tberton

I've never played Brogue, but reading its designer's detailed explanation of how its levels are generated is fascinating.

Hmmm, still thinking about it, eot. Also, Twig, part of the point is that there are some things in math that seem to be intuitively true, but aren't actually true if you cahnge certain assumptions. Non-Euclidean geometries, for instance, come out of that. Or i. EDIT: Hmm, okay, I looked up the proofs and even though Wikipedia math articles are the worst, I think I get it. It would be easier if I saw somebody draw it out though - I have a tough time visualizing geometry from textual explanations.

Jennegatron, let's start a math thread. There's so much cool stuff to talk about!

I'm sorry Twig. I'll say this though: the proofs I encounter are things like Euclid's proof about infinite primes or the proof that Root 2 is irrational. I'm sure the more complicated stuff wouldn't appeal to me.

Oh man, it's been a while since I've done math in school, but I enjoy it recreationally and proofs are my favourite part. When so much of my time in school is spent debating the nature of truth and questioning whether you can proof anything, mathematical proofs feel really relaxing.

Cookies, maybe? Breadcrumbs or batters on other items is another option.

For North America, at least, I've heard people talk about "news anchor" English as the dialect that is usually judged against.

Mattie Brice on queerness, passing and the problems of public identities. Complicated stuff, but I like that Mattie presents this as problems for consideration, rather than concrete solutions.

Okay, I'll concede the point.

Have no fear, new episodes return August 6th! Meat Mecha, I'm with you on Pearl.

What is net.art?

Might wanna spoiler that, given that there are people in this thread who have just explicitly stated they aren't caught up on the series.

The purpose is what I said in my previous post - it allows you to challenge yourself on your own terms. I don't actually understand how you would have to go back to an optional challenge that you've completed in order to retrieve a money bag. If you completed the challenge, surely you didn't die and thus there's no moneybag left there. I guess this in part just comes down to a fundamental disagreement. You seem to be taking a hard line that any situation where a player does menial tasks to get a slight edge in the game is ultimately and fatally the fault of the designer. I think that can sometimes be the case, but in lots of situations players are complicit in that process in ways that designer can't always predict or control.

I still don't understand how it's presented as "the right way to play". What in the game suggests that, rather than it simply being an additional challenge for those interested? To me, the system presents an interesting choice: I know I just failed at something - a fight, a jump, whatever. I lost something because I failed. I can retrieve what I lost, but that only works if I think I'm good enough to succeed this time. Every time I consider whether I want to grab one of the money bags, I have to ask myself "do I think I'm better now than I was last time"? Deciding that for myself is really interesting. There were many times that I tried to retrieve things several times and repeatedly failed. Eventually, I had to decide to cut my losses. But both those decisions - failing multiple times and eventually giving up - were my own, not that game's.

Leaving aside that I have some fundamental problems with that argument (mostly that "winning" and "optimal play' are ill-defined terms) that would be better discussed elsewhere, I fail to see how Shovel Knight runs into that problem. First, money is quite secondary to your ability to beat the game. All the items it gets you are useful, but by no means necessary. You only need to maximize your money if you're extremly paranoid about getting the stuff you want as fast as possible, or simply trying to max money for the sake of it. Second, money is plentiful. You can easily acquire more than you need through regular play, without worrying about reacquiring what you've lost. Third, you only actually lose the money if you die. Strong play prevents this and thus sidesteps the "problem" entirely. Fourth, you don't go "back" to get the money. You go forward. You money drops where you die and your last checkpoint is behind that point, so retrieving your money almost always involves going somewhere you were already going. The only time this wouldn't be the case is if you died going somewhere you don't intend to return, which is a pretty rare situation. Fifth, only one bag ever spawns. There's no way to grind them. They don't stay there after your next death, so there's no supposedly onerous spectre of all the money bags you could have retrieved hanging over the game.

I really don't think I pronounce "robot" with a [ɔ]. Might this be a regional difference?

On the currency drop thing: if you don't want to have to pick it up, just don't. There's nothing forcing you to.

Are you sure? According to this, [o] sounds like the vowel in "boat". The second syllable in "robot" sounds a lot more like [ɑ].

That reader mail jingle better be a permanent fixture.

The way I remember those is that the latter is "theta" and thus voiceless.

This is the way I do it too. One thing: the vowel in "food" is actually . [o] is the vowel in "boat". While we're on the topic of vowel sounds, my favourite thing about learning phonetics is that you can get nearly every English vowel between "b" and "t" and it's a word. Beat, bit, bait, bet, bat, but, boot, boat, bought. You miss a couple that way, but it's most of them.

I don't know if I'd agree with this. I'm not super tied into to movie criticism, but I'd never heard of somebody like Satoshi Kon before watching Zhou's video on him. And while Michael Bay is certainly famous, he's no critical darling and I hadn't seen anybody break down his style like that before.

HOLY SHIT STEVE ACTUALLY SAID THAT! I just thought Jake made it up! Amazing. Amazing.

The Royal Ontario Museum is hosting a game jam Oct 2-4, so if you're in Toronto, you should check it out!