clyde

Wait til they put the update in where you have to take medication for your malaria.

As I listened to Pieter and Tomislav apoligize for their war-game being too similar to a puzzle-game, I'm just shaking my head going "But that's why I like this game!" It's nice to hear them respond to the criticism though because It demonstrates their understanding of the criticism and affirms that they made very intentional choices. As far as I'm concerned, they did the balancing act so well that they are now on the platform that the other end of the tight-rope is attached to and they are receiving due applause. I know far less about the World War II's eastern european-front than any of you war-gamers can imagine. Everything I know is from playing some of the scenarios in Unity of Command. I don't expect the game to express everything about that history, or for it to do so with inarguable accuracy; but as I play it it does feel like I am learning and even empathizing with the tactical decisions that seem to have been necessary (as I play multiple times in order to reveal them to myself). It's strange to me that this would be considered negative criticism, even after listening to you all discuss it with that connotation. If it becomes too painful to listen to players deriding Unity of Command for being too much of a puzzle-game, I would recommend releasing it again as one and then enjoy the complaints that although it is one of the most original and deep puzzle-games to come out recently, it leans a little too far into war-game territory.

She thinks she is a real person. Listen to the second recording, recording number 68. Here's the thing, regardless of whether or not there is a human being on the other side, her circumstances make her a de facto robot in this exchange. The possibility that a person is coerced into acting like a robot through societal circumstances is the most frightening possibility to me. http://io9.com/freakishly-realistic-telemarketing-robots-are-denying-t-1481050295

When I see things like this, I begin to think of strategy-gamers as one of the world's most valuable resources. Kriegsspiel was created to win wars; the RAND corporation figured out how to win by assuring that all competitors will lose; and I believe that strategy-gamers will be the ones who actually figure out how to create sustainable and fair peace. Does anyone else have these thoughts? Anyone want to recommend strategy-games where a peaceful stalemate is a win condition?

I have lost my taste for some types of games, but gained taste for others. Have you been exploring new genres?

I know that the original question was whether or not a spoiler is a spoiler if it happens at the beginning of the game, but since we are talking more generally about spoilers on podcasts: Why not just read the list of games discussed and not listen to it if you are concerned with spoilers of listed games?

This is my least favorite thing about bitcoins.

The list of fallacies is just a helpful heuristic intended to decrease the chances of confusion. A diagram of how to make a good argument wouldn't hurt though.

If you aren't spending money or working your job, then you are loitering. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131202-dirty-tricks-of-city-design/all

From Troy Goodfellow's twitter: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/09/nelson-mandela-demanded-justice-before-forgiving-white-south-africans.html

It's not just you.

Anyone happen to know if iphones can play multiplayer with ipads in the Pocket Edition? I am having a hard time looking it up.

When I watched the trailer, my first question was "Is the design of those banner-poles procedurally generated?" I doubt it, but the appeal for me when procedural generation is mentioned in regards to alien worlds is that I might land on a planet to discover something truly alien. Wasn't there a discussion a while back on the podcast (maybe it was another podcast) where they were talking about how cool procedurally generated ecosystems would be because you would walk into them blind and have to figure out what eats what before it eats you.

That moment when you find out that emoticons on the Idle Thumbs forums are not quite right. Who is going to tell JMB about the auto-correct of Lords Management?

Porpentine's account of a rough-draft cyberpunk game called "Datajack" is thought-provoking. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/08/live-free-play-hard-im-going-to-upload-a-bullet-into-your-face/

What was the definition you gave for it? Also, I found this oddity.

I was under the impression that the Interactive Achievement Awards were the award show that people actually take seriously, or the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Congrats.

There's this little elf with a face that is a missing-link between kewpie-dolls and Charlie McCarthy; popularly referred to as "elf-on-a-shelf". It's basically another Christmas-hoax to play on children. Parents move it around the house and put in places where it looks like it is peeking out and such. Then they swear that the thing is animate and mobile when no one is looking. Turns out kids are super stupid (or far too trusting) so this gives them a sense of wonderment.

This VGX train-wreck is embarassingly entertaining.

Watching Joel McHale step into the video-game cliche is awkward, but enlightening. When he doesn't know the de facto heirarchies of the people he's interviewing, I realize that it exists.

If you use the hebrew number-code and then do a kabbalah-analysis, you may find out what the "x" means. You may have to rearrange some letters though.

I really enjoyed forming a slight understanding of who he was from reading wikipedia articles yesterday. Here is how I imagine it happened: Vicious racism abounds in the form of colonialism. Nelson Mandela and some other people are like, this sucks, we are going to change things non-violently. Racist government is like "Do you have your hall-pass?" Black population is like "Fuck your hall-pass!" Racist government is like "They are getting angry, fire are the oncoming horde!" Nelson Mandela is like "oh they done fucked up. There's no way that we can convince the black population to be non-violent when they are getting shot and they still have to have a hall-pass. If I do nothing, or continue to encourage non-violence, there will be a mass-scale terrorist action in rebellion. I'm going to have to start the militant wing of protest because if I don't, someone else will and they will totally fuck it up." So then Nelson Mandela is like writing things to the newspaper like "Dear Newspaper, We are going to blow up the electricity-substation at the intersection of Bullshit Street and Wtf ave during tea-time. If you could be so kind to make sure no one is there, It would be appreciated. We are trying to do this non-violently." So then the cops catch Mandela and he's like "If only I could disguise myself as a milkman again, but I guess that only works once." So Mandela is in prison, racism and hall-passes continue and the militant arm of the ANC continues to blow shit up in a sabatoge campaign. Eventually, things escalate and the sabatoge campaign turns into blowing up Wimpy's burger joints or whatever (they switch from government targets to civilian ones). Racist government is like "Remember when things were awesome and they had that leader that would call ahead to tell us that they were going to bomb a place? I wonder what ever happened to that guy." Racist government's buddy is like "Didn't we arrest him for treason? I'm pretty sure he's around here somewhere, let me look... Hey Joe! i found him, he was right here the WHOLE TiME!" So then racist government is like "This guy we locked up for 27 years has major street-cred and let's be honest... he's a pretty nice guy for a terrrorist. Let's quell all this fighting by negotiatiing with him." Then Nelson Mandela is like, "It took you 27 years to realize this?! Wtf!" That's my humorous dramatization of events based on reading 3 wikipedia articles yesterday. Feel free to make corrections.

Is it just me or are the sounds you get when you pull down to load more tweets (on the official iphone app) the sounds of a spider hissing and a cube being put into your inventory in Minecraft?

I just happened to see two crew-members discussing "hipsters". I think they came to the conclusion that they liked them. That gave me a chuckle.