@Mantel said:

Any word about the recent hard-coded database information in super meat world?

http://steamcommunity.com/id/112233112233/screenshot/630734416928593105

I'd like to know more about that, too, and what their thoughts are about it. As someone in software, making a design decision like that going to production would have gotten me, at best, ridiculed immensely during a code review, and at worst, fired.

For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, this image pretty much sums it up: http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/1641/itsfinetrustme.png

Although it doesn't take away from Super Meat Boy being an awesome game (IMO), the whole database snafu is something I'm interested in, especially in retrospect from the people who made that design decision in the first place.

@Cirdain said:

@EnduranceFun said:

Bindinf of Isaac is a splendid game!

SMB is awesome and i love the game.

but i didn't manage to pass one single level for that steam holiday achievement ;______;

SMB was a great game and i wish these awesome guys lots of luck on their next games!

One thing that always bothers me is the "Only one person worked on this so it's OK if it is broken" excuse. I understand, things are going to break that you never noticed during testing. There will always be hidden bugs users will find that the programmers will never find no matter how many times test the code and play the game. It's the nature of programming. And I can understand the programmer being frustrated when bugs are found and they try to figure out what caused them. But don't then complain that people should be happy about it because you spent so much time and energy getting it to the point it is at.

Team Meat are super cool dudes, even though they come off as weird jerks.
Here's a podcast!
Also I entered the nude contest NSFW.

It's cool to get a glimpse into how they think.
 
Did this come out on PS3 I can't remember?

@xbob42: People are still trolling with that in 2012?

If you can't make your game work on Mac, that's fine. I have a PC that I play games on primarily anyway. But if you release them for that platform, they better work like you intended. In the case of Super Meat Boy, they know exactly what the problem is but don't want to fix it. That's not a great statement to make.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: That doesn't work on Mac with Super Meat Boy because the game is coded to automatically interpret the controller inputs. You can use whatever gamepad support app you like and SMB will just force itself to use what it thinks you should be using. That's when the "unfixable" problems with the 360 controller come into play.

They shouldn't be concered about wether they'll ever top SMB because in my opinion they already did with Binding of Isaac which is probably my favourite game of 2011.

I spent roughly 95 hours with that game

They seem like fun guys. Glad to hear Super Meat Boy got the million! That game totally deserves it.

Interesting article, can't wait for their next game!

@Dark_Lord_Spam: That doesn't work on Mac with Super Meat Boy because the game is coded to automatically interpret the controller inputs. You can use whatever gamepad support app you like and SMB will just force itself to use what it thinks you should be using. That's when the "unfixable" problems with the 360 controller come into play.

Excellent interview and article Patrick! These guys sounded like a blast to talk with.

They're jerks.

Last night on Twitter, McMillen asked about the idea of porting Isaac to PSN for Vita and PS3. Pretty exciting possibility.

I like their games, but they do sound like jerks.

This is a well-done article sprinkled with spelling mistakes, served with a side of comments.

I thought SMB was a neat game, but I really don't like these guys. Almost every interview I've read with them they come off as egotistical jerks.

Edit: Having now read the article, I can add this to the list of interviews where they sound like total assholes in many respects.

"Super Meat Boy is part of gaming's refreshing challenge renaissance, right next to Dark Souls."

Well, if you want to be more literal about it, it's right between Demon's and Dark Souls.

My type of people.

I guess it's good to know that all of that nude fanart I see when I GIS "team meat" was just part of some terrible idea for a fundraiser.

@RudeCubes said:

Frankly I think Team Meat is a bunch of arrogant jerks! I like SMB and Isaac, but i'm stuck on a Mac so I have to play SMB with my keyboard and in a tiny window. Kind of makes the "USE A GAMEPAD, IDIOT" splash screen an asshole!

I tend to agree. I love the hell out of SMB, but it has some problems that indicate quite poor underlying programming, problems that they've stated as having no intention to fix. I'm sure they worked really hard to get the game out, but it's a product people are paying for and the customers are not there to be sympathetic towards the company or people selling them a product. If they don't have a clue on how to program for Macs then don't put out a Mac version.

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say.

And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

Great article, Patrick. I love seeing this kind of journalism on GB. Hearing from developers is always a pleasure.

@Brodehouse said:

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say. And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

I was about to write down this exact paragraph, then I looked at your comment. This exemplifies what I wanted to say, but I would have added the word "fucktard" somewhere in there.

@Brodehouse said:

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say. And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

You realize that's not the point I was making, right? The point was that there's been a recent string of really challenging games that push against the notion of coddling players, a direct result of the mainstreaming and focus testing of most games. Both Dark Souls and Super Meat Boy are experiences that have high expectations from the skills of players, experiences that aren't for everyone--and that's okay.

@Brodehouse said:

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say. And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

I was about to write down this exact paragraph, then I looked at your comment. This exemplifies what I wanted to say, but I would have added the word "fucktard" somewhere in there.

@Brodehouse said:

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say. And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

that's all subjective man, I find the way SMB handles to be terrible, I think all of the story is terrible, I could at least play dark souls when I got it (I couldn't play SMB for weeks), so uh... don't make this a competition alright?

I didnt find SMB as hard as everyone made it out to be.

"You jumped on from that schedule to doing the PC port in a month, and then when it came out, you fixed all the fucking major problems within the first week. People still complained! It’s just so fucking bizarre and so frustrating because nobody understands the amount of work that goes on in the background.”

This seems kind of... uh, bad PR akin to how Binding of Issac stated to use Joy2key instead of not being coded in Flash and being able to use pads on the PC, or how much they shittalk people who DON'T use a pad in Super Meat Boy, or how the User Content Server's password and login are directly tied to SMB itself and are plainly spelled out in the game's code, making it easier to hack than PSN, or...

I'm not trying to say it wasn't easy for Team Meat, but there are definitely some things they gladly gloss over when it comes to their games. Super Meat Boy was UNPLAYABLE for those first few months on PC, and had more patches coming out daily than anything else at the time.

They're probably still a good company, but they sound like douchebags most of the time. :/

@david3cm said:

@Brodehouse said:

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say. And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

I was about to write down this exact paragraph, then I looked at your comment. This exemplifies what I wanted to say, but I would have added the word "fucktard" somewhere in there.

How is that cringe-worthy? The comparison was made because they are both very difficult games. There is nothing even remotely inaccurate or unreasonable about that particular comparison. He never said they had anything in common beyond that. Good grief, folks, sometimes it seems like you want people to fail, just so you can pounce on them. Relax.

@Adamsons said:

@Moncole said:

I didnt find SMB as hard as everyone made it out to be.

How do you have the golden gift achievement without any dark world/bandage/warp zone achievements, which are all much easier? :S

My save file got erased when I switched computers so I have to beat the game again. And for the golden achievement the game was being laggy for some reason so I used a trainer to help me out. And I dont try to get achievements

I also used a Keyboard to play

LOLOLOL. The fan-made painting is disturbing. Team Meat is displaying their... meat. =-|

I was thinking about getting Super Meat Boy. It's a universally praised game!

@Allison:

Super Meat Boy was UNPLAYABLE for those first few months on PC,

No, It was definitely not. Maybe for a week, MAYBE for a couple weeks. But it was certainly not unplayable for that long. That is a complete fabrication.

@Brodehouse said:

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say. And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

You realize that's not the point I was making, right? The point was that there's been a recent string of really challenging games that push against the notion of coddling players, a direct result of the mainstreaming and focus testing of most games. Both Dark Souls and Super Meat Boy are experiences that have high expectations from the skills of players, experiences that aren't for everyone--and that's okay.

Great interview!

@Brodehouse said:

@patrickklepek

@Brodehouse said:

Patrick, Super Meat Boy has roughly nothing in common with Dark Souls. Super Meat Boy handles incredibly well, presents you with clear objectives and allows you to try again with a second of failure. Dark Souls handles like a third person game from 1996, is deliberately opaque with the information you require to play it, and punishes mistakes by erasing an hour of progress. That comparison is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've heard you say. And I'm not one of those dicks who hates you.

You realize that's not the point I was making, right? The point was that there's been a recent string of really challenging games that push against the notion of coddling players, a direct result of the mainstreaming and focus testing of most games. Both Dark Souls and Super Meat Boy are experiences that have high expectations from the skills of players, experiences that aren't for everyone--and that's okay.

The 'coddling' of players is exactly why they're different. By using Dark Souls as a standard, Super Meat Boy absolutely coddles the player. There is no meaningful punishment for death other than trying the level again, rarely more than 30 seconds. Game mechanics are clear (and clean) as opposed to completely vague and unexplained. And most importantly is how it feels; it gives the player some of the best and most responsive platforming I've ever played. Allowing the player all these (modern) benefits is absolutely 'coddling' as far as the Souls series is concerned. The 'difficulty' in the Souls exists around the game, rather than the game itself. ... Maybe that sounds crazy. I understand where you're coming from, but that comparison invites a symmetry between them that just isn't there. SMB is a retro game with modern ideals, the Souls are modern games with retro ideals.

Maaaaaaaybe you're just looking into a caption a little too much? Maaaaaaaybe?

@moolkey said:

@Allison:

Super Meat Boy was UNPLAYABLE for those first few months on PC,

No, It was definitely not. Maybe for a week, MAYBE for a couple weeks. But it was certainly not unplayable for that long. That is a complete fabrication.

Hell, I was fine with playing it from the offset so I don't know what you're talking about.

@Brodehouse: But they're both difficult video games. I think that's all that Patrick was trying to say.

@Animasta The story really has nothing to do with the difficulty or gameplay, and if you found it difficult to control, then I don't know dude. Super Meat Boy is what Greg Kasavin calls direct, when you touch the controller, he moves rather than begins to move.

Great article. I'm very interested to see what these guys cook up next.

@Cyrisaurus: I don't think he is because he sure does fix them pretty quick. However, I just don't understand how he has so many typos to begin with because most of the time you would think whatever he is typing it on would show up "red".

I bought super meat boy on live and the humble bundle so I wonder if they sold a million based on that data, meaning someone already has it on steam then they buy the bundle and now boom they have two copies.

@Brodehouse said:

@Sharpless Dude, I like Patrick. I'm not trying to tear him down. I just thought was kind of... Inaccurate, I suppose. There are very vital, core differences in difficulty between SMB and the Souls. I don't feel they have remotely the same design ethos and maintaining they are wouldn't be right.

They both can easily frustrate many players. That's it. He never said the two games were similar in any way aside from both being "challenging." Games can be challenging in many different ways.

Ugh... Not the kind of people I would want to hang with, I'll tell you that.
 
I enjoyed Meat Boy to a limited extent, but I'm not holding out for anything else from this team.

I get why people like SMB, game isn for me though. Also these guys seem like total assholes.

LOLOLOL. The fan-made painting is disturbing. Team Meat is displaying their... meat. =-|

I was thinking about getting Super Meat Boy. It's a universally praised game!

@GenghisJohn said:

I get why people like SMB, game isn for me though. Also these guys seem like total assholes.

Really? Because they just seem like spastic guys, immature maybe, but assholes? Nah, don't get all angry after reading one article.