Artificial Intelligence continues to be the next-big thing that not a lot of people really know much about, but still everyone can’t stop talking about it. Naturally, there’s a lot of talk about AI in the world of video games as well, especially fear around how many jobs it will impact. The good news is, no one really knows yet, so at least for now, things are proceeding as normal. The bad news is, once someone figures out how to effectively utilise AI to skip some human tasks, a lot of video game jobs will be in risk. In this video, we will talk about the state of AI in video games today, and how it can impact the games of tomorrow.
Author: A.K.H.
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Sifu: Overview
Sifu is the second game released by French indie studio Sloclap, and it is a kung fu based action game set in modern-day China. This is one of those titles where the gameplay is the selling point, and the story takes a backseat. Earlier this week, I talked about how using the easy difficulty option in games allows me to experience more games. Sifu is one of those games where choosing an easier difficulty can actually dilute the core experience of playing the game.
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Life in the Easy Lane
Many people look back fondly at old games like Pac-Man or Super Mario Bros. and think of how they enjoyed playing them as kids. A lot of those people are now adults, playing video games well into their 30s, 40s and beyond. But there’s one thing that these people keep forgetting about those games: most of them were extremely difficult to play!
The golden rule of game design is that a game should be simple to learn, but difficult to master. And that’s exactly what the early video games did. Arcade games like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong were extremely easy to pick up and start playing. But as the levels went up, the game became harder and harder, which was necessary, because Arcade games were designed to make the player pay for each play session. If the game was too easy, one player could end up playing the entire day, leaving other customers waiting impatiently for their turn. Of course, even the most difficult games eventually became easy, because kids had a lot of time to practice, and became extremely good at the games. More details in the video!
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World 3-1
Welcome to the third season of QC Done – the channel where I essentially make videos talking to myself, because hardly anyone is watching anymore. I’m not really surprised about this, because the type of content I chose to make is not everyone’s cup of tea, and those who do like video essays about video games already have a lot of established names to subscribe to. I still need to find that missing ingredient that will make my content worth watching. And that will continue to be my effort going forward. Spoiler alert: things won’t change drastically in this season, but there will be a few small changes along the way. Let’s talk about those in this video.
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Disco Elysium: The Final Cut – Tiny Overview
A tiny overview of one of the most acclaimed RPGs of the past decade.
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Having A Main Game
As kids, my friends and I didn’t really have access to a large number of games. We had to be happy with whatever few games were available among all of us, and it was very rare to get something new. So we used to play the same games over and over again, trying to beat old high scores or seeing if we had missed anything. There were no DLCs or expansions for these games, so it was not like we were playing to prepare for some new content drop a few months later.
Fast forward to 2024, it is not uncommon to see people pick a main game to focus on, while occasionally trying other games. No matter how many games they try, they always return to their main games, usually when there is a new content drop in the form of an update or expansion or a limited time event. In other words, having a main game is like having a hobby within a hobby. Playing games can be your hobby, but playing your main game is a hobby within that hobby. You can call a game your main if you know nearly everything there is to know about it, if you can guide new players to reach the highest goal achievable in that game, and if you blindly buy whatever new content the game puts up for purchase, without bothering too much about trivial things like review scores and quality of the content.
Having a main game can be a good and bad thing, and we will talk about a bit of both in this video.
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Remasters, Remakes, & Reboots
Nostalgia sells! This has been proven time and again, even though we know that we are not really nostalgic for the media itself, but for the time in our lives that they remind us of. But putting aside human psychology for a while, publishers have realised that if they wait long enough, they can simply recycle older games from their catalogue, add a few tweaks here and there, and they will have a surefire hit on their hands. This has been seen time and again the success of various remakes, remasters and rebooted projects. In this video, let us take a look at some successful examples, and try to predict what the future will be like for these projects.