clyde

There are a lot of spoilers in this article. http://killscreendaily.com/articles/80-days-alternate-reality-anti-colonialism-adventure-we-all-deserve/ If anyone ever asks me how politics of inclusion have ever made art better, I'm going to point them to 80 Days. I finished my first journey in 98 days. Hitting that 80th day was one of the most demotivating events in my gaming history. Here's another article where Jon Ingold talks about the game's pacing and design. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/222510/80_Days_Building_the_perfect_text_adventure_for_mobile.php

I'm interested in the concept of liquid-democracy. If it existed in a society with reasonable constitutional protections and there was a way to ensure that voting was anonymous, it might be an improvement over the current situation in the United States of America.

I'm enjoying reading all these grammar-articles on Wikipedia; it seems that the authors enjoy demonstrating proper usage within their explanations.

This thread is already proving useful.

The hypothetical situation I enjoy considering is Roberts Space Industries becoming the sole sponsor of the show.

So if a clause starts with "but" it is not a full clause?

Your bugs often look like cool games in themselves BigJKO.

I'm on the side of this where I feel like I make a lot of mistakes in the area and would love to see corrections of what I say, here. Grammar is so incredibly difficult for me. I often want to write conversationally so I end up with many run-on sentences. I've read articles on how to use semicolons and hyphens, but constantly feel like I'm fucking up anyway*. I actually disagree with the idea that only things that are in an official list of hyphenated words get hyphenated. I won't follow that rule. I've been trying to stick to the idea that I should be using commas, semicolons, and hyphens to prevent confusion; but my run-ons push my boundaries. Can you start a sentence with "But"? *should it be "any way"?

Here is Meg Jayanth , author of 80 Days, writing about turning colonialist fantasy into cultural curiosity. http://www.theliteraryplatform.com/2014/07/dont-be-a-hero-80-days-the-game/ -via Emily Short

I'm so not going to make it. I'm headed to San Francisco now and I'm on day 65. I keep on asking people about connecting routes from Burlington (because I don't want to go throigh New Orleans) but no one knows anything. I'm okay with failing though. I'll enjoy a second play-through. Congratulations on winning the wager Juv3nal!

I just saw this and thought it was cool.

Thanks for sharing some of the thought-process. I think it's really interesting.

It's not normal for The Idle Thumbs Podcast thus far. Pretty much all of my concerns on this specific issue are dependent on slippery-slope fallacies and the absurd notion that what my perception of the Idle Thumbs Podcast is some sort of ideal standard. That said, I'm willing to answer any specific questions about what my concerns are. I'm willing to embarass myself.

For the week of August 4th, 2014 we will be playing: Anxiety World by thecatamites You can download the single game from here for free Or you can buy the entire collection of 50 games from here.

So we've had a bit of a hold-up in Bombay. I saw that I could grease the tracks to Calcutta for a few hundred extra pounds so I went ahead and expedited the departure-time. Unfortunately, our ticket-price was not included so we could not board the train we had so generously advanced. Broke, we decided to get a transfer from the bank, but it being Saturday, we had to wait for it to open at 9:00 am on Monday. So we did. We waited a day for the transfer, but because everything leaves Bombay at 9:00am and the bank opens at 9:00am, we could not leave until Wednesday. I looked again at the estimated arrival times of our itinerary and realized that waited an additional three days for more money wouldn't actually set us back much more than we already were. So we got some more money and now are leaving Bombay many days later than expected. I am beginning to worry that we will not be able to make it around the world in 80 days because of my cascade of mistakes. Curse this city, I hope the shoes they stole off my feet give them blisters.

I just played my first hour of 80 Days. You play as the assistant of a wealthy gentleman in a steam-punk alternate history. At the beginning of the game, he informs you that he has made a wager that he can go around the world in 80 days. The itinerary is your charge. When in a city during the day time, you have a few options. You can go to the market to buy and sell items (always paying attention to how many suitcases you are managing). Some items make the trip more comfortable. Comfort is important as your employer has a health-point amount that can depreciate if you make plans for uncomfortable travel which makes him irritable. Another way to spend your precious daylight is to go to the bank to draw more funds from your employer's account. I get the impression that he has near unlimited wealth, so mechanically this is an exchange between time and money. If you are unaware of any routes from the current city, you can spend the day exploring to find out what forms of travel are available. This is where much of the narrative takes place. I think that every city has a little story that you can potentially playthrough. I've found the writting to be really engaging, the encounters with locals I've had so far all really illustrate the world well. You can also talk to people during your journey in order to find out about connecting-routes. In the city-menu there is also a button for planning your trip. This is a globe that shows you all the routes you have become aware of through purchasing time-tables and making small-chat. Typically I plan my trip once the market and bank have closed and you can no longer explore the city. The reason for this is that time is continually passing while you plan. I found this out the hard way. Before we left London, I was looking at the map and managing the suitcase. When I went to try to depart, I discovered that we had missed the train and had to wait until 9:00am the next morning (lLosing a full day of travel to my inattentiveness). Waiting is accomplished by staying at a hotel which is not as much a drain on your cash as it is a drain on your time. Once I missed that first train, the tone of the game was set for me; I understood that time is the main currency. We must travel the globe in 80 days. The presentation of the game startled me. I've played some of Sorcery!, which never fuuly engaged me. I just spent an hour in 80 Days and I'm looking forward to more. One think that I'm really impressed with is that so much effort was put into the sound design; cities have atmosphere and various methods of travel have different noises that suggest how refined they are. Twirling the globe in the planning screen feels playful, the stats look clean, and the whole experience is grand. Another thing that impresses me is that every aspect of information available to the player is informing a decision. This is especially critical in the conversational system. I find myself goading NPC's and risking my safety just to find out if anyone has good info on a faster route from Rome to Alexandria or to get the gossip on which airship is the most reliable. In many games the story and dialogue is just window-dressing that you can take or leave. In 80 Days, it is a significant source of technical knowledge that informs the most important choices you make. In other words, the player is constantly aware that there are reasons to pay attention to the the political views of the fish-monger you happen to chat up. In the hour I've played, I have made multiple executive-decisions with limited time and felt both immense satisfaction with how prudent I have been in some choices, and deeply worried that I have taken us on the worst and longest route possible. I am very much enjoying it. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id892812659

I think the new maps are much better than the last batch. This seems like useless information though since it's obvious that the people who would enjoy them the most are the ones still playing Titanfall. I really enjoy playing the new maps in games of Attrition where I don't care if we win or not. There are some great areas for hunkering down until an encounter and then traversing the walls until you jump into a window to do it again. Picking of minions with the B3 Wingman and trying not to get killed is a fun way to spend my time. It doesn't help us win though.

I'm working through your article in The Arcade Review. First of all let me say that gamesthatexist is obviously a skilled writer and thinker. Reading this article is making me feel far less alone in reference to my appreciation of these games. I'm currently at the part where you reference Notes on Camp and I'm now reading through that. Here's my current understanding of Sontag's definition of Camp. x = s * ((t - r) / k * c); Where: x = camp; s = the significance of the reference material to our human experience; t = the amount that the style and technique that attempts to duplicate the reference material, conflicts with evoking the reference material; r = an actual experience with the reference material; k = the skill the artist has in replicating the reference material; c = the amount of sincere effort put towards replicating the reference material in its complete form; // This could probably also be called "belief in success" I am enjoying this discussion. I haven't had as interesting thoughts about game-criticism as this in months.

I'm glad you said this so that I would know that there was a need for clarification.I'm not sure what seems mean-spirited or hand-wavey about it though. Can you phrase it as a question? I might be doing those things without knowing so. I know this probably looks like concern-trolling, but I just don't want to make any assumptions about what you think I'm saying with the post you quoted. Edit: I can see it being hand-wavy, but I think that we may have different opinions about what the comment is intending to dismiss. It wasn't intended as mean-spirited, but feel free to say why it is. 2nd edit: Now I'm not sure I even know what being mean-spirited is. If it's not liking someone, then it definitely wasn't that.

[sarcasm] I listen to the podcast for snack-recommendations and I just don't know who to trust any more.[/sarcasm] No, I totally agree that it is bad form. I want to be clear that I adore the Thumbs and greatly appreciate what they do. I don't know what their situation is so I can't judge whether or not they are making a good decision by doing ads. But I'm not naive enough to pretend that doing an ad for a game won't influence the way they talk about it, or the way I hear them talk about it. Two months from now one of them might have something they want to say about World of Tanks, but they might not because it would be too weird.

I don't know how much they make from ads, but I wonder if a monthly Patreon-account could compete.

I hope to hear about your experience getting three stars in world 2-3.

Yes. I got one for shooting a projectile out of the air at an angle perpendicular to it's trajectory.

I just told Capt. Hastings that the boys in the Feminism-thread were whining about there not being enough girls in the community and she was like "They should cheer up, don't they know that all the girls on the internet are boys and all the boys on the internet are girls?"

Maybe it will have friends-list leaderboards by then. It's fun. Something I didn't mention is that it's got the three-star scoring system. You get one star for completion, one for achieving a qualifying time, and one for 100% accuracy of your shots. I've been going through world 1 again getting all the stars.