Merus

John Walker's always struck me as the guy you tolerate at RPS because their editorial direction in general is really solid even if one of their writers is full of himself. Sort of like Ben Kuchera at Polygon, who appears to be better than he was at Penny Arcade Report but still not exactly great.

I'm generally suspicious of Markov bots because they're almost always nonsense - but Randi Harper's Markov bots are incredible. She has one that's just her, and one's that's all the gaters she's blocked, and they've had multiple people waste hours angrily having conversations with them despite them being clearly marked as bots. They argue with each other because they're not programmed to stop.

It sounds like, if you haven't played Monkey Island, you need to play Monkey Island. It sounds like you'd really appreciate Insult Swordfighting.

Only when referring to the late 90s Alexey Pajitnov puzzle game Pandora's Box.

Well HTC announced the date and HTC do actually ship shit, and are a public company so they'll take a hit if they don't, so I imagine they'll probably actually ship.

Huh, Valve are actually shipping something

The sunglasses are Oakleys, too. How do they fit?

Apparently Frank Underwood, the villainous protagonist of House of Cards, plays Monument Valley and The Stanley Parable in the most recent season. It's a sad day when even Frank Underwood is more open to persuasion than gaters. (It's an odd creative choice I can't help but interpret as being, at least in part, motivated by the shitshow in the industry while they were writing it.)

I imagine he'd fit in well at USGamer but that site seems like a weird backwater.

I appreciate that Clickhole has just moved straight into the 'poisoning the well' phase of its existence

I can't play, unfortunately, but I'm pleased that we'll have a 5e D&D game going. It's a really good version.

I feel like, in a game about finding creative solutions to problems, if all your levels can be beaten by the same technique then you're not giving people varied enough goals. Scribblenauts had the same problem.

Apparently someone built a Besiege device that is basically a lattice strapped to a propeller. When it starts, the propeller lifts up, starts the lattice spinning in the air, which then releases bombs which carpet-bomb the area. The rotation makes the bombs spread out. Apparently that'll beat nearly every mission. Hopefully they fix that.

Personally I'm looking forward to the original topical songs that Chris very definitely promised on Twitter

Impressions Games' city building games do have wars, but I believe many of the games have a choice whether you take over a peaceful city or a city with a military. In any case the vast majority of the mechanics are built around trade, happiness and access to resources. Startopia is similar but there's more of a focus on bad actors in that game, so you do have some violence as criminals are subdued and jailed.

To answer Cookie Monster's question, probably wrapped bread. (It's a memetic joke on the slogan used by a bread-cutting machine manufacturer, who claimed it was the greatest step forward in baking since bread was wrapped. Comedians took it one step further, the rest is history.)

I think it works the first time because they do a great job of selling that Pixar absolutely intend this to be the end of their characters. It's undercut, I think fatally, by knowing that they're getting out of it. I enjoy massive tonal shifts more than most people, though. I crave the whiplash, especially in works that don't otherwise try very hard for poignancy.

Sure, but there's a very big difference between saying 'we'll die one day' and 'we'll die today'.

A failed pompadour is just a haircut ugh why do I even try, you're unreachable

For me, it was much more natural to

No, I gather that is genuinely the problem. He makes out as if he's an ally, but when he makes a mistake (as we are inevitably bound to do) or even if someone disagrees (as social justice is a big tent and there are no right answers for a lot of the questions raised) he gets incredibly defensive whether or not the original criticism was valid. This kind of behaviour is typical for someone who wants brownie points for supporting Women but aren't equipped for women to have opinions that don't show appropriate deference. Vivek Wadhwa is the same kind of person in the tech world. It's basically impossible to tell whether or not these people are genuine shitheels but their inability to take criticism doesn't speak well to their ability to listen and be inclusive, and given people's attention is not unlimited maybe that support can go to someone who can acknowledge when they're unintentionally spreading regressive ideas.

Because in Toy Story 3 the entire movie is building up to that - it's a movie about accepting death and accepting change. The bit where it's a kid's movie is when they get rescued with something that's almost a deus ex machina and they get a second life. A less constrained film would let it happen, and then find a way to show the absence left by that loss. You move on, but you've left your memories behind. On the other hand, I will not argue with Pixar forcing Totoro as a character in any future Toy Story work. No it wasn't. Toy Story 2 was about mortality, but the villain in that one was someone who'd accepted their mortality. In Toy Story 3, the villain was someone who refused to.

Idle Thumbs forums pickin' up what I'm puttin' down

Ben brings it home He took a punt