Burtis Le Pants

What games of this year have you tried out that were recommended on the podcast. Which ones did you like and would also recommend? Trying to wade through some of this years releases to find something a little off the beaten path and keep coming up short. Looking to cull the list a little further. I've been a little underwhelmed by a lot of the games I've played this year, particularly the story based indies. I have played Super Time Force to completion and utterly loved it, everything about that game is amazingly well designed and seemingly incredibly difficult to make. Personally, I would whole heartedly recommend Terror Aboard the Speedwell, the sci fi text adventure that I think Danielle recommended and I thoroughly enjoyed. Started playing 80 Days and am enjoying the little I have played. I'm downloading Eidolon one of Danielle's picks from a month or two ago. I enjoyed monument valley and hitman go for the time I spent with them. I have yet to truly dive in to Broken Age and Road not Taken (which I don't think has been mentioned on a podcast) but have purchased both of them. Has Kero Blaster been mentioned on the podcast? That was another game I played and absolutely loved, a shame it wasn't longer. I was disappointed in Transistor, The Banner Saga, Sir You are Being Hunted and Serena and Silence of the Sleep (two adventure games that had received praise). I also burnt out on Child of Light. I have played a tiny bit of Richard and Alice, an adventure game that seems very promising from the 20 min or so I have played. Weirdly enough it is the extremely stupid indie games I have perhaps enjoyed the most with Roundabout, Mount Your Friends and (especially) Jazzpunk being among my favourites for the year. Those are my thoughts/recommendations, what are yours? Let's help each other discover some games worth playing, I'm yet to have really taken to more than 2 or 3 games this year and I'd like to find something to get more enthusiastic about.

I have also played far too many hours of spelunky this year, having clocked over 200 hours myself. 80 days is well worth it and I'm with you on Banner Saga. I would suggest you check out Eidolon, a game much like proteus, but with slightly more story elements and with a few survival elements that make it more engaging but not frustrating Terror aboard the Speedwell is also well worth it, it takes less than 1/2 hour if I remember and is a very worthwhile experience I feel out on an island on Transistor, I found the gameplay disappointing for a couple of reasons and the story felt truncated and left me all shrugs. Music was great though

I completed Kero Blaster today. The new game from the creator of Cave Story. It's a really great, sidescrolling, bullet hell shooter. I would thoroughly recommend it to fans of vvvvvv and the Chris Remo favourite You Have to Win the Game. It harkens back to the same era of games.

In this thread, everyone post their top 10 books of all time and then recommend a book for the person above you, using their list as a guide (the book may or may not be from your 10). Here's my ten 1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo 2. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace 3. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Euginides 4. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami 5. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf 6. The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann 7. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte 8. The Road - Cormac McCarthy 9. The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkein 10. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

I beat olmec today, second time, but this time I got the achievement (last time I tried to take a screenshot before walking through the door and the game crashed). Been playing a couple of months. My success followed 2 of the most frustrating deaths I've had in the game. 1, I whipped a chest from a ladder, a bomb came out, hit me, I fell on the bomb and it killed me. 2, I shot a croc man with the shotgun and he teleported right to where I was, instantly killing me, which I didn't even know could happen.

I always crave lots of juice or a smoothie after a night drinking (doesn't happen often). But Kedgeree or if you absolutely cannot have spices; sweet potato, onions and chorizo fried up is a great hangover cure.

Seeing a lot of love for saga on here, not sure whether people are familiar with the private eye another Brian K Vaughan series available here. http://panelsyndicate.com/ pay as much or as little as you want. Also Matt Fraction's Sex Criminals (only available direct from image) is fantastic, very tongue in cheek but also pretty smart storytelling, the funniest and most entertaining read every month for me. I just bought Sara Ryan's Bad Houses, it was on a couple of end of year lists and looked interesting. Especially worth a look for those who don't read as much sci fi/fantasy or superhero books.

Hey, I'm pretty new around here and I was wondering do the guys choose games that they personally played in 2013 because was spelunky not last year and dark souls was definitely 2011. Don't really mind, just interested. Here are mine for last year 1. Bioshock Infinite 2. Fire Emblem: Awakening 3. Device 6 4. The Last of Us 5. The Swapper 6. DMC: Devil May Cry 7. Paper's Please 8. A Link Between Two Worlds 9. Grand Theft Auto V 10. Gone Home I also liked Risk of Rain, Proteus and Gunpoint and wanted to play Europa Universalis IV and Metro: Last Light, but just didn't get around to it. The Yawhg also looks interesting, might give that a look.

I was wondering what people's preferences are when it comes to comics. Superhero, Real life, Sci Fi/Fantastical, Comedic, Serious, Indie, Manga, Graphic Novels, Monthly etc. I started a few years ago (circa 2010), my entry point being movies and a podcast I started listening to, they were superhero guys and I started with both DC and Marvel, picking up a number of titles each month based mainly on podcast recommendations as well as going back to a number of arcs relevant to whatever movies were coming out. Even over the span of 1-2 years my interest waned as I became quickly fatigued by creative team switches and event fatigue from both publishers (and the new 52 pretty much killing any enjoyment I was getting from DC). This also aligned with my increasing indifference to superhero movies in general as the novelty wore off and the quality seemed to dip. I found comics of interest elsewhere however (largely from image) that continued my enthusiasm for the media. I find that there seems to be far more author ownership and creative freedom outside of the established universes of DC and Marvel. I find I am far more invested as I know it is far less likely that the stories will be wiped away through retcon. I almost exclusively read non superhero comics (the only ones I enjoy now are ones that play with the tropes etc in interesting ways like Watchmen or Gail Simone's current series the Movement) and I am very glad that Marvel at least gives their writers the freedom to work with other publishers, as their works are some of my current favourites (Fatale, Manhattan Projects, Pretty Deadly, Morning Glories, Sex Criminals, Velvet, East of West). I have also found interest in a number of Graphic Novels (Building Stories, the Underwater Welder) and some indie comics writers (Michael Deforge, Tin Can Forest, Becky Cloonan). I am wondering if this is a common progression and if there are any long term superhero fans, what keeps you interested in them over time (other than loyalty).

Me too, I chose an ipad mini, perfect for a single comic book page and the games are far better than on android. So many board game ports too, which I am not able to get to the table frequently enough.

I would recommend the board game ports of Ascension, Agricola, Lords of Waterdeep, Suburbia, Le Havre and Eclipse. http://boardgamegeek.com/blog/164/ios-board-games this blog covers a heap of new releases and is really helpful. Device 6, Rayman Jungle Run, the Room 1 & 2, Cook, Serve Delicious, Sword and Sworcery, Little Inferno, 10000000, Ridiculous Fishing, The Wolf Among Us, Incredipede, Might and Magic:Clash of Heroes, 868 Hack and Spaceteam are all great. There's also ports of Ghost Trick, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, XCOM and World of Goo that I haven't played but hear good things. Hundreds, Super Hexagon and Lili are also games I've heard a lot of positives about but have yet to play.

So, we're fast approaching 2014 and due to holidays etc I would assume most people's top 10s are not likely to change in a week, so how about posting some of them top 10s, it will be interesting to see the variety of games that will appear. Mine are 1. Bioshock Infinite 2. Device 6 3. Fire Emblem: Awakening 4. The Last of Us 5. The Swapper 6. DMC: Devil May Cry 7. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds 8. Grand Theft Auto V 9. Risk of Rain 10. Gone Home Paper's Please and The Room Two just missed the cut and my big regrets for games this year were Europa Universalis IV and Metro: Last Light, both of which I didn't play enough of, but both I think, would stand a good chance at being on the list.

Just finished this, I really like both the room and the room two, this brand of puzzle solving is really fascinating to me, really feels tactile. Almost as if you could make the contraptions for real but with that ten or so percent fantastical elements to add intrigue. Really fun and well worth it, couldn't put it down until I had completed it in one sitting.

I will echo the Saga love, that series is fantastic. Both Fatale and the new Velvet series by Ed Brubaker are incredible comics that twist their particular genres in a fascinating way. Jeff Lemire's Trillium is off to a strong start and his graphic novel The Underwater Welder last year was great. Jonathan Hickman's series, in particular the Manhattan Projects, but also East of West are both worth a read and have very unique art/graphic design. Pretty Deadly is only a couple of issues in, but I'm enjoying it, a quality western comic playing with female archetypal characters. Morning Gories is a fantastic mystery story, set in a private school. Finally Atomic Robo, consistently the funniest thing in comics.

I'd heard a little Dr Dog, but the B Room really made me pay much more attention to them. I listened to it many times when I found it too.

Three of my favourites this year are Dr Dog - The B-Room The National - Trouble Will Find Me Rhye - Woman

I recently watched Blue is the Warmest Colour, a three hour french film (palm d'or winner), about a girl coming out and having her first gay relationship, it was fantastic, emotionally charged and really captures a universal sense of insecurity and searching for identity that transcends sexual preference. The sex scenes are extremely graphic, but are not a perversion but feel passionate and genuine. Very naturalistic style of shooting and incredible performances. I also watched the Crash Reel, a documentary that follows a group of extreme sports personalities that suffer brain injuries after falls. Delves into their struggles, how it has changed them forever, and in several cases follows the fallout after a death. Some of the footage is hard to watch, but the movie serves as a major deterrent for those who push their limits too far and calls for increased safety measures that take into account the safety of participants rather than the thrill of the crowd.

Hey everyone, I've been listening to the podcast for a couple of months and thought I'd join the forums.

I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon this year and loved it. I'm currently reading Murakami's Norwegian Wood and am thoroughly enjoying that as well.