clyde

I was thinking that Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is attempting to simulate adult life while Pee-Wee Herman's Playhouse is attempting to simulate kid's shows like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (more specifically Howdy Dowdy).

I am so excited that you played Galah Galah.

When and where I grew up, the cowboy aesthetic was a fiction similar to something like Buck Rogers or Dick Tracy. Those characters reached their popularity before my time, but the residue-effect a generation (or two) later was that I was aware that these were my mom and dad's, my grandfather and grandmother's mutant-superheroes and action-heroes. Their childish love of the cowboys-and-indians mythology was how they identified with my Saturday-morning cartoons. This context was juxtaposed with western-themed shows and movies being the only alternative to day-time soap-operas (for those of us without cable). Later on movies like City Slickers and Dancing with Wolves subverted the pop-culture paradigm, making me think that it was fairly wide-spread.

I think that this is part of the appeal in distancing the fantasy further and further from the reality by making many generations of flawed copies. Not only do the boring parts get sifted out but also the moral ambiguity. It's kind of funny that Cowboy Living manages to glamorize the monotony of traveling over large open plains while making the possibility to do it yourself seem like a fool's errand. Maybe someone should hack the file open and see if you eventually find Chicago or something after pressing "up" for a month.There is a game coming up soon called The Glory Days of the Free Press. I think that it's another example of showing a reverance for life-styles that are morally obsolete, and maintaining morality by making the fantasy playful and somewhat absurd.

I think this is an astute specification of one of my favorite aspects of Cowboy Living. I also think that edutainment is a clear source of inspiration. I'm not sure why, but I think that Cowboy Living shares more with Pee-Wee's Playhouse than it does Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (the two shows in my personal history that I associate most with the game even though I imagine Thecatamites has their own personal association). I think this is because in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, the framework (Mr. Rogers himself) is an example of Baudrillard's 1st stage of the sign-order while Pee-Wee is closer to the 2nd (in reference to the edutainment shows of the 1950's or whatever). From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation I would say that Cowboy Living is closer to the 4th stage (in reference to cowboys, not in edutainment). I'll diagram my perspective on this. 0. An actual cowboy, living in the 19th century. 1. Historical accounts of cowboy-living. 2. The fantasy of that image in movies and books 3. Performers such as Gene Autry and maybe Howdy-Dowdy. 4. Cowboy Living by thecatamites. I know that is super loose, but the general idea is that Cowboy Living is a flawed representation of a flawed representation. I think that the tone and humor largely depends on the assumption that the audience can see this as a flawed representation. I doubt Thecatamites intended all of this with conscious precision, but I suspect that they had a sensibility for this hyperreal-aspect. I think that the charm of Cowboy Living doesn't rest entirely on the idea of making fun of a flawed representation of a flawed representation. An important ingredient is a certain amount of reverance for the material at each stage. When playing Cowboy Living, I want to be a cowboy in pulp-media and a host of a kid's show in a cowboy get-up with all the faux enthusiasm that comes with it. This is a sense I get in a lot of Thecatamites games; there is a love of fantasies that are known to be unrealistic. Thecatamites seems to know that the fantasy of the heroic cowboy is an inconsiderate fiction (note the lack of antagonistic Native Americans in the game), but yet he craves that fantasy, finding some value in it while keeping it at a responsible distance. This maintenance of a socially responsible distance from an attractive fantasy in which one desires participation is emphasized with the cowboy's sprite being a simultaneous viewer and host of the tv-show (By overlapping the television-console frame but clearly being the center of action)*. I can easily identify with this. *I suppose the interpretation could variate if the narrator is viewed as a disembodied entity while the player is the sprite and pupil. I saw the narrator as the cowboy sprite.

I played a round of the free, multiplayer version Banner Saga: Factions two nights ago. It was an interesting game because we spent the first few rounds posturing. Before the match begins you place your party in a secotion of the board, arranged however you want. For example I typically put my damage-sponges in the front and my archers behind them. But you can't see how the other player is arranging their party or if they are placing them in near the top, center, or bottom of the board. So sometimes, after placement, all the troops are revealed and I'll see that they placed their archers somewhat in between my fast, damage-dealers and their damage-sponges; this means that I can do a lot of damage to their archers by sacrificing a damage-dealer and gain a late-game advantage (archers are really powerful late game if you don't pick away at their health). That was not the case here. I actually sent my fast, damage dealers North to prepare for a strong line of defense and then saw their archers in the South. They started setting up a west-facing line of defense even though I was starting to split my troops into a fast-moving, heavy damage group in the North and heavily defended archers in the South. It's usually a bad idea to split your troops in this game. I shouldn't focus too much on specifics. The point is that we were morphing our troop arrangements in response to each other for the first few rounds without a strike and the tension was constantly increasing. Eventually we were just waiting for the other one to present a vulnerablity in a turn previous to that of a piece that had an opportunity to take advantage of it. I really enjoy that part in games. It reminds me of the posturing in Bushido Blade.

Last night I dreamt that I was on the upper floor of a restaraunt/bar that I reminds me of what I would think a newish restaruant/brewery would look like if it was built in a ski-resort town. Apparently, a band I liked which seemed to be two grrrl-rockers who both played drum-sets was coming to play but once they got there, no one knew who they were so they didn't want to play; but they felt like they had to once they found out I was a fan. They asked me what I wanted to hear and I said I wanted to hear something off of the album "Bruck" or "Broxy" or something like that. After playing the song they both decided that it wasn't worth it, apoligized to me and went to get drinks. I continued eating my food or working in my sketchbook or whatever. Then a college-aged woman at another table started exclaiming snobby disapproval towards my table. She was kind of holding her nose and going "Oh my God what is that!" I had apparently bought a bag of prunes a week earlier and put them in a pocket of my backpack and since forgotten about them. A few of them had leaked out onto the floor and begun to stain it raisin-brown. I guess tey also smelled.

I decided to look up these words to make sure I knew what they meant. Looking through the synonyms and their meanings, I think that "anomalous" and "eccentric" are more expressive of what I am often trying to say than "alienating", "weird", "foreign", and "exotic" so that's great. Onwards!

I want cameras on every cop and easy access to the feed.

@ sarah argobot I agree that it is poor form to use a word without knowing what it means. @ James Good point.

Rebecca Schuman seems to have no concept of how much meaning lies in the connotation of chosen synonyms. While reading the article, I have a hard time distinguishing when Schuman is being ironic and when she is just blind to her own use of jargon. Should we really not use mythological allusions like "siren's call" because it's just our attempt to sound smart? I personally think it would be a loss.Edit: I read the article again after sarah argobot's response. I now see that it's about not using synonyms without first learning their meaning. I had been reading it as a explanation of why jargon shouldn't be used. Then when I got to the part where Schuman says that no one "supposes" or "exclaims" I thought she was super wrong. Now I understand that the article is saying that use of jargon is fine, just know what it means first. I no longer suspect that any non-red words are ironic in the essay, before I thought she was demonstrating jargon to show why it is a bad idea. My bad.

I think the reason it doesn't freak out the local militias and such is because they have friends and family on the local state-sponsored SWAT team. I think that the police departments view themselves as bastions of states-rights against the wave of federal influence, rather than as federal agents.

You seem to be implying that there is a loss of identity involved, where people are being assimilated into groups that hold certain beliefs, thereby changing their own beliefs. Do you think that one groups use of the word "protestor" compared to another groups use of the word "angry-mob" could be a useful signifier of which group you want to participate in? I think that the words chosen reflect who is winning in a particular group. For instance "climate-change" being used instead of "global-warming" makes me think that interests of environmentalists in most media outlets has been reduced. So I then take that as a sign that I should look elsewhere for an environmentalist perspective.

The excellent article that Merus linked touched on a suspicion I have had regarding the militarization of the police. I think that a black president is absolutely frightening to a lot of rural whites in the United States. That and all this fear that Obama is going to take away everyone's guns (and I need to say that I have many, many anectdotal examples of people expressing this fear in a completely sincere fashion to me) is leading toward a mentality that it is the duty of the police to militarize not so they can deal with protestors, but so they can stand ground in a conflict with federal enforcement. I think there is a very strong belief in rural, white police departments that the federal government wants to disarm them (even though they are apparently arming them) and that they need to be armed to prevent it from happening.

I'm still not clear on what the concern is. I'm not dismissing the concerns, I'm just limited by my perspective. Is the problem that: 1.Battlefield: Hardline promotes the illusion that militarized police are necessary? 2. That the issue of militarized police is treated lightly? Would a game called "Battlefield: Ferguson" be ok if one side was unarmed and trying to go home?

Best thread evar! My immediate reaction to this is that the language in this case is reflecting the dominant paradigm of commoditization rather than causing it. If I happen into a conversation with someone who uses these phrases, then I would think "Oh, this person must work in the marketing department or be their audience." I think I would have a similar reaction is I heard people speaking Spanish: "Oh, they must be part of the spanish-speaking community." Maybe commercial interests are becoming more influential in the distribution-channels you are embedded in. Your distaste for this use of language could be a manifestation of your resistance to commercial interests replacing a competing paradigm that you value. Or not. I just had to mention the possibility. In the off-chance that I nail it, you'll think I'm super smart! You may be able to test this by applying the opposite assumption of the hypothesis. When someone uses a new word that you find more expressive, ask yourself what aspect of the subject that particular use of language is highlighting. In this way the paradigm that you value more may become more clear and you can then consider possible threats of mutual exclusivity. For example, when discussing music, I prefer the word "exotic" more than "foreign" because one connotates a curiosity in difference and the other connotates (nationalism?). I perfer the term "alienating" compared to "weird" because I feel that the one term connotates that I have been left behind, while the other connotates that the subject is irrelevant*. This allows me to discover my value-systems. *as a side-note I feel like using these terms is a game of mutual exclusivity. Some people think that "weirdo" as a worthwhile genre while others would think that it is something that they should avoid. This could just be a matter of signifiers that help people find what they want and avoid what they don't. In the case of "alienating" it is also complex. "Alienating" could be reasonably understood as intending exclusion rather than intending that the audience put some effort into opening themselves to new experiences. --edit: I should have said "perspectives" rather than "experiences"-- "Exotic" not only means cultural curiousity, but comes with connotations of colonialism, misrepresentation, and harmful fetishes. "Exotic" makes me think of Martin Denny. I like Martin Denny.

I'm having similar problems with the Not A Game Podcast. I enjoy it when the audio-quality isn't bad. Often Tom's voice, way of speech, and the particular frequencies that are being emphasized make it so his entire point in just a (mid-range?) mumble in my ears. Maybe I'm going deaf. I suspect I have tinnitus. I would think that some upstart voip service would step into the market by saying "Hey, we are great for doing podcasts!"

Thanks y'all, this will be some good stuff for me to chew on for a while. It's so nice to have this here so I can ask for direction and get it.

Just the thing I posted. I wanted to make something quick and easy, so I did. But once I started to see its limitations, I was wondering how they are typically overcome. I was joking with my wife that I could put a little narrative in it where the player is told that they have been hired for various jobs and then they go into the exact same screen as I posted above. SO for instance the narrator says "You've been tasked with decorating a space-cake with colored icing!" and then after you complete it the narator says "Looks like one of the sky-writers is sick, looks like the job is up to you!"

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!!! yAY!!

using UnityEngine; using System.Collections; public class InstantiateCubes : MonoBehaviour { public GameObject cube; Transform ourTransform; //timer float clock; public float cycle; // Use this for initialization void Start () { ourTransform=this.GetComponent<Transform>(); } // Update is called once per frame void Update () { clock=clock+Time.deltaTime; if(clock>cycle) { clock=0; MakeCube (); } } void MakeCube() { Instantiate(cube, ourTransform.position , Quaternion.identity); } } I get what you are saying about lowering the quantity of objects I instantiate. I know nothing about particle-systems. How are they fundamentally different? I think I just don't have a foundational understanding of why some things increase draw calls. I would think that because I'm using the same material for all the cubes, it would only require one drawcall for each of them. I'm saying this so that you understand how ignorant I am on the issue.

I'm trying to figure out how something like this is optimized. Warning, it's not optimized so it might freeze your shit after a while. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92741283/painted%20coil/8-13-2014/8-13-2014.html Because I'm just forever instantiating more gameObjects, the drawcalls, tris, and verts will constantly increase while frame-rate goes further and further down. I was thinking that there might be a way to consolidate drawcalls or something on the older cubes (I don't want to destroy them) since once the objects are instantiated, they don't do anything by suit there in 3d space. Is there a simple way to do this?

So I enjoyed the game. I've skipped this thread to avoid spoilers, but now that I finished the game I read through it. I'm going to go ahead and assume that everything I want to talk about (really a list of sundries) is a spoiler and I don't remember which episode was which so... I liked it.

I would love to, but I get an error. Unfortunately there is no obvious way to contact the developer to figure out how to fix the problem. Seems to me that an ability to comment on itch.io pages or atleast a "contact" link would be useful for these occassions. Edit: feeling hopeless, I went ahead and read your spoiler. I enjoyed it.

I got stuck in AntiChamber early on and I've been too intimidated by the need to remember my previous discoveries, that I haven't gone back in. I'll give it another go. Games at the level of scope, distribution and exposure like AntiChamber and Night In The Woods and Papers Please are an interesting part of Stewart's argument (or possibly just my interpretation of it). Take Night In The Woods for example. If I'm not mistaken, this game is funded through Kickstarter and looks like it will eventually be purchasable on Steam and the Humble Store and all that. This is fantastic that its happening. I am very much looking forward to playing Night In The Woods because it looks to offer something I can't find elsewhere that I will value. Not only that, but the method of funding is an exciting part of the game's development and I'm sure that it will have an effect on the my experience with it. This tier of "indie games" are what I think Stewart is referring to when he says "indies with capital". I don't think that he is dismissing those games, but I think he's trying to point out that the majority of published games-criticism and the broader consumer games-culture understands how to talk about those games; they understand the way to express why they are worth the consumer's money and time. This is not a problem. The problem is when these games are perceived as the most accessible tier of game as a worthwhile creative goal. I can't make a game at the level of AntiChamber, it requires technical know-how, time and or money, and a level of discipline that I neither have nor desire to attain. Not only is it not likely that I can make a game of that quality, but many others have their own personal situations in which it is not a likely potential. This, of course, doesn't mean that games like of AntiChamber's caliber shouldn't be bought, enjoyed, and appreciated; it just brings to mind that if games must be of that caliber in order to be worthy of being played and discussed, then the medium of games is going to continue to express far fewer perspectives than it is capable of. If we can begin to see the medium of games as something more similar to a language than to a product (and not only considering the examples which reach the level of polish that qualify the game as a marketable product) then we open ourselves to the ability to appreciate games more like how we appreciate music. There is a cultural understanding that a little kid learning piano might not be a concert-pianist and we have the vernacular and value-system to understand that, but there seems to be a prevalent attitude that making games will only be worthwhile if you make Minecraft, getting a job at EA, or selling your game on Steam. I'm excited about the thinking, acting, and communities that provide alternative value-systems. I'm still working all this out, so excuse any assertion of confidence I'm making. I think that this is an interesting subject and I appreciate y'all talking about it with me.