Play it Forward 14

THANKS JAN!!

74 orphans!

Hell yes

It's a fun concept, but thinking of other games that would work is tough. It should be one that everyone can pick up and play without having a miserable time. Crusader Kings seems really complex and would require all participants to really commit to it. Maybe try something that is more familiar to the team.

Some Bethesda RPG or New Vegas might be a good fit if they were not so long. The core gameplay is fairly simple, there's a lot of choices you can make that can have a pretty big impact on how the game plays out and there's a lot in them that makes it easy to keep track of what you should be doing.

See, I would've said the same thing about Alpha Protocol (and I think that's why it was picked for this feature) but no one really seemed to engage with it in that way. Most people didn't read the debriefs that detail how their choices impacted the mission, and there were plenty of in-game conversations that were ignored and talked over. It probably didn't help that the actual gun gameplay was so frustrating to play. Every player seemed relieved when it was time to hand the game off to the next person.
I like the idea of Play It Forward (especially as a spiritual successor to Xquisite Corps), but I think it's a format where its success rests entirely on the game selected, and I can't think of a game that would be a good fit.

Which part of that would you have said about AP? The gameplay in AP isn't simple at all, there's a lot of obtuse mechanics that you can't easily pick up and figure out, the gameplay seem to only really work when you actually play into the strengths that you built your character around and there isn't really a whole lot in there that helps keeping track of what's going on.

Am I in the minority in thinking that next time they should pick a game with significantly less mechanics? Or a game that explains all its mechanics up front and doesn’t really change as it goes?

I think it’s kinda been the big issue with both Exquisite Corps and Play It Forward that unless the game is effortlessly pick-up-and-play (it hasn’t been), the rotating players have missed some new mechanic that was introduced while they were away. And then they just have to blunder forward while half-understanding the game, or being coached by the one student in class who was paying attention.

I’d almost rather point them towards some big dumb narrative game like Detroit: Become Human than another game-ass game. I mean, the plot would be indecipherable to the participants, but at least they could breeze through gameplay and just focus on making choices during their play session.

I don’t know, do you guys like that they’re miserable at the gameplay because each player only puts hands on the game once every 3-4 weeks? This format might work in an Endurance Run or daily Let’s Play, but as a weekly show each episode is just so far apart no one remembers how the game works. The game needs to be simpler to suit the format.

This Def fizzled out for a final episode given not everyone joined.

I think what made xcom a success was the players leaving notes to each other explaining decisions and story impacts in their own words.

Xcom also wasnt super story heavy, each player putting their own snippets into the story made it great. The reincarnation of dan, the luckiest kill shot finale, the rotating losses of abbys characters.

This has potential. I despise David Cage, but do enjoy playthroughs that mercilessly dunk on Quantic Dream games. It could be fun to see them riff on Heavy Rain in this format. For a little twist, each player could have a secret objective like trying to get certain characters killed. Or filling out bingo cards with the terrible tropes.

Hey @janman this one doesn't seem to be tagged with the other Play It Forward videos. Y'know in the episode list thingy

YES! DO CRUSADER KINGS

@simkas: I was referring to the plot/choices aspect of the game. I admittedly haven't played it myself, but Alpha Protocol has always had a pretty high reputation when it comes to its narrative and the way it develops through the choices of the player.
I don't remember any of those glowing blog posts talking about the gameplay mechanics though, and now I can see why! I can't blame the guys for losing focus when they had to re-learn what looked like some very unintuitive controls every month-and-a-half. Even Matt Rorie, who single-handedly made the game on a Commodore 128, had a rough time!

@janman: Couple of recommends for future Play It Forwards that "might" work:

1) Maybe the Fire Emblem games - since there are consequences with a character dying, that might be fun.

2) The Sims - though I think there would have to be a goal, such as playing through each life stage or something per episode?

3) The SimCity ideas are great, but maybe Tropico would be better since the politics aspect can create some chaos for each next play.

4) What about the TellTale Games? Less mechanics issues and choices aren't super-story changing, but there's plenty of opportunities for someone to play nice to an NPC only to get back on the show and see that the others weren't so nice.