Patrick R

I think maybe I just don't understand enough about how games publishing works. And also I am maybe overly sensitive to the trend of established entities with access to traditional funding using crowdsourcing to take advantage of their fanbase*. With something like say, The Cave that's published by Sega or Brutal Legend which was published by EA, what kind of financial control do they not have? *Though I do want to emphasize that I don't look at something like this the same way as fans of Veronica Mars giving 5 million dollars to Warner Brothers. Double Fine is not WB, the backer perks are better (a copy of the game at the 20 dollar level is super-reasonable, and essentially the same as pre-ordering it), and Double Fine's track record with doing great stuff with their Kickstarters is pretty well-established.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding all this, but does this mean that the goal is for Kickstarters to just be the way Double Fine operates from now on? That all projects would ideally be Kickstarted, and not funded through more traditional means? I didn't really follow the original Double Fine Kickstarter, was this part of the mission statement from the beginning? Or am I just misinterpretting all of this?

The story behind that Isao Hashimoto track is really interesting.

The way a weird line like "princes kneel before you" (which exists not because the Spin Doctors are great lyricists, but because they pretty clearly wrote the vocal melody of that song before they wrote the words, which is why it's preceded by the essentially placeholder lyrics "One, Two") caused Chris' imagination to spin out of control reminds me of one of my favorite phenomenons of watching old comedies, which is when then-relevant pop culture references are lost to time and what ends up remaining is a weird non-sequitur. My favorite example is this scene from Animal Crackers: When I first saw this and had no idea who Eugene O'Neil was, I thought the movie just spun off the rails into total surreal lunacy (even more than a Marx Brothers movie normally does). Also, I loved the Gunpoint demo (and it had a really funny demo specific ending worth checking out), but I was a little shocked at how similar it was to Trilby: The Art of Theft. It's much better than Trilby in almost every way, but the deja vu I felt was really strong.

I've watched a lot of videos of people beating him. I know how it's supposed to be done. I am just completely unable to do it myself.

My favorite game of all time is probably Deus Ex. I went through the game a dozen times, devouring the insane amount of hidden and optional content it has. Then I got the Shifter mod and went through it a couple more times. I love the kitchen sink conspiracy milieu, I love all the easter eggs, I love how perfect the level design is. It's totally my ideal blend of action gameplay and RPG elements. Also, three endings, no "good" or "bad" endings. But the game I've probably sunk the most hours in is Team Fortress 2. 324 hours total according to Steam. Mostly support classes, though I'm pretty damn aggressive for an Engie.

How many tries did it take you to beat the final boss? I tried maybe 70 times (gotta love instant respawn!) before I decided that maybe seeing the ending of a story I didn't care about wasn't worth it.

Proteus is a great computer game. Most excited I've been playing a game since I finished The Walking Dead. Thanks Humble Bundle!

I'd click play but...sigh...those earrings. They just ruin everything. Psyched to watch this.

I got a Steam Key for Hotline Miami for the first regular Thumb who sends me a message.

Turning Michael into Homer Simpson for the first episode was just about the most off-putting way to reintroduce the character imaginable.

The series finale for this was genuinely funny. The Fake Geek Girl episode was shit. The rest I can take or leave, but I've listened to JJGO for a long time so I'm a pretty big Jordan Morris fan.

Seven episodes in and I'm not sure I even want to finish S4. Making it a non-ensemble show really wrecked it for me. There's so much I don't like about the new season. Not horrible, still pretty funny, but the magic is pretty definitively gone for me.

Oh, and this may be super obvious, but part of the joy of playing games like Frequency and Amplitude was to mess around and see what songs sounded like missing tracks. Dynamic music as a gameplay mechanic. I would spend hours remixing some horrible Freezepop song, and I definitely think that lead me to taking up electronica production the same way games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band have lead people to learn actual instruments.

Not super dynamic, but there's an extra percussion track in the BGM of Super Mario World if you start a level with Yoshi.

So worth it. The making of Alien 3 is worth 20 bucks alone. Great set.

Even better.

I think the movie Chris was trying to reference* was Robin & Marian, where Sean Connery plays an aging Robin Hood opposite Robert Shaw's aging Sheriff of Nottingham. Fucking amazing movie if you ever get the chance to see it, probably Richard Lester's best. And according to his Wikipedia, the last thing J Allard did was a "private sale outdoor and active lifestyle network" called The Clymb? Weird. *I have no idea if Chris was trying to reference this, but I never miss an opportunity to recommend it because it is so so good.

You're right, sex has become very popular in America.

This is tickling the part of my brain that remembers obsessively reading Encyclopedia Brown books. But I warn you, if none of these mysteries involve a stolen tooth collection, I will be very disappointed.

You'd think my role-playing was primarily inspired by my given name, but it actually fit well anyway because I am crap at strategy games and would just be flailing around anyway. I figured I might as well give some narrative reason for my ineptitude. And, to be fair, you guys should have snuffed out Roll Fizzlebeef when you had the chance. Now look at 'em.

Annnnnd I've been eliminated from game 1. I imagine I'd have had more fun if I didn't mentally check out the moment it was clear I'd be eliminated, which was maybe 2 whole weeks ago.

All things are either science or magic?