DGC Ep 278: BioShock (part four)

Dev Game Club

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on BioShock. We talk a lot about the surprise of the scene of Ryan, and some mechanical and production aspects we haven't had a chance to talk about yet. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Up to Apollo Square!

Issues covered: where the game should (?) have ended, playing golf with your dad, finding a way to incorporate a power station, Ryan the abstract monster vs Ryan the concrete monster, changing the lens you view Ryan through, rationalizing one's choices, the red yarn board, forcing the player to see a scene the way they want you to, egocentric Ryan and seeing oneself as a tragic hero, every villain as the hero of his own story, mythological framing, other ways you could tackle player agency here, "The Cake Is A Lie," the Irish charmer becoming the Irish thug, using Atlas to puff out Ryan as a monster, the many many layers of references and archetypes, all that matters to me is me and all that matters to you is you, killing people who are much like you, differentiating the Little Sisters in the Tenenbaum section, the mind-control plasmid, walking a tightrope with difficulty and challenge, mixing up your plasmids, the simplicity of upgrades, some numbers change or more things can be impacted, not feeling the power of tonics and plasmids, lack of builds, the limited number of axes across which powers and weapons apply, compressing the depth, modularity in world construction, solid art direction, regularity in the built world, kit-bashing, a couple of kind reviews, dealing with issues of preservation, what gets lost, wanting leaders to do more, having let's plays for reference.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: System Shock 2, Snowpiercer, Portal, Walt Disney, Wide World of Disney, PIXAR, Studio Ghibli, William Hearst, Citizen Kane, Modern Warfare 2, The Last of Us 2, Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima, Arkham City/Arkham Knight, Robert De Niro, The Irishman, Ken Levine, Village of the Damned, Metroid, Ratchet & Clank, Unreal, Gears of War, Skyrim, Fallout (series), Jarkko S., Baldur's Gate, Diablo, Final Fantasy VI, Metal Gear Solid, Chris_3646363, Ocarina of Time, mysterydip, Phil Spencer, Vectrex, Double Fine, Square Enix, The Matrix (series/Online), The Wachowskis, Meridian 59, Andrew and Chris Kirmse, Control, The Lost Room, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Links: Twitter thread on preservation

Next time: Finish the game!

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