TychoCelchuuu

I suppose that instead of saying "there is literally no reason to worry about whether something is or isn't a game" I should have said there is no good reason. That you can expand on your worries with various examples and various other labels does not mean that your worries are worth having or that this is a conversation that needs to come up every time Gone Home or Dear Esther are mentioned. Here are some things to mull over: https://storify.com/TychoCelchuuu/j-chastain-on-the-definition-of-games http://www.visitproteus.com/what-are-game/ http://www.gamedefinitions.com/ https://twitter.com/TheGamePolice https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/186404/are-games-games-whats-a-game-anyway-discuss-within/p1

There is literally no reason to worry about whether something is or isn't a game.

I don't understand the question "what will the towers be in this game?" We already know. There's a tower in the screenshot!

Easier to show than explain, eh? I'll take on that challenge: "I took stuff from other platformers and put it all into one platformer."

I mean, it did wipe the air clean of tension in the sense of "that was a really funny joke" - it's actually super dark humor (which is to be expected from Nick, which is one reason I love him so much). The joke is that we live in a world where the best game of the year can be something that hasn't made it past the Stone Age when it comes to gender, and more specifically the humor is that these two things are being jammed together so abruptly, which is always a good way to make a joke.

I don't know if it gets a pass - it's sort of like saying Gone With the Wind is a great film even though it's racist as fuck. I'm sure everyone would be thrilled if MGS V weren't shitty and regressive when it comes to women, but t he fact that tit is makes it worse, not bad. If you want to say that everything with problematic elements is bad, then there's pretty much going to be nothing good left.

At video games, yes, but being bad at video games doesn't make you the worst...

I wonder if they stole his shoes?

Thumbs, uh, find a way.

An Remo-Breckon announcer pack, or an Idle Thumbs announcer pack, would be so good that it is hard to describe. Ideally it would be a bunch of the main Thumbs talking about stuff and then there would be like, one line somewhere, which is Steve Gaynor saying "uh, your tower is under attack" or something, and that's the only Scoops in the entire pack.

You've either missed or ignored all the stuff about the people who raised them.

Everything increpare has ever made and everything Porpentine has ever made and everything thecatamites has ever made.

I'm not sure the Sad Puppies were "largely irrelevant" unless you're talking just about those vs the Rabid Puppies (I'm a little fuzzy on the distinction) but this article suggests that they actually did matter in terms of nominations.

Yes, your post was indeed clearly about your own personal feelings about the term. I hope my post was also clearly about how these things usually work without meaning to have any implications for what you ought to do (this is why I began my post with "Obviously you don't have to do anything"). I agree with you that SJW is shitty and that it is used by shitty people for a shitty reason, but that's also the case for "faggot" and "queer," and although I'd never in a million years get mad at anybody for not wanting to identify as a "faggot" or a "queer," and in fact although I don't tend to call myself a "faggot" very often, I think it's worth at least understanding that a word being used by shitty people for shitty reasons doesn't have to stop people from reclaiming it, and for the same reasons I label myself queer, I would have no problem labeling myself a social justice warrior. Part of this might be a result of working in philosophy, where "social justice" has a long, storied history of being something important and worthwhile that we of course ought to be fighting for - at least since the 1970s, when John Rawls published his groundbreaking work A Theory of Justice, social justice has been one of the most talked-about aspects of philosophy. So in the context of a philosophy conference or whatever, if you say that you're a social justice warrior, someone would just assume that you work for the Southern Poverty Law Center or something. So for me maybe it's not much of a jump to reclaim the term social justice warrior.

Obviously you don't have to do anything, but "reclaim" is probably a misnomer not just here but with respect to almost all the terms. "Faggot," for instance, wasn't "reclaimed," it was just claimed. SJW is in a similar position. So if you worry is just "the term has always had a disparaging connotation" then I wouldn't freak out too much, because lots of "reclaimed" terms only had a history of having been used offensively.

I think you can get past the guards by waiting until they walk away.

I'm pretty sure it is indeed bad form.

The Sword from Thief has already been mentioned, so I won't say much about it. Another game that had amazing, intricate, free-roaming levels was Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, but I think my favorite level from that one is a slightly less open one: Falling Ship. I mean come on, what a ridiculous level. I almost couldn't believe that this was in the game the first time I played it. Another memorable level is the nebula in Freespace 2. I love how mysterious everything feels. It's one of the few times FS2 recaptures the mystery of the original game. Citadel Station from System Shock is one giant, intricate, very well conceived level. The elevators are sort of load screens, but you can go back and forth whenever you want, so effectively it's all one level and I love how the layout makes sense and matches up with how the station looks from the outside. I don't know what was in the water at Lucasarts when they were making FPS games but the Train from Outlaws also blew me away with the fact that this was happening. I mean, it's hardly the most impressive thing in the world, but I had never been on a train or anything like that in a shooter! The nightclub from Slave of God is a place I'll never forget.

It seems like it's going to cost lots of money.

If you're paying attention to what is going on, it obviously wasn't canceled - they're giving weekly progress updates and talking about what needs to be fixed before they release the alpha. I'm not saying you're wrong to jump to conclusions, because normally when you see headlines on game news websites they're right, but with Star Citizen things seem to get blown way out of proportion. "Delayed indefinitely" in this context just means they aren't sure when precisely it's coming: if they had given a date a year away, that would have been way off and it would've made people angry for other reasons. There's no way for them to win, it seems.

The singularity for a while was basically nerd rapture, because everyone assumed the AI would just solve all problems and make everything awesome. I guess lately it has turned into nerd judgment day or whatever. In any case I don't really buy Bostrom or the other singularity people's arguments - there's a lot of fanciful thinking about what it takes to make AI smart enough to trigger the singularity. Breckon is more or less solid gold 100% of the time so I can't recommend any favorite Breckon without recommending all the Breckon. This episode, for instance, with both the Fallout Shelter and the John Madden, is primo Brekcon. It tickled me to hear the Thumbs talking about how Star Citizen has canceled the FPS - in reality it just got delayed, which somehow was huge news, although if you ask me the only time Star Citizen should be in the news is when something ISN'T delayed, because I mean come on. I'm still super skeptical about Star Citizen fulfilling any of its promises, but I also understand the frustration of all the believers who have to deal with the sort of doom and gloom that accompanies all the Star Citizen talk, like "FPS delayed" turning into "FPS canceled" via a game of telephone with Derek Smart of all people at the switchboard. sikapwach, I think Chris is just generally an interrupty dude. Some people are interrupty and some people aren't - how much you get bent out of shape about it depends on all sorts of factors. I think there are legitimate reasons to be annoyed at someone for interrupting, even if it's just how they are naturally: men interrupting women, for instance, is a real (and omnipresent) issue. But I don't think being an interrupty person in general is automatically a bad thing. Some people find it annoying, but some people find Danielle's Rhode Island accent annoying, and that's no reason for her to drop the accent. Whether interrupting someone is rude or just the way a conversation works depends a lot on the specific social norms both of the society and the group of people talking. I'm assuming the Thumbs are pretty much fine with Chris interrupting a lot simply because that's how he is, so no big deal, and if you find yourself annoyed by it I would encourage you to at least open yourself up to the possibility that interrupting generally is not necessarily a sin. (Perhaps coming from a Jewish family and generally from a Jewish culture, where people interrupt each other constantly, makes me more open to this than I would otherwise be.)

I've been playing X-COM: UFO Defense, X-Wing, and TIE Fighter almost since they came out (actually I came to X-COM years later, but still long, long ago - a couple decades, maybe). Nuclear Throne and Spelunky are more contemporary squeezes. I still play DooM sometimes too, and qrth-phyl. Dota 2, Company of Heroes 2, and Men of War Assault Squad 2 round out the multiplayer games that I still play fairly often-ish, as these things go. And I guess Threes and Drop7, for mobile games.

In case anyone is interested, here are the notes I made while playing. Some of the stuff is from after I had mostly figured everything out and was just filling in the details, but most of them are from while I was being a detective. Spoilers obviously: http://i.imgur.com/Fl80JjA.jpg