SuperBiasedMan

It's a weird lack of awareness he has where he thinks this is a big issue to protect consumers from but he's fine with the massive marketing budgets of AAA studios who say things like "We do all the things we can to essentially brainwash people into liking it before it actually comes out."

Finished Minerva's Den. Pretty enjoyable story, reminded me how much I am not engaged by the shooter mechanics but since it was short I could ignore that. I also liked that I could really follow it with only a couple hours of experience from Bioshock 1 and none of 2. I kinda got where it was going at the end, right before I arrived at the computer. The walk while listening to the final audio recording was really nice, and just reminded me how I should play some more 'walking simulator'/'exploratory narrative' games.

WindOS

I think the issue is really people not knowing what misogyny is. TB would be considered a misogynist, a lot of people would. But being a misogynist doesn't mean any conscious dislike of women or intent to oppress them. Misogyny is a subconscious process many people are subject to without realising, but they think it means a conscious effort. So they feel like they're being accused of a worse infraction than they're guilty of.

Desert Golf and Drog Fractions could do a great crossover, but they'd have to call it something entirely unrelated like Miss Ellens Tea Party to retain the surprise.

Also since I tweeted about it, I guess I'll re-recommend Song Exploder. Someone posted about it way back, and that's how I found it but I've been really enjoying it. It's a great podcast, it takes apart the elements of a song and examines how each piece of it is made in an interview with the composer. I think most art is made from combining distinct parts, but in a song the pieces all mesh and blend together so well it's extra fascinating to examine them.

I have played TF2 Arena mode, but I find it fits poorly with the class system, given that some classes seem to be designed to survive easier than others. Though it's probably also to do with my play style being highly reckless. The CS talk did get me intrigued to possibly play my first non-TF2 FPS since Timesplitters.

So they basically think the mistake they made was moving too fast, not that they made changes people don't want. So they're still trying to make those changes, but slower.

Maybe it's like the ghost that can kill you, so your friends dieing can really fuck your shit up.

I think you could structure that podcast so you never actually say it's about a game.

The shittiness of the wizards will be determined during the balance phase, after rigorous playtesting.

So my little brother is in a game design course where they had to suggest ideas for mods to Oblivion. He just submitted "Wizard Puncher" without much of an idea what it'd be, and it got voted through so he then had to do up a full pitch for it. And then the pitch got the most votes, so he's making that now. I guess I should go buy Oblivion.

Also people against gamergate haven't gotten a single specific barrier to fly under the same way GamerGate is trying to mobilise as a group. We're not really claiming to all be of one mind, but they are.

My internet finally appears to be stable! ...I'm getting a tenth of tegan's speed but it's ten times better than I was getting before so now I can actually stream, play online games and download stuff... basically all the things I use the internet for (aside from visiting here). Also Merus's mother sounds like a crazy badass.

I love Desert Golfing. It's kind of amazing how it instills both the most gamey top score leader board feelings and also the indie artsy weird choices that leads your brain down a rabbit hole of interpretation.

That sounds incredible, though unfortunately sounds like one of those games where it's difficult both to design, and to play well. Like Velvet Sundown, the roleplaying game, you need to be playing it right. It might be possible to set up in games that are open though, like you and a friend setting up rules for a game of Fallout: New Vegas, you come up with a set of possible goals and then each of you draws a goal from the hat and that's your overall goal. This way you both know the full list but not quite what your friend has, so you'd be attempting to figure it out but they'd simultaneously be trying to disguise it.

"Respect my video games without expecting me to respect others!"

I looked up info but mostly found other people unsuccessfully trying to ask if anyone had tried them. I do generally like the book method but am less motivated to regularly take steps through, I'm more likely to occasionally make progress and I may or may not finish them. Costwise, it's free because it's a scheme for jobseekers. It might even result in a small bump up of my payment but they're vague on that. Either way, money's not an issue. It's really about potentially wasting time. Also I meant to say that this thing refers to the usual 'work placement' buzzword but doesn't clarify what it would entail. If I wasn't doing this, I'd continue with some freelance art stuff and working on game ideas by myself while looking for work. I've emailed asking if they can tell me any more about the course anyway. I'm probably leaning more towards doing it, but I'm jaded and arrogant, thinking that a lot of formal education is poorly organised and less effective than me working by myself (as long as I get over my difficulty with self-motivation)

Currently contemplating doing a 30 week android development course. This is just over a year after I've finished a 4 year animation course (which was much more arty than techy, just to clarify). The pros are mostly that I could learn more programming in a formal environment rather than my rough and loose experimentation of being self taught. And I know I feel better when I have a structured schedule to fit to than when I'm free to manage my own time. Also I'd get a 'qualification' I could put on my CV I guess. The only real con is... it would probably be quite time consuming and what if it's terrible, teaches me little and ends up being not worth it? And I don't know if I could just opt out part of the way through if it wasn't much good because that might affect my unemployment money unless I have a good reason to stop. I am leaning more towards trying it but I'm trying to get info about the course first. Basically all I have to lose is time... but time is increasingly precious.

Ooh sweet! I use Pocket Casts on my phone, I recommend it to anyone who wants an app that keeps good track of what episodes you've listened to, how far in you've listened (if you didn't finish the episode) and just generally has a lot of good options like letting you set the Thumbs episodes to auto download when they appear.

I thought this was a forum emote at first.

I also have a lame ass one about Journey. Early on, I met up with the random player who clearly knew what they were doing. They showed me where to find all the collectibles and took me through the whole game up until... the snow mountain. As soon as we went into the snow mountain level, the other player sat down cross legged. I didn't entirely know what was happening at the time, but after I waited for a minute the player disappeared and I realised that they were gone. Disappointed, I was getting ready to leave when I saw a player run up. It wasn't the same one as before, this was a new one. And pretty quickly it became clear that they were just going to follow me, even though I didn't know what I was doing I had swapped roles and had to lead. I managed to fall off a cliff twice while leading them, but in the end I managed to get us both through it alive. It was so good, as someone with a general dearth of empathy it was a really powerful experience.

Regardless of how hard it is, shouldn't it be worth it to prevent yourself from committing rape against someone else?

Well if no-one rates them how will Metacritic aggregate their scores?

I was also allegedly 'gifted' and I don't know whether to blame that or protagonist centric media for making me believe in myself as a special snowflake but college certainly deconstructs that idea, especially if you go to study a field you lack a lot of experience. I think it's a natural product of how schools are organised though, since they're based around a particular type of capability being the most important. If you happen to be good at that, school gives you the idea that you're just good at things (and the inverse too). ...also since this is the podcast thread, here's a couple recommendations! Love and Radio by Nick van der Kolk is a really good series where each episode is basically an intimate interview/series of interviews with a person to give a portrait of their world. Usually they're people with a specific world or worldview that differs from the norm, the latest was for a set of phonecalls with a hasidic Jew about his insular community. Also Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything is a podcast where each episode he takes a theme and will have a series of pieces, some fictional, some non-fictional, that explore different aspects to the chosen theme. He recently did a 3 part one called "Man Without a Country". I'm not sure how familiar the story is to others but I'd never heard of it, it's an oft retold tale about a man being sentenced to no longer live in his native land of America and instead forced to sea for the rest of his life. In Walker's version this entails having to fly around in a hot air balloon above the USA. I enjoyed the degree of farce he takes it too while still exploring the ideas in a real way.