pdotjpg

This was cool! Love the art and atmosphere, and taking down enemies was very satisfying. One of those game jam games that's begging to be expanded into a bigger and better thing. Only complaints are that the post-processing effects made text barely legible, which is a bit of a problem when it comes to health, and also that there should be some feedback for when you're hit. Other than that, great! I'd like to play more.

Really cute little game. I agree that the atmosphere is great. Love the art and especially the music. As for complaints, I'll echo the little issues that Henke mentioned, and the fact that I wasn't quite sure when I was done with the game.

This is so cool! Filled to the brim with good ideas. New Age Garth Merenghi mixed with eye-popping 3D polygonal shapes - it's a very inspired mix. Lovely to see such a nice outcome, seeing that this is one of your first Unity projects. Funny, surprising and creative. To continue the weird VO comparisons, I couldn't stop thinking of John Cale's performance in TVU's "The Gift": https://youtu.be/mI-YiaWDgB4

I like this a lot. Really well executed the way it unfolds, and the seamless way the music syncs up to the action. Surprising and entertaining.

It's kind of amazing to me that this was made in 2 weeks. Fantastic production value and atmosphere. The camp - with its interiors and basketball - was particularly great. I agree with Ben about that moment. Perfectly handled. If I'm going to be critical, I wish there was a bit more substance to the story, aaand I do agree that it's a bit slow - both the dialogue and the walk speed. But overall, really really really great. Hats off.

I love this, such a cool little space.

Aaaand It's done: https://pdotjpg.itch.io/super-hollyweedland Like I said in the original post, I was learning 3D modelling here. Maya specifically. One thing I didn't manage to come to grips with was rigging and animation, so the end result is a lot more static than I would have liked. It's missing a bunch more stuff I wanted in there, and I wish I had updated this thread more, but overall pretty happy with this. It's just nice to get something out there. Hope you get a kick out of it. Really looking forward to everyone's finished works.

That theater is so good. Looking forward to this

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! Went for the pixelated look for pragmatic reasons - it's good at hiding the simplicity of the visuals while giving it a bit of style. As expected, had very little motivation to work on this during weekdays after a day of work. The good news is that I'm done with the bare minimum version of two scenes, and the main menu. So it's already at a state where I'll be able to publish something at the end of the jam. Still a toooon of stuff to get done to get anywhere near what I was imagining, though.

The female characters in Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire certainly were centered, and it was clear that Lynch's allegiance was with them, but don't they feel more like a conduit for the guy's ideas about women, rather than honest, realistic representations? In this sense I think the von Trier comparison is particularly apt - I get the same vibe from, like, Dogville or Breaking the Waves. I do agree about FWWM, though. Maybe that was handled with more tact due to the fact it touches on an actual, real life issue? Whereas the stuff that came after were these ethereal, heady movies about movies with basically no grounded characters (Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive in particular being weird remixes of noir tropes and of each other). Idunno, probably don't have anything else to add to the topic. It's always equal parts fascinating and disheartening to look at this side of Lynch's works.

RE: Lynch and female characters I sort of put him in the same camp as Hitchcock and von Trier in the sense that there seems to be a great empathy for and fascination with women (in a pervy and detached way), and attempts to humanize these characters is often absolutely tone deaf. The guy's probably a lecher with an ego that lets him put whatever he wants on the screen without consideration for how it might be perceived - very typical of great, contentious directors. Also ties into his mean streak of exploiting physically deformed and odd-looking people, etc. He's not excused, but I've learned to take the good with the bad in his work.

What a bizarre video. I love this idea, looking forward to it

BadCoop's reflection was so good Liked the stuff with Amanda Seyfried and her boyfriend a lot. Similar to the teenage stuff from Wild at Heart and old Twin Peaks, but much more gross. Classic Lynchian corrupted Americana. Felt very tragic. That close-up of her with the music was so unexpected and emotionally intense and in-your-face filmic - might be my favourite moment in the series so far. Also want real Coop back, though the feeling isn't as strong after this episode as it was after the last. Does no one at work give a shit about this totally catatonic man? It's kinda implied by Naomi Watts that Dougie has experienced bouts of depression or something like that (he's also established to be an alchoholic?), but this is still stretching it.

Yeah, I feel pretty similarly. Still not finished with it, a real slog for me despite it being such a small book and me usually being a relatively quick reader. I think for me it has something to do with the relentless bleakness of the book. All of the characters are so incredibly alienated, broken and miserable that I find it pretty emotionally exhausting to read. That sort of thing isn't uncommon, of course, and I love 'sad books', but usually those books are edifying, they give you an emotional release, allow you to emphatize, etc. I don't feel any of that here. 'Clinical' is a good word - there's no poetry or insight, just a cold, mechanical portrayal of misery. That has merit, I suppose, but it makes for a draining read. Still an extremely strong book, and i'll perservere through to the end. All the pomo-ish stuff about historicity and ideology and alternate realities within alternate realities is so trippy and tought-provoking and cool (though i'm still not able to fully digest the ideas and put them into words).

Hi all. New to the forums and was very excited to see this month's book be something that I own and had on my to-read list already. It's my first time reading Dick, I'm only about 100 pages in so far, and not really a strong critical reader imo, but eager to throw out some early, scattershot thoughts and impressions: - Love Gormongous' post about how colonialism is explored in the book, definitely rings true so far. What's striking is not just the desperation and victimization of the characters introduced so far, but also 'hate breeds hate' way in which they get sucked into the ideology of their masters and basically contribute to their own subjugation. What I mean with this is that, while all the characters seem like pretty miserable people, many of them second-class citizens with their spirits broken, they do and say some hateful shit. Those passages about the incestual Germans, the Oriental-hence-incompetent Japanese, not to the mention the dehumanization of the Chinese, Jewish and African people, are really pretty shocking. The Italian trucker's self-loathing. The antique collector's cruelty against the slaves, the taxi driver, even fellow Americans, all for show and social status. Hate and distrust is normalized, and the oppressed divide themselves among class/racial lines. The whole "I have it bad but at least I'm not a filthy [insert race/faith here]" way of thinking. Call me out if I'm stretching it, but the emotional tone of this stuff feels really pertinent to 2016, what with the rise of the (sad, angry, disenfranchised) right-wing in Europe and, to a lesser extent (it seems), the States. - I love Wyndam-Matson's responses to the alt-alt-history Rita describes to him in chapter 5 - in an alternate universe, a course of events much closer to our own can sound ridiculous. Combined with "historicity/fakeness/authenticity" tirade from earlier in the same scene, it feels like a really potent statement about subjectivity and a rejection of historical narrative - Dick's New Age-y/druggy/spiritual side showing itself? As you can tell, I'm not able to put into words exactly what I got from this chapter, but it was really strong. - It's interesting how so much Nazi-related speculative fiction features such super-advanced technology, for example the talk of mechs and advanced space exploration in this book. This probably comes with the territory of writing wacky alt-history and sci-fi. However, and I hope this doesn't come off as really controversial and edgy, I'm also tempted to think that there's a perverse fascination and admiration of that regime in Western culture. Loathing the ideology, while admiring and fearing the industrial might and grand vision and cool outfits, you know? - Funny how much this feels like Gravity's Rainbow-lite so far (credit where it's due, this preceded GR by 10 years; one has to wonder how big of an influence it was on Pynchon). Can totally understand the often-heard comparison between the two authors, and it really goes to show how blurry the line between literary and genre fiction became in the postmodern era. Beyond the obvious WWII connection and the character-hopping structure, there's the shared critique of colonialism and the military-industrial complex, an almost fetishistic approach to describing technology and mechanics whilst at the same time imbuing the work with a strange mysticism, as well as a sort of oblique, vermilion atmosphere which seems to this Eastern European uniquely Californian in spirit. All that said, I can't say I'm totally enamored with the book quite yet. So far it seems to be falling into the sci-fi trap of ungraceful exposition. I mean, the setting is very interesting and well-realized, and the book has clearly given me a lot of food for thought already, but I haven't yet been captured emotionally, neither by the story/characters, nor by the prose itself. Lacks beauty for me. Fairly sure I'll get more into it, though. Sorry if this post was rambly, hopefully it's not totally dumb and someone finds something of interest in there. PS Haven't played the most recent Wolfenstein game, but I wonder, how much did it lift from this book?

As I said, I know it's not against the rules, but was just curious to hear if people thought it was in the spirit of the jam, since I can see it being seen as a kind of weird, cheaty approach, stretching the concept of the jam. Or am I overthinking it? Thanks for the warm welcome and quick responses!

Hey! New to the forums but really excited to participate in this thing. What does everyone think about using a title from one of the interview/tv/book casts? Technically not against the rules, but I wonder if it goes against the spirit of Wizard Jam. I guess it does, and I don't think I'll end up doing that, but thought it's a point of discussion worth throwing out there, since the joke they made on the show about games named after developers was a good one, and Twin Peaks Rewatch has some excellent titles: "Drive With a Dead Girl", "May the Giant Be With You", "Rest in Pain", etc.

Hi all. I'm Pēteris from Riga, Latvia. Been listening to the cast for years, but the most I've engaged with it sending in some reader mail recently. 22 years old, got a pretty worthless bachelor's degree last year, currently working a cozy part-time job and devote most of my free time to learning gamedev, with the pipe dream of some day getting into the industry. I feel like the podcast has really shaped my understanding and appreciation of games and design, honestly the most insightful (and hilarious) discussions about gaming that I've found anywhere online. Excited to participate in this (and hopefully future) month's Idle Book Club forum discussion and hoping to cook something up for the upcoming Wizard Jam. The community seems really lovely and unique, excited to get a bit involved.