Hello Internet! Welcome back to Ugly Talk, a show wherein we discuss RPGs, film, computer games, and the important elements that make each of these things work and how we can tie them back to the traditional games media.
This month we are discussing two different approaches to open world puzzle videogames: Croteam's The Talos Principle and Johnathan Blow's The Witness. One is a more "traditional" game that takes you on a ride on the rails with the illusion of choice but many intentional and obvious blockades to progress, and the other has no obvious narrative, no handholding, and no limits on where you can go and what you can do. The comparison between the two caused us to think on the classic conundrum of where the player ends and the character begins. Sit down as we talk with this month's special guest Sam Graebner, an experienced gamemaster from our sister show The Drunk and the Ugly.
