jeremywc

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Posts posted by jeremywc


  1. I think he might mean it's weird because DFA (and The Cave) is still in progress and they're already asking for money for something else that may not happen for a while. He might not mean that, but that's how I interpreted it.

    It should be noted that they aren't asking for funding for another full game. You're purchasing 8 prototype games at whatever amount you feel they are worth to you.


  2. Anyone find it weird to see Double Fine asking for money in exchange for the promise of a game again? I mean, they are going to deliver without a doubt so I am not afraid of being scammed, but it still feels wrong. I haven't heard anything about the Double Fine Adventure (although I never backed it so I don't see the progress videos). Either way, excited to see what becomes of Spacebase.

    The progress videos in the backer forums do a good job of showing how hard they are working on DFA. You should consider doing the Slacker Backer thing, I think there's a lot of value there.

    To anyone who keeps up with Double Fine's culture, it's known that Amnesia Fortnight is something they are going to do every year no matter what. The only difference is that we get to participate in some small way this year. I would say that a casual observer of the company could get confused on that point, but I think it's been pretty clearly explained in the Humble Bundle video and the press coverage of it.


  3. I just finished listening to the podcast and there was a brief point spent on talking about Titus' sexuality that I'm surprised hasn't been discussed more. I think there is a reoccurring theme of sexual fluidity that seems to surround Titus and Archy both. They share a combination of traits both masculine and feminine (traditionally speaking, anyway).

    I thought Archy's night spent with Kai was meant to be a parallel to Titus' sexual relationship with Julie.

    It goes deeper than that, though. Both of them seem to be preoccupied with their personal appearances and fashion in a manner that is often associated with female characters. Both were raised by single mothers. And a lot of Archy's struggles seem to be with learning how to grow into the more masculine roles of a traditional nuclear family (more crudely stated, "learn to be a man").

    That theme added a layer of complexity to both of their characters that I did enjoy. Chabon seemed to let them have those moments and struggles without leading the characters to come to any definitive conclusions about them, which I felt was very appropriate.


  4. I remember playing with my dad on a 2600 when I was around 3 or 4. The only games I specifically remember playing with him were Kaboom!, Centipede, and Tennis. I'm pretty sure he had more, but that's all that comes to mind. I often wonder what he ended up doing with that thing. The last time I saw it was in his closet when I was about 7. Like everyone else, we graduated to the NES and SNES as time went on. I didn't get a PC that was decent enough for gaming until the mid-90's.


  5. I'd donate. It'd be a shame for this game not to see the light of day, especially considering you guys seem pretty far along. I showed the video to my son, who loves Legos and Minecraft and he was just as excited as I was. Conversation went like this...

    "Did you buy this game?"

    "Uh, not yet. They're raising money to finish the game. I contributed and we'll get 2 copies when they finish."

    "Does Mom know?"

    "No, I didn't tell her yet."

    "I can keep a secret."

    :-P


  6. Nah, it was South of the Cypress area. Apparently it's the Satsuma area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsuma,_Texas) but I think that was only on my dad's driver's license in 1980 when the area was barely developed.

    But it would mirror the Woodlands and Spring I would guess.

    Yea, sounds like it. I started noticing discrepancies in resources when I was in high school. Schools on The Woodlands side of I-45 got a lot more than we did (Pentium 2's for CS classes vs. 386's). I still live in the area and now that my kids are in school, it seems like the gap continues to widen. :-/


  7. Not sure if those two directly correlate. I've always lived in Texas. Houston is where I grew up. My dad is selfish, angry, ill informed, staunchly Republican, and sometimes racist (or does that mean all the time?). I don't get him at all. He thinks all of his black and Mexican neighbors are welfare queens that are taking his hard earned money through taxes even though he lives comfortably enough.

    Maybe where I grew up in Houston had too many minorities for me to understand while my Dad moved here from Canadian Michigan, I don't know. My highschool was very strangely divided between lower middle class to upper middle class based on the districting going over a large separating road which made for some very strange differences. My elementary and middle school was mostly students with Mexican parents or of Mexican descent. By the time my sister made it to high school, she and everyone else on the other side of this road didn't make it to mine because I think they did not want the poorer (but not poor, just lower middle class) students making the school underperform, so she was redistricted to a high school with very easy and wacky projects compared to mine. While I was writing report after report on Huckleberry Finn, she made a board game.

    Wow. Did you happen to grow up in The Woodlands / Spring area? Because that story sounds a little TOO familiar.


  8. I think all communities eventually die if they don't find a way to maintain a level of civility with one another. Some communities need good moderators to keep the level of discourse reasonable. I think this is especially true of high traffic sites like Polygon or official forums for popular games, like MMOs. Some communities probably need to have entire comments and threads deleted, but it's entirely dependent on the size of the community. Self policing communities are great, but they don't scale especially well past a certain point. On the other hand, being too heavy handed with moderation quickly kills smaller communities. Community wrangling is an art in a lot of ways; it's important that a balance be found.


  9. I picked up this book last year, but it took me a couple of restarts to make it through. Not because the quality of the content was poor, but because the book hit me so hard emotionally. Like Walker, my son Avery was born with CFC (Cardio-facio-cutaneous) Syndrome, which has left him disabled and developmentally delayed in a number of ways. And like the author and father of the book, Ian, I often struggle to find meaning in challenges life seems to so often present to my son.

    The way that Mr. Brown speaks so frankly and openly about his life and his relationship with his son was extremely moving to me. Raising a child with a disability can cause your mind to run through the entire gamut of emotions, but we live in a society where it is often difficult to express those emotions without judgement. The most wonderful thing about this book is that it provides the perfect window into the life of a parent entrusted with the care of a child with a disability. The constant search for value and meaning in the daily struggle of care can be a difficult journey, but in between the difficult moments lie tiny nuggets of life lessons that are endlessly deep and profound.

    I realize it is probably a bit self serving, but I would still urge everyone to take a look at this book and consider picking it up. The first few chapters are available on Amazon.

    Amazon Link - http://www.amazon.co...duct/0312671830