tberton

Played it a few times in the last couple of days. I really enjoyed it! It's bidding mechanic is interesting and something that I don't think I've seen elsewhere.

So you know how you guys were saying that if a retail Game of Thrones game were made it would never have gameplay like Crusader Kings because that's just not what people would expect from that game? The funny thing is, that pretty much happened with the A Game of Thrones: The Board Game. Obviously, it's not actually like CKII, but it is a very complex strategy game that requires a heavy time investment. It was publish long before the TV show started, so the books were still fairly niche and the game could get away with being so intimidating. Nowadays, though, I can't tell you the number of people I've seen grab that game off the shelves, thinking "ooh, I love Game of Thrones! This will be fun!" only to realize that your first game is a four hour commitment and get completely turned off. I'm not really sure what the point of this post was, just wanted to share that. Anyway, it's an awesome board game.

Threadsurrection in order to say that I just bought a copy of Weihandler. I will report back as soon as I've gotten a chance to play it.

A game that calls itself "Civilization" is making a claim. Of course it's not pretending to be about the actual events of history, but it does seem to be pretending to accurately model historical forces, like how civilizations start, grow, and end. Any number of stories that come out of these games shows that at least some people have the takeaway that "this is how civilizations work."

I don't know about the original poster, but I'm definitely saying that games about the entire breadth of human history are, at the very least, overly ambitious. As in most things, specificity and focus will result in a more faithful recreation of history. I think a game that focuses on, say, a hundred year period has a better chance to accurately model historical forces than one that is taking on millenia. That's not to say that I think the Civ games are bad or shouldn't exist. Like I said, I haven't played them and have always meant to check them out (I actuall own Civs 4 and 5 and am just too intimidated to start them up). But I think saying that their rendition of history is a misleading one is a perfectly valid criticism.

I've never played any of the CIv games, but I've always had similar issues to the quote in the OP whenever I hear people talking about it on Idle Thumbs or elsewhere. I have played the Total War series, which exhibits a lot of the same problems it seems, namely viewing history as a linear set of progressions, each better than the last. That's a narrow and dangerous view of history, but one that is so easy to model in a video game that it's tough to imagine anyway to design around it. While I recognize that most people don't take their perception of history wholesale from video games, it's also important to note that for many people, Civ games and their ilk are the most exposure to historical narratives they get, aside from possibly Hollywood movies. I think it's at least possible that many people's perception of history is coloured by CIv games, especially since that historical narrative is the dominant one presented elsewhere in our culture. For that reason, it's entirely valid to question how these games present history and human society.

For the next "older book" selection, something by Virginia Woolf would be really nice. I've been meaning to re-read Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse.

I've read the book twice now and both times I've felt that it really picks up once they go to Spain. I did enjoy the Paris stuff more this time, though.

People who aren't normally gamers probably don't own a PS3.

Oh man, I watched both those videos and this game looks incredible. It seems to keep the good stuff about the sequel (multiple characters, more interesting puzzles) while getting rid of the bad stuff (the randomly generated caves) and the juice collecting stuff seems like a good compromise between a punishing time limit and no time limit at all. Stop trying to get me to buy a Wii U, Tegan!

The problem with the Civ comparison is that nobody has personal experience of world history over millennial. Unless your academic field is history or anthropology, all you've got is a generalized understanding of how things worked, so the generalizations of Civ or Anno or what have you go somewhat unnoticed. But everybody has a personal experience of forming relationships, so the generalizations that would come with a systematized interpretation of how relationships grow would far more obvious and jarring. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it would be a lot harder than making a game that models something so removed from everyday human life as the entire body of world history.

Good episode guys. I especially liked the le Carre discussion, although I disagree with Chris somewhat about the effect of the books relating to each other. The "George Smiley" who appears in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold has so little to do with the Smiley from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy that I really don't think one's impression of the latter would be harmed by reading the former first. Sure, you'd have some idea about who Smiley and Control are, and what the Circus does, but you wouldn't know anything about Smiley's relationship with Ann or Haydon or Karla or Connie, nor would you know anything about Peter Guillam or Ricki Tarr. Those are the important characters to the novel and le Carre still does a brilliant job of making their stories and relationships confusing and ambiguous. Reading The Spy Who Came in From the Cold first wouldn't change that. Also, while I'm definitely more into book series and lore and stuff than Chris is, I really have to recommend that you read Smiley's People. It's a brilliant story that hits on that same ambiguity and resignation of Tinker, Tailor but in a much more personal way. It's a great way of closing out Smiley's story and really worth reading.

After the discussion of Canada, I really wanted the cast to be titled "A Day Late and a Loonie Short." I really do want more games about Canada, especially ones that take place in interesting historical periods, like World War 1, the Klondike Gold Rush or the Prairie Wheat Boom. Also, it's weird hearing people talk about Canada having imperial aspirations in a joking way, since reading newspapers and political speeches from 100-150 years ago, you can see that imperialism was very much present in the Canadian discourse around settling the West and getting involved in wars and stuff.

Boost the Hedgehog

Holy shit, I need that last little bit at the end of the episode as a ringtone. It needs to happen.

Great episode guys. I've got more to say, but for now I'll just mention something a friend pointed out: whenever Chris, Sean or Jake misses a podcast, you go out of your way to mention it. But this week, Nick was missing and nobody said a word. Poor Nick.

I haven't read it, but I saw the author speak at TCAF this year and now I really want to read it.

I just finished Episode 1 and am irrationally tickled that Sean's wife is in the "Thank You" section of the credits as "Mrs. Dr. Amelia Moore Vanaman."

I really enjoyed the discussion about titles, especially since i just finished the postscript of The Name of the Rose, which I also found fascinating. I get big kick out of good names for things. I'm so bored of one-word titles. I find them to be very unmemorable most of the time and prefer the "evocative phrase" still titles, with bonus points for avoiding the use of "The". A couple great examples: It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken, a graphic novel by Seth and A Few Acres of Snow, which is a board game. My enjoyment of both of those works is greatly increased by how interesting their titles are.

Whoooooo, Falselogic! The Talking Time-ification of Idle Thumbs continues!

The only thing that annoys me about Sean is the verbs he uses instead of nouns. "Reccomend" instead of "recommendation"; "solve" instead of "solution." It's a dumb complaint anyway. Other than that, Sean, you're great. I didn't even need you to start a separate DOTA cast. I've never played a LOMA before and thought your discussions of the game were fascinating. At least as fascinating as those about Far Cry 2, which I've also never played and has been discussed way more.

My stance with Kickstarter has actually changed so that I won't back something unless it looks like it might have trouble getting funded. This comes from the fact that even though I don't regret backing any of the Kickstarters I've backed, the one I'm happiest about is the SPORTSFRIENDS Kickstarter, since it came very close to not getting funded. If I hadn't helped, it may not have happened. To me, that's what crowdfunding is about. The funny thing is that the increasing prevalence of crowdfunding is changing the paradigm of what sorts of projects are "likely to happen." If you had asked me two years ago whether there was any chance of a Veronica Mars movie getting made, I would have said "no way." Obviously, that's no longer the case. And even though I backed Veronica Mars and was happy to (I never bought the DVDs or anything, so I'm fine just thinking of my pledge as belated payment for the enjoyment the series brought me), it's clear that the movie did not need my help. There were more than enough people ready to contribute. I think the case will be the same with MASSIVE CHALICE. If it isn't, I'll consider backing it. Otherwise, I'm happy to let others incur the risks and wait to buy the game at release.

I definitely know the feeling of hearing a song on the radio a bunch of times and not knowing the lyrics. However, if I like a song, I have to learn the lyrics. Part of it is that I get the most enjoyment from music if I can sing along to it and part of it is that I just really love well written lyrics.

This game is cool. My main strategy so far has been looking for a street sign and then Googling it. That may seem like cheating to some, but in my mind, the game puts me in the position of somebody who has been dumped in the middle of nowhere and is trying to orient himself. And if that happened to me, the first thing I would do would be to look for a street sign and Google it.

Just finished the podcast. You guys really hit the nail on the head about what I like about Tammany Hall, especially how every actions fits in cleanly and sensibly with the theme of the game. I'm a bit confused about Chris' talk about luck-driven vs. mechanics-driven games. Luck is a mechanic! The dice-rolling in Risk is a very clearly defined and consistently applied mechanic. I think that the better distinction is luck-based design vs. skill-based design, which most games have in different proportions and which Chris seems to prefer. Mechanics-driven games are more opposed to content-driven games (although maybe the better terms would be consistent vs. specific mechanics), which is a distinction that Chris has brought up in the past. As for the point-of-no-return, yeah, Tammany Hall does have one, but so do most skill-driven games. And while Tammany doesn't have an obvious catch-up mechanic, the way the Mayor and the city offices work (especially the Deputy Mayor) acts as a soft catch-up mechanic, which as you play more you'll realize is what the entire game revolves around. Also, I may be reading too much into this, but you guys seemed to think that Tammany Hall is a fictionalized setting. It's not and that's part of what makes the game's theme so great.