coaxmetal

I just ran into Chris and Jake and Nels at a bar/brunch place here in the mission that I like, and said an awkward hello before running away. I'm not really sure what to do in that kind of situation, the easy thing, and what I almost did, is just leave and not say hi. Jake also asked me how I started listening to Idle Thumbs and I couldn't remember. I've been a reader for years though, backed the kickstarter an whatnot. Anyway, whats the etiquette in that sort of situation? Also Hi guys.

I think it's worth mentioning that this is the most fun I've had with a stealth game in a long time, and it isn't even explicitly/exclusively a stealth game. on a non stealth note: I've encountered similar situations a couple of times. I'm playing on the "ranger" mode, so I go down quickly, and mutants are immune to stealth, unfortunately. I have found though that when I get stuck in such situations with the wrong set of weapons, the game is pretty good about putting a better weapon somewhere nearby. You might have to backtrack a bit but I bet there is an accessible shotgun near where you are stuck, or at least such as been my experience (at least one in the swamp as well, iirc).

I forget if I posted in here before, but we did staff photos at work so we would have something to put on our not-yet-real website, and here's one of me striking a pose while balancing on an Indo board: Astute viewers might recognize some discrepancies with the background lighting, the only version I had of the picture was just me with the background masked out (it was the only version I asked for), but I used a thematically appropriate background in its place.

On an unrelated note I never saw that IGN McDonalds takeover before and dang, I can see why people were disconcerted. Wonder what the person who green-lighted that thought would happen.

Chris's experience of not getting into Demon's Souls initially but then getting a different perspective and then getting into it reminded me of how my perception of that game evolved. I first heard of it when I was riding by bike to class, listening to the Giant Bombcast, and at the time it had just come out and the GB crew, not being into that kind of game, was dismissive and critical of it -- it sounded fucked hard. I've never liked games that were difficult for the sake of being difficult, so I filed that away as dontplay badgame. It was made easy that it was a PS3 exclusive and at the time I only played games on PC, I didn't own any consoles. Anyway, a while later, at least a year I think, I was hanging out with and messing around on his PS3, looking for something to play, and he suggested it. He wasn't super in to it, I don't think he ever beat it, but he liked messing around with the systems in it and just having dumb fun, while dying over and over. I've always liked dumb fun, so, though I told him I heard it was bad, I took a stab at it. Turns out, not only was it dumb fun just engaging with the mechanics, but I thought it genuinely had something going for it. I soon forgot about it though. Anyway, some other time later I got a ps3. It was after the slim came out and it was on sale on amazon, and I wanted to play MGS4 and the uncharted games. I'm not sure why I bought Demon's Souls at the time, I guess I remembered having some fun with it and needed games. But then I started playing it. And kept playing it and playing it. I had filed it away as unreasonable difficult, a game for crazy people, but as I played it I realized it wasn't difficult mechanically. Instead, it was unforgiving and expected a lot of the player, but no single action was unreasonably difficult. That was (and still is) very satisfying in an era of super limited, tutorialized, or hand holding games. Also I really liked the world and story, particularity the restrained way it was presented. Anyway I got super in to it, and subsequently Dark Souls as well (that didn't take any convincing I bought it when it came out because i loved demon's souls so much, and played ~100 hours, and again bought and played it on PC when it came out there). Anyway, aside from just talking about how Demons Souls and Dark Souls are great, I guess my point is that don't judge a video game but it's thing someone said about it on a podcast once. Or at least ont entirely. Or maybe just know your tastes relative to the editorial content you consume and/or the predispositions of the people making said content. I think I started writing this with some sort of point in mind but it got lost, so now its mostly just the story of how I really like the D* Souls games.

Oh man I love a good appreciation station. Also super metroid.

I actually started and russian and switched to english for the incidental dialogue. Not amazing, but some of it is interesting. Nothing really worth going one way or the other for, but i've been sticking with English. I'ts actually one of the best/better stealth games I can recall, which is interesting since it isn't billed as one, as far as I know. Enemies can be approached and murdered from any angle, and even if they see you before their demise they don't raise an instant all AI alert. Usually no alert, unless they have a change to shout something, then nearby AI hear, but it's still possible to murder them before an a general alert is raised. Even the achievements, for as little as that is worth, respect that as not raising an alarm, which is neat. Also, since I prepurchased it (for the $5 off mostly) I've been playing it on "ranger mode". It's pretty dumb that they are selling a reduced HUD and higher damage mode for $5, but since it came with the prepurchase I opted for it, and its neat. Makes a laser sight on a gun a lot more meaningful, usually its just cosmetic in shooters (it removes the crosshair). It's actually beem more beneficial as a makeshift cross-hair for throwing knives than for using the actual guns though. Anyway, still really enjoying it, haven't seen a bug since that last one. Been murdering so many people, but it mostly feels deserved in this game at least. Metro is a good ranger, hes murdered a lot of mans and monsters and is good at it. It's not a revolutionary story, but by having an experienced protagonist like Metro, it avoids some of the usual dissonancel

I've been really enjoying it so far. there were a few real scary bits so far. Its good fun as a stealth game too and looks great. I did have a scripting bug though where my AI Partner got stuck right after a checkpoint and I had to restart the level.

Been playing this on PC. Really liking it, but so far I haven't gotten to deciphering anything. I have like 15 cubes and 2 or 3 anticubes I think. I've thought about doing frequency analysis on the symbols, but for that to work i'd need a large sample, plus I think there is a key somewhere, based on what I heard about the xbox version.

Haha, I didn't think to mention my twitter avatar (a grainy Johothan Frakes making a weird face with his tongue out). It was also weird to recognize people by their voices in a bar, don't worry. Dear Mom is really cool, I only started visiting recently, but i've lived nearby for a while. Also if it was just the voice I probably wouldn't have said hi, but I recognized you guys as well from seeing livestreams or giant bomb appearances or something.

Yeah I have this too, its like friends I know except they don't know me at all, and that makes it really strange.

I moved to SF about 2 months ago for a software job (medical startup, offices are in SoMa), which is great, but im still kind of giddy and in awe of the city. I lived in Tucson, AZ, for all of my life prior to this and living in a real city, and especially in the mission, is amazing to me. So I'm maybe more excited than I should be about talking about where I live and stuff. Still exploring the mission, hardly even touched Castro (though when I have gone there I love it) and other parts of the city. It just feels like this is where I should have been all along.

awesome, thanks. Just got it set up. Dissapointed that the iOS app hasn't been updated for tallphones yet, but I guess i'll live. Maybe.

What was the location mapping app that Chris mentioned? I want to try that. Mine is almost exclusively going to be Mission and SoMa though. Occasionally Castro. Thats not as exciting as it seems though because its just where I live and where I work.

This is actually the first I have seen of this (as I said, I think greenlight is poor at surfacing interesting games, and cynicism about this kinda stuff is kinda my thing), I am genuinely interested in yours now. The ball-rolling puzzle game isn't a new idea, of course, but I don't think anyone has approached it with the scope or environments implied by your trailed and I really want to see the game now, and what it does with that. I'll see if I can't get a few other people to vote as well.

That game does look pretty good, I voted for it. Hope it makes it.

So I'm not sure if this has been brought up, but it semi-recently came to my attention that La Mulana is on greenlight (http://steamcommunit...ls/?id=93001822). That game is fantistic, its a more modern remake of an indie game, and is well done, polished, and in general meets or exceeds steam's standards, It has an established, if small, fanbase. It is for sale on Playism and GoG. Before greenlight something this good and polished would and should have just been put on steam, but instead it is relageted to Greenlight. I don't have any problem with greenlight itself, but if finished, polished, and liked games like this are just being sent there, they are using it wrong, and I think that's shameful and lazy. Also, its apprently been on there for a bit, and that brings up problems with either a) the taste of most of the greenlight audience, or more likely the way greenlight surfaces and suggests games, and the lack of discoverability.

This all has inspired me to reinstall Far Cry 2. Perhaps you have heard of it? I'm going to see if I can cheat infinite diamonds or something, and try some mods. I've been through the diamond hunt, and it has merit, but I kinda just want to mess around in that world without having to worry about that. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any mod that removes the fire propagation limit. I really just want to let it do what it will. Apparently the tech is using cellular atomata, which is really neat to think about as a programmer. I bet this has been mentioned but the thumbs, but if not, see http://jflevesque.co...ns-and-spreads/ So basically, What I need to do if I want to try to mod it, is find where in memory (or ideally in a game config or data file) that point value is set, and make it way bigger. I've never really tried that kind of thing though, so I was hoping to find out if someone else had done it. Maybe I will give it a go, I probably won't succeed but it will be an interesting dive into something I have never explored before. For me, an ideal scenario would be one where devs can release their internal tools and let the community do what they want, be that break the game horribly or make something awesome (or in the case of this fire thing, both). I guess thats kinda a no go for a lot of reasons though.

well, in a perfect game, thats true, But, there aren't that many bears around, the crafting system is an lazy way to encourage the player to go places and kill things they probably wouldn't have killed otherwise, and maybe realize that murdering those things was fun! Chris seems to have higher, or at least different, standards for a game than I. I noticed most of what he complained about, and thought it was dumb, but didn't get hung up on it and ended up enjoying the game a lot, mostly the exploring and messing around parts. Kinda the same kinda of fun that comes from Just Cause 2. A lot of kind of unexpected vitriol itt from Chris though. Maybe that's actually for the best though, I don't think otherwise popular games get called out for what they do wrong by most of the press, so if on the off chance someone who cares gets the thumbs message, a better game may be made in the future. Maybe. Probably not because I don't think ubisoft cares.

Yeah, hopefully. It didn't bother me that much, but I tend to actively ignore critical paths in games. I gotta do all the stuff first. All the stuff. I also don't want to let the game off for its terrible story that conflicts with the gameplay, or the bizzare decisions they made in design and mission structure, but there is still a ton of fun to be had in that game.

I feel that all the criticisms that the thumbs leveled against far cry 3 were valid, but I love that game, because despite all those problems there is a very fun game in there. Its one of the 5 they tried to make, its the open world fucking around and exploring one. The hunting shit is contrived, but its goofy and fun, jumping into vehicles and off cliffs is great, buy the treasure maps and look for letters and relics, lots of them are in really cool fun places. I'm kind of surprised Chris didn't try to just explore and mess around. If you stick to the critical path you are only seeing the worst the game has to offer.

Chris said something about DFA during this episode in the context of talking about programming, and I thought he meant a deterministic finite automaton at first, since we were talking about implementing one of those, or some sort of rules engine, at work today. I didn't realize until later that he probably meant double fine adventure. Would be cool if he was just talking about making a DFA for the music system though. Also, though I have no particular aspirations to be a programmer for a game company, I like where I am now, its good to hear that it isn't all C++, since I don't like working in C++. Lua is nicer.

its also just really awkward because hes tall enough to do it without hanging to he has to bend his knees in order to do it properly

I've been playing this game, I think its pretty good. But, like a classic fan of older games in a series, I just don't think it lives up to the last iteration. I just got to part 2, and it seems like they shrunk and simplified the levels. The playstyle is fundamentally the same, but there just aren't as many options, you can't mess around as much. Each level in Blood money was like a big playground, with lots of things to do. Most of them were constructed and had only one purpose, but they were fun and you could do them in any order. Absolution, at least the story mode, is like a series of tiny playgrounds with only one feature in each. This one has the slide. You have to go down the slide. Now the monkey bars. You have to do the monkey bars. You can't go back to the slide.

I think the requirement doc was using "guy" in the generic sense, meaning "person". I probably was anyway.