#david cage

The result is that they try to make some really deep and meaningful shit without knowing that it's been done before and done better by entries just barely below the surface level, and without knowing basic things about the inner workings of the engines of the medium itself that make them function.

If I want to make this observation into something actually constructive, I might say, like, instead of making your first very TTRPG something that you think has never even been attempted before and will blow everyone's fuckin minds instantly, your first TTRPG should probably be a really basic remake of Basic D&D (like, D&D1e) from the ground up with your own tools and knowledge. When they teach you video game design in college, they don't sit 101 students down and tell them to make something completely original, they tell them to make, like, really basic platformers and shit. You have to know how to make Super Mario Bros. before you can make The Game That Changes The Way You Think of Video Games Forever.

YEAHHH!!!! LUCAS KANE AND MAXWELL!!!!! Who knew the chroma he was exposed to in gestation made him grow cat appendages in adulthood

Looked at the wiki and saw Lucas concept art I love him he's so silly but also what is that

Fahrenheit indigo prophecy was at .99 cents on steam at one point,,, it was tempting but my hatred for David Cage remains pure and unwavering (I should prolly buy a steam key or something)

Well, I just discovered something extremely funny about the whole "the father-son dynamic doesn't need to be explicitly stated" argument.

In David Cage's own official pre-release character descriptions:

Carl and Markus? "a paternal affection has gradually developed" and Carl comes to think of Markus "like a son."

Connor? CyberLife specifically designed his social module to make him the "ideal partner," and he is sent to Hank as his partner.

So apparently Cage was perfectly capable of making a paternal relationship pretty damn legible when he actually wanted to describe one. And yes, I know Cage/Williams/Dechart later used father-son language about Hank and Connor. That doesn't really fix the problem.

Choose a lane.

Either the paternal dynamic is already clearly "woven into the script," in which case show me where the script actually establishes it rather than giving us partnership, friendship, mutual influence and one colloquial "son."

Or I need post-release creator commentary to tell me that this was supposedly the intended relationship.

Because if the father-son dynamic is "literally woven into the script," I shouldn't need to unlock it through post-release interviews.

Those comments can absolutely tell us something about authorial intent. What they can't do is retroactively turn every ambiguous interaction in the finished game into paternal coding and then make the audience "blind" for not seeing something that supposedly was obvious all along.

And if Cage really did intend a father-son dynamic but somehow failed to put into Hank and Connor's actual relationship the kind of paternal framing he had no trouble giving Carl and Markus?

That's a David Cage writing problem, not an audience comprehension problem.

An interview can tell me what the writer meant to write.