|
Newest update 3/21: Part 17 The Talos Principle is one of my favorite games of all time. It's one of those rare games where I got to the end after finding 100% of the content and wished not that I could go back and play the whole thing over again, but that I could play the whole thing again for the first time. This may seem like a strange reaction given that the game was made by Croteam, not so much "best known" as "exclusively known" for their ultra-fast-paced FPS series Serious Sam. It perhaps makes a little more sense when considering that the game was written by Jonas Kryatzes, the mind behind The Sea Will Claim Everything, and Tom Jubert, the writer of celebrated indie hit The Swapper. The Swapper used its cloning and body-swapping mechanic as a jumping-off point for some genuinely interesting meditations on existentialism and the nature of consciousness. The Talos Principle takes those ideas and runs with them, producing not only a well-written game but, I would claim, legitimately one of the best works of philosophical science fiction in any medium. In any case, since I couldn't experience it for the first time again myself, I got my old LP buddy Matt (Mott514) to do it and let me watch, thus experiencing it vicariously. As is sort of our Thing, the playthrough is half-blind -- I know the game more or less inside and out, and he knows what the game is called. I try to direct him as little as possible, except to keep him away from serious red herrings and false leads. Importantly, I will NOT be guiding him towards the Stars on his first pass through the levels (although if he stumbles onto one I may help a bit, and I will certainly be encouraging him to go back for them later). This will be a super-chatty LP. As the image above suggests, there will be a lot of meandering conversation about a variety of topics related to the game's content -- some directly, some only tangentially. In particular, I'm going to try and talk a lot about the various background knowledge I had that made me appreciate the game more. Please feel free to continue any conversations or digressions from the videos in the thread! The one request I have is that there be  NO DISCUSSION OF GAME TEXT NOT YET ENCOUNTERED, or for that matter about any aspects of the story/world of the game not explicitly mentioned in a video. Seeing the game a second time I'm noticing all kinds of foreshadowing, but I'm trying real hard not to spoil Matt about them and I would appreciate the same courtesy.Finally, for those of you who do not particularly like listening to a lot of conversation while not a lot of gameplay happens, every video will have a "table of contents" in its description with links to the beginning of every puzzle, so you can skip around as you please. THE VIDEOS           with special guest AI and robotics expert Kevin Gold!      
Occultatio fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Mar 22, 2016 |
#
?
Jul 24, 2015 00:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 01:35 |
|
|
Interesting to see a blind playthrough of this. After having watched the first ten minutes of your video, I would like to say that sometimes your voices get almost completely drowned out by the game's audio. Any chance to fix that? Edit: Finished watching the episode. There were some more of those audio issues. Anyway, for the order of puzzles, I am not sure, but if you do them out of order, do you also get to see the text files out of the intended order? Because that could get slightly confusing. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Jul 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2015 14:08
|
|
|
Carbon dioxide posted:After having watched the first ten minutes of your video, I would like to say that sometimes your voices get almost completely drowned out by the game's audio. Any chance to fix that? Sorry about the audio -- that's a recording process error we made on this first video only. It will get much better for all others. As for "intended order" -- I don't know that it matters that much to the text files themselves. As for the other interactions with the terminals, those are triggered by sigil count rather than tied to a specific terminal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2015 15:21
|
|
|
Portal comparisons are annoyingly reductive and only choke the life out of unique games. Matt, two usability tips: 1) Regardless of your own motion sickness, adjust the field of view for the benefit of the viewers at home. Putting FOV to 90 and turning view bobbing off will fix most of the motion sickness for most people. 2) Stop using a controller. The game is a PC first-person game, it's designed around PC hardware and is infinitely more playable with a mouse and keyboard, including the ability to bind things to extra keys (like switching from first to third-person being assigned to a single key without needing to pause). And Matt, perhaps you could have let Matt discover the existence of the stars (and that they can be anywhere in the hubs) on his own? Also, some of them are just as obnoxious as Braid. frozentreasure fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jul 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2015 16:11
|
|
|
Thanks for watching and for the feedback - we'll get that FOV and bob fixed in short order. It's a lovely game and I'm looking forward to playing more. Cheers, Also Matt (aka, the player)
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2015 21:03
|
|
|
This is probably my favourite game of the past few years, so it's nice to see a chatty LP after canibalK9s somber and thoughtful one. I hope you will have a great time! frozentreasure posted:
I disagre! Playing this game with a controler feels way more relaxing for me, since you can lean back and think. But you actually can rebind the controls, so you can enable that option. If you use the default settings, L3 isn't even used. Also, there is an option to have a button which speeds up time. That can be useful. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jul 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2015 22:09
|
|
|
23:44 - both of you somehow missed 2 QR codes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2015 04:03
|
|
|
Never even heard of this game, but I love me some Philosophical Sci-Fi. Gonna be following this for the inevitable existential crisis.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2015 08:58
|
|
|
Let's have a new video! We've got a small backlog, but since our recording availability goes way down once the school year hits, for the most part we'll probably be staggering releases weekly or so. So this is probably the video where you'll decide either that this is exactly the sort of LP you were hoping for, or that I'm an insufferable pedant and that your life will be richer without my voice in it. Isn't life full of mysteries? I'm pretty sure I get the skeleton of all the Greek history in this video more or less correct (although I am obviously dramatically simplifying and summarizing). If it turns out that I am Wrong On The Internet, though, don't hesitate to correct me!
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2015 00:31
|
|
|
But there is a jump button. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2015 09:11
|
|
|
Air is lava! posted:I disagre! Playing this game with a controler feels way more relaxing for me, since you can lean back and think. But you actually can rebind the controls, so you can enable that option. If you use the default settings, L3 isn't even used. Also, there is an option to have a button which speeds up time. That can be useful. I found three useful unbound buttons: the fast forward time, the alternative grab which doesn't clear the state of the new toy, and the zoom button. RichardA fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Jul 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2015 15:10
|
|
|
By the way, the game is on steam sale right now (weekend sale), 66% off.
|
|
#
?
Jul 26, 2015 17:00
|
|
|
New plan: we'll release videos every couple of days until we catch up with our backlog. Thus: update! In other news, we will be playing through Road to Gehenna, when we get that far. In other other news, god drat Road to Gehenna is amazing. If you're a fan of the game you DEFINITELY should pick it up -- both the puzzles and the writing continue to be outstanding. Also, basically the easiest puzzle in the DLC is as hard as the hardest red puzzle from the base game, and it goes way, way up from there. It also has some of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful environments in the entire game. Anyway, enjoy the video!
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2015 21:40
|
|
|
Occultatio posted:In other other news, god drat Road to Gehenna is amazing. If you're a fan of the game you DEFINITELY should pick it up -- both the puzzles and the writing continue to be outstanding. Also, basically the easiest puzzle in the DLC is as hard as the hardest red puzzle from the base game, and it goes way, way up from there. I can absolutly agree here. If you had at least some fun with the base game, the DLC is well worth it. I noticed that not a lot of people seem to watch these videos so far. I hope that will change soon, since they are actually quite entertaining. Maybe you could post it in the new LPs thread. cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jul 29, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2015 22:00
|
|
|
It might also be hard to pull in people since an LP just finished of this game, and sometimes people might not feel the want to indulge just for another person's viewpoint on the game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2015 22:19
|
|
|
Air is lava! posted:I noticed that not a lot of people seem to watch these videos so far. I hope that will change soon, since they are actually quite entertaining. Maybe you could post it in the new LPs thread. I was actually going to do that pretty soon -- I wanted to wait until there was a representative sample, since you only get to post in that thread once. I'm glad you're enjoying it, though! Niggurath posted:It might also be hard to pull in people since an LP just finished of this game, and sometimes people might not feel the want to indulge just for another person's viewpoint on the game. Yeah, I know... the timing is a little unfortunate, but whatcha gonna do? We're doing this project because it's a game I'm really passionate about, and while I didn't watch all of canibalK9's playthrough I checked enough to make sure that we'd at least be bringing something substantially different to the table. But I'm having enough fun making the videos that I won't get too sad if not a ton of people end up watching them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2015 23:02
|
|
|
So, I'm really enjoying watching you two play through this game. If I had $40 spare bucks, I would probably pick this up, but I don't. Up to this point you haven't talked much about the game's setting (deliberately, though it's clear you really want to) and Matt hasn't wanted to (presumably because he doesn't want to sound like he's making a stupid guess). I, however, feel like we've come across enough stuff that we can get a discussion going about what's really going on in the background. I preface the following by saying that the three videos posted up to this point are the only exposure I've had to this game up to this point, I have not and, at least until the end of this LP, will not be watching canibalk9's run. (Though if he's the guy that did the LP of The Void way back when I may have to, that was a fantastic ride.) So I'm going to start with some simple conclusions, and try to build upon them as I go. The first is pretty basic: none of what we are experiencing in-game is real. We are walking though a series of simulated environments. This also means that our robot body is not an actual robot, it is actually a virtual avatar. This leads us to a question: Why is our avatar a robot? There also seem to be recordings of other robots wandering through the same areas we are, yet until we started working on the puzzles none of them appear to have been solved. Why is this the case, and why are the other avatars also robots? I will try to address these questions a little later, as I feel I need to draw some more conclusions based on things we've seen up to this point. At the start of the game we are introduced to ELOHIM (for some reason I feel this name should be in all caps). ELOHIM claims to be our creator, and that he has created this world and its puzzles for us to solve. Solve the puzzles, attain immortality. So, if this is not a real physical environment, and is in fact a simulation being run on a highly advanced computer system, then ELOHIM is the governing AI. I'm sure ELOHIM is a suitably complex acronym for something (because of course it is). This however brings us to yet more questions: Why does this simulation exist? Who created it, and what is its purpose? I think we've already gotten some clues from the fragments of text we've been able to read. One entry suggested that something was happening in the real world: some of the people seemed to be accepting of whatever fate that were facing ("it's like everyone has suddenly become Buddha") while others could not accept it and were struggling against something that they could not possibly fight ("stockpiling guns, what are they going to do, shoot the [corrupted]?"). From this, I infer that the world was facing an inescapable apocalyptic scenario. But where does the simulation tie into this? I think the answer lies in the messages left by the Time Capsule woman. So far she's talked about two things, the first being that she has hidden a message for the future in something she calls the "Archive". I assume, as we are gathering her messages from within the simulation, that the program we are using is at least part of, if not actually the, Archive. So, now I move on to making assumptions in the attempt to answer some of the questions above. Assumption one: Man is on the brink of extinction. Man has always wanted two things: Physical Immortality, which we attempt to achieve in an imperfect form by having children (so genetic immortality, of a sort), and Intellectual Immortality, which is to be remembered by those who come later. Therefore, I posit that the Archive is an attempt to leave something behind, and a way for Humanity to exist beyond the destruction of our physical shells. The best way to combine these two ends? The Archive is a repository of actual human minds, that interact with each other and the contents of the Archive through a simulated, yet realistic, environment. ELOHIM monitors the Archive and keeps it running. So that solves the What, Why, and Where we are. However, it doesn't explain the mish-mashed religious over-tones, why all of the users appear to be robots, why we are playing a game and solving puzzles, and why so much data has been corrupted. So, Assumption two: We broke the system. Maybe the minds got bored. Maybe they somehow tried fighting each other, over virtual disagreements? I dunno, but if you put a bunch of people in a room, whether or not they've ever met each other, they will eventually find something to divide themselves over, so I can't imagine being removed from their physical shells would change that. As evidence I submit the entire internet. That leads me to Assumption three: ELOHIM, facing the possible destruction of the Archive, took drastic measures to preserve it: The puzzles are instituted to distract the minds, to give them something to work towards together rather than against. Maybe they serve a secondary effect of keeping the brains sane, by giving them a mental workout. It creates the forbidden fruit of the Tower, a place we are told not to go and therefore must. All avatars are now the same, possibly to distract the minds from developing the kind of individuality that threatened the Archive in the first place. I also don't think our player character remembers who they originally were. In fact I don't think any of them know they were ever Human at all. So, other people who haven't played the game. What do you think? Have I missed anything? Do you think I'm way off?
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2015 07:22
|
|
|
Update! In this video, we knock out two levels in a single go, while talking about the Turing Test, chatbots, the legacy of The Swapper, personhood and consciousness.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2015 22:37
|
|
|
I'm actually near the end of The Talos Principle right now, so as tempting as it is to talk plot I'd rather hold back in case I accidentally spoil something. I'm enjoying the LP so far, though. It's cool to get another perspective on the puzzles as well as some context for the ideas the game discusses. Here's an Eliza that works in a browser, if anyone's curious to try it out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2015 02:37
|
|
|
Movac posted:Here's an Eliza that works in a browser, if anyone's curious to try it out. That's pretty cool! Of course, if you're a 90s kid then the One True Chatbot was AIM sensation SmarterChild. I distinctly remember spending at least a couple of cumulative hours talking to it and trying to "break" its programming. Also, partly relevant to the AI conversation but mostly just lol is this 2002 Washington Post article "Web May Hold the Key to Achieving Artificial Intelligence." The actual science of artificial intelligence (or pursuit thereof) is a topic I want to explore in much more depth as we get further into the game, because our ideas about how to even approach the problem have changed so much over the years, but the idea that anybody, at any point, seriously thought that chatbots (sorry, "chatterbots") were anywhere close to a meaningful path is kind of hilarious.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2015 05:25
|
|
|
I think someone already mentioned this, but you can set an Alternative Use control in options that lets you pick up connectors without resetting all the connections. This way you can adjust the position of a connector without messing anything up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2015 05:30
|
|
|
I looked up that philosophical zombie hypothesis on wikipedia. It looks completely nonsensical and contradictory. First of all I believe that if something fully looks and acts like a human, it needs to have a form of consciousness. Otherwise it wouldn't have been able to mimic all those complex interactions. A computer that fully passes the Turing test is effectively conscious. Secondly, Wikipedia comes up with the following argument: quote:1. According to physicalism, all that exists in our world (including consciousness) is physical. So... he's saying "We can conceive (imagine) a world that's the same as ours but without consciousness, therefore we have a soul independent from the body" ???? That does not follow at all. This gotta be some argument by a medieval priest being bad at arguing trying to prove god is real, right? Nope, it's from the 1996 book "The Conscious Mind", which was described by the Sunday Times as 'one of the best science books of the year' (despite the fact that it isn't about science) and is taken seriously by other philosophers, and they argue seriously about this nonsense? Sometimes, philosophy feels like the study of stupidity...
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2015 09:45
|
|
|
I hosed up bad on the C3 star. That one puzzle doesn't have a gate and if you forget to bring a connector back with you through the level you are hosed. Like reset the level hosed, which resets everything you have to set up in three different puzzles to get the star.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2015 15:49
|
|
|
Two things: Matt asked if there were any "significant work" about an AI registering/counting as a citizen. It's not significant, but Isaac Asimov's "Bicentennial Man" story kind of addresses this. Just don't ever, ever, see the movie ever. Second, Matt said Talos was made by "Hephaestus or something", but it's not actually clear who did it: Zeus directly, Heph, or Daedalus. I like Daedalus since he was human and was often a stand-in for humanity in a larger sense symbolically (e.g. his son was Icarus of "flying too close to the sun" fame).
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2015 17:18
|
|
|
I found myself overcome by horror at that chat log. I actually had chills and it had me hosed up for like an hour, thinking about that scenario. This goddamn puzzle game just scared the poo poo out of me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2015 06:26
|
|
|
You missed a couple of QR codes in Things To Do With Two Boxes, documenting I think the first death of one of your predecessors. Also pictured: The goofus solution I used instead of desyncing the mines the first time.  
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2015 12:00
|
|
|
I've been slowly catching up with this LP. It's been pretty interesting so far. Although, I can't help but compare it to Braid, especially with the secret stars. Mainly, I remember a lot of vitriol about Braid's secret stars while the two of you seem to like the idea of Talos's hidden stars. Also the somewhat recent 2312 dealt with AIs, kind of. Truthfully the book is a jumbled mess and the concept of AIs/robots being considered a citizen is lost in the long passages of geo- and body-modifications. Carbon dioxide posted:A computer that fully passes the Turing test is effectively conscious. What do you mean by "fully"? Curious because I read an article maybe a year or two ago (damned if I cared to find it) about how the Turing test is not actually a good measure to judge what it is suppose to judge. The justification was that several simplistic chatbot programs had "passed" the test.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
Mr. Highway posted:What do you mean by "fully"? Curious because I read an article maybe a year or two ago (damned if I cared to find it) about how the Turing test is not actually a good measure to judge what it is suppose to judge. quote:The justification was that several simplistic chatbot programs had "passed" the test. "Fully passing the Turing test" means that it's indistinguishable from a human, at least in how it communicates and reacts to things. No such device exists at this moment, not even close. It's hard to say what would make a proper test, but it's certain that the tests that were passed by chatbots were far from proper.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2015 17:11
|
|
|
In which we discuss motherfucking Diogenes and wrap up World A. Carbon dioxide posted:I looked up that philosophical zombie hypothesis on wikipedia. I dunno about that whole argument you found -- what I always found most intriguing about the idea of a "philosophical zombie" is that it exists on this razor's edge between "fundamentally, definitionally nonsensical" and "yeah, I guess I can see it..." It's like the intellectual equivalent of those optical illusions where it's either a duck or a rabbit, except that it's more like either a rabbit or the scribblings of an infant. In particular, I actually file the concept right next to Turing Tests and other questions of intelligence vs. consciousness. For instance: Carbon dioxide posted:"Fully passing the Turing test" means that it's indistinguishable from a human, at least in how it communicates and reacts to things. No such device exists at this moment, not even close. Going with this description, if you're on the side of "a philosophical zombie is a fundamentally meaningless concept," then any program that truly, ultimately passes a Turing Test is, by extension, conscious. And I don't like that, because while the idea of true AI is difficult to imagine my experience with chatbots makes it fairly easy for me to at least imagine a program that I couldn't find the holes in. We'll talk much more about this stuff in the videos moving forward, don't worry. Anyway, game things: Mr. Highway posted:I remember a lot of vitriol about Braid's secret stars while the two of you seem to like the idea of Talos's hidden stars. That's because the barrier to entry to Talos's stars is cleverness, while the barrier to Braid's stars was a combination of cleverness and obsession -- the game made you do some really obnoxious poo poo to get them, even after you found them. Pingcode posted:You missed a couple of QR codes in Things To Do With Two Boxes, documenting I think the first death of one of your predecessors. Also pictured: The goofus solution I used instead of desyncing the mines the first time. a) thank you! I'll always point out missed codes if I see them, but sometimes I don't, and if you or anyone ever notices us rushing past more game text then please feel free to post it. b) that solution is kind of amazing, and the existence of those little stumps along the side of the path make me wonder whether they actually intended it, possibly as a primary solution. c) apparently it's really easy to miss important stuff in that level during the stormy periods. bobthethurd posted:I found myself overcome by horror at that chat log. I actually had chills and it had me hosed up for like an hour, thinking about that scenario. This goddamn puzzle game just scared the poo poo out of me. I KNOW RIGHT? Every once in a while this game just gut-punches you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2015 22:35
|
|
|
So much focus on the hexed corruption in text logs. There aren't any Fez puzzles here, it's just bits of garbling.
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2015 22:50
|
|
|
It was a cheap shot is what it was. The game, and especially you two discussing all of this intense philosophy, gets you thinking really hard about whatever subject is around at the time. And then they go for the poignant hints that we were all dying out and we all KNEW it was coming. I cannot believe this game scared me more than F.E.A.R scared me. gently caress this game. gently caress you guys. I'm going home. 5'd
|
|
#
?
Aug 4, 2015 23:43
|
|
|
Occultatio posted:a) thank you! I'll always point out missed codes if I see them, but sometimes I don't, and if you or anyone ever notices us rushing past more game text then please feel free to post it. I noticed another missed QR code in the A5 hub. You looked at it 00:45 into the Part 4 video, but you never actually walk up to it and read it. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 00:17
|
|
|
My college required everyone to take a Humanities course, no matter their major, that dealt with Ancient Greek history and philosophy and all of that. It is physically painful to hear Mott have no clue about any of these things that are so trivial to me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 01:16
|
|
|
Another one missed right next to the computer in A7.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 02:57
|
|
|
whitehelm posted:Another one missed right next to the computer in A7. whitehelm posted:I noticed another missed QR code in the A5 hub.  Bruceski posted:My college required everyone to take a Humanities course, no matter their major, that dealt with Ancient Greek history and philosophy and all of that. It is physically painful to hear Mott have no clue about any of these things that are so trivial to me. I actually get to teach a lot of this material in my courses, so a) I'm used to a completely ignorant audience and b) I really, really like talking about it all. Again, don't hesitate to correct me if my versions get dumbed down beyond the point of accuracy.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 03:32
|
|
|
Occultatio posted:
It was so many years ago that I probably have half of it wrong, anyway, but nothing's sounded inaccurate yet.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 03:50
|
|
|
Okay, here's something that will make your playing experience about 100% better: Bind the "alternative use", "zoom" and "fast forward" keys. When you press the alt. use key, it retains all the connector connections, so you don't have to redo them every time you put down a connector. The other two are self-explanatory. The "fast forward" key is very useful in later levels.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 09:45
|
|
|
Bruceski posted:My college required everyone to take a Humanities course, no matter their major, that dealt with Ancient Greek history and philosophy and all of that. It is physically painful to hear Mott have no clue about any of these things that are so trivial to me. Wrong. It's delightful to hear his genuine interest and to hear that he's learning and thinking it through. If you disagree, you aren't cut out to be a teacher. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 15:57
|
|
|
Carbon dioxide posted:Wrong. It's delightful to hear his genuine interest and to hear that he's learning and thinking it through. If you disagree, you aren't cut out to be a teacher. I somehow doubt that Bruceski plans on being a teacher.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 19:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 01:35 |
|
|
sckye posted:Okay, here's something that will make your playing experience about 100% better: The alternative use key was mentioned earlier in the thread. Also, the playing Matt is using a controller, and I don't know what all would have to be overwritten to get those buttons mapped and comfortable to use.
|
|
#
?
Aug 5, 2015 19:12
|
|
