Jake

I thought it might be Unity terrain but I don't recognize that "Build" button. edit: Oh god why am I questioning the presence of a "Build" button in the UI of a project called Build The Nublar. Goodbye everyone.

What engine are you using for this?

Important UI reference:

True.

We're talking about the actual Nublar-building process taking place at Dodgson's computer. (Since you're not actually creating the island, you're creating a quick proposal for your boss to run through on his computer at work.) Yes, if all goes according to plan this is a Desktop Simulator. I did a quick test of a Unity UI Canvas rendered to texture on a curved CRT monitor. Ideally this ends up getting a nice CRT shader and glow on it. Had to test inline video of course, the staple of Jurassic Park conference call technology.

Oh yeah what happened is "babygate" (to put invisible walls around the edges of the navigable world) started being referred to as "babywall" (to wall an NPC into a room and watch them die). That drift happened somewhat invisibly at some point and was initially confusing, but eventually not confusing (because I generally forgot about walling NPCs into rooms).

It gets used at work!

Here you go: https://vine.co/v/eTu9JOJ1AM0

I wish we were being that clever.

I made a super good mai tai tonight and am really pleased with myself over it. (The resort style ones with a bunch of fruity shit in them, but the non terrible version of that kind.) I would be more than happy to make you guys some on the next stream. Maybe a Sidewinders Fang as well?

Man that Dark Souls 1 world map is what I like.

Idle Thumbs 258: Change the Name to Game It's game time. You're confident. You know this. You load up Dark Souls 3. You have some trouble with the menus, but it's alright, you figure it out. Forty minutes later, something on the screen almost resembles a human face. Enter the game—it's brutal, not what you remembered. As your grotesquely-faced wizard is wrecked beyond belief time and again, you reflect on how one can feel so old and yet like such a baby. You load Super Hypercube and watch a small cube slowly and satisfyingly descend into an appropriate receptacle. You make a drink on the rocks. Discussed: Dark Souls 3, Hyper Light Drifter, Enter the Gungeon, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Super Hypercube, The Foo Show, EVE Online, NBA 2K16 Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Are there actually a lot of people who do the thing you describe here, or do you suspect and feel sure that there are and then have worry over those people? I ask because I have never heard anyone describe an experience with The Witness like the one above.

Reading Bad Blood while riding the N Judah was the ultimate version of this for me.

Maybe at one point these will be worth their own thread, but for now here are all the Saturday Streams (and a couple other one-off videos) that we've done. For those who haven't noticed (because they're super irregular and infrequent), we've been streaming games on Saturday mornings on twitch.tv. Some of them are old games from when we were kids, some are just games we love, and some are games none of us have played before and wanted to discover them live and shamefully in front of an audience. Also some of them have special guests! Note that because these are recordings of live streams, they often have pre-roll, and sometimes glitch out weirdly, but hopefully you'll find some entertainment and illumination among the chaos. Enjoy... Pikmin 2 Head-to-Head Most people probably didn't know that Shigero Miyamoto's team made a competitive RTS game, and fewer know that it's super good. Jake and Chris play a couple hours of Pikmin 2's relatively unknown, but surprisingly robust split-screen versus mode. Pikmin 2 Part 1 Pikmin 2 Part 2 ​ BioShock 2: Minerva's Den with Steve Gaynor Idle Thumb's very own Steve "Hot Scoops" Gaynor was also the lead designer and writer on the BioShock 2 DLC "Minerva's Den." When in town for the weekend we played through the entirety of Minerva's Den with Steve at the wheel providing a realtime director's commentary on the game. Minerva's Den with Steve ​ Tennnes Tennnes is a simple-but-deep same-screen competitive tennis game, a throw back to '80s sports games, with the mechanical fidelity modern game design allows. We took a break in the middle of an Idle Thumbs episode to play a bunch of it. Enjoy! Tennnes Part 1 Tennnes Part 2 ​ X-Com with JP LeBreton and Evan Lahti The original X-Com has a notoriously steep barrier to entry, but PC Gamer's Evan Lahti and Double Fine designer JP LeBreton help guide us (and you!) into the game in a way that we've heard actually works. X-Com with JP and Evan Part 1 X-Com with JP and Evan Part 2 ​ DayZ with Evan Lahti Sean and Chris are guided through the brutal world of DayZ with the help of PC Gamer's resident DayZ expert and evangelist Evan Lahti. Watch Sean find a bicycle and go for a lovely ride through the apocalyptic wastelands, realize it was all a dream and fear for his life. DayZ with Evan Part 1 DayZ with Evan Part 2 DayZ with Evan Part 3 ​ FTL: Faster Than Light After many ill-fated attempts at managing his ship's crew's journey through some particularly vengeful patches of space, Chris plays through his first ever successful FTL campaign live, with lots of incredible back and forth from the audience. FTL Part 1: The failed attempts FTL Part 2: Conquering the Space Boss ​ Minecraft For a while, Idle Thumbs ran a Minecraft server. It's currently closed, but take a trip through the Thumbs server that was, with us and all the other Thumbs who logged in for the stream. Minecraft Part 0: Prologue Minecraft Part 1: Actual Minecraft Playing ​ ​BioShock with JP LeBreton Frequent Idle Thumbs guest and game designer JP LeBreton worked on the original BioShock, and takes us through some of the game, including his level, Arcadia. BioShock with JP Part 1 BioShock with JP Part 2 BioShock with JP Part 3 As a bonus, JP brought in and played "Arcadia Demade," a Doom II remake of his own BioShock level, re-creating Arcadia's spaces and encounters as faithfully as possible using only stock Doom assets. Worth watching for the Houdini Splicer encounter alone. Arcadia demake with JP Part 1 Arcadia demake with JP Part 2 Super Black Bass A bass fishing sim for the SNES, Super Black Bass was one of those games from your childhood that you played a lot even though you knew you were only understanding half of what was going on. Sean shows Jake and Chris how it's done. Super Black Bass ​

The Idle Book Club 14: Everything I Never Told You Everything I Never Told You is another story in the "mysteriously dead girl" genre—so how does it stack up? Sarah and Chris discuss the story's themes of racism, family interconnectedness, and empathy. Next month: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

What direction is that map signposting me to? It just looks like a map!

Jam

Sorry this one was late! I screwed up!! Idle Thumbs 253: Ambitious Ambivalence We paid some of the smartest and most hardworking university-grade linguists to translate the contents of this week's episode into a language you will understand. Unfortunately they were unable to finish their work, as one was suddenly gored by an elk, the others are caught up in a cheating scandal surrounding the game of Bridge, and a randomly propagated fire seems to have engulfed the room they were using to do most of their work. We were able to save one notebook from the blaze, a notebook empty except for the phrase, "You are the One." Games Discussed: Far Cry Primal, Far Cry 2, Stardew Valley, Crossword puzzles, Bridge, Myst, Obduction Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Idle Thumbs 254: Welltris and Wetrix This week, game developers gather in San Francisco to confer. Chris, Nick, Jake, and Steve swap stories from this year's Game Developers Conference including Super Hypercube and VR as its own medium, a look into the creation of Darkest Dungeon and finding, and adapting to your audience, and Nick Breckon's return to the NBA. Games Discussed: Super Hypercube, Darkest Dungeon, NBA 2K16, Super Hexagon, Gorillas.bas, Tichu Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Venture Bros audience is too small for a Telltale game, I bet.

This was excellent! Thanks everyone who came out, it was great to meet you. Sorry we got there so late!

Only briefly in a reader mail! But it made me want to play it.

I had that game - I think it came with my first CD ROM drive along with the CD version of Loom, I'm almost positive - and I could never get anywhere in it and found it totally baffling, but I always loved the opening.

Yeah that was a great gag. The structure of episode 5 completely owned me, in a way I found really exhilarating. I didn't know when the story would actually end, but it didn't feel like it was dragging. It was very well done.