An Explanation of "Post-Punk" Games | Semi-Ramblomatic
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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2024
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Anybody else reminded of the old game "Boogerman" when they look at Pizza Tower or is it just me?
❤️🎮🕹️👾❤️
"A game about stumbling home from a pub" must be the most British game ever.
Also the most Japanese.
I'm just surprised there isn't a game of it starring Andy Capp.
I perfected my stumbling home (and sometimes even got there) in Canada before moving back to UK. I think it's a fairly global tradition
Well you say that, that's exactly how Conker's Bad Fur Day started, lmao.
AccursedFarms made a video on just that
i do love how Yathzee has a nice, rounded view when it comes to "art", not instantly dissuading meme infested versions of games as "just a joke"
Probably the reason he's one of the people who's opinion I consider when thinking about buying a game
*dismissing
The snappy penis gags are the other reason.
@simulord yeah and he's the only reviewer where I trust that what he said he experienced was actually his experience. Like, even with differences in taste he articulates what happened well enough that I can distinguish things I would like that he doesn't from his reviews
even farting in an elevator is a political statement, and when done with a purpose, an artistic expression. Yathzee understands that intrinsically.
@@speedymcweedhe’s just correcting spelling
In 1994, spending 2 hours downloading a 100-200k file from a BBS just so the monsters in Doom would turn into Barney the dinosaur.
The kicker? The BBS was in Canada, and my parents got a surprise $140 phone bill.
$140 for a 200k file just to chainsaw Barney.
Bargain
I'm sure you've spent more on way more useless shit since. And them too lol
The original DLC. Horse armor was just a pale imitation.
Never thought I'd see the day where Yahtzee mentions not only The Heavy Is Dead, but also EMESIS BLUE?!? What a time to be alive!
There's probably something to the idea that every post-punk aesthetic, big or small, must inevitably slide towards self-indulgence.
Once you've undercut, subverted or thrown out every rule you can (to the limits of your time, wits and energy) then pleasure-seeking is about all that's left until you start building up new structures again. It's the natural equilibrium point for one end of the pendulum.
its also why art is always subverting itself in cycles. and why when applied to the capitalist industry of entertainment, it should eventually lead to a crash that consequently give space for the people scattered around by the fall of the establishment to break the rules and experiment.
Also, an artist who succeeds in subverting the norm often shapes the new norm and therefore becomes a part of it
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
Reminds me of a discussion I had with a friend regarding the saturation of twist endings in video game storytelling.
A twist is shocking at first, but if everybody does it, then eventually it will reach a point where it is actually a bigger twist if the story had been straight all along.
Like in a horror game, you introduce a shady character who helps the hero, you wonder about his motivations and if he will betray the hero, but turns out he has a rather wholesome reason for helping and he legitimately wants the hero to be safe.
@@mandzphbloodborne beggar moment
TVTropes calls this "deconstruction" and "reconstruction". A deconstruction of the RPG genre would be something like You Have To Burn The Rope: it takes the idea of a quest being meaningful and tries what happens when it isn't. A *re*construction of the RPG genre is something like Undertale: it uses the arbitrariness and accepted conventions of the genre to create new sensations, like by having character moments and comedy told through its combat mechanics or a plot that centers on how a player interacts with disposable characters.
"Postmodernism" and "metamodernism"
"Antithesis" and "Synthesis" if you're a poncey pretentious philosopher.
Destruction is a form of creation
@@M4Dbrat Postmodernism has more in commen with Punk. They both break with the established, just from different viewpoints. Metamodern is more after Postpunk: it's influences aren't clearly modern or punk but outside. It just uses a Post-Punk lens to view on it.
I think Derrida might have had something to do with it. Dunno if he was a troper though.
Emesis Blue feels like an excellent example. Something which takes the inherent comedy of its parts, and twists them into a gripping "Jacob's Ladder"-esque thriller.
Never played that but I might need to since I love Jacob's Ladder.
I have now googled Emesis Blue and discovered it's a film I haven't seen and not a game.
I somehow only now realised something about Emesis Blue when reading this comment, but...do you remember those TF2 "monsters" from, like, early 2010s? Where people would take the Engineer model and turn his mouth into a vagina, or turn the Soldier into (more of) a psychopathic, monstrous force of nature?
And also how many of those early 2010's shorts didn't have much of a coherent story, instead just pinballing the characters from one gag to another?
Emesis Blue takes all of that - The warping of familiar faces into monsters, the lack of autonomy of many of the characters, and the overall tone of an inexplicable and nonsensical world - and turns it from a madcap comedy to a spiral downwards into 2fort Inferno, in what I unironically consider one of the best depictions of the concept of Hell I've ever seen. I have no idea if that was intentional, but it was, fcuk me if they didn't do it well.
@@LuckyHicks2 "Emesis Blue is about TF2 Freaks as written by a person with an attention span" is the most unexpectedly insightful take I've yet seen on the topic.
@@LuckyHicks2 That's a brilliant point. Perfectly post-punk.
unless you've watched so many of those gmod and sfm machinimas as a kid that the entire thing comes across as incredibly corny self-congratulatory wank
0:47
Post-Spunk was right there Yahtz...
I like how Jack Packard seamlessly segued into what is essentially the opposite end of the punk-iness spectrum
MANS GOTTA EAT
@@jlev1028 Eh. You gotta pay rent and feed your kids.
@@jlev1028 they still need to pay their bills, feed their families, pay for their kid's college instead of feeding the corporate AI ovurlords.
@@jlev1028 Last Epoch is just a pretty good diablo style pc game, I would say it has no microtransactions but I am could have just missed them, which given I have around 20 hours in say enough about how hard they are pushed.
@@jlev1028 These contracts sometimes take a few weeks or months to go through. might've signed a few deals before they had the income to pay everyone's salary. actually, we've only been seeing the quarterly income breakdowns from before the salaries kicked in, for all we know they might still be a little short.
I can't wait for this video to be part of some media studies curriculum because I think this is an incredibly valuable observation
When it comes to studying literature, architecture or painting, it's actually nothing new. The entire history of art is the artists liberating themselves from the rules set by their predecessors, and, after a little bit of experimenting, inventing a new set of rules for the next generation of artists to liberate from. It's just that video games are a relatively new medium, and mass media and Internet speed up the process to the point where it doesn't take centuries anymore, but we can see it happening several times during our lifetime.
To be fair, deconstruction as applied to video game gameplay is a thing worth studying even if it is not anything new. It is also nice to note that some mainstream stuff are deconstructions, like Final Fantasy 4 to JRPGs before it, Final Fantasy 7 to JRPGs before it, and Deltarune to the deconstruction that is Undertale.
Killer7 on the thumbnail is an instant watch.
such a ridiculous banger
They could put anything(or nothing) on the thumbnail and I'd watch it, a pedigree of quality like this shouldn't be ignored.
"This is too easy"
It's Friday night
@@yomanyo327I don't think you understand. Secondwind and the Ramblomatic series are worthwhile on their own- nobody is denying that. But featuring anything related to killer7 or killer7 adjacent media gets a turbo instant click. It's just... Yes. I cream my jeans when I see that
In the name of Harman
Can we get, like, 50 more videos like this one? This was truly enlightening.
This is one of my favorite Semi-Ramblomatics so far. I’m Glad Yahtzee hasn’t succumb to the cycle of punk-to-normie as a game reviewer
I think that's because his style of review hasn't really caught on yet. He seems to be one of the only critics that treats video games as an artistic medium rather than as products to be used or consumed. Dunkey can be similar, and some of the longer-form video essayists like matthewmatosis and sometimes Nerrel also focus on the whys and wherefores of the emotions you feel from games rather than boiling them down to a utility value.
@@aa-ro5kx also Jacob Geller, Noah Caldwell-Gervais
@@alanamarko Hbomberguy, especially on his videos on LISA and Pathologic. Also Sophie from Mars with her Resident Evil, Alan Wake And cyberpunk 2077 analyses.
@@aa-ro5kx I think the problem is that this kind of review is not something a lot of people can't pull off because it mainly needs:
1. To be interesting enough or funny
2. To add more value than only the review itself
3. Be understandable without showing (Which goes against "show, don't tell")
There's also Caddicarus (which funnily is also british) that goes for these "post-punk" reviews, but I'll admit on his case I'm more interested in the comedy than the game itself when watching his stuff.
The first No More Heroes was the last game Suda directed for a good while up until Travis Strikes Again, so that may be an explanation for the visually striking yet somewhat standarized games like Lollipop and Let it die. The first three games of his company (Silver case duology and Flower, Sun and Rain) are some of the most unapologetically subversive yet mastefrfully structured pieces of media i've ever interacted with and have my full recommendation for someone who would be interested in taking the wildest of the rides out there (Silver case and it's sequel are in steam and switch)
I agree with this statement and also add Moonlight Syndrome to the list.
@@JohnnyArcadeNintendo I've only seen translations of the game on youtube recently so most people forget to consider it.
I already made a separate comment about it, but TSA and NMH3 are about Suda re-discovering why his likes making video games, and then celebrating his freedom from EA and Warner Bros by making a game where he can do whatever he wants. It can read as 'lol so random', but I can envision Suda being asked if hes sure about the musical chairs fight, and answering "Yes, go fuck yourself".
I was also expecting Yahtzee to mention Suda's earlier works since they all seem to be things he'll enjoy like The Silver Case or that one time he got to make a Fire Pro Wrestling game.
@@louisduarte8763 Kinda funny given Suda51 is just a play on words, not uncommon in Japan, on how 'Go' and 'Ichi' mean 5 and 1 respectively in Japanese. I'm sure he's amused by how it's a totally different reading in English, but in Japanese, the joke is that they sound identical said aloud.
0:08 I live for Toffee’s indignant little yip every episode of Semi-Ramblomatic. ❤
Second Wind is in fact run by the dogs. Toffee, Ludo, and probably a Shiba Inu secretly controlling the whole of RUclips.
@@zdanee RUclips Support is a basset hound, or they would be if they cared.
It was extremely weird to hear Yatzee reference both Heavy Is Dead and Emesis Blue in a video, and I say that in the best possible way. It was weirdly a perfect explanation.
I always felt that, in the realm of TV, Ed Edd 'n' Eddy was pretty punky/post-punky. With its idiosyncratic artstyle, and sound design that seemed as if the sound director had said "I want the SFX to be as far away as possible from the actual sound, whilst still being recognisable as that sound". It felt very much like a specific person's vision, and a window into someone's mind; kinda weird in the parts you don't quite understand, but made all the more interesting by the parts you do understand. In the era of RUclips, The Big Lez Show did something similar.
Criminy, you could have a very long conversation about what Danny Antonucci wanted out of Ed Edd n Eddy vs what we got. Danny has always been a fan of the surreal and he wanted to take animation conventions popular in early Hanna-Barbara and MGM Cartoons and apply a modern (for the time) surreal twist to it. If anything, it’d be post post-punk since he built the show on the wreckage that 80s action cartoons had already created.
Ultimately though the subverting of the Hanna-Barbera, looney tunes style became stale itself which is why many of the CN shows that came after (Like Adventure Time) seemed to ditch the loud mania in exchange for a more grounded, naturalistic, introspectiveness while still being pretty weird which kind of demonstrates Yahtzee's theory a little bit. @@KelleyEngineering
7:41 I think that's the most excited I've ever heard Yahtz.
i gotta say i love this way of looking at culture. a perpetual cycle of Culture inspiring Counter-Culture breaking down established trends only to then slowly become the new Culture to inspire new Counter-Culture. Post-Punk being that which follows the breaking down of established trends that Punk accomplishes to then become the new Establishment in a decade or two is an inspired take on all this.
This is nothing very new. For video game criticism, sure, but people as far back as Nietzsche in the 1880s were calling out the cycle and shitting on those who demand it stop (reactionaries or conservatives, as they’re usually called)
My cold take: Creators can only ever have 1 true punk/post-punk game.
If Punk is about fighting the establishment with an idgaf like attitude, then repeated entries, even if they're at the same level of quality, just progressively stray from the point.
Like that one meme online (the one where everybody fights over the details) of a Punk kicking over a trashcan, followed by his mate doing the same thing shortly after. The first time is punk, the second is trendy.
I can't say I agree. I mean, looking at the example I'm most familiar with in this video, suda 51, yeah, killer 7 may have put him on the map, but his previous games, the silver case and ward 25 all fit the post punk bill and they were pretty good too. The same goes for flower sun and rain which was made after killer 7. The reason I think yahtzee's so down on suda's work post killer 7 is because he just hasn't played anything that isn't his more mainstream work.
this is assuming that, if the creator were to make another punk/post-punk game, they'd make something similar to what they already have made
im sure they can create multiple true punk games, but about different themes, ideas and aspects of society they are being punk against
@@MaskDeSmith990 To add to this, I'd argue Flower Sun and Rain is more punk then killer7, by virtue of being frustrating and obtuse on purpose in order to make a point about adventure game design.
It reminds me of the cycle of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. Once you put the deconstruction for a while, then it becomes a standard and playing the trope straight becomes the new "punk" and "deconstructions". It reminds of the saying "in order to break the rules, you first need to understand them". I would also add "there a point where the rule breaking becomes the new rules".
@@jlev1028 He wrote "Dare to Be Stupid", a better Devo song than most Devo songs!
Hearing Yatz give a delighted, wholehearted, _uncensored_ *fuck* at the end of a surprisingly upbeat video is all I need to restore my faith in the world
Art-punk movement in TTRPGs comes to mind. Mork Borg, Troika!, various Cairn hacks... Games often made by graphic designers, with minimal rules ("if uncertain, make shit up and stick with it"), cRAzY layouts, settings presented in short evocative blurbs rather than detailed walls of text... A lot of them are interchangeable and bring nothing new to the table, simply cutting out stuff from bigger games and reinventing the wheel; but some interesting ideas do get born there (and later spread to other such games): usage die, slot-based encumbrance, die-drop tables, etc.
In any case, it's nice to have wide variety of products and to see creativity at work.
P.S.: I kinda feel like Yahtz would enjoy Troika!, at least for its sheer weirdness and britishness. A lot of Douglas Adams and Pratchett vibes in that one.
Excuse me for the basic question, anything interesting there to try as a dnd alternative?
@@riquelme3764 Yes! (not the OP, but love the OSR scene these games come from). It definitely depends on what you want from a DnD alternative. If you want the scaling power levels and epic heroes, I'd point you to Pathfinder 2e or MCDM's upcoming ttrpg. However, if you like crawling around in dungeons or open sandboxes of fantasy adventure with an emphasis on player choice Cairn is fantastic! (Mork borg for more is interesting as a death metal aesthetic, but I don't care to play it for more than a few one shots, and Troika is gonzo science fantasy that I love to pull ideas from, but am not sure how I'd run that setting at the table)
ALL of them. Try any of them out. They play differently (making up an OC who lives a thrilling alternate life can be harder in a grittier, more lethal system like Mork Borg) but they are all derived from the D&D OSR movement (a perennial counterculture to the corporate D&D of 2009 onward IIRC)
@@riquelme3764 ShadowDarkRpg
@@dylanehooverlibrarian7026 Yeah, I'm aware. Played/GM'd Mork Borg and Tunnel Goons, refereed some genuine OSR (LotFP), own Troika!. Personally like the quick and dirty rules and style, paying attention to the world instead of character abilities, and the fact that new characters can be made in 30 mins tops.
The original comment is not damning the OSR, the art-punk Nu-SR, or the modern stuff. Just stating facts: there are a lot of such games now, and not many of them do actual new and interesting things (some definitely do). Lots of punk, not much post-punk, as per Yahtzee's definition.
Edit: just saw that you probably responded to another comment, and not mine. Will keep this here just in case.
Now I’m hoping that Yahtzee’s post-punk definition will spread like ‘Spectacle Fighter’ did, looking forward to the new steam tag
I'm not keen on any of his genre conventions as they're far too cryptic. As such i've already completely forgotten what the fuck Spectacle Fighter even meant.
@@Hysteria98 "spectacle fighter" refers to games like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry, where the main focus of the game is on performing flashy attack combos
Spectacle Fighter spread because it's quite easy to understand, but post-punk requires more thought so I imagine it won't get as much attention
@@ikebirchum6591i meam the term character action already existed for those types of games, though i guess in hindsight spectacle fighter would have been a better descriptor to use from the start since "character action" is just extremely generic (most games have characters and action of some description so technically if we take the name literally like we do with most other genres almost all games would fall into that category)
@@jlewwis1995 right, and that's the exact reason Yahtzee gave for coming up with "spectacle fighter" as an alternative, because "character action" is somehow an even more meaningless descriptor than "action adventure"
I was half expecting a breakdown of a "postpunk" aesthetic. That is, the aesthetic of post offices.
@@SimuLord The FedEx Pistols.
A highly specific sub-genre of fiction exemplified by Kevin Costner's "The Postman" and Death Stranding.
@@ASpaceOstrich It kind of reminds me of how, if I remember rightly, the IRS has contingencies in place to keep working after the apocalypse.
Punk: burning everything down
Post-Punk: getting high off the ashes
i love weird rambling about weird art, there's something about going into genres and subgenres that scratches the itch, even though i sometimes think genres are stupid. probably my favourite semi ramblomatic yet
Mercy, a The Fall album cover used to illustrate a point. Great stuff
Shame to lump em in with the likes of Joy Division and Gang of Four tho
Are you kidding me? All those albums are classics, especially Joy Division and Siouxsie And The Banshees.
I love Fully Ramblomatic, but I increasingly find myself looking forward to this series more than the other. I love it!
That was… soothing.
I’ve just come from the classical video “How does it feel to live long enough to see all your favorite franchises go down in flames?”, where 1,5 second reply to this question is “Feels great”.
Now I see. Thanks.
Pretty interesting topic, also didn't expect to see Emesis Blue.
Thank you for putting the ad read at the end instead of the middle!
The first rule of punk, for me, has always been: If you have to tell someone that your (band, art, book, whatever) is "punk", then it isn't. Defining it belies the point. A thing is either punk or it isn't and it's self evident. It defies explanation because fuck your explanation.
As far as "Post-Punk", I think this is as good an explanation as one could hope for. Well done.
I loved this essay and everything that it says. Keep this up please. We need more essays like this
This may be his best Semi Ramblematic/Extra Punctuation yet
If we're talking Suda51 at his most posty and punky of post-punk, then The Silver Case and its sequel need to be mentioned. It's plot is impenetrable, it's artistic and sound design nothing short of baffling, and it's basically Killer7 if put through the filter of obtuse visual novels and moon-logic adventure games. But it's deliberate aesthetic and purity of vision make it worth checking out. Few games are as unique and memorable as these.
Came to mention The Silver Case as well. One of the wildest things I’ve played in the last few years. I like to describe it as “the best 3/5 game you could ever play”.
It's always wild to me seeing my favorite channels crossing paths. Nice to see you're a fan of second wind udj
Flower Sun and Rain was the only game I've ever played that felt like it actively hated me for playing it. Miserable experience, but I respect the art of it
Dang, good job on releasing a scathing 20-second review of Suicide Squad between 3:40 - 4:00 without even needing to make a Suicide Squad video. The ultimate disrespect of giving them such a small amount of time and not even giving them an official review video to do it.
I don't understand why the internet has such a hate-boner for the suicide squad game. It's AAA meaningless live service slop, and it's not like we haven't been here before. Gotham Knights, Marvel Avengers... Do people actually not spot the trend when they see it, buy the game and then get butthurt when the big game publishers revealed to them, yet again, that they're only interested in money?
@@gwen9939 I don't get why people buy these games either. I reckon the Suicide Squad one and Gotham Knights were Arkham game fans in denial. They were explicitly told the game was the opposite of why they enjoyed the franchise but still they believed it'd be worth their time. It's why I approve of how Ramblomatic delivered this little gem, by not bothering to give it any real time or attention.
I would love a game featuring The Cure where you play as Robert Smith and can transform into a kaiju.
South Park is unfunny
I think there’s an interesting parallel with punk and post-punk that wasn’t really delved into in this vid. Punk was initially made as a response to bloated, overproduced, and “safe” rock from the early to mid 70s, but it quickly became a genre that was invested into heavily by giant record labels. The punk label was forced onto many bands looking to be the next Ramones or Sex Pistols, often to the point of said bands fighting back for creative control. Couple that with the saturation of many punk bands in the late 70s, it eventually fell out of favor, as highly polished new wave came into the mainstream, with a clear post-punk influence. I think this is also a pretty good representation of currently the most saturated genre in the gaming sphere, shooters. Doom started off as something fresh, edgy, an something to appeal to young people. Yet, as the 90s got saturated, there devs that came from that same sphere that pushed the boundaries of the genre at the time, and that’s where Half-Life came in. Nowadays, modern triple A shooters are taking more inspiration from Half-Life then Doom, although boomer shooters did end up seeing a resurgence in the indie game scene, much like how the original punk rock never died, just became underground with bands pushing the genre to the limits in different ways.
Also Killer7 is still fantastic, great vid.
Good essay, Yahtz. Points made and the obscure made informative! Thank you!
Gotta love the air quotes animated by the two floating ball hands.
Not only is this one of your best video essays to date, but it got me to watch Emesis Blue, and holy nuts that was not a mistake.
Bloody hell you're so good at writing. Loved every bit of this. Thank you!
I paused the video when he mentioned Emesis Blu and went to check it out. I am now back after watching the entire thing twice in a row and it's fucking incredible
That last line was amazing and delivered perfectly. That needs to be a sound bite or even a shirt!
This is a great video Yahtzee! Really love you having a space to talk about stuff like this.
Dive Kick is a fun post-punk game. I never thought you could make a fighting game with just two buttons.
Second Wind is the post-punk of Escapist
Great content and awesome to see how the audience carried over to your new channel. I'm sure the Escapist will have great luck with some new Australian dude named Boggle.
Favorite vid from Second Wind so far, love this kind of breakdown.
Pizza Tower being here is extra cool since it's a reconstruction of a subversion. Wario Land turning the normal Mario-esque platformer on it's head and then Pizza Tower taking the series apart and putting the most fun parts back together while still putting it's own spin on it.
Wow. Almost halfway to a million subs! Slow and steady wins the race! 😉😎🤘☮
This is some of your best work, Yahtz
Its kind of comforting to know Yahtzee has the same response I did to Nemisis Blue.
Man.. you get it. You absolutly get it.
Great insight Yatz!
genuinely one of the best of these i've ever seen (been watching since ZP day 1). The gaming history video essay sphere wouldn't be able to take you, genuinely
Thank you for your work!
I love the finger quotes done with the fingerless white ball hands
This was an absolute joy to watch, Yatz. This is why I consider you to be the absolute GOAT when it comes to the critique of art.
Great video, always lovely to see someone bringing artistic theory to the videogame medium
Probably the best Semi Ramblomatic episode so far.
You've finally put words to what I've always sought out in life. I really enjoy it when artists take the piss, yet continue to strive for quality. Punk was something I could never get into because it felt so directionless and destructive as a culture. "Rebel without a cause" was never my bag. "Rebel *with* a cause," now that's something I can get behind. The conventional AAA studios have been so busy eating their own tail that even the Ouroboros is telling them to slow down and chew first. Somebody has to be willing to push the medium forward. I hope that more developers with this attitude can make their way out of the cell-shaded, 2D sidescroller, and pixel art pigeonholes as well. I want better stories told with those AAA visual toys. I hope that the increasing number of procedural generation tools can help independent artists achieve that. I know graphics aren't everything, but they're not nothing. Manifesting realism has been prohibitive for many because it involves a lot of tedious busywork. I'd love to see that change so the visionaries can unleash some fresh weirdness and take the big studios down a peg.
Incredible video, perhaps the best one yet
I love the irony of the subject matter of this video, then the exact length being 10 minutes. If intentional, bravo.
i love these semi-ramblomatics so much.
I too am obsessed with Emesis Blue. I've watched it over and over.
Thank you!
I like the detail that Yatz moves his hands to make air quotes around “post-punk” at least once
I think this might be my favorite video Yahtzee video ever
top notch and thoughtful again
When I was at school, I always thought Art wasn't for me because I couldn't draw anything and the teacher seemed determined to take that as a personal insult. Being not into art almost became a bit of my identity as it sometimes can be for sciencey-type people (which I am). Yahtzee however has taught me more about art than almost anyone, I would happily listen to a lecture series of him discussing all the points of artistic and narrative nuance that he covers in these videos, and it's helped me blend an understanding and appreciation of art into things that I already like (i.e. video games). Thanks for that.
I knew we were in for an artistic adventure with this one, but I was not expecting Yahtzee to dive into "joke machinima" (or as I call it "Source Dadaism" since it's usually surreal, avant-garde, and made in either SFM or Garry's Mod), then veer into Emesis Blue, which is probably one of my favourite machinimas of all time.
Also, one could probably argue that the creative side of fandoms, including Rule 34, is also kinda punk. Especially when it comes to Overwatch SFM porn, since that's breaking down a product that was ruined by corporate greed, and using the assets to make its characters bang. Out of all the Rule 34 I've seen, Overwatch porn is probably the most "punk" of them all, even if that punk is accompanied by spunk. But to be fair, you can't even spell spunk without punk being present.
So while some might say that punk is dead, the truth is that punk can never truly die, for it is an axiom of humanity itself. And even if fascism tries to stamp out punk, that just means that punk is gonna have a lot of scalps to harvest, making all kinds of artistic masterpieces in the process.
I mean hell, one could said fanfic and fanworks, especially the out there one are punk by their design
@@starmaker75 Speaking of "out-there", not to get all Mazovian or anything, one could argue that "punk" is the power of the people.
This was absolutely fascinating! I love it when Yahtzee gets to go more slow paced and in-depth on certain subjects like this. It gives me a different perspective on things that I already love.
This was great stuff.
2:57 the editor deserves a raise after this one
Coming up on Punk music, it really hits home to have (Post)Punk defined so succinctly.
Yahtzee's commentary on the british sterotype reminds me of something important- *Americans* stereotype the british as unflappable snobs. The rest of *Europe* however, knows them better, and that that's just rich posh brits. The stereotypes that the rest of Europe has built up are recognizeable to some of us turbonerds as "What Warhammer Orcs are based on", ie: Football hooligans, which says a lot.
Americas stereotypes are usually 50-100 years out of date.
I think it’s common for people to feel that a post-punk artist has slipped into self indulgence as their career has progressed. This is something I’ve reflected on, and here’s one theory I have:
Often the thought process that went into the post punk artist’s earlier subversive art was at least partially _‘I don’t see enough of these weird things I love. Like inanimate objects talking to the protagonist! And Brechtian themes! And portraying the inhabitants of quaint old fashioned English villages in oddly sexualised ways! So I’m going to make some art where they’re the point, and no one can stop me.’_
And because they’re rare to see, the first time audiences experience them it’s a rush of fresh air. _‘Oh wow, look at this passionate yet alien assemblage of things! Look at that Yorkshire constable with his silly hat and ludicrously tight pants! His bicycle is quoting ‘The Threepenny Opera’’_ It’s out of the blue and doesn’t adhere to an established pattern.
But then the artist follows it up with other art, which they also put some of themselves into, and now a pattern is starting to be established. _‘Oh wow, their next thing is coming out. What are the chances there’ll be some comically eroticised Church of England vicars and a talking kettle?’_ The artist was indulging from the beginning, and that was at least partly what motivated them to start making their art. But first time around it doesn’t seem like indulgence because it’s so new. Sometimes the artist hasn’t changed as much as our expectations have.
The artists that survive this period of audience disillusionment are often the ones who have a broad palette and a sense of curiosity. Because they’re more likely to discover new things to indulge in that they haven’t gotten to try yet. Or they are introspective enough to figure out _why_ they like the stuff they do, and are able to start drilling down and interrogating their own fascinations throughout subsequent works. There’s nothing wrong with indulging, necessarily. Just if you’re set on sharing your art with the masses, remember to always leave the audience wanting more.
Thinking about you explanation of post-punk, and I would say that we're also seeing that right now in comic books, especially the independent market. The titles that come to mind are Doug Wagner's serial killer trilogy (Plastic, Vinyl and Plush). They're not big stories about people with superpowers saving the universe or anything like that. They're small, personal stories about universal concepts like love, family, and identity, seen through the eyes of psychopaths that the story doesn't bend over backwards to make sympathetic.
Thanks for explaining that, I kinda had the right idea, but it’s good to have a bit more understanding about the subversive side of art
Thanks again
Sick new intro
Also, great fucking video, loved every second of it
this is probably the best semi-ramblomatic/extra punctuation so far. very interesting perspective.
One of my favourites to date
Very thoughtful video! I think in the case of some creators, the adoption of "post-hardcore" from the music scene might also be fitting. The kind of games that started as these insane, "real gamers only" trips but then the creators had some sort of moment where they started establishing their own patterns. I'd say Hideo Kojima if the man wasn't so insanely successful as to make the mainstream himself.
So lemme see if I got it.
Punk: tearing down a statue of a beloved cultural icon and replacing it with a giant, jet-black middle finger
Post-Punk: painting the middle finger gaudy colors and turning it into part of a public kids playground
Pre-Punk: charging admission to the playground and creating a lucrative franchise chain of Mr The Bird parks to be beloved by children across the land
I would amend the Punk section a bit. I don't know if it's tearing down something beloved, it's more of tearing down something that is the accepted status quo, for better or for worse. It's a rebellion against the mindlessness of society. In the United States this could be for example rebellion against mindless consumerism.
The lucrative franchise chain of the Mr. The Bird parks oftentimes isn't really beloved, it's just what has become the norm. Algorithms have turbocharged this by using our own online data to not only predict our desires but to actually create them. Companies like Meta or Amazon are essentially trying to close the loop and trap us in what you've termed a "Pre-Punk" world forever by building a comfortable nest for us to never leave, which is why protest art, punk, whatever you want to call it that questions and is transgressive is more important than ever. It's why I find games like Cruelty Squad to be incredibly important.
It's why I can't help but want to draw dicks all over Palworld, even if I understand why people want a comfortable little nest to reside in, like taking shelter in a storm.
@@estefencosta1835 Well said and argued, and thanks.
I will push back a little on the 'beloved' sticking point. While perhaps not the best word I could have used, nostalgia, as they say, is a helluva drug.
And while 'beloved' might not best express the attitude... an awful lot of awfulness, from an awful lot of people, tends to follow from even the perception of a threat to the status quo.
This says to me that a great deal of 'value' has been invested into it, of some kind, in some fashion-- even if only a mindless inertia.
@@AnotherCraig I agree. Someone once told me nostalgia is the opposite of hope, because it's living in a past that you can never live again instead of looking towards new things in the future.
Beloved is probably too much. It's probably more like familiar and comfortable.
People often don't like change even when the status quo has problems or has become stale.
@@SimuLord Fight the power man.
@@estefencosta1835 This is best illustrated in FFXIV. There are far too many spoilers beyond here.
The Ascians eventually are revealed to be more or less people that want their home back, where the world was aetherically dense and not split into 14 parts. The reason this goal is not revealed is because until Emet-Selch, there is no unsundered Ascian (Ascian not split into fourteen) who really follows this goal or can communicate they follow this goal to the Warrior of Light.
They all desperately want their homes back, and Emet-Selch especially looks fondly on those days. However, literally all three unsundered Ascians are crushed by this weird duty, either by powers alone or by the fact that they really have to keep going even after ruining the Thirteenth Shard and therefore making their home world impossible to attain.
All their longing pretty much brought despair or madness in their attempts to bring back the past. Heck, Emet-Selch wanted to move on, but very literally could not. Therefore, he has a very subtle death wish that never manifests as he is too powerful to die by anyone else’s hand except the Warrior of Light, as it is also the incarnation of Azem, another Amaroutine - who the Ascians used to be.
And then you see what the Amaroutines were like and that while they were a decent society and were responsible, they, as people who literally created life out of nothing, literally thought little of other creatures, and also had a duty-focused culture that was a bit worrying to Amaroutines even at the time. Fittingly, the ultimate product is Hermes/Fandaniel/Amon, a person who can never gel with that version of paradise and therefore has nothing but despair. Also, he wishes to kill all life because he views Amaroutine views towards life as too callous though he treats Meteion callously. That is to say, he is a typical Amaroutine, just stripped of the meaning most have to Amaroutine culture.
That is to say, nostalgia is in some way a form of lesser despair, for one is just a want to return to an age you never will return from, and one is just a throwing of hands, and one easily becomes the other.
Good Vid!
When I was studying post-modern literature in undergrad and had to explain to anyone what that meant, I explained it as 'classics' are the works that establish the medium or genre's definition and main rules, 'modern' works set out to make the best thing they can within the confines of the rules set by the classics, while 'post-modern' works see how far they can go with breaking the rules while still reaching an end product that fits the definition of the medium or genre. I think your idea of 'post-punk' fits that same concept.
Heading to CA right now to tag up Ben's gaff
The thing is that eventually punk becomes post punk and if people like it enough it becomes the establishment. The cycle of the kids all growing mohawks and then their kids look at their parents mohawks and go "that's stupid im gonna go get a desk job".
This is how conformists tend to think about Punk, yes. Post-punk culture isn't hostile to criticism the way the original establishment was. Social and cultural progress moves along an axis, with things that used to be considered progressive and groundbreaking becoming mundane, and those stuck worshipping those mundane things as "important for some reason because it was while I was forming my identity", become part of the conservative drag as history leaves them behind.
After hearing your description I fully see why you see titles like Pizza Tower and Cruelty Squad as post punk games. I do think there needs to be more descriptive ways to explain what a games tone is when it comes to a lot of the obscure indies that take on a style that's hard to describe. For example I've no idea how to describe the tone of Inscription or Buckshot Roulette. I can explain the gameplay as being like a deck builder with items and strategic gameplay but the actual visuals and style doesn't really have anything to compare it to. You could call it horror but it's not really trying to be scary, more so have a creepy vibe with additive gameplay.
Makes me think of the Zeno Clash games. First person brawlers for the numbered games and a 3D martial art fighting adventure , but set in a world that feels prehistoric but with a difficult to describe aestethic. The best i can describe it is that the inhabitants of the world furnish themselves and the environment with random objects and shapes that they made, took, found and simply liked.
Similar thing goes for its inhabitants. There are humans, but they can be very misshapen. And the full stars are the truly monstrous and bizarre inhabitants, together with the Corwids: A group of people that eschewed what little semblance of civilization there is to pursue a singular goal, at the cost of all else.
It's not necessarily grand stuff. It can be as absurd as simply walking in a straight line and then dying of hunger and thirst because there's a palm tree in your way. Or wanting to be invisible, and thus stealing the eyes of all other life. Or peeing yourself and dying.
There are some references to be found: Some characters and environments seem inspired by medieval monster woodcuts and paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, for example. And i've seen people describe the more monstrous inhabitants as looking like Stan Winston Studio puppets. But there's still architecture and aestethics hardly seen in other media, and it's tough to really describe them.
If you're curious, i recommend looking up Clash: Artifacts of Chaos and taking a glance at the main character Pseudo. And just checking out the series as a whole.
Heavy is Dead mentioned. Instant Like.
This was actually pretty instructing, I feel like I learned quite a bit from this.
I second how Yahtzee feels about modding. Once I learned you could break games using Action Replay when I was a kid I was all over that shit. I think the appeal of post punk is universal amongst people who feel repressed. I grew up in a southern baptist house hold and as soon as I found out about metal and hardcore gangsta rap it changed my whole out look.
I love this kind of thing. I love the sort of personal stories clearly made by someone with intention, even if that intention is itself somewhat anarchic.
I love "Heavy is dead" and the deeply self-referential surreal memes of "Meme Man" and the work of Joel G. It's inscrutable, but meaningful in a way that can either be throw-away fun or deeply engaging to try to dissect.
Wow, this has to be (in my opinion at least) one of Yahtz's most important essays to date. Loving the insight!
Suddenly hearing The Heavy is Dead and Emesis Blue name dropped both surprised me and gave me great joy
Actual Emesis Blue jumpscare lol
Just excellent.
I think there's still room to ruminate on what comes after post-punk in the lifecycle. We touched on it a bit with the circle of life thing, but eventually the rules torn down by punk and rebuilt upon by post-punk become the new mainstream which the next generation of punks tear down. That's how culture evolves if you can even reasonably prescribe that to something as nebulous as culture. This has a curious effect of making punk and post-punk temporal--they can only be punk in the context of the world around them. Once the messages of punk art become part of the mainstream, they cease to be punk outside the context of "this game was made when was considered taboo."