Ninety-Three

It's really easy to have the portal spawn on top of me (often when I don't realize I"m killing the last enemy because there's more level left unexplored) with weapons out of reach, or to have the portal spawn between me and the gun I want so that I can no longer access it.

I am so pissed off at the way this game keeps sucking me through level portals before I can pick up the guns in a level. I know that the portal spawns near the last enemy I killed (except when it sometimes doesn't) and that hasn't helped me avoid the portal spawning on top of me, or between me and the gun I want to pick up. Is there any way to avoid this? Does anyone know of a mod to make the portals suck less?

They're not just opening themselves up to pedantry though, they are ostensibly trying to get right to it, and yet they're undermining that with the phrase "I'll get right to it". Why do people engage in this self-defeating behaviour?

I hate hate hate the phrase "I'll get right to it: I want blahblah...". If you were getting right to it you would just say "I want blahblah...", prefacing your statement with a phrase that communicates no information is the opposite of getting right to it. Why do people do that?

Is the plan to rewatch the Pixar movies in chronological order, or are we going to go based on the ranking sheet?

I have not been involved with this thread up to this point, but I just noticed the words "Trail of Cthulhu" and "Fallen London" in the same sentence, and I want to go to there. Am I too late, or can I join the tabletop club?

Is it coming to PC? The article doesn't mention PC, but this sort of thing usually comes to PC...

For this group rewatch thing, is anyone interested in trying to make it a group Skype call (or even just live text chat) or the like so that we can watch and discuss realtime? Or just do more of a book club "This week we watch and talk about X" thing? I saw it as a trite critique of 21st century consumerism (Earth is literally full of garbage! Everyone's fat in futuristic fat-scooters, and they slavishly follow the billboards. Do you get it? Consumerism is BAD you guys!), which made me much less charitably inclined towards the whole thing.

I could go for that, I haven't seen most of the old Pixar movies in over a decade. Someone else, speak up so we'll have four and I'll feel good about starting the Pixar Rewatch thread. Or maybe we should just do it here because this is already the Pixar thread? Megathreads are confusing. When you say group rewatch, do you mean that everyone just rewatches the movies and discusses them, or an actual group rewatch where we try to organize a Skype call or something so that people can watch as a group?

Oh Psychonauts 2 was about 40% funded by the end of the first day, it'll beat their target by a large margin.

I don't think apologizing for Spacebase would hurt Double Fine as a whole, although it would probably hurt the sales of Spacebase a bit. That said, the game is currently sitting at 49 Metacritic and three quarters negative Steam reviews, so I doubt it's been selling much since the final release. As for what it gains them, I'm holding back from Psychonauts 2 because I'm still upset they never apologized, and the lack of apology is a black mark on their overall reputation. There are surely a few more people like me out there. It's a balancing act between several unknowable numbers (sales lost on Spacebase, overall reputation lost by apologizing, reputation gained with people angry about Spacebase), but it's at least plausible that apologizing is the right course of action.

It's not even on the weekend!? What is the world coming to?

My question is "What is Idle Weekend"? I feel like I'm supposed to know what it is in some detail, but all I can see is that it's a podcast, about video games, and maybe it's on the weekend?

It wasn't much good for those of us who already owned Hack & Slash. As for what the option is, the pitch for your next crowdfunding campaign seems like a good place to acknowledge how you've learned from your past failures and won't make those mistakes again. It could be I'm communicating poorly. I still wish they would apologize, or even just acknowledge the failure, because it would be something, but maybe you're right and it's too little too late. To rephrase it all: I can forgive the fact that Spacebase failed, games fail sometimes, it happens. I can especially forgive it because it's in the past and they've released successful games since. What I can't forgive is the fact that they messed up and never apologized, and unlike a failed game, that's a black mark on their record that doesn't fade with time, because unlike failure, "not apologizing for failure" is an avoidable part of the process. But it wasn't my intent to come here to complain, I was interested in seeing if I was alone in feeling this way. Apparently I am, everyone has forgiven the failure, and no one seems to be taking much issue with their handling of the situation.

I have largely gotten over the failure of Spacebase, like I said above, my issue is with their handling of the aftermath. They never admitted they messed up the game, and never apologized to people who bought the game expecting it to be finished. I can forgive a failed game, but if they owed an apology in 2014, that apology debt has not decreased with time. I wish they would be held accountable, even if it was just people on the internet telling them to say sorry. I would like to believe we live in a world where you can't swear on your reputation not to pull the plug, then pull the plug and walk away scot-free.

So as you might have heard, Double Fine is now trying to crowdfund Psycohnauts 2. I brought up in the Psychonauts 2 thread that I'm still mad about Spacebase, the discussion drifted towards derailment, so I'm continuing the topic here. I'm a little angry about Spacebase because I paid for it and they pulled the plug, but mostly, I'm upset about how they handled the aftermath. In what few public announcements the devs made, the spin was relentlessly positive, trying to make it look like they had reached the natural end of development and were releasing a basically-finished game. They never apologized. It feels somehow scummy for them to turn to crowdfunding after their last crowdfunding venture ended in failure and disappointment, without at least acknowledging "Yeah, we fucked up. But here's why you should trust us this time." I was surprised by how few people in the Psychonauts thread were holding Spacebase against them, so I thought I'd check in here: Am I the only one that's still upset? Does anyone else feel Double Fine owes an apology?

I can't infer an apology.

I was counting Early Access as crowdfunding, because they budgeted the game such that it would have to rake in top Early Access dollars to fund development to completion. It might not be traditional Kickstarter, but the game was funded by the crowd. It might be. But then again, they're the ones who said it would be disastrous for their reputation. I wouldn't be nearly so mad if they had just admitted they fucked up, but their official stance in announcements and on the forums was to act like they were putting out a complete game and everything was fine, rather than apologizing for pulling the plug after swearing not to. At that point it becomes about the principle of the thing.

Depends how big these scout ships are. You can go from Kerbin grounded, to the Mun, and back on just a few tons, so I can imagine some pretty light scout ships, especially if they're launched from an orbital ship instead of the ground.

No. I remember their previous crowdfunding campaign. "Double Fine is not a random fly-by-night indie dev and we are not going to silently pull the plug on Spacebase or any other in-development project. Doing so would be disastrous for our reputation" they said, one month before they announced they were pulling the plug on Spacebase. I'm still angry, and my love of Psychonauts 1 will not magically repair DF's reputation.

Wow, Up and Ratatouille are way near the bottom for me. I guess I should get around to seeing Inside Out then Now I kind of want people to start listing all their Pixar bests and worsts, to see if the lists really are inverts of each other. I liked Inside Out, disliked Up and Ratatouille. Patrick, osmosisch, how do you feel about The Incredibles? I loved it.

When you say unstable, do you mean that it's a wobbly hard-to-launch mess while in atmosphere? The solution is to not launch it docked together. Instead build the main ship, slap on docking ports, then connect the scout ships with rigid strut connectors and separator pieces. Once you're in space you can separate them and dock with the ports.

That was the part I hated. Rather than spend time grinding for cash so that I can do the cool launch I want to do, I could just play in Science mode and go straight to the cool launch I want to do. Something about unlocking contracts, I'm very vague on the details.

Full career mode is terrible, everyone I've heard on it says stick to Science. Science mode will never have you run out of science dollars and be unable to launch a ship you want to launch, nor will it keep asking you to do the same flight to earn a bunch more science dollars. Personally I'm a fan of sandbox, but I recognize that the sandbox learning curve is very steep and by restricting parts, Science starts to manage that.