Artificial Difficulty & Elegance YouTube video by All-Purpose Philosophy

NEW UPLOAD: #ArtificialDifficulty & Elegance - A brief breakdown of why artificial components in #games give us that stinging feeling. youtu.be/6igt4a80RtQ

Fairness in Games | An In-Depth Analysis YouTube video by All-Purpose Philosophy

New video coming next sunday. Keeping with the general topic of #gamedesign #difficulty.
In the mean-time, feel free to check out my deep dive into #fairness in #games, drawing lots from #EldenRing www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBFE...

I re-titled my video to: Fairness in Games | An In-Depth Analysis. Which is a much more descriptive, though less poetic title. I feel this is acceptable.

The #EldenRing #ShadowOfTheErdtree #SotE story trailer cinematic is so amazing. I had already kind of forgotten about it. Shame it isn't more prominent in the game.

It's kind of tempting to deep dive into general concepts of #fairness next. At the same time, I'm still exhausted from looking at fairness in ( #video ) #games as well in my video. I might look into other stuff and try to tie #philosophy to #gaming there. Still so much to talk about.

Fairness - The Moral Contract of Games YouTube video by All-Purpose Philosophy

Agency, equality, communication - It seems they must somehow come together for #fairness. A #fair #challenge in a #game must test my abilities, tell me that it does so, be reasonably beatable, and designed with someone like me in mind. I look at this in depth in my video👀: youtu.be/pBFE-ZeVXbI 4/4

Sharing agency with opponents seems core, not counter, to a #fair #game or competition. So, maybe it's all about equality? But not all #games are competitions or even symmetrical. Not all rules are applied or communicated evenly. Or do we really just want to make struggles close instead of fair? 3/4

I respectfully disagree with people championing this view like @andersonjph.bsky.social. There's instances of unavoidable damage/bullshit in all #Soulsgames. Those aren't to blame on me. The same goes if we extend this idea to 🤝 #multiplayer #games or 🎾 #competetive #sports... 2/4

Whenever we talk about #fairness in games or 🎮 #gamedesign, it seems we are getting nowhere. Why? #Player agency seems to be vital for fairness. In #DarkSouls or #EldenRing, supposedly all failure is the player's fault. But is that true? Is that what makes #SoulsLikes fair?🤔 That can't be right. 1/4

Perhaps I should meditate more often tho...

Sorting #YuGiOh cards is how I meditate.

I wonder if people are gonna demand my true gamer certification via evidence of me beating Malenia/Consort Radahn Solo. In case they do, I'll be happy to oblige. Even though I find the demand a bit silly because of the kind of arguments I make in connection with them tbh.

My video will go up tomorrow. Already glad to have finished it and happy with the result. Even happier if it appeals to other people too!

What philosophical lesson could one extract from playing Yu-Gi-Oh! I wonder? Would be cool to find more angles to tie games I like to philosophy (which I also like, duh). No ivory towers in my back yard.

I feel like social media isn't that bad if you don't spend a lot of time on them. The issue is that that is antithetical to their core business model. Oh, well...

I finally finished everything for the video. I'm excited! Expect it to release very soon.

Am excited for Dune 3. On another note, am wondering whether it's worth watching the series Firefly. 🤔

This is compounded by my bright idea to have my first video be ~1 hour long. Hmm, truly wise choices on my part.

Damn, who could have known video editing is even more time intensive and demanding than audio editing. I had no idea about the extend...

For reference, one of my favorite movies is Everything Everywhere All At Once.

I just watched Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. Damn, that film really takes you for a ride. I really enjoyed my time, though I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. I'm gonna keep thinking about the film's messages for a bit. This might be an empty statement, but I'd like more films like this.

Working on my video about fairness, I keep wondering if I'm *too* late to the party when talking about Elden Ring. I'm not making my point specifically about Elden Ring but using lots of examples from it and other Souls games. And the next proper FromSoft game isn't even on the horizon yet...

I can see how 'having opinions online' can become a full-time job. I wonder if it's worthwhile. Perhaps only for actual influencers who get paid a lot. idk

I believe there is space for this kind of very stylized aesthetic. One that puts style over readability. A very competitive extraction shooter is probably not that kind of game. If only there was something else one could have done with the Marathon IP, I wonder...

Ofc we always have the issue of deception with the kind of review 'fraud' found here. But what stops anyone from making an AI game critic vtuber influencer that people would grow to like? Recognize that using AI as a tool vs a 'personality' doesn't make a morally relevant difference, just flavorful.

The rise of AI generated reviews make sense. It's like advertisement but - at least ideally - independent and largely unbiased. I wonder though if people are willing to be consistent on this. If we'll get more AI influencers (think Neuro-sama) surely their recommendation would have some power?

In truth, I am just not used to writing at all anymore. And what I was used to wasn't writing entertaining but academic texts. At least I can say, I am honing a new skill. 😅 And so far I'm actually happy with how it turns out 😁

I'm currently working on a youtube video about different conceptions of fairness for challenges in games. I find it quite difficult to thread the needle between engaging in philosophical conceptual analysis and making it interesting to people immersed in gaming culture.

What do you even post on here? Perhaps my desire to express myself in short quippy posts has withered away those past few years not using social media.

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." - Aristotle