eurotransient

I seem to remember one of the podcast members (Remo maybe?) erroneously stating it was on Steam... but alas, nope! Just iOS and Android. The Android version was part of a Humble Bundle, too. It was the bundle that included Plants vs. Zombies, Anomaly Korea, Another World and a couple other titles I don't recall. Too late to grab it now, obviously, but I often forget what I've accumulated through Humble Bundles.

+1 to The Room suggested above. I seem to remember that Return to Zork was more or less a direct rip off of Myst. I enjoyed it back in the day, but not sure how well it's aged. It certainly looks dated at this point, but it's only $2.99 on GOG.

I really loved AD s4. The whole storyline with DeBrie having been in a low budget Fantastic Four was hysterical since I already knew about the awful unreleased version Roger Corman produced in the early 90's on a $1 million budget and directed by Oley Sassone (allegedly the son of Vidal Sassoon despite the spelling difference in the last name) whose prior work included Bloodfist 3: Forced to Fight and the video for the Mr. Mister song "Broken Wings." The only reason the film was made was for the producer to retain the rights to the movie -- he then went on to produce the also terrible 2005 version, but that one at least had a proper budget and made some money.

I had to admit I've been a bit tempted to give an Android phone a go and the HTC One really, really intrigues me. One thing I'm curious about, though, is that I get the impression a lot of the camera and sound features are software based. If you root the phone, would that hurt the phone's features in any way?

Didn't see any mention of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset above, but I highly recommend those films. Great timing, too, since the third film in the series, Before Midnight, has just been released in theaters. The two main characters in the series, Jesse and Celeste, actually make a short appearance in Waking Life, laying in bed together. Jesse brings up collective memory and talks about a study he'd read: a group of people were tasked with solving a crossword puzzle. When the group was given a puzzle that was a day old and had thus been solved by thousands of people already, the control group's scores went up dramatically. Anyways, those two characters meet in Before Sunrise on a train pulling into Vienna. It's Jesse's last night in Europe and as he's about to get off the train, he proposes Celeste join him as he explores the city through the night. She says yes and the rest of the movie is just watching them learn about it each other, walking around and talking. Before Sunset picks up nine years later and Before Midnight another nine years after that. Looking at something like this, it's difficult to see how you might translate this into any sort of interesting game mechanic. It's not so much that they lack plot, though. In these films (and really any film), there are still interesting choices being made by the characters in the story (perhaps less so in Waking Life, though -- it's been years since I've seen it). Hasn't it been said that games are a series of interesting choices? I think Patrick has it right when he brings up ensemble pieces. It's just not a thing you really see in games, right? Even if we strip that ensemble down to just two, a film like Before Sunrise succeeds largely because both characters carry equal weight and the viewer's experience is a construction of what both Jesse and Celeste see, do, say, feel, etc. How then to translate that into a game, introducing the control mechanics necessary to make it a game while not forcing an individual perspective that would rob the game of the richness the film has? I guess you could switch between the two perspectives, but then you're stuck with either (a) forcing players to replay the same scenarios from each perspective or ( moving forward so each moment or encounter in the game is played from an individual's perspective, but the cumulative effect builds to that same richness.

Same thing happened to me! I figure maybe it's because I'm playing with random strangers and there isn't really any joy in screwing them over.

I go through phases for both eReaders and paperbacks. Never hardcovers. I can't stand reading hardcovers. That's where I go Kindle every time. Other than that, it's really just a matter of inertia. Usually once I read one thing on my Kindle, I'll read the next thing and the thing after that on it, too. Then something'll inspire me to grab one of the unread paperbacks off my shelf and I'll end up reading that, too. Or I'll go to a bookstore and buy a handful of books and that'll get me off the Kindle. I do love a lot of aspects of reading with the Kindle. I have a Paperwhite, which is killer since I find myself reading a lot at night, out on my front porch with a beer. There's a streetlight on the corner that can light up a book for me if I stand at just the right angle, but that process is way easier with the Paperwhite. Plus, I use the dictionary constantly (I do the same with paperbacks, too, but it's obviously a quicker process with an eReader!). I'll have to echo other sentiments here, though: I just love the feel and look of a book. I put my through the ringer while I'm reading them and I love the creases in the spine that form while I get through them. But otherwise! Love 'em both! At the end of the day, I'm just interested in the words on the page, whatever form that page takes.

Whew! A new member thread! So I haven't really listened to Idle Thumbs for all that long; I think one of the first episodes I downloaded was the Ruinationcast (which is still sitting partially played in my podcast app), so I suppose it's a bit of a miracle I stuck around this long. I went seeking out a new gaming podcast after a few years of listening to Gamers With Jobs. It was just starting to get a little stale for me and I don't really have any interest in the 3 hour mega shows like the Giant Bombcast. Figured I'd give Idle Thumbs a shot and here we are. Anyway, the guys keep talking about the forums on the podcast so I figured I'd check them out. Just signed up yesterday after lurking a bit here and there. (Why does this feel like I'm filling out a profile on OkCupid?) About me: I'm 35 and live outside of Washington, DC. I just started playing Tomb Raider, I'm always playing FIFA and I thought the Thumbs crew was a bit too hard on Bioshock Infinite (though I also can't help but agree with a lot of their arguments). I'm currently reading 1Q84 and catching up with old episodes of Fringe (I'm on season 2 at the moment, no spoilers, please) and if the FIFA mention wasn't enough, I love chatting about soccer. Any football fans in the thumbs forums? I can't really get into Neptune's Pride 2. My heart's just not in it! Maybe you really need to know and want to screw over the people you're playing with? Also, after listening to this week's episode, I want to go back to XCOM and rename all my soldiers after film directors. So, uh, yeah... hi! Here's a jaunty video my girlfriend just IMed me while I was writing this, thought I'd share.