The Way of Patrick Miller

i made a small game! it’s very short, best played only once with someone you love. give it a shot if you like. 

start here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cmAOj2WVzBiTcYqSuPQwwfak4Roy7otpy3k0R3I3hOY/edit

Today would have been Bruce Lee’s 76th birthday. It feels a bit corny typing this out, but as an Asian American man who is about the age Lee was when he passed away, it’s hard for me to imagine how badass a life one would have to live in order to have the impact he has had -- as a martial artist, a pop culture icon, a philosopher, and a proud, visible Asian man. 

As a way of paying respect, Irene (@prom-knight) and I made a short story in Twine together. It’s a slice-of-life story about living and learning with Bruce Lee, and we hope you like it. Also, it’s free! So please reblog and spread the word of the Little Dragon.

Download Bruce Lee Is Your Roommate

cat, by @_badgames 

by Patrick Miller — follow me on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, or subscribe to my newsletter! Also, you might like my short stories Re: Member and MVP — a game dev short story.

I played through Hyper Light Drifter over the last two days and figured I’d put down some thoughts about it. Fair warning: I know some of the folks who worked on this game! I won’t be dispensing any buying advice besides “Watch the trailer and see if you like it,” and I don’t spoil any particular plot elements or story stuff.

First, let’s talk about me a lot

Over the last few years, I’ve gradually been coming to learn a lot more about how I consume and engage with different kinds of media and stories, and how the things I like and the reasons I like them tend to be a bit more specific than I originally thought. Chief among these realizations is this: I like words, and I need lots of them.

Those of you who know me might immediately reply with: “Of course you do, dipshit — you’ve been working as a writer and an editor for years now.” Well, truth be told, it took me a while to stop taking my skills in that area for granted. I always thought of that as a thing that I could do maybe a little bit better than your average college graduate, and I didn’t consider it anything particularly special.

On the other hand, I’d be awed by anyone with the slightest capacity for visual design or illustration; things like our magazine art producer having opinions on where an image should go and why baffled the heck out of me, because to me, it didn’t really make a difference. (If you’ve ever stopped reading a Game Developer Magazine article because you ran into a 900-word wall of text, you can blame me for that one.)

My brain craves words. It’s why I devour Reddit and Twitter but can’t be bothered with YouTube; it’s why I read all the words on a page of a comic book before looking at the pictures; it’s why I write. Ironically, I’m not particularly well-read when it comes to books of any kind, and I suspect it might be because I’m too hooked on the constant feed of words from the Internet to sit down and actually finish reading something. (I also love movies and rarely watch them on my own.)

It’s also why I adore Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and simply can’t get excited for Super Metroid. Goodness knows I’ve tried, multiple times, to save the damn animals or whatever, but I just get bored. You can show me all the lovely level design and invisible tutorial stuff you like, but if you don’t give me someone to give a shit about, I’m not going to play your game. Symphony of the Night, for all of its angsty teen goth stuff, gave me Alucard, Richter, and Maria. Super Metroid didn’t give me shit. Also: Another World is beautiful and splendid (and definitely not for me).

The exceptions to this rule are games where the play itself is so compelling and full of mastery that I stick around. Flappy Bird, ZiGGURAT, Super Hexagon, and Canabalt are great examples of this because they demand nothing of me other than the desire to Git Gud; competitive games use other people as the characters and give me a rich playspace upon which I may decorate them with my pain-brush.

The part where I start talking about Hyper Light Drifter

Now: on to Hyper Light Drifter. If I were to describe it in one sentence, it’d be this: “Hyper Light Drifter is a beautiful ’90s Frankenstein,” and if you felt like being pedantic, I’d grumpily add the “-’s Monster” part at the end.

There are so many notes and moments in the game that feel like the team combed through every JRPG made in the ’90s and borrowed the things they like best — things that I had never even thought about until I saw them in HLD and thought, “Hey, I liked it when Chrono Trigger included beautiful views in their level design,” or, “This thing was clearly made by someone who tried to get really, really good at navigating with Teleport running in Earthbound.”

And where ’90s RPGs began to inject a little bit of bleak despair into their stories (see: FFVI’s World of Ruin, Chrono Trigger’s future, pretty much everything in Illusion of Gaia), HLD starts in the despair from the first moment and never really lets up. In that respect, it feels like a post-’90s RPG, made by adults raised on ’90s RPGs for other adults raised on ’90s RPGs; imagine the assault on Kefka’s Tower not as striking the first blow to bring the world back to “normal,” but as the last chance for our heroes to have an honorable death.

Perhaps the thing that HLD nails most strongly in its homage to ’90s RPGs is the weird sense of loneliness that comes in exploring a world that was made without you, the player. You don’t find this as much in a Final Fantasy or a Chrono Trigger because they gave you characters that fit into the world so you could just fit yourself along with them, but games with a) silent protagonists and b) action combat often felt like you were mutely walking through a mysterious and vibrant world that was trying to kill you. It’s the feeling of renting Link to the Past or Super Metroid and picking up from a previous player’s save when you’ve never played the game before.

That’s because the game is almost completely wordless.

This is what made me resent HLD as I played it. Each area has secrets hidden according to logic that makes perfect sense if you’ve played the canon that inspired HLD; each fight felt punishing-but-fair; each combat mechanic felt like a good-enough balance between offering easily accessible power and rewarding those who chose to master. The problem was that I could feel the game begging me to care. Countless times I saw a secret lying just out of my reach, or a battle mechanic that could grant me immense power if mastered, or a cryptic allusion to the story hidden behind an arrangement of skeletons or an NPC’s story-comic, and in each of these elements it felt like the game was asking me to fill the gaps in with my imagination.

And each time I answered “No, and fuck you for asking.”

I didn’t get all the stuff in HLD. I don’t think I even got half the stuff in HLD. I guess there’s a costume mechanic, but I didn’t find out about that until I was almost done. I lost count of all the stuff I was supposed to be collecting — fragments and keys and something about tablets. There’s a boss that I definitely didn’t fight. Maybe there are multiple endings? I liked the dashing mini-game enough to break 100, and I saw on the subreddit that there’s a soccer minigame that I never found. You want me to try and remember all these things I should come back to later? Good luck with that.

Nor did I become a particularly dextrous Drifter; the battle and movement just always felt slightly off. A few more cancelable frames here and there to make weaving from combat and movement feel better, some invincible frames and better communication around hitboxes and reactions, some more love given to intertwining resource systems, perhaps. The combat system is hard, but I didn’t see beauty in it; perhaps a speedrunner or a perfect play will show me something I overlooked.

This is not new behavior for me; I’m not a completionist in any game these days. But I don’t remember ever feeling like a game was thirsty in its desire to persuade me that there is something rich and deep lying beneath the surface if I would just be willing to let myself sink into it and inhale. Contrast this with Undertale, which tries to persuade me to come back with living, breathing characters that reflect the changes I make to their world, or with the Souls games, which are unapologetic and honest in how inextricable the world is to its difficulty; they are both sincere and honest in what they are and why they’re that way.

HLD, in comparison, feels like it is trying to convince you it’s more than what it seems at first; maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but the fact that I can tell it’s trying just turns me off. If anything, the fact that it’s so damn pretty is kind of infuriating, because it makes me want more but gives me nothing I want. “Look at how cool I am,” it seems to say to me, “Don’t you wish you knew more about me?” And then I say in response: “Well, I did until you said that.” Maybe that’s why it’s silent.

Talking about me again

I don’t want people to misread my opinion as “Hyper Light Drifter is a bad game and you shouldn’t buy it”; I think if you’re interested, you should watch the trailer and give it a shot. It is gorgeous and well-crafted, and considering I only finish maybe three games a year on my own, I think that’s worthy of recognizing. It tries to remake the sense of wonder many of us found in classic JRPGs, and for me it failed but was interesting in its failure because I can’t tell if it’s the wrong game or I’m the wrong person — too old, or too wordy, or something.

(The funny thing about using the line “It’s not you, it’s me” in a breakup is because it can be completely true in that instance, but if you hear it fairly often while being dumped, it’s probably, in fact, you.)

I went through the whole game looking for a reason to care about the Drifter, or the world, or anything enough to keep going. I could tell that the combat and movement mechanics went deeper than most, but I didn’t find enough satisfaction in being good at it to find the motivation to get better. I could tell that there were characters and some kind of story going on, but without words, I couldn’t be bothered to remember what the deal was with the frogs or the birds or the dog thing. Ironically, the game that I wanted to play most was the one shown in the flashback cutscenes or whatever they were, not the actual game.

And so I got the four things that made the thing power up, I went into the thing and beat the final boss, saw the ending, groaned when I saw there was a New Game+ mode, and went to go watch something on Netflix. Brooding and moody is great for a one night stand, man, but if you’re going for a relationship you better be ready to talk about your feelings.

I don’t know if most will react this way. I’m sure there are people out there for whom words and plot is a burden, and the world of HLD speaks directly to their soul, or people who see the difficulty in the combat system and are compelled to master it Because It’s There. In the end, I still can’t figure out if there’s more lying underneath that I didn’t see, or if I mistook the trappings of depth for depth itself. I guess I wrote this mostly to figure out if anyone else felt the same.

It’s not you, Drifter, it’s me.

by Patrick Miller — follow me on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, or subscribe to my newsletter! Also, you might like my short stories Re: Member and MVP — a game dev short story.

Wrapped up one week of playing Nash last night, and as it happens, that week was in-between two Infiltration tournament victories (Final Round and NorCal Regionals)! Read on to find out how I got started, tips for new Nash players, and some thoughts on what I learned from playing Nash for a week.

Nash beginning resources

First off, I recommend checking out Bafael’s Nash stuff for a good starting point on his toolset. Once you’re a little more familiar with what he can do, watch this Infiltration compilation from Final Round, and don’t forget to check out my Nash replay review video:

Getting started with Nash

It took me a few days to get used to Nash’s toolset, and with good reason: He’s incredibly versatile. Watch Infiltration’s matches and you’ll notice that he can spend most of the round running away, harassing the opponent with Sonic Booms and pokes, and once his opponent tries to close the gap he’ll dash in with a poke or a throw to reset the momentum. If he gets cornered, he’s one V-Reversal or V-Trigger away from swapping positions and putting his opponent in the corner.

He’s also got an effective set of basic tools: crouching MP and EX Sonic Scythe as his main anti-airs, easy combos into LK Sonic Scythe after a crouching LK and a standing LP (which also combos into his super), good mid-range pokes with his f+MK, MK Sonic Scythe, and crouching MK, and even good long-range pokes in f+HK, f+HP, and his Sonic Booms. Plus, his f+MP overhead is a great way to close out a roud.

In fact, one of the best ways to understand Nash’s strengths is to read Daigo’s anti-Nash strategy post (translated by Jiyuna, thanks buddy!) to understand all the stuff Nash can shut down. The fact that he has excellent anti-fireball tools in both his V-Trigger and his super alone let him control a lot of momentum in a match.

If anything, the challenge for new Nash players is going to be getting used to the fact that Nash can fight wherever he wants, meaning it’s up to the Nash player to identify where he wants to be in any given matchup, and how to get there. If Nash wants to get in, he can do it by simply chucking a Sonic Boom and following up with a Moonsault Kick, or a dash, or a V-Trigger; or, he can run away and bait the opponent into dashing in and punishing, giving him the same end result. The latter is probably more destructive to the opponent’s morale, since they put in the work of chasing you and ended up on the defensive.

That said, Nash’s tools aren’t as simple and straightforward as, say, Ryu’s. Nash’s f+LK and f+HP are pretty situational, and it takes a while to learn the rhythm and spacing for Nash’s anti-airs compared to other characters. Also, his up-close options aren’t quite as scary as the rest of the characters we’re seeing do well in tournaments (R. Mika, Ryu, Necalli, Karin, or Cammy) so once you run out of fairly basic frame traps and throws you’ll probably find yourself doing more of your damage at mid-range.

What I learned about SFV from playing Nash

In the first week or so of SFV’s release, I thought it felt kind of like a worse version of Tekken — mostly because a lot of the action happens very quickly in more or less the same in-close range — and so I tried to play F.A.N.G. and Ryu to see if there was a way to get more action happening further away. I actually don’t think those two characters are particularly good at range, but Nash sure is, albeit for kind of silly reasons; he can close the gap very easily, engage whenever he wants, and then go back to running away at minimal risk or cost to himself. It’s an interesting hit-and-run style of play that I haven’t seen much of outside of like, Chipp in Guilty Gear.

I think that Nash probably has the most versatile toolset out of everyone in the game, and as a result it means that you’re largely stuck playing the game he wants to play and trying to beat him at it so you can play your game. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s super good or anything, but it does mean he has a pretty powerful edge over characters that need to be in a certain range or space in order to succeed. This is especially useful for when you’re playing lots of new opponents (climbing out of pools in a tournament or playing ranked games, for example) because you get to force them to play your game instead of trying to learn how to pick apart theirs, so barring some major new innovations in anti-Nash tech, I’d recommend him as a good character to grow into.

Off the top of my head, the hardest matchups I ran into were Karin and Bison; think this is mostly because I had a hard time dealing with their approaches (especially Bison’s dang headstomp) and once they’re in I have to work hard or eat hits to get them off me.

Next up: In honor of Marn’s amazing run at NCR last weekend, I’ll be playing R. Mika! (I’m still behind on my Cammy Week writeup, too…)

by Patrick Miller — follow me on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, or subscribe to my newsletter! Also, you might like my short stories Re: Member and MVP — a game dev short story.

(Remember when Jamie Lee Curtis cosplayed as Vega at Evo?)

I did it! I played Vega for a week.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much to say about the character himself. Here’s a handy list of per-character punishes, and Bafael’s list of combos is a good place to start for understanding how his moves connect.

I don’t have much insight into leveling up with Vega because I still don’t feel like I really connected with his toolset. I played plenty of Vega in CvS2 — arguably his most straightforward (and boring) incarnation — and I still can’t say I came to enjoy playing him in SFV. I did learn some stuff over the course of playing with him for a week, though, so I figure I’ll just write about that stuff.

Vega basics

If you want to get started with Vega, the basic tools I ended up using a lot were:

-Jump MK for anti-air and poking — this thing is really fast and covers a lot of horizontal range, so I used neutral jump MK a lot in footsies.

-You can also use his air throw and his standing HK for anti-airs, but they’re a bit more situational. HK can give you a crush counter, which is nice.

-Stand LK has great range, fast startup (3f), and can combo into Crouch LP, which you can cancel into the LK roll for an easy combo. You can also use it to set up tick throws (+2f on block) but it pushes them away a bit so you’ll have to walk forward.

-Stand MP (with claw) is your all-purpose mid-range poke.

-Jump LK crosses up.

-His V-Trigger will occasionally just win you rounds because you got a whiff punish and comboed it into his super.

-I have no idea what to do with his meter besides using it for V-Trigger into super.

-I didn’t really play much with his no-claw stuff. I’m sure there’s some optimal combos and shenanigans using the claw switch but those tools were just not interesting to me. I might be missing out on a lot here, but it really felt like everything just made more sense with the claw on.

Thoughts on the character rework

I was curious to see how the SFV team was going to adapt Claw to a no-charge design, and overall I think it turned out well. Previous incarnations of Claw tend to either be very good for boring reasons — pokes and hyooooo shenanigans in ST, pokes in CvS2, pokes and whiffing throws for V-Ism meter in A3, though I don’t know how good he ended up being in that game overall — and he’s kind of weird because when he’s charging he’s not using his fast walk speed for footsies, and when he’s playing footsies he doesn’t have access to his usually-not-that-great-specials. SFV gives him access to all his specials and makes some of them a little bit more useful (no charging needed for the BnB!), but tones down his pokes and makes him weaker on knockdown (no more flipkick or invincible supers for wakeup). All in all, it’s a cool way to keep the core feeling of the character and make him feel a little bit more whole than he used to be.

I didn’t really dig the no-claw stuff, though. While his mask and claw gameplay in previous SFs was certainly something that could be improved on, I don’t like that he ends up losing a LOT of poking range and power when he loses his claw and instead gains comboability at shorter ranges. It seems weird to me that when he gets beaten up and loses his claw, he then has to get closer and do some damage. I guess they probably wanted to avoid play patterns that reward Claw players for running out the clock.

Ranked play is not a measure of progress; it is just a higher-pressure testing ground

Over the course of Vega Week, I played unranked matches for a few days, then hopped into some ranked matches and lost about 800LP over the course of two days. The day after that, I got about 600LP back. I don’t think it’s because I got dramatically better over that time, of course; I was playing perhaps a little smarter, but that was about it.

I’m not terribly invested in my LP score, but it does feel good to see that number go up, and bad to see it go down, especially with the constant ping-ponging between divisions. If nothing else, Vega Week was actually pretty good reminder that one’s ranked performance in any given day doesn’t really say anything about your skill as a player; over long stretches of time it’ll give you a general idea as to your overall range, but in any given day you could be getting paired up with players that are way better or way worse — and since they’re running into the same thing, you can’t even do much to extrapolate their talent level from their LP or division either.

I’ve said this before, but: If you focus on wins and losses as your benchmark for improvement or fun, you’re probably not going to have fun that often with a fighting game. Do your best to think of days where you lose LP as days where you learned a lot (LP = Learning Points!) and think of days where you gained LP as validation that the things you’re learning in losing that LP is paying off. Ranked games are just a chance for you to test your skills against people who are more serious than they are in unranked or lobby matches.

What Vega taught me about SFV

I mentioned in my Laura Week post that I picked up Laura because her in-your-face, fast-paced footsies felt like a core part of SFV’s identity as a game, and also something that I’m really bad at and needed to get more comfortable with.

Similarly, Vega also strips down the game to a smaller subset of the space: You win if you can keep the game in pokes/footsies/throws, and you lose if you can’t. In order to keep the game in that phase, you need to control the opponent’s momentum, and you’re given three tools to do that: Crouching RH (slide), F+HP, and his jump-ins. Each of these are fast and powerful enough that your opponent will need to watch for them even from far away, because if Vega connects with them, he’ll be able to turn it into pressure and damage (and if he gets to bait a reversal DP, that crush counter damage will be big). Each of these options also have a simple answer: Block the sweep, jump over the F+HP, and AA the jump-ins.

Vega’s range and walk speed means that he’s almost always a threat with at least two of those options. Your goal as a Vega player is to figure which ones the opponent is looking for on their approach (and they most likely will approach, as Vega completely breaks down under pressure). If they’re walking back and forth or overusing their dash, you can probably catch them with a sweep. If you see them start adding crouch blocks to their footwork patterns, it means they’re thinking of blocking the sweep and punishing, so you can poke with F+HP instead.

That will get them jumping, which you can shut down with nj MK. And once you’ve intimidated them with your control of the far range footsies, you can start jumping in while they’re focused on not getting swept and stabbed, which gets you free up-close pressure. Vega doesn’t have much in the way of consistent Big Damage Combos up close, so you’ll be playing simple throw/standing LK mixups and turning that into damage.

Of course, this kind of game is something that everyone in SFV plays, but with Vega it’s pretty much all he’s got. He doesn’t have a whole bunch of crazy mixup strings that test your opponent’s patience or reactions, so you pretty much have to go for honest, vanilla stuff like “You teched the last two throw attempts, so now I’m going to bait it and punish” or “You keep getting hit in pressure strings so I’m going to try for a Crush Counter setup.” And when you’re on defense, all you can do is block until you find an opening for a lucky escape or standing LK. Vega can play a simple game, especially if you focus on winning with the claw on, and I think that’s a pretty great thing for new players to get used to.

I’m still overdue on my Cammy Week post, so that’ll come next!