#mike bithell

[calvincell]

Coming away from 2+ hrs of playtime with the recently released Tron Catalyst - the latest Bithell Games-helmed Tron game; playing via my Steam Deck & I have to say, I’ve genuinely been enjoying myself and itching to endorse the game.

For any unaware, the game is a semi-open world action game played from a top down isometric perspective similar to Ruiner & Supergiant’s Hades series. Those examples also apply to the gameplay mechanics in particular where fights are hectic & swift encounters of strikes, parries & Identity Disc tossing.

Premise & plot wise (very low spoilers), the game is set within the continuity of Bithell’s previous Tron project: Tron Identity - a mystery solving puzzle + visual novel/adventure game. Despite that, Tron Catalyst doesn’t require having played Tron Identity previously. In Tron Catalyst you play Exo, a courier program who gets caught up in a serious conspiracy when one of her deliveries explodes nearly derezzing Exo at the same time. Though she survived, the question of her delivery puts major suspicion on her, landing her in the hands of the ruthless security programs gripping nearly the entire Grid in their fist. Aided by the discovery of Exo’s sudden ability to rewind time seeming caused by the strange contents of the exploded package she endured, she manages to escape incarceration and must search the Grid for answers all while being a hunted program.

As I mentioned before, combat in Tron Catalyst is definitely hectic in the same ways as Hades (less overwhelming enemy hordes but still) with the addition of a parry mechanic. So far the parry has been hard for me to proc however there is an upgrade to increase the window which I’m saving points for.

Disc combat is genuinely fun IMO especially with the inclusion of abilities to recall it, ping it off of multiple enemies & parry it on return to smack it back at enemies again.

The plot & VA work are also great so far with the central mystery being earnestly intriguing.

As far as gripes with the game, though I don’t mind the camera distance too much so far, I honestly absolutely see why others might be unable to stand it. If the functionality can be patched in, I truly feel that the devs definitely should prioritize including an option to zoom in or a handful of locked zoom distances for players to choose from.

Overall, I’m personally definitely hooked on Tron Catalyst & don’t regret buying it if for no other reason than being a fan of Tron, Bithell Games & Devolver Digital makes me happy to support the whole. I genuinely feel that any fans of Tron in particular should at least check the game out through some YouTube gameplay vids since sadly, like with so many other games these days, the demo was axed once the game proper launched.

[calvincell]

They put out a 3rd Archive now too:

Definitely a Day One purchase for me! The game looks fantastic

Two new Tron: Catalyst trailers:

Archive/01 INITIALIZATION

--

Archive /02 DISRUPTION

It's looking so damn cool.

[fizztapp]

Played through Mike Bithell's Tron Identity earlier this month. Started playing Tron 2.0 from Monolith for the first time this past weekend. Both have blown me away.

Cleaning up those corners of Tron I haven't touched yet. I think there was a comic published at one point I need to hunt down. The world of Tron really is peak

[ideas-on-paper]

Thoughts on Tron: Identity (quick review)

Finally, I closed the biggest gap in my Tron education: I played Tron: Identity at last!

And let me say, it was an amazing experience - short, but amazing.

I really love that the game digs into the "spiritual" themes of Tron, like the Users being akin to gods for the programs. At the same time, it's kind of funny since all of the programs on the Arq server are ISOs, so none of them were written by any Users - technically, they don't have any gods at all, since they spawned out of nowhere. Still, despite having no higher-ordained function, they're looking for purpose by organizing themselves, and some of them - like Prinz - even turn to the Users for guidance. (I guess programs are not too dissimilar from Users in that regard…)

Also, I really enjoyed the inclusion of the Automata - I love the idea of a faction of programs wanting to evolve beyond the predetermined parameters of the Users, and who place greater value on finding their own path and information being free to access for everyone. (I'm a big fan of AIs valuing their otherness, if you can't tell. xD)

Nevertheless, I think that the theme of control of information/information as power present in the game is very relevant, probably more so now than ever. In the age of the internet, the value of information and data will only increase, and whoever holds them will have control over pretty much everything - and wherever there is power, you can count on someone being there to abuse it.

Aside from this, Tron: Identity also has some pretty existentialist themes, like dealing with the realization that God has abandoned you and that knowledge is sometimes more of a burden than a boon. I can relate to both of these very well, and I love the way they implemented this little bit of philosophy into the game.

From a gameplay perspective, Tron: Identity was my first visual novel, and I have to say I quite enjoyed it - due to the nature of the story, I found myself thinking really hard about some decisions, and to my own surprise, I actually really liked the puzzle minigames intermingled in between. (I'm usually not that big on puzzle games; I think that's because most of the time, there's only one correct way to solve the puzzles, so I'm glad that the minigames in Identity allow for multiple approaches.)

[Spoilers from this point onwards!]

Still, I somehow feel like I got the worst ending possible - Proxy took off with Prinz, Ada turned to voxels from Cass's explosion, and Grish was royally pissed at me. xD In the end, I didn't have much of a choice but to derezz Grish - I considered handing over Cass to him just to keep both of them alive, but I couldn't bring myself to betray Cass. Sorry, Grish, but I had to protect my precious baby. xD

However, from what I've read in some guides, it could've gone much, much worse - if you try to stop Proxy from taking Prinz, you will accidentally hit Prinz with your disc. I was considering to defend Prinz, but I was worried about him being in the line of fire, so I didn't take that choice. (Good call on that one, I guess... ^^')

I suppose 3/5 survivors isn't the worst you can do (since Sierra can't die anyway), but maybe I'll do another run in the future to see some of the other outcomes.

Either way, Tron: Identity is a fantastic addition to the Tron franchise, and you can really tell that Mike Bithell put a lot of love, effort, and care into the story. I just hope we'll get a sequel to it soon, and that your decisions from the first game will have an impact on the second. (When I freed Sierra, I was kinda hoping he would help you out as an ally later, so that's something I'd really like to see.)

[calvincell]

100% co-signing this! Bithell Games in particular is stubbornly refusing to let Tron die the death Disney seems fine sentencing it to by canceling Uprising & letting Ares wallow in production purgatory and I’m with him all the way. I’d rather get games like this from diehard fans in the indie space than for some AAA company getting contracted to have their devs crunch for 3+ years only to deliver a subpar product with a multimillion dollar budget

Some Tron fans might be a little disappointed that TRON: Catalyst isn't a big fancy AAA game with cutting-edge graphics and whatnot, thinking that Disney doesn't care about the franchise enough to put huge sums of money into it (compared to, say, Star Wars games). But me, I was actually kind of relieved when I looked at the system requirements for the game and saw that it can most likely be run on my sligthly old, not-cutting-edge-specs computer. I'm happy that I won't have to buy a whole new computer, or a new game console, to keep up with the Tron franchise, at least not for a little while longer (who knows, maybe we'll get a big high-end game to tie in with TRON: Ares somewhere down the line?).

I felt similarly about TRON: Identity, and I might go so far as to say that I almost hope that Tron remains a "lesser" Disney franchise, if it means that we'll get more low-budget, but still well-made and interesting games set in its universe. To quote Jordan Mallory, "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding."

At the same time, I will also admit that I'm happy that Catalyst does seem to have one important improvement over Identity: Voice acting. Even though that presumably require a slightly higher budget.

[kennak]

ゲームのロード画面には、プレイヤーにロードの進行状況を示す進捗バーが表示されることがある。実はこの進捗バー、開発者たちのツイートなどによると、わざと不規則な速さで進めるよう設計していることが多いそうだ（AUTOMATON）。 『Thomas Was Alone』などを手がけたゲームデザイナーで開発者のMike Bithell氏によると、プレイヤーは均等に進むスムーズなロード進捗バーを信じないのだという。進捗バーが滞ったりする方が、ロードが順調に進んでいる印象を与えやすいことから、ゲームではロード進捗バーが止まったり急に進んだりする演出がされることが多い模様。元記事では、一定の速度で滑らかに進むロード進捗バーだと、ロードの状況に関係なくただアニメーションが表示されているだけの印象を受けるかもしれないとしている。 また「バーが100％に到達してもゲームが開始しないことが多いのではないか」と疑問が出たことに関して、Bithell氏はバーが止まる理由の一つに、データのロード自体は完了してもワールドを描く最後の工程が必要であり、その際にフリーズが発生する可能性があるためだと述べている。

ゲームのロード進捗バー、一定速度で進むとプレーヤーに信用されない | スラド

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Ok I guess this week has been all about going through a bunch of short stuff (and finishing one old thing I was almost done with), so you get to drink from the firehose.

The old thing was Bayonetta 2, which for some reason I took a break from for like 2-3 years. The first game had a bunch of good ideas in it but felt like it wasn't quite finished to me, but this one improved on all that and polished everything better, and it was a lot of fun. I'm not great at it, especially not after trying to jump back in in the middle after not playing for multiple years, but I was managing ok by the end at least. It's just non-stop nonsense that's constantly escalating and getting more ridiculous, and somehow they manage to pull that off. I kind of almost wish they leaned even more into the camp aspects of it sometimes, because the moments where Bayonetta comes across as "what if a cis woman was a gay man?" are always fun, and I'm always a sucker for female characters who are kind of snarky/bitchy/sarcastic.

Subsurface Circular was pretty good too. I knew the name Mike Bithell in the opening credits sounded familiar but was not prepared for it to directly reference Thomas Was Alone (the original thing he became known for and another great game) at one point in the story. "You are a robot detective solving robot crimes by talking to other robots on the subway" is a great premise, and it went in some reasonably interesting directions I wasn't expecting by the end. Some of the characters are kind of fun too.

I gave up on Can Androids Survive really quickly, like a few minutes in, which is a shame after how amazing Can Androids Pray was. I actually have a feeling it's probably fine or even good, but I didn't love the default controls, and when I tried to remap them the game softlocked. I'll probably give it another shot at some point when it goes on sale on itch.io or Steam, but the Switch version isn't happening.

Florence was pretty cute and good though. It's another one of those things that manages to tell a story and develop its characters with almost zero text or dialogue, and it does it well. I don't really have a ton to say about it beyond that it's a good use of a couple bucks and less than an hour of your time. Oh, and that I appreciate the stuff they managed to pull off entirely through very simple gameplay, like showing characters getting closer and more comfortable with each other just through how you put together speech bubbles for implied conversations. Very simple but very effective.

And then finally there's Death Becomes You, which I have mixed feelings on. I guess I'd call it a yuri murder mystery VN with much more emphasis on the murder mystery than the yuri. There are definitely some good ideas in it, and I like that it's not afraid to focus on toxic or even abusive relationships and recovering from them, and the world it takes place in is more interesting than I expected. That said, the writing isn't really my style overall. Some of it works pretty well sometimes, but I had a bit of a rough time getting into it at first because of how unlikable the characters and their interactions came across at first, and not in a way that made me want to know more. I did warm up to them somewhat, but like a review on Steam put it I was more intellectually interested in what the story was doing and not so much emotionally invested in the characters or what was going on. Also most of the endings feel really abrupt and like they needed slightly more to them to feel like they were really earned. I'm still curious what they'll do in the future though because there's definitely potential for something interesting there.

[okkinzo]

Play Watch Listen in Gorillaz Demon Dayz style ! | @okkinzo

[calvincell]

It’s frankly hilarious how anti woke chodes are just so blinded by their bigotry & rage against diversity that they fail to acknowledge or just straight up ignore things such as the fact that one of the 3 protagonists’ in the 1ST FILM OF THE FRANCHISE was Dr. Lora Baines, the woman who was an expert computer programmer & engineer who was fundamental in creating the very digitization laser tech which is the critical catalyst for the entire foundational premise of the franchise overall.

It’s also just one more blatant display of the complete disingenuous nature of anti woke tools who delude themselves into believing they are the only “real gamers/fans” - collectively complaining about how pronouns, minority representation and usage of diversity & inclusion consultants are all “blights” on the entire game industry; all the while explicitly ignoring massive obvious industry issues such as: worker exploitation and abuse at the hands of overpaid c-suite executives, mentally & physically debilitating levels of crunch, the degradation of game preservation, completely untenable development & release schedules on grossly bloated AAA game budgets, anti-consumer pricing & monetization tactics, efforts to rob customers of ownership rights of their game purchases, the draining & callous discarding of industry talent (individuals & studios alike) by major publishers, poor optimization & performance of supposedly complete full price releases, rabid trend chasing as seen with NFTs & live service games, etc.

New Tron game looks dope, I'm definitely looking forward to it. That being said it is extremely funny to me that the trailer dropped this afternoon and is already bringing the anti-woke crowd out to complain that Tron has "gone woke" because of the skin tone and supposed genitals of a fucking computer program.

[cn-4amsleeper]

Play Watch Listen Titles are awesome

Just went through all the titles again and I remember why I love this stupid show

[everythingcounts2007remaster]

I found Tron Catalyst deeply underwhelming on a lot of levels. Mike Bithell has some neat ideas, but is a poor writer. Each time I leap into the indigo waters of his Tron games, I shatter my shins because it's only ankle deep. 

I think it annoys me because he tries to make something deeper. And it's not. I hate the shallow-ass way he does "diversity." You need more to your character than their minority traits. We learn nothing about Exo. Her traits are: Black, woman, courier, protagonist (and I got to flirt with a woman one time before it was permanently erased). It's like Exo didn't even exist before booting up the game.

Does she like her job? Is she saving up to go elsewhere? What were her goals before becoming a time goddess? Does she buy into the doomsday glitch rumors that everyone else seems to know? What did she think of Core before getting arrested -- maybe lukewarm, or uninformed, or trusting? Maybe she already harbored disdain for them since outlawing lightcycles; as a courier I imagine that was quite a blow. Does she have no connections prior to the game? You telling me she's never heard of Automata or Reset? It would have brought SO much more depth with just that simple change: "Oh yeah, I've heard of [your group here], they're [incorrect boilerplate opinion here that gets more nuanced over the course of the game]" or whatever. She meets everyone for the first time enough times that there could have been some, I dunno, character development there beyond "yeah I've done this before." Mike Bithell tells me she trusts these programs but he definitely doesn't show me. Surely she's heard of the games at least---maybe experiencing them first hand could have been enlightening. "I thought it was volunteer, they say it's volunteer..." Make her a person, make her someone who exists outside of the viewer/player/reader's eye.

And that's not even touching the boring as hell dialogue. God. Every single sentence is doing exactly one job and it's exactly what it says on the tin. No foreshadowing, no beautifully blended exposition, no worldbuilding except if you explicitly ask for it, nothing. At least we get every single beat for beat goodbye sequence though!! Ugh. If there was any subtext it was solely in Bithell's head and we aren't given access to it.

And I don't believe these things can be blamed on low budget. Games like Night in the Woods, Tacoma, Gone Home, etc do a masterful amount of worldbuilding and characterization with a fraction of the writing.

I suppose it's easier to list the things I did like about the game:

- lightcycle was fun - i ran into a lot of things but the lightjet was enjoyable - Query's voice - some of the art - that blink-and-you-miss-it container marked kflynn/storage/bin/permanentserver or whatever it was (an ounce of foreshadowing yayyy!!!) - the handful of references to better Tron stories but alas, a nostalgia button push does not a good story make - the antifascist vibes even though the execution was deeply lacking (like seriously crack open any edition of Clarkesworld and you're bound to find a short story pulling it off better)

[roxaxs]

🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 🎃

[tinysamm]

Each quadrilateral character in Thomas Was Alone is built around very simple physical capabilities regarding jump height, with later characters possessing more significant variations that allow them to assist characters when it comes to navigating specific obstacles. By including a change-up of this significance, the game is able to prevent its characters abilities from falling into perfectly symmetrical variants of each other, and thus ensures puzzles still feel fresh even when the player gets to the end of the game and they’ve been using the same 5-6 major character variants throughout.

[maxbegone]

Beautiful human, Troy Baker at the John Wick Hex panel today

[vgmslowdown]

Thomas was Alone - Ghosts Of The Past (SLOWED DOWN)

[robinkingsley]

DAVID WICK

~David definitely aint no John Wick, but you can catch him playing John Wick Hex over on his twitch channel  tomorrow~