Bjorn

That's possible, but they actually do a good job of letting you practice in general. There are new "vendors" that you unlock that let you practice independently against every enemy and boss in the game. I think you have to beat each enemy on your own first, but you can cheese that with a bomb or get lucky, then be able to practice for regular encounters with them. Bard mode also disables the level timer, which lets you explore each level to your heart's content (like if you could disable the ghost on Spelunky). That lets you observe things about the environment, the way level generation leads to certain patterns, that are probably harder to notice in the regular mode. Co-op in Bard mode is interesting as well, as monsters get a move for every player move, so monsters actually start getting a distinct advantage for each player acting in a game. We got each other killed a couple of times by not paying attention to where each other were in relation to monsters. Overall I like the regular mode much more than Bard mode though. I feel like the Bard will just lead to developing bad habits if what your really want is to get good at the regular game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r7ikBnFfGYU

Ubisoft: Too expensive to animate women, but can make two AC games a year, plus the requisite DLC for both.

I was listening while working, and missed a couple of sentences, including the one time BoI is mentioned and Chris saying basically what I wrote above about the different modes. Multi-tasking fail! The deep dive on talking about Spelunky was really confusing to me though, as it makes the least amount of sense to compare it to Necrodancer versus using something like BoI as a comparison. Chris mentioned how gravity is this ever present force in 2D systems driven games, and I do think there's a comparison to be made between gravity and the beat in Necrodancer. Obviously not the same, but it does provide a force of forward momentum that other games like this don't have. I love that Necrodancer allows for co-op in the Daily Challenge though! This was a thing that always bugged me about Spelunky, that they didn't allow that or have a 2-Player DC. I've got this twice, and didn't know what it did. Just looked it up, and holy crap, that's a lot better than I expected (damage multiplier for maintaining your combo after mixing the War Drum in).

Oh, they finally got the EW release done? How is it? That sounds like an awesome exercise! But no, I'm too lazy to actually do that.

Sung to the tune of Moon River: Basooooooon wizard, killing me with style Crossing a room when you suck me in, nay! You're a wind maker, a run breaker Wherever you're goin, I'm runnin' away

I had a tendency to watch the last minute of pretty much everyone's run in the IE club. It never really gets old watching people die in that game.

Technically true, and there are the characters, not all of whom are straight upgrades, but several of them are easier than pre-D6 Isaac.

I'm pretty sure Chris went through a pretty serious Isaac phase as well, I was surprised he didn't draw the comparison. BoI doesn't have perma-upgrades, but it does have the similar unlock mechanic for items you find in a run. Besides the Daily Challenge, the game also has Hardcore Mode, which is what Chris was asking for essentially. You start without any of your perma-upgrades and have to go through all the worlds in a row. I just feel like they're trying to let as many people as possible succeed in the game, without making it easy. HM mode for people who want a Spelunky/BoI type experience, perma-upgrades for people who find HM too hard or stressful, turn based for people who have no rhythm, and then DDR mode,.

Made it to zone 2 tonight. Got killed by a wizard. VIDEO GAMES!

Best credits ever.

Yeah, I was responding specifically to the archival thing, which people are equally up in arms about it seems. It's worth noting that actual streams are not affected by the auto-mute, only archived video. It's still bad, but not as bad as some people have reported. They also killed Justin.tv and just mass deleted everything with little warning. I'm kind of agreeing with this take, that these moves are the results of panic, not getting ready to be acquired by Google. The Google deal fell though, or is increasingly likely to fall through, and Twitch is hemorrhaging money.

I think the reaction to this is kind of silly. If you read Twitch's announcement, the archival thing makes total sense: Who thinks it's a good idea for Twitch to archive a billion hours of footage that no one is ever going to watch? It's not really on them to store, for free, every gripping minute of your 183 hour pursuit of every feather in Assassin's Creed. Paid subscribers get 60 days of unlimited storage. Twitch does have to make money, and it makes sense for a premium feature to be greater flexibility in storage. Permanent archival still exists as well. You can store highlights forever, and highlights can be up to 2 hours long. It's a poorly named feature. And there is a (currently broken) YouTube exporter to make archiving on YT easier. I hate that, so much.

Don't be coy, you know you're going there to be blown away.

The epic serial killer novel 'cast titles continue with On Blade and Esophagus Sarcophagus.

I can only speak to what I've experienced as an American, but what I encounter is the tendency to put American ideals on a pedestal, without any real contemplation about that ideal or consideration of how it should be applied to the world (and our consistent inability to even pretend to live up to our values). It's a unique blend of ignorance and superiority. I've also known plenty of people who seem to think that freedom is a uniquely American thing, and that the rest of the world exists in some sort of non-free state. I actually had someone defriend me from Facebook last week because I insisted that mandating that children recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school violates several aspects of our supposed cultural values. She lost her shit, and then defiended me before I could respond more.

Tolerance is an interesting word to use, I wouldn't think of myself as tolerant of things like hate speech or gross pornography. In fact I'm quite intolerant to some things and have acted in opposition to them, attempting to embody the mantra that the "answer to bad speech is more speech." I just draw a line at legally banning or criminalizing speech I disagree with. I'm super curious to what you mean by this. Not to have a free speech argument, but to hear your perspective on how Americans approach it versus other cultures. And this is kind of continuing a derail, but given the relationship of slash fiction to often taboo subjects, it seems within the general realm of the topic.

I hadn't actually read Chick's review. It's rare that I find myself disagreeing with almost every single sentence in a review. Well, except two. I think I wholeheartedly agreed with 2 sentences in that (that it's silly you can't review your loadout on the fly, even if changes are only available at checkpoints). It seems to be a whole lot of words to explain that 1) it's not Bastion and 2) that it didn't engage him on the levels he expected it to. Also, it's really hard for me to agree with someone's sentiment that a game did not hold his hand enough, that it requires you play with systems to learn rather than explains everything.

This is one of the core truths of home ownership.

I defend all sorts of speech/content I find reprehensible, like the Phelps clan and the KKK being able to protest and speak. Even though I think some of those types of things can actually be dangerous. But that's clearly going beyond the fan fiction part of this thread. Unless someone wants to write some interracial Phelps/KKK homoerotic fiction. Hard to call it fan fiction at that point. Hate fiction? Antagofiction?

But drawn porn isn't child porn, it harms no one (unless it's based on a real people, in which case that's something different). Child porn features actual people. Drawings are just people's imaginations put on paper. It's the kind of territory that gets really close to thought crime. There are three arguments about this kind of thing (any unethical or illegal porn and the fictionalized, drawing/animated version of the same thing). One, that it leads people to the real thing. Two, that it actually keeps people from seeking out the real thing. And three, that it has no effect either way. We don't have good data on it, so I'm not willing to declare that it causes actual harm. There is the possibility that it actually creates less harm by keeping people from finding the real shit. Kinda like how methadone keeps people off heroin.

I used that wording intentionally, as both the story is vague and there is clearly (to me) a grey area that I would prefer to not have legislated by a government. If the work includes pornographic drawings of little kids in sex acts, that's fucked. If it features ambiguously aged teens who may be between 14 and 20 within the context of the work, then I'm not nearly as comfortable saying that something like that should be criminalized or legislated in any way. The description of the Canadian law seems to be vague enough that it could include something like the second type. For me, this is completely in the area of things that I am not personally interested in, and may even abhor, but I don't believe that anyone else should have the right to ban it either.

It changes my perspective on fan fiction to some extent knowing that there are places in the world where you are in real danger to create it, whether that's financial (from IP laws), Canada's fucked interpretation of pornography or places where homosexuality is criminalized.

So looking for something else this morning, I came across this report from April about China cracking down on homoerotic slash fiction writers, including arresting some of them.

It's got a Daily Challenge as well as the seeded mode. I took it that the seeded mode is for organized speedrun competitions and whatnot that might need more than one unique run a day. I really dropped off Spelunky once I beat Hell the first time. I keep meaning to go back and do more co-op, but there are always other games to play.