Bjorn

It's an ongoing joke on the forums to update some thread titles over time.

So I totally missed that Steamworld Heist got released earlier this summer! It's conveniently currently on sale for $15 (normally $20). It's real good y'all, like I put about 4 hours into it this evening and could have played for hours more I think if I didn't need to crash. 2D, turn based squad combat invading randomly generated ships. The charm and character of Steamworld Dig are all present, but definitely a radically different game. Really, Dig's only downside for me was that it really wasn't all that mechanically interesting or challenging, it was just a very chill game. Heist is a much more robust game.

:o :o :o :o SteamWorld is kind of shaping up to be a modern Oddworld, now that I think about it. Multiple games in different genres exploring different mechanics. I highly approve of this as a franchise structure. Speaking of Oddworld, something in the vein of Stranger's Wrath would work really well too. OMG, a 3D action game where instead of armor and guns and swords and stuff like that, you swap out parts of your body as your "inventory". Fuck, that could be really good.

I had a similar thought. I think the build up of weird, sci-fi conspiracy works well in a game because it's a subversion of something that games do too much of (though that trope certainly exists outside of games as well). But I'm not sure that it works the same in a film if that specific part of the plot is used.

Every time this thread is updated, it breaks my heart a little more.

Jeff Goldblum as Henry, Delilah, shitty teens and Ned. Fuckit, it's the all Jeff show. It'll be a triumph.

Thank you to whoever suggested "My Dad Wrote a Porno", we finally listened to the first episode today and giggled all the way through it.

Finished it! Great game, loved it, wish there was more. I started an NG+ run, but really don't feel like re-treading the opening third of the game. What I'd want is to continue playing with all my fully developed characters, not take the time to re-level all of them from scratch. And I just learned that there is another Steamworld game, SteamWorld Tower Defense that was only released on the DS. And now I'm sad, because I'll never get to play it. So SteamWorld now covers tower defense, platformer (kinda) and turn based strategy. Assuming they continue, and given the success of the games, I imagine they will, I can't wait to see what they do next. Selfishly, I'd dig seeing them try their hand at a roguelite. I think they've already got a lot of the building blocks in place with everything they can draw on to make a really cool one.

I don't know, I think if you assume that a good chunk of the intended audience for the movie is not people who played the game, then retreading Henry and Delilah's relationship is actually a pretty good structure for a movie. You might only see one character most of the time, but you've got constant interaction with one or more characters. And that's not even to say that you couldn't show Delilah throughout, in her tower and doing her thing. I think she needs to be unseen and mysterious in the game, but in a movie it might actually make more sense to show both of them.

I binged on this over the weekend, and spent more time thinking about the aim drift mechanic and how it compares to XCOM, and continue to really love it. Like, I had a few times when I blew a shot with one of my snipers, where I was trying to richochet a shot multiple times to get to someone I couldn't otherwise hit. Because of the distance and the number of the bounces, the aim movement was pretty pronounced at the end point. In a game like XCOM, that might have translated to a "30 percent" chance to hit or something. Whereas in SH, it's my own skill in hitting the button at the right time, and watching the shot ricochet around. And possibly ending with knocking the hat off the enemy's head rather than blowing their head off. It makes misses....not less infuriating, but more understandable. Also, knocking hats off people's heads on a near miss is a really cool mechanic. I'm only two missions away from the end. I could have finished it last night, but I elected to grind everyone up to max level and mess around with some weapons and items I hadn't tried out instead. I really dislike the weapons where you can't move and shoot. Mobility is almost everything in this game, to the point where a utility slot on everyone is dedicated to a movement boost, and in one case a character gets two mobility boosts. I kind of wish it weren't that way. There would definitely be a different playstyle that could be done if mobility boosters weren't present at all, with having a variety of gear on everyone. I feel like some of the utility items take away from the uniqueness of the characters, in unfortunate ways. Like the scientist gal gets a timed ability where she can jump up to ledges and gets a big movement boost. But, there's also a jetpack utility item that gives everyone the ability to jump to ledges and a small movement boost. Her and the wheeled frog gambler would be so much more unique if their innate movement bonuses weren't available to everyone thanks to gear. Same thing with the old man sniper and his pierceing shot. I now have two different heavy weapons that naturally pierce, and that essentially makes the old man pointless because one of his biggest bonuses is just something that can be equipped on another person. The DLC character Fen has a super unique ability with a piercing laser that has to be charged...except then I got a heavy laser that literally does the exact same thing for the same damage and can be fired every round. So I can get the biggest benefit of Fen on Ivan plus all of Ivan's tankiness. Things like Pipers Inspire radius and the farmer's multi-kill ability remain completely unique to them, and I think it makes them more compelling characters to use mechanically because of that. Okay, enough nitpickiness. I totally love this game and I think I'm being picky about it because I want it to be even better and longer. I'd love it if there were another 20+ mission instead of just 2. I may end up starting a NG+ run (you apparently keep all your characters and hats, but not items/weapons) and do the early levels with wildly different character combos. I suspect that the melee fish would be much more useful in the early game versus the late game, where his damage just doesn't keep pace with all the crazy stuff the other characters can do.

That whole thing is full of all sorts of weird if you go digging on it. A patent lawyer who's never handled a case like this. A former Jerry Springer producer who goes by multiple aliases. An anti-trump activist funding the whole thing. And all sorts of dead ends and odd stories whenever journalists have tried to research it. There's a handful of good pieces about it, including at least one that's interviews with the lawyer attempting to negotiate an actual interview with the accuser. Here's a piece that covers most of the bases.

I think at that scale you start calling it open plain living.

Oooh! This had looked really interesting, I hadn't realized it was out.

I'm only like a fourth of the way through the first board, so obviously super early. But I was also thinking about a comparison to XCOM 1 and 2, and how much I like a tactics game that doesn't depend on dice rolls at all (at least not on the player side, I have no idea how the AI makes decisions or handles aiming). I started on the next to last difficulty tier, and most enemies can't be one shot unless I setup to do it (using one or more special abilities). And the difference in quality of aim between a sharpshooter weapon and the usually more powerful assault or pistols is a big deal. Whether I hit or not with those weapons isn't dependent on a dice roll, it's entirely dependent on my ability to position myself, and then manually aim. And controlling for the drift is exactly the kind of thing you have to do while firing real guns. Aim drift is a thing I can find annoying in a lot of shooters, but it works well in a turn based game. I did make a foolish early mistake where I had falsely assumed that Guarding was a kind of Overwatch, but NOOOOPE. It doesn't appear to do anything other than end your turn. That's the only mission I've failed so far.

Are all the official DLCs out now? I was going to wait until they were all out, and maybe some of the mods were more advanced, before I jumped in for a second playthrough (I actually started a second one when I decided that I really wanted to wait).

Since I'm just running these in the background as I work, I decided not to skip anything for now. I got up to 11 episodes as of this weekend. There have definitely already been skippable ones. If I have a complaint, it would be similar to one of my biggest general Star Trek complaints, which is that individual episodes can feel rushed with climax and resolution not necessarily having felt earned (like the all too common "have a science epiphany moments before certain disaster strikes that saves the day"). That aside, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I like that this is a Star Trek where you start in a position of few of the characters having pre-established relationships, and even the ones that do open the show with having experienced a significant change recently affecting that relationship (Sisko and Dax's friendship with Dax in a new host; Odo and Kira in a post-occupation world). It gives room for conflict and growth as a cast that isn't always present in Star Trek (I've only seriously watched TOS and TNG, so I can't speak to the other ones in that regard). It's a strength that unlike a starship captain, Sisko doesn't have iron authority over everything that happens on station. He's in a position where having to deal with the devils he knows (Quark and Garak) is better than dealing with an unknown replacement should characters like them be summarily gotten rid of.

Kansas started backing off the whole 14-year-old thing a few years after I graduated high school. It's still technically possible for a 14yo to get a permit, but it's waaaay more restricted and harder now, and I think it's far more normal for people to get their learners permit at 16 now. I totally started driving on roads around 12. Always in the country, usually helping dad move vehicles around, following him from one field to the next or whatever.

Yah on test results! On driving, I remain flabbergasted that I came of age at the end of the time when society believed it was still a good idea to let 14-year-olds have a driver's license, and even more insanely, my parents let me buy a sports car when I was 15 (because I had my own money saved up from working on the farm).

So I decided to replace some of my normal afternoon podcast rotation with DS9 episodes, as I've been burning out on some podcasts and have really been jonesing for some Star Trek. I watched the occasional DS9 episode back when it was airing new, but was never a devout watcher of it. I'm only 5 episodes in, but I'm really digging the hell out of it so far. It's certainly got some rough edges, but there's so much interesting potential it's just bursting from the seems.

Hey, you! Do you like tactical battle type games? Good! Cause Renowned Explorers is on sale! I got RE from a Humble Monthly this summer, and it's been one of the real gems from having subscribed to that, it's easily been one of my favorite games I've played this year.

I think I'm going to call Starward Rogue finished, even though I suspect there's still some content, and perhaps even another boss, left (although there's very little information in guides or wikis about the game for me to know for sure). But I've reached an end, and if it takes multiple more runs to unlock more stuff, I don't really have an interest in doing that. I started off really lukewarm on Rogue, but I'm glad I gave it another shot. A bullet hell, sci-fi roguelike is a good idea, and I had a bunch of fun with this one. My only real complaint is still that it really lacks a feeling of character or progression. You get nothing, really, for finishing a run (versus clear unlocks or a weird cut-scene, like BoI). Even if those things are artificial or just flavor, I still ultimately think they do add a good impetus to keep making runs and trying different things. I think clearly acknowledging the player has finished a run in a roguelike in some way is almost always a good idea. If you got this in the Humble Monthly (like I did), I'd certainly suggest giving it a shot though.

Well, at the end of the day, you're still talking about a historical body that comes from the middle and upper classes of white America for the average state and private school. Which, even if they're "liberal", they're not necessarily going to have the same opinions or passion that other groups have brought to campuses. Also, the gender disparity since the 1960s has radically changed on college campuses, so things like sexual assault and rape awareness exist in a very different context. And I'd suspect that when you're talking about the top few percent of donating alums, traditionally minded men who attended an all white fraternity might by disproportionately represented in that group (though that is purely a guess).

Additional thought to this, in addition to the way that some administrators are insulated from the student body, attempting to coddle older, white donators by assuaging their fears that nothing will change and protecting them from challenging ideas seems to be doing exactly what the letter says that it won't. So, students: need challenged. Alums: lolnope, they have checkbooks, do what they want

Thanks for that additional context Gorm. The former student president's experiences certainly match my own with some administrators at two different colleges.

I picked this up when it was on sale the other day for $6, and so far I've played for one evening. And daaamn, is this one video ass game video game. The UI alone makes me hate it, it's so freaking busy. Just waypointing one spot after another, watching myself move around the minimap. Every single thing you could possibly need, use or find interesting is waypointed and gets unique marks on your minimap. But some of them are basically impossible to find without depending on it. And then, just in case you took your eyes off the minimap for a moment, you get popups to let you know when something useful is nearby! It's like the worst kind of "must hold the player's hand at every single moment" design.