SuperBiasedMan

In reverse adulthood, I was amazed to hear a mattress would cost $500/€460, I have never had to buy one ever and I always thought it'd be not that much alongside the bed frame...

You don't choose the picture, it chooses you. Welcome to Idle Thumbs.

Tack alltihopa! Jag har bara en fråga, hur gör man svenska? Translation for the curious... and maybe for the Swedish people if I just babbled incoherently there.

That's pretty interesting. I'm always really fickle and tend to just drop games that don't give me good feel (unless I motivate myself to stay if I value a long term reward like good story or theme or something) so I guess that no matter what the addictive and timesink games both still make me feel good.

That was a super interesting discussion. I don't have a lot to contribute besides what was said. I think there's value in what you said about Sim City assuming a dominant default, it's something I think happens often in American media because it's so prominent and large scale it inadvertently assumes it is the media. (similar to the idea that male is default so if a character is female that's often either an intentional choice for a specific reason or the author themself is probably female) I also feel like the argument that everyone knows Sim City isn't how all cities are probably isn't actually true. I'm sure there are people who wouldn't know that you could go live in a place where a base level 20% tax is perfectly normal. I'm not sure how much responsibility I would ascribe to a developer to represent diversity well in a system (since it's way more complicated than introducing diversity in characters) but I agree that it would be very worthwhile to push it and provide players with a range of experiences instead of reinforcing a narrow model. Also, no-one (that I saw) pointed this out and it was super gross to me ...did I misread that or is that legitimately how the game plays? Forget cars, if that's what it sounds like. That is the worst part of buying into simulating general American culture as how life is. This is weirdly folding backing in on Bogost's article and my thoughts about it pretty well. I'm even less enthusiastic about his initial sentiment now. Systems are large and unwieldy things to design. I couldn't possibly have faith in anyone producing them as an attempt to emulate the diversity of real life.

Oh, which Idle Thumbs episode had the most babboo? Real talk, this is tough as hell to decide cause podcasts have been creating dominance as my primary medium for a while now.

No Chris didn't hear wrong, it did sound like Ed said 12 dollars. Even better, when Ed talks to Donna about James he says "Oh James is fine, he just asked for money." And I weirdly got the vibe that Ed was just sending the $12 James asked for and no more. To a bar too, not a house or hotel or anything. I'm sure James is fine.

Indeed this is for assisting with Swedish learnin'. I'll see how I fare with attempting to listen, thanks!

I agree that the source of war is the bigger problem but I don't think that invalidates the concern that killing seems to be getting much easier to do and more impersonal, that's the part that worries me.

I feel like I have treaded the line a few too many times and it's definitely been a problem for at least one period of my life where I was under occupied and should have been trying to find some way to change that instead of playing a bunch, which is what I did. I also noticed that it seemed like my two biggest timesinks were actually TF2 and Spelunky for several reasons. But the fact that I got pretty good at both was definitely a big motivator into using them to feel good about myself and feel accomplished when other things just weren't providing that. I feel like games as an addiction and games as a timesink have a distinct difference. A timesink just takes more hours than it ought to, but an addiction is something you're leaning on because it's feeding you something you crave though you may not even notice it. Right now I've been very timesinky with Crypt of the Necrodancer because it has the kind of design to be very satisfying with the audio, visuals and mecahnics as I'm holding it together in a run but I will very quickly lose a game and then want to just do another run through and accomplish what I'd been trying to do.

Well you did say that they were purely theoretical and just a vehicle. But would you say a gun is just a tool? Or a nuclear bomb? Drones exist, they are purpose built weaponised robots. They are not theoretical, they are being flown this very day. Automated AI driven technology is rising in fashion and systems are not perfect no matter how much you test them. It seems kind of naive to think that things will be fine when there's significant capacity for harm from misuse, design flaws and negligence. Technology can make things faster, more efficient and cheaper. But nothing about it will inherently be more safe or more effective. With significant dilligence and a genuine desire to avoid these issues then yes, these things can be better with robots. But already plenty of technology is created with the intention of doing harm to people so I don't see why robots would be any different or safer.

NX is a motion control morphsuit with a VR helmet integrated. It's the future. It's €500

Oh weird, I thought the difference was just that they were two rates that interacted somehow, not that they stacked. It definitely makes more sense now. In Ireland there's only the standard tax rate across the country and that's it as far as I know. (as in, I am taxed in other ways but none of them are specific to my location)

I don't know, actually. What are the differences in practice?

Moodboards are just generally good to have a strong representation of the tone you're aiming for even to keep yourself on track when making decisions in any area, not just visuals.

Ugh I forgot how squicky Truman starts to come off when he's interacting with Josie. I mean, when she first returns back he's uncomfortably physical in their reunion. She collapses into his arms and he just clutches her on the floor and kisses her a bunch. It's an odd reaction. This time round, she's being subjugated by someone and insisting it's for the best while telling him to leave. Instead of doing what she asks or actually trying to figure out what's going on, he just rubs his hands all over her and says "Let me take care of you." I'm especially uncomfortable with this because I don't remember it being an intentional decision of making him seem creepy, I remember his character as supposed to be the good guy throughout. Also I really did not like that plan with Denise. Renault literally says it's ok to not shoot her because she's a woman, then she's blatantly lifting up her skirt and he's just like "Hey don't I know you or something?" Apart from that I don't have much to say except that this episode felt generally more enjoyable. It just had more to capture my interest compared to the declining recent weeks so the episode didn't feel like mostly fluff.

We just have a desk at the end of the bed. You either sit at the desk or turn the screen 180 degrees and watch from bed. Our living/kitchen area is mostly for food and entertaining guests.

Odd long shot request here, but by any chance listen to any Swedish language podcast they might recommend? I'm in the process of learning it and since I listen to podcasts way too much it might be a nice way to get more real practice.

See I still share a screen with my girlfriend since we live together but both of us agree that we can't get a TV because we're in a flat with limited space and not really a place to put a TV if we were going to buy one. (technically the flat came with a horrible square block sized one but we just ditched it since it was in the way) Maybe if we wanted to spend a lot on a TV we'd think about a large size screen. But we'd want to spend a hundred or so max, and at that price range there's no benefit to a TV over a monitor especially since we know we'll have a monitor either way.

That is totally fair. I do actually agree that Sim City could be described as nonfiction in that it attempts to emulate a specific real life system without the intention to draw out an explicit narrative. I'm just personally reluctant to accept the word's usage in the context of an article that has some questionable arguments that I do feel are connected to the problematic use of 'nonfiction'.

I'm signed up for UE4 now, gonna see how retaining my username as SuperBiasedMan and I added usernames I found in this thread. I'll see what mess I can throw together in this!

At this point if I bought a TV it would be to plug my desktop into.

I was not taking the nonfiction comment to mean directly represent reality, but I think it's a similar trap to the idea that documentaries are factual or correct rather than a genre of film that attempts to directly reflect the real world rather than indirectly reflect it through a concocted fictional narrative. Systems in games can try to map the feel of a real life interaction into the game, but those systems are themselves constructed before the process of transcoding them into a game even begins. It's not that I think he considers it fully objective but it read as a bit naively forgetting that systems are made by people with flaws and biases, because I think that's an easy trap to fall into when looking at the world. And system based games without a prescriptive narrative are still going to have emergent narratives that fit with the model the system allows. He mentioned the way Sim City is Americacentric, and that is a story the game tells you. It tells you about this particular kind of city, how it functions and what it values. That's a story to tell, even if it's not a singular specific one. I also don't agree with the idea that fiction games aren't just as much about learning about the world, they're just about it from the opposite lens. Again, in Gone Home you are learning about the experiences of a whole group of people through the lens of one individual's journey. The very fact that it's personal is what pulls you in close so that you can learn more deeply about what it's like for them. Systemically, I don't think you could reproduce that same feeling. I did enjoy the article and there's interesting stuff in there. I just, as usual, spent the most time discussing my negative reactions because they're more interesting than agreeing with what he has down. I don't at all think he's attacking social justice, but I do think he's got blinkers on about how to tackle both game design and social justice issues. Maybe that was a bit of devil's advocate for this particular article, but it didn't sit well with me.

This is useful site for anyone who is interested but feels totally inexperienced and unsure where to start: http://www.sortingh.at/ It basically tries to figure out what kind of game you'd like to make and then helps set you up with resources that will help. Obviously there's plenty of people here who'll also help with more specific info, but if you're a bit unsure of where to even begin this site might help set you on a path and then feel free to ask people questions on here!