sclpls

Also thanks for the thisgame.co shout out, that website looks sweet.

I'm glad you guys are playing a little more Ace Patrol because of my comment about how you can adjust the difficulty level. I've been playing a lot less of it lately because of XCOM for the iOS, but it's still a nice lunch break type game. I got Letterpress awhile ago but never played it because I wasn't able to convince any friends of mine to pick it up, but after listening to you guys talk about it I think I need to redouble my efforts.

I think this, and several other interpretations are definitely plausible. It is to the game's credit that there is room to interpret events differently. However a lot of people interpreted the theme of Infinite the way Chris did, and while it's not the interpretation I personally subscribe to, it also isn't an interpretation I can dismiss because as far as I know there isn't any piece of evidence in the game that would necessarily weaken the more nihilistic interpretation that a lot of people got from the game. And if that isn't something Ken Levine & co. wanted then that is a problem of artistic execution, and if it is what was intended then it is a philosophically bankrupt message to propagate.

Good on the Fullbright Company.

Bioshock: The Cantos of video game series

This kind of turned into the episode about cliches. The Citizen Kane of games thing is funny & dumb just because of how it reduces the film into a simplistic signifier of "this thing is good, and commands cultural cache". This got me thinking about how people do this with games as well. Like right now it seems like Dark Souls has become the game that replaces the Citizen Kane of games. This isn't carefully measured on my part or anything, but I've had the distinct feeling recently that a lot of recently announced games are getting compared to Dark Souls indiscriminately, and where all the person is saying really is that the game is challenging, or you die a lot but realistically speaking probably doesn't really resemble Dark Souls at all. Has anyone else felt like that has kind of been a thing lately?

The interspersed music definitely created a nice NPR vibe, great job Michael Hermes! I actually played the Empire Builder & Iron Dragon board games in junior high school. Those games and Axis & Allies were my introduction to board games that offered any sort of strategic depth so they all have a soft spot in my heart. Sadly, the Empire Builder series of games are not well regarded on boardgamegeek because a lot of people look down on playing a game that uses crayons. Bruce is right though that they are excellent multiplayer experiences. If I remember correctly, Iron Dragon also had a pretty fascinating mechanic for building underground tunnels. I never played Rails Across America, but the card mechanic for that reminds me of a board game called Inca Empire that is similar to a train game, but since it is set in the late 15th/early 16th century so you are building roads instead of rail tracks. That game has a phase where all the players play event cards, and the cards can either be negative effects (floods, disease, etc.) or positive effects (cheaper building costs, etc.), but the cards will effect two different players so you have to think if you play a card to give yourself a benefit which neighbor of yours also gets the benefit, and if that's something you really want to do. I agree that the Ticket to Ride U.S. map is more strategically interesting, but what I like about the European version is it has some tracks where the cost is variable, and I like that wrinkle added to the base game mechanics.

I bet you could convince the Roxie to host a night of screening a Pikman 2 competition. The ending reminded me of the ridiculous demos on old Casio keyboards like the SK-1. The sample adds to that vibe.

Hahaha if Shawn Elliott hadn't spent so much time talking about Company of Heroes then CGW/GFW would have turned into another WoW podcast.

I grew up playing NetHack so I like permadeath & iron man mode just fine. I think there are a lot of games that probably are poorly suited for permadeath and iron man mode, but on the other hand I can't think of any games that actually have these features that are worse off for having them. Permadeath is a signal game developers use to indicate to the player that victory isn't the most important aspect of playing the game, it is the experiences surrounding a play through. A game really does need to be enjoyable whether you win or lose for permadeath to work. I think games like XCOM, Nethack, FTL, and Occult Chronicles happily meet that requirement.

Oh yeah, I wasn't trying to conflate the two ideas. I was simply referring to play styles when I mentioned the TV thing.

Man, there were a lot of interesting topics covered in this episode. I just remembered the discussion about mulling over puzzles in games, taking a break for a few hours (or days or whatever) and coming back and having a eureka moment. That is totally how I play point and click adventure games. My fiancee is not like that at all however, she will just obsess over getting it and powering through the game, and I'm like, "no, we can figure this out later!" It's too bad since adventure games are one of the few areas where our tastes in games overlap, and yet we have such different play styles. I also am not the sort of person that will spend a weekend sitting through an entire season of a TV show on Netflix. After 2 episodes I need to do something else. So I wonder if it is more of a general personality thing as well...

So this is funny, yesterday I added Vic's blog to my RSS feed so I would stop checking his website obsessively for updates that hadn't happened in months. Today sure enough there was an update! The logical response would be after such a long break probability was on my side, but isn't it even likelier that this is the result of some conspiring ancient monstrosity? Anyway, I am stoked for this Lovecraftian roguelike. http://www.crypticcomet.com/blog/?p=935

The Pacific theater definitely seems like the obvious place for Relic to go to next. I'd be interested in seeing their take on how the Commonwealth work.

The beta for this is now available. My impression so far is calling it a roguelike is maybe taking things a bit too far. I guess it is another roguelike-like (ugh... that word, we really need a better term). The roguelike elements are a randomly generated spooky mansion to explore, permadeath, and high risk/reward scenarios. Like most Vic Davis games it plays very much like a board game, and most encounters are resolved by a trick taking card game. People familiar with Lovecraft games like Arkham Horror will settle right in. The UI still isn't like incredibly friendly, but by Vic's standards this is a huge leap forward. I was able to play competently in my second game without consulting the manual or anything. With his other games reading the manual is essential. The graphics are nice, and the writing for this game is absolutely amazing. Seriously, this is probably the best writing I have seen in a game since Alpha Centauri. If you are skipping past all the writing in this game to resolve actions quickly you are playing the game wrong. This is a game you need to play as a slow burn. There are a bunch of other amazing things I want to say about this game, but it would probably be spoiler-y. I hope people here check the game out because I think there are a lot of people that would really dig this game a lot.

As far as introducing game concepts, they did do an episode about supply, but that might be a bit advanced.

They did to something called like the strategy game curriculum or canon or something like that which was supposed to be about how to get into strategy games, but I don't know if I personally found it particularly helpful (Julian's suggestion was to play chess). I think it's a difficult episode concept because I don't get the sense that there is a lot of agreement among the 3MA crew about it.

That reminds me I need to finish playing Fez, what a fantastic game.

Yeah, I agree that it is a weird gray area. From my perspective, I think it's okay to have things set in history that aren't extremely accurate, but of course I want some works. to display some real fidelity to history. I want both types of works to exist, but I don't know why it's okay for any individual work to exist in one camp or the other, but in other cases it might come off as odd or problematic. I also would be interested in the discussion Firaxis had since the easy thing for them to do would have been to just have a bunch of white male pilots all across the board. So it seems like it must have been a deliberate choice.

I agree with a lot of what was said with regards to historical games, but I think these issues get kind of complicated by how ignorant people are of actual history. For example, I've read a lot of complaints about how in the new Company of Heroes 2 the Soviet tank units have a female voice when you select them, and that the idea of female combatants in WWII is ridiculous and PC. However the Red Army actually had many female soldiers, and they were often tank drivers. Similarly, we have records of female and African-American fighter pilots in WWI, even if they were extremely rare. Ace Patrol isn't a particularly deep simulation to begin with. The campaigns for the four sides are basically identical, and the only detailed realism in the game has to do with the specs of the various planes. All things considered, I don't find the inclusion of African-American and women pilots in Ace Patrol the least bit off putting, quite the contrary, I found the inclusion to be a very nice touch. Often, history is more complicated than any game can really hope to capture, and far more nuanced than most gamers might realize.

I'm with you in finding the indie games that tend to get hyped too precious for my tastes. I greatly admire people like Vic Davis (speaking of whom, the Occult Chronicles beta is now available for purchase, check it out if a Lovecraftian roguelike sounds appealing) who are designing incredible and unique games, but because they lack the sexiness of a company like Capybara don't get the same recognition.

Great conversation. I've been playing the open beta without having ever played the original CoH or Opposing Fronts, and this really clarified what was in the previous games and what wasn't, and also helped clarify some important tactical concepts that I was missing. I'm glad you asked about the leveling up system because that set off alarm bells for me as well. I thought some of the explanation for why that was in there made sense, but I would have preferred if they had limited it to Steam achievements or whatever rather than linking it to some sort of carrot because I do not appreciate the concept of grinding in strategy games. If it is something you can turn off in multiplayer matches though then I think everything is good. I like how you brought up the way the game has a lot in common with turn based tactical wargaming as well even while existing very squarely within the RTS camp. Lately I've been playing GMT's Combat Commander series with a friend, and I've appreciated how many of the tactical issues I'm facing in CoH2 are quite similar to what I'm doing in CC.

That's true, but board game designs are really amazing these days so I was simply expressing some wishful thinking that more people will discover that if there is genuine outrage about the new console systems. I suspect it's simply gamer kvetching, but it would be cool if more people got into the hobby.

I hope that many of the people that are unhappy with the new anti-consumer policies of the next-gen consoles get deeper into tabletop gaming. I think they'll find the environment a lot more friendly and interesting!

Swap Quest, the newest Sierra adventure game