osmosisch

I really like this game. It's almost exactly the right level of complexity/grindiness/rewarding. I'm sure I'll feel different once I stop getting orbs from the story missions, but perhaps there'll be a new thing by then. I'm having quite a bit of fun building & testing utility type characters such as felicia. Also working on getting the 3 'main' characters to 4* at least for kicks. Only two 5* characters so far, neither of which is particularly interesting. Now if only this game didn't drain my battery at such insane rates... It *did* get me to also pick up FE: Awakening on the ole threeds but the 3D art is soooo much worse than this game's gorgeous 2D portraits it's kind of depressing.

Thumb Idols

For what it's worth, I had no trouble with the game with all the indicators except item glow turned off. But my playstyle is to meander about and explore every nook and cranny so I don't tend to miss much anyway.

Cmon, no English wikipedia page about anything Japanese is complete without a pronunciation guide. Final Fantasy X-2 (ファイナルファンタジーX-2 Fainaru Fantajī Ten Tsū)

That account is very probably not real though.

I think a parallel playthrough via voice chat is an amazing idea Bjorn, it sounds like a great way to recapture that together on the couch feeling. Only thing you can't do easily is swap controls.

I find that shit abhorrent.

I'm more inclined to blame this: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/big-data-cambridge-analytica-brexit-trump Than people paying more attention to tweets.

I prefer listening to the Thumbs when they're talking about stuff they care & are informed about (or at least entertainingly uninformed) over the Thumbs in the period where they felt obliged to discuss games they'd only played 30 minutes of. As we all grow older, it behooves us to grow and change. As long as that involves blasting a pod into my ears, I'll probably listen, and once you guys grow out of it, that will be fine too, if a bit sad. That said, I hope Sean comes back and/or you get some guests on more frequently because I think pure banter would eventually begin to wear thin without some source of increased diversity in input.

Chomsky agrees: http://www.ecowatch.com/noam-chomsky-trump-2093271018.html

I watched one of my favourite streamers play through most of this and found it thoroughly enjoyable from that perspective. I don't think I'd ever want to play it myself though, way too stressy.

Start now, GRRM will likely die of a stroke before they're done anyway and they're fun books. Also be warned the quality decreases by quite a bit as the series progresses, with less and less happening.

I definitely laughed out loud in several places, like some of the sound puzzles, or some of the cases where I had been led to believe one of the mechanisms worked differently than it did, tried to use a classic solution and it didn't work. There's a very dry sense of humour at work that tickles me.

They get pretty spoilery but it's mostly abstract. My favourite bit is where the interviewer says that he felt Jon told him a joke via a series of puzzles, because I had that exact experience and it's amazing that humans can do such a thing via such an abstract series of interactions. I'll probably never finish the game but I am continually in awe of it.

I dunno, I hear SpeedyDesiato likes it, maybe ask him?

Solaire is not in Demon's Souls unless I'm going senile. I don't think there's anything linking demon's and dark besides the usual From shenanigans like the moonlight sword.

I think there's a Bloodborne missing from the title (which I'm told this game resembles more than any of the Souls game, for example in its lack of shields)

Oh man I am so jealous hearing about that Zadie Smith talk. I just read her collection of columns (Changing my mind) which had, I think, a similar effect on me - just hearing/reading someone talk deeply and articulately about many subjects that I care about, and some that I didn't know I cared about, is incredibly soothing. I think you lucked out a bit by having Eggers replaced by Chabon, Eggers is kind of shallow comparatively, at least from what I've read of his.

I recently picked up Steamworld: Heist, and the vocals that play in the space bars are absolutely amazing. They give a great sense of peace and rest from the action.

I found the DOOM run super disappointing. I like my speedruns to rely on cool in-game stuff, not out of bounds things. Like the original Quake Done Quickly runs.

I think this will be the episode title for my jam game.

The characters and their arcs start to flesh out a lot after the first 100 or so pages. You get a feeling for what's more and less important. The whole Year of the X thing is eventually explained to some degree. The nature of the toxic waste area and so forth. How to handle the footnotes. There's a hump at the beginning after which you realise you can just kind of relax into the book and enjoy the ride. Which is not to say you stop paying attention, but that you've learned to trust that the book's going somewhere and has meaning and structure. I'm sure there's people who are put off by this, or other aspects of the book, and I feel its status has become unhealthily elevated.

Haha, same. First the fun of solving apuzzle, then the fun of messing around the level!

I think the novella is definitely the most interesting thing he's written in the sense that it's not a rather pointless meandering bunch of mary sue nerd wish-fulfillment. It's a bit too manic pixie dream girl to pass muster entirely but it at least tries. I thought the first book of the main series showed some promise but the sex ninjas and complete lack of plot progression in book 2 really put me off Rothfuss. Luckily I'd bought the novella on the strength of my initial like of the first book so I got something lasting out of it.

Binged Trollhunters over the holidays. Pretty good all things considered.