Let’s Players are commercial, and directly identify their service as “Let’s Play” already, even if we were not to take into account that RoosterTeeth specifically use it as a brand for their content. Not to mention… Er… Something Awful’s own “The Let’s Play Archive” (Where you can find at least one Let’s Play by yours truly. 😛 )

It’s A Common Phrase

While this might be less of a problem than you might think, the term Let’s Play has already entered common usage, and, as such, this might be a difficult one to enforce. None of these are insurmountable obstacles, but they are, nonetheless, obstacles, at least one of which has presumably hit Sony when they tried to trademark the term back in October.

But Why Do It?

Well, for all the talk of a sinister reason, this one’s actually somewhat hard to enforce. Not just due to the common and prior usage, but also because you can be providing a similar service without calling it “Let’s Play.” That’s even assuming it goes through. More commonly speculated is that it may be related to the streaming service they’re planning to roll out.

Either way, much virtual headshaking, and no real best wishes in the trademarking process there. After all, it is a silly trademark.

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Oh yay, we get to see more of this guy rather than a DM mode. The joy on my face is comparable to his.

So, back when I reviewed Sword Coast Legends, I said that, to give it a fair shake, I would return to it when DM Mode was updated, as was promised 10 days after release. I’ve already said that this was bad communication and planning, but I was willing to give it a chance. Indeed, many people who bought it, bought it because hey, it promised a DM mode. But development is fluid, and fluid, as we all know, has a nasty habit of getting on your nicest shirts if you’re not careful. Such is the case with Sword Coast Legends.

Community Pack 3 was meant to fix DM mode, or rather, add some basic functionality into it that was going to make it less restrictive and boring than it is now (You can put monsters down, and make basic quests, but that’s pretty much it. No dungeon modelling. No script, as such. No AI fuckery, beyond the absolute basics.) But, for whatever reason, a free expansion has instead been planned as the priority. And, again, it took until after the time had passed to state this.

So, let’s talk goodwill. Let’s talk about how it’s a finite resource, and how this is another fine example of companies failing to, or being pushed into (It is not yet clear.) making moves that drain that goodwill.

Firstly, this was not communicated until yesterday. Communication is important, and I can understand why the devs and publishers might sit on this news. After all, it’s happened many a time before. There would be an outcry. Unfortunately… Delaying an important communication like this gives a bad impression of everyone involved. It implies folks aren’t on top of things, or that All Is Not Well. This drains goodwill faster than “Whups, we fucked up, we are fixing it”, but some folks seem to believe that game fans, and indeed purchasers, have a short memory. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. In RPG and Strategy circles especially, folks remember the fuckups for a lot longer than you might think. I still remember how Dark Sun had a game breaking story bug, for example. Or how people reacted to Master of Orion 3. And I can look it up any time. This isn’t the first time I’ve said “Communicate better” either… See above.

Secondly, even with the mollification that it’s a free expansion, precisely because development is fluid… There is no guarantee CP3 will materialise. It relies upon the studio making sales. It relies upon the studio keeping up with the goodwill, and it relies, basically, upon more factors than just “We decided we wanted to focus elsewhere.” I invite the publishers and devs of Sword Coast Legends to remember Arkham Origins, which also decided to focus on DLC over fixing a core feature. That DLC was not free, it’s true. But already, people are reacting in a way that’s all too familiar to me. It’s been played out before, with many a game. It doesn’t help that the Rage of the Demons DLC will involve… Drizzt Do’Fucking’Urden. This is a goodwill draining move in and of itself, because… Drizzt being in anything more than a cameo role usually involves him dominating the plot, to the detriment of pretty much the rest of the story. Of course, I’ve had a few months to potentially bitch about that being a thing, but honestly, if the DM mode actually came first? I wouldn’t care about Drizzt.

I’d like to continue saying “The developers continue to support this game”, because, technically? Sure, an expansion is support, in that the game is being added to. But goodwill, and its companion, trust, are important. Games, as much as some folks like to pretend otherwise, are a popularity game: You can’t get a game sold unless people know about it, and you can’t keep selling or making games when nobody trusts you to deliver. Moves like this erode trust, so, for any other developers or publishers who read this?

Don’t do this. You can look up what happened to other games that did this, and the answer is never “They did well despite these decisions and lack of communication.” The My Alibi Glitch in Arkham Origins is alive and well. Blur never got a sequel. There’s an entire graveyard of games out there, whose epitaph reads “They squandered trust.” And there’s also a few allegorical hospital beds waiting for some bigger publishers who just keep squandering trust like this.

Don’t. Do this. You can be better than this, games industry.

You can read the CP3/Expansion post in question here , and the original announcement of the development plan here.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £14.99
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Early Access 2, Early Access 3, Release

Subnautica is a game that takes a while to get going, and then GIANT SQUID happen. It’s also a game that takes a little while to learn. While Starbound does strange new worlds, and games like State of Decay do the zombie survival thing, Subnautica does Blue Planet. Ocean everywhere. And it does a good job of dissuading you of the idea this would be boring… But some things do require a little bit to learn. Thankfully, with the exception of Creative Mode, you get to enjoy the story in the manner you want, with a choice of Permadeath and Everything on, and varieties of Not-Permadeath with or without the need for food and water.

Being underwater may seem confusing in screenshots, but feels natural in game… Also beautiful.

Funnily enough, the base Survival mode (No permadeath, but you need to obtain food and water) is the right mode for me, it seems. Because fish are assholes, and once the world opened up to me? Wow, did I suddenly feel very small… In the best way. So let’s talk progression, to give you some idea of why I like this game.

It begins with an escape pod. Yours. Your ship, a coloniser, got shot down over an ocean planet, by strange energy beams. You’re the only survivor, and you can hold your breath for 45 seconds. You’re slightly hungry, slightly thirsty, and rather irritable. So you explore this salty “paradise”, and grudgingly admit that yes, it does look beautiful. Kelp forests, caves, underwater gardens of red weed, and… Thank fuck, the fish are actually edible. One of them, the Airsack, even filters water for you if you run it through your Fabricator. Okay, that’s one worry gone. Now for building a home, because it looks like you’re going to be here a while. Titanium and Copper, it seems, can be found in limestone nodules that are thankfully easy to break apart, and the wreckage of the Aurora, your ex-ship (Which is making some worrying noises, and will explode soon, kicking off the story.) But you can’t find any silver, which you’re told is useful for all sorts of electronics, vehicles, and Lead, for a radiation proof suit (Important, because large areas are irradiated now.)

Once you get past the hump, you too can make a home away from home!

It takes you a while to realise that there are two kinds of nodule in the Kelp forests, and you have to brave Stalkers (Asshole Fish #1) to get that Sandstone, which gives you silver and gold. Luckily, building a base mostly takes Titanium and Glass, and you don’t have to build very much to make it a home away from home: Couple of solar panels (Titanium and Quartz), rooms and foundations (Titanium), maybe an observatory (Stalker Teeth and Quartz to make Enamelled Glass), and some lockers and a fabricator (Mostly titanium, some glass). Along the way, you will probably have discovered Asshole Fishes #2 and #3 (A large, carnivorous burrower and EXPLODER FISH.) But food and water are still largely not a problem. You can even completely leave the escape pod behind if you want.

But until you realise where the silver is, you aren’t getting to the really interesting stuff. And that can be a pain, some games. But once you do? Oh boy. Both the kit and the world get bigger. The Aurora is explorable. You build personal mini-subs, and probably get them blown up exploring cave networks. Jellyfish that hang out in cave networks. Massive blue and green glowing creatures that seem harmless… And Gigantic, toothy beasts. Oh god, the Gigantic… Toothy… “Squid”. Subnautica is one of the few games that can claim to have caused an underwear replacement, and my first encounter with this beastie is exactly why…

…Picture the scene. I’m trundling home in a somewhat damaged minisub (The Seamoth), and I keep hearing… Noises. Big noises. It’s dark, even for the depths I’m at, and something is on the edge of my limited vision. There are bumps. Big ones. My console starts sparking. I turn around…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

OHGODITLATCHEDONTOMYCOCKPITBAILBAILBAIL!

…Faced with so many teeth, I take the option of leaving my Seamoth just in time. Seemingly satisfied, the creature (Many times bigger than I am) slinks back into the darkness, leaving me to try and make my way home the slow way.

So yeah… Although the ocean in Subnautica is beautiful, and it seems, at first, like a slow game with little combat… The ocean is also deadly… It just takes a little while to make you realise that. It’s a survival game which could do with a little more help for the player, but lets you mostly play at your own pace, and I’m definitely looking forward to when it becomes a release candidate. As it is, it’s worth checking out if you like the genre or the ocean… Just be aware… The Squid Is Out There, and It Is Always Angry.

Not everything that’s big is lethal. Maybe. The jury’s out.

The Mad Welshman loves the ocean. He loves some of the… Things that dwell in it a little less.

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Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam
Other Reviews: Release

Capitalism sucks. There’s really no easy way around it. It’s biased, it’s unfair, and it promotes shitty attitudes that make everyone’s life a misery. Which is, in its way, a good segue into talking about Gremlins Inc, a computer board game about a steampunk capitalist society of Gremlins being dicks to each other. It’s a game that needs a little polish, a little toning down of the single player AI, and a somewhat more clear tutorial and UI… But it’s also got the same ingredients that give certain well known board games their rep as awesome games that destroy friendships.

A little hard to read parts of the UI at times, but the art style is *gorgeous*

Ruleswise, there’s a lot to go into, so I’m just going to sum it up: You have to achieve X victory points (With 20 being average), while stopping anyone else from doing the same, and you do it by moving around a board (using cards), and playing events when you’re able to (using the same cards). Sometimes bad things happen to you, and there doesn’t appear to be any single “OP Strat”, as it were, because everything is out to get you, including large portions of the board. It’s a little more complicated than that, and the tutorial doesn’t cover everything (Like the existence of a collective pool of “EEEEVIL” cards, as a prime example I wish I’d known about), but it’s effectively in a very solid beta (Meaning there are bugs, but not as many as a release would have, and nothing that appears game breaking), and board game afficianados would definitely enjoy it. Why?

Let’s start with how it encourages a wide spectrum of good, strategic thinking. I have three cards. One can be used relatively nearby, but I can’t afford it. Yet. One can be used right across the board, and one can be used back the way I’d already come. All of these options are technically viable, but to play any of them well, I have to think. The first option just requires both time and not being dicked over. It’s do-able, but requires me to either not be seen as a threat, or to pre-empt the threat from whichever player I think is going to threaten me. The risk there is that I’m either wrong about which player is the threat, or don’t keep a low enough profile. There are shortcuts I could use, but they have a chance of screwing me over just by taking them, especially on the shortcut through the middle of the map. I have to be adaptable. I have to play the players as well as the game. I have to risk assess. And I have to be lucky.

Even Jail can be used to win the game, if you’re clever about it…

This turn, I am not lucky. “Who rolls a 1?” I ask jokingly, as I refuse to bribe my local policeman so as to stop any searches without risk. After all, if I do that, another player gets to profit off my loss. And I roll a 1, immediately being sent to jail, and watching one of those options evaporate. But that’s okay. Even jail can be used to better my circumstances. In the long term.

Secret and Criminal cards. Evil cards. Elections. Bribes and Searches, and the role of the buildings… The game has somewhat of a learning curve problem, which means the tutorial has to be spot on (And currently, doesn’t show off everything you might need to know). A good system of tooltips somewhat helps, but new players will want to invest time in the single player to get a feel for things, and those of us who can’t invest an hour or so into a game? Probably shouldn’t get this, as a 20 point game might take as long as 4 hours, and the first single player challenge is 30 points to victory.

Similarly, the aesthetic is both a good and a bad point with this game. I love the art style, having always been a sucker for some good ink and pencil work… But the UI suffers in readability because some of the parts of it are small and relatively unhelpful (The turn log, for example), and the board looks busy because light value contrast isn’t as clear as it could be (Although, again, the tooltips help somewhat with “Where can I go?” and “What does this do?”) The music is pretty good, just the right, farcical feel for a farcical fantasy dystopia.

I am a moustache twirler. This is a moustache twirler’s game. QED. :V

However, when all’s said and done, I look at this game, think “This cost me as much as Dr. Lucky did, back in the day”, and smile. It’s a fairly well crafted, competitive game, and the devs know exactly what they have on their hands, with a tournament already having been started in the Early Access phase. If you want a competitive, multiplayer computer board-game, and have the time to spare, I really don’t think you could go wrong with Gremlins Inc. I would, however, mention one final thing in regards to the multiplayer… Er… How do you make a game friends-only again? Wasn’t a problem right now, but best to nip it in the bud if that hasn’t been thought of. I had a lot of fun with this, and expect to have more fun in the future.

The Mad Welshman cackled with glee as he dipped freely into the Widows and Orphans Fund for Disenfranchised Gremlins. Campaign Contributions, it seems, were always there if you knew how…

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Hey everybody, TMW here.

So, as people might have guessed from a recent appeal for help on YouTube, things have been… tense, to say the least. Luckily, that particular appeal went well, and I thanked everyone who helped, but it might be thought by some that, hey, I’m okay right now, problem over, right?

Sadly, this is not the case. I’ve spent the last ten days exploring other options, and, sadly other options aren’t panning out. Sooo… I’m now something like 90% reliant on the Patreon funds and donations. Not a great spot to be. However, it’s always good to look on the bright side, and that bright side is “Hey, now I have less time spent dealing with that particular procession of bumf, I can do more to give you lovely folks more bang for your buck!”

Obviously, the reviews continue… But you may notice at least one in recent days with a supplementary video. There’ll be more, some quick, some slow, all trying to show off at least some of the game I’m talking about at the time. Not only that, but there are now two regular streams devoted to TMW related things. Fridays are generally ReviewStream time, occurring at Midnight GMT (Well, technically 11:59 GMT, Fridays +-5 minutes, but you hopefully get the gist) and those will generally be of something I’m reviewing, but isn’t embargoed (Public Early Access, “Already released, but by gosh, isn’t it a big game?” , and the like.)

Tuesdays, meanwhile, are generally going to be OldGame Surprise evening, happening at 7PM GMT, and will be things that I am either thinking of devoting a Going Back to, or games that I just find generally interesting from the past. Previous examples of older games I’ve looked at include Black Dahlia (Take 2 Interactive), Disciples 2 (Strategy First), and, showing that it’s not necessarily going to be PC games all the way, Harlequin (Gremlin Interactive). It’s a laden flat sandwich of things you’re either going to have rose tinted glasses for, things that may make you scream “OH MY GOD I HATE THAT LEVEL!” , and things that (As was the case with Black Dahlia) mostly fell under folks’ radars.

Of course, what with rent, phone bills, and the like, it’s not exactly going to be easy to carry on making content. Which is where the whole “SUPPORT THE MAD WELSHMAN” thing comes in. So let’s forestall a few questions while we’re at it:

I’m Real Sorry, But I Don’t Have Any Scratch Spare, Any Other Way I Can Help?

There most certainly is, and I definitely wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself keeping a dude like me around! For example, a lot of advertising, even today with the ol’ interwubs, and Google AdSense, and all that jazz, is word of mouth. And there’s certainly no shortage of places you can direct folks that lead here! A Facebook page, the site itself, my twitter, the YT channel, hell, even my main Streaming channel (Link in the sidebar) has a link back to the site. Most of these links are in the About The Site that you see when you first hit up the site, and, of course, if you like a review, then, by all means, tweet about it, or mention it! Really, I don’t mind, as it helps let folks know I exist, and am doin’ my lil’ bit!

Due To [INSERT HERE], I’m Not Really Sure I Can Trust Patreon, Any Other Way To Help Out?

This, also, is do-able. Obviously, I have to keep records to make sure the taxman doesn’t slap a few hundred extra on my bill next April, but if you mail themadpembsman@gmail.com , we can arrange things through PayPal, if you want. I’m cool with that.

You Don’t Look Busy!

Ahahaha, reviewers and Let’s Players alike rarely do. But this week’s actually a pretty good example of an “average” work week. Couple of draft articles, including one on sensuality in videogames I’m still not satisfied with, a month after I came up with the idea, and continuing the On Games Journalism series with an article on the problem (For many game journos) with ‘Why don’t you investigate more stuff more directly?’ … I’ll give you a hint as to why. Click the Support button, and see the pretty number there. At the time of writing, it’s $95/month. Less 5% Patreon’s cut, converted to british money, that’s £40, aka “Two thirds of, er… The Phone Bill or a single week’s rent, sans food, electricity, all that other, y’know… stuff.”

There’s also four reviews (Including a sim game and Mordheim’s release candidate, which is a big ol’ game), a Going Back or two, the Wipeout vids, hunting for interesting things to review, some other things, the book… I’m a surprisingly busy bunny. That’s half of what’s deceptive about reviewing and Let’s Play content: You don’t see any of the behind the scenes stuff.

Anyhoo, that’s the current status, I’d better get back to things, but in the meantime, any further questions can be directed at either themadpembsman@gmail.com , or, if you’d rather make a general inquiry about random things, either to do with games or TMW itself, there’s also an ask.fm.

Hopin’ you’re all having a great time, and wish me luck!

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