Berzee

Doing some research here. If an evil genie was going to curse one of your arms or legs so that it would remain forever fully extended, no longer able to bend at the elbow or the knee, doomed the wander the world...but the genie gave you the choice of which arm or leg would be cursed...which would you choose?

P.S.

Thank you all for the response so far your input has been extremely valuable. Keep it coming, internet. Poor left knee. The least-loved mid-appendage hinge. Awesome. Take that, evil genie. I haven't bent this elbow in at least a week anyway. The "right leg so I have an excuse not to drive anymore" sounds like a good way to work from home =P, but I've tried driving with my left foot before and I don't think it would be terribly challenging with practice*. *Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt.

Was it pretty good?

I like the way "Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood" handled it. Knocked-out guards would regain their senses pretty quickly, but while they were unconscious you could tie them up and gag them. After that, they could still be set free by other guards who happened upon them -- unless you had a strong character pick them up and hide them somewhere indoors, where they couldn't be found. It also handled the consequences of lethality pretty well by just giving you the choice between shooting everyone dead and being subsequently shunned by the general populace, or completing the levels mercifully (with punches to the back of the head, mostly) and seeing throngs of peasants rush to join your merry band. (I think it was a sliding scale instead of a binary choice too, so you could aim for an acceptable level of murrrder based on the difficulty of that particular mission and the current size of your gang-o'-thieves).

I would like to see DEVICE 6 or clones of it hit something besides the app store, so I could play them. =P

So all these lovely games are being made in GameMaker, but from the little I've read and seen, GameMaker games all seem to offer very little or nothing in the way of mod-friendliness. Confirm/deny, anyone? (Most other "game making programs" like Unity also seem to result in very paltry modding options, unless devs go out of their way to make it possible). (Not that they really need mods, being all tightly design singleplayer or local multiplayer experiences...and I guess that as the tools become easier and easier to use, "one-man games" become something of a replacement for extensive mods anyway...but still, it's probably a shame or something). The Foiled stream was good television. I acquired that computergame immediately after watching. Now to find someone who will play more than one round of it with me...

>Berzee spits a smartphone out of his mouth. >You notice the phone is displaying an image of some vomit. =(

(the preceding statement is all true except where it says "I listen" read "I don't listen")

I listen to a niche-oriented podcast that is all about niches (although I like it too when they get semi-offtopic and discuss nooks, alcoves, crannies and other wall recesses).

Have you ever had an experience where after playing a game you found that you had retained some small knowledge of a foreign language (be it real or fake) spoken in the game? I've noticed that I will occasionally pick up a word here or there (for example, Dunmer insults in Morrowind, the general meaning of unit responses in Age of Kings, or the incessant "requiescat in pace" in Assassin's Creed 2 ensuring that I will always have three words of Latin). But I recently began wondering if any game has ever featured a more in-depth "learning some of the local language" either as a survival requirement, or as something that happens gradually from prolonged exposure while playing. I think it could be interesting to play a game where you're dropped into a foreign land and wander around cluelessly while NPCs try to give you basic instructions; or one where you start in an English-speaking country but as you travel further away the characters tend to be decreasingly fluent in English and will insert more dialogue from their native language. I'm partly interested in whether this would be an effective supplement while actually trying to learn a language; but I also think it might be excellent for world-building purposes in the game, to give a feeling of initial strangeness with increased belonging over time. (Buying a house in a game city kinda makes you feel like you're settling in -- but learning to communicate with its residents might do it better =). There's probably games that do this already though, maybe with some kind of crazy space- and/or wizard-language. If you know of any, please share! I wish to play such a thing.

Oho! You tricked me by using a slightly different segment. I hear it now, of course, yes.

I didn't expect this to interest me very much because I've never played any Naughty Dog Games, but apparently convoluted career stories and insider looks at game development are good listening regardless of familiarity with the end product. The stories about his badgering a boss into letting him do extra work were especially entertaining. Looking forward to the next episode, especially because it involves NOLF. I was excited because it will be the first Tone Control that isn't infested with zombles; but then I remembered it involves F.E.A.R. so I guess there will still be scaryghosts involved. Ah well, it's a step up. (I'm still hoping that someday I will start up a new episode of Tone Control and hear music, but this week's was nice too; what is it music of?)

baboo? (skip to 1h1m55s if it doesn't do it automatically)

Just got to the part about the glass eye. Glad for my years of training in silent laughter.

Ha, I do remember that now! Hmm, I wonder how well he knew English before he started playing those -- it seems like a good thing to play while aspiring to an intermediate level, but probably quite challenging as a total beginner. Though of course if you do struggle through any foreign-language activity translating as you go, it will prove beneficial -- and if you pick something of lesser writing quality than Lucasarts adventures, you'll get the added bonus of learning to speak in hilarious, stilted Game Protagonist sentences.

True enough but I doubt many English games are designed with the idea that players won't know the language when they start the game. If you don't speak English, you'll get the whole language thrown at you at once without much concern for consistency or clarity. Which is still certainly a useful way to hear more of a language and expand on a basic understanding -- but I'd like to play a game where the NPCs know that they're talking to someone who doesn't speak the language at all, and try their best to make themselves understood (or alternatively, turn to their friends and make fun of your hat in flowery words that you only understand when you come back and play the game again after gaining fluency).

I haven't finished this episode yet, but it occurred to me to wonder, if Jake followed through on every suicide threat he's made over the years on Idle Thumbs, how many lives has he lost? I think it must be at least one hundred.

All part of the experiment, my boy.

UNEXPECTED. BUT NOT UNWELCOME.

Alas, Card Hunter pizza girl storyline is progressing in predictably underwhelming paths (so too the other characters, a bit). It is not as silly as it could have been, but still! Good game, though. (edit: I have played a little bit more...I will grant that what the characters lack in originality, they sometimes almost make up for in hyperbole)

The whole time they were talking about first-person megajumps I just kept thinking about Morrowind. ^_o

Speaking of Mario, Super Mario RPG Mario is my favorite Mario. The game was great (despite not having Luigi) but Mario in it was particularly so. For example, I really hoped that after SMRPG all subsequent Mario games would continue the idea that, being a man of few words, Mario instead chooses to express exasperation by deliberately faceplanting into the ground. (Later Mario RPG games were pretty good too, but I don't remember them ever bringing that back).

Possibly the walking-back was because most people involved with the podcast have spent a goodly amount of time creating or being excited about games that are pretty far from the "start level, complete challenge, collect shinies, repeat" that Sean seemed to be referring to in Luigi's Mansion. (I think they were just hastening to point out that Idle Thumbs was not radically altering their position on that great question, "What Is Game?"). Not sure what the initial embarrassment was about, but to me it sounded like it "Yes, I admit I had forgotten what it's like to be 'playing' a game (instead of exploring, experiencing, or mastering a game) and it took a Luigi to remind me." -- I could be utterly wrong about this (as much as such a handwavey and ill-defined paraphrase can even be right or wrong), but why listen to podcasts if not to make vertigo-inducing first-person jumps to conclusions about other the speakers' thoughts and feelings? I don't know, but it creates many hilarious "guwwwww" noises, so I don't mind it. (Every time they talk about the 3DS I also spent a few seconds feeling like I should play something on my Gameboy Advance sometime -- but I never do).

Possibly, but I only know her by the Earthsea books I read as a kid, so I can see where the notion of her as a writer of books-about-chillens (if not books-for-chillens) comes from.