Jake

The episode is up!

The podcast episode is up!

I put up a blog post on the Idle Thumbs blog to hype up Wizard Jam. I love this thing, everyone! Note: If anyone whose work I included in the post would prefer I didn't, I will remove it immediately upon request!

FOV is now at 80 or 85 (w/all animation updated to match) and it looks very nice. I believe we will have an ini file tweak available to ruin the game if you want higher FOV than that. No promises on that number or that implementation strategy but its what is currently discussed.

This is the thread for this episode! I have no internet at home and the new episode template is too unwieldy to manage on my phone so this is what we get for now! Thanks Cara for being on the show this week. Games Discussed: Full Throttle, Cities Skylines, SimCity (2013), Tomb Raider, White Night, Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians - The Crazy Arcade Adventure!, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor LISTEN/DOWNLOAD/SOUNDCLOUD/ITUNES HERE: https://www.idlethumbs.net/idlethumbs/episodes/adults-only

The End of Mad Men 1: Severance It's the beginning of the end for Mad Men in an episode with a lot that seems familiar—even as it's becoming increasingly frayed. Come and join us watch Don Draper fall apart!. Listen on the Episode Page Subscribe to the RSS Feed Listen on Soundcloud Subscribe in iTunes

For me this game jam is a success just for that HOLO-VIOLATOR logo.

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/forum/42-wizard-jam/ Wizard Jam forum is up. If someone makes an official welcome thread (or provides other instructions) I'll stick it.

A word I always spell incorrectly and then notice and fix, unless I rewrite it 5 times in 5 different places.

Would you guys like a dedicated place on the forums for this? (For instance: now that it is happening, pinning a clean new thread, or a dedicated sub forum, or anything like that)

Idle Thumbs 193: General Interest It's road trip week. Buckle your torn-off seat belt, and put the Elijah Wood Flipper movie on the in-van VCR because we're going to Disney World. Not responsible for any injuries of any kind including death. Games Discussed: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Naut, Alien Isolation: Salvage Mode, Night in the Woods, Lost Constellation Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed

Black

It's not that Mario 64 is ugly but that was a contributor when it was new. It has just never grabbed me the way Mario games before or after it have.

Guess the actors were/are looking forward to working with David Lynch again and not randos

Is that actually shown? I absolutely do not remember that happening!

Yeah it raised an eyebrow for me as well, though in this case I don't know if its much different than the remarks we'd get if Robert Florence (a Glaswegian sometimes-games-personality) were on the show.

I'm still convinced that Bobby Draper's full name is Robert Benson Draper and even Don has forgotten that.

The podcast episode is up!

I wonder how conscious that is on the part of the people who are making the show. The decision to trade in '90s actors seems too meta for this series. Likewise this. There's no way Weiner would insert a time jump to shut up fan theories, right? That goes against everything that is ever said about how he runs the show. (I don't follow any fan responses to this show... or any show really, other than what I happen to hear on Twitter, so I have no real sense of the REAL relationship between fandom/online commentary and Mad Men, but my assumption has long been that this show is far more disconnected from its fan chatter than most are?)

Yeah the upside of Lynch directing is that even if its bad, it will be interesting to pick apart and look at from a bunch of angles. If Lynch isn't involved and they still produce it, it will be maybe worth watching a little bit of to see what they did, but I doubt it will be fascinating throughout. The show at its best is so clearly when Frost and Lynch were working in sync on the story and script, and Lynch was behind the camera (or very closely), and it was at its worst when one or neither of them were in the building. Being promised a concentrated dose of Frost/Lynch for an entire season sets crazy expectations -- we never got that even during the main run of the series! -- which is probably also why people (including me) are responding so strongly to a change this drastic.

If anything it feels like Lynch loves Twin Peaks enough that he's willing to go to the mat and air some dirt out in public to get what he believes in, and also he loves it enough to be willing to walk away if he doesn't think he can make it great. Those are the two best cases for me -- Lynch makes it on his terms, or the project dies because that can't happen and he walks. The middle ground - where the show happens, using scripts he co-wrote but without his direction, is the grossest possibility. To me it doesn't feel like he's trying to wriggle out of an obligation - far from it - so it bums me out to hear that people are trying to put that on him. :\

Yes a new show! And it's a new designer interview series! And it's hosted by Soren Johnson, who you may know from his appearances on Three Moves Ahead, his studio Mohawk Games, or his work as the lead designer of Civilization IV. Anyway without further ado here's the first episode! Designer Notes 1: Rob Pardo - Part 1 Welcome to Designer Notes, a podcast about why we make games, hosted by Soren Johnson of Mohawk Games. In our first episode, Soren sits down with Rob Pardo, formerly the Chief Creative Officer at Blizzard Entertainment, to discuss his game design career, or at least as much as could fit into this first of two parts! Rob is best known for his design work on StarCraft 1 & 2, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft. Games Discussed: Dungeons & Dragons, the Ultima series, StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War, Diablo 1 & 2, Warcraft 3 Listen on the Episode Page Subscribe in iTunes Subscribe to the RSS Feed We are still investigating SoundCloud support but iTunes is now live! And of course, you can listen and subscribe via RSS.Enjoy! - Jake

Where is the reporting on Showtime's backpedaling? Not asking because I don't believe you, but because I don't know where to look for this sort of news and am really hungry for the scoop on what's going on.

The End of Mad Men 0: Welcome We're getting in on Mad Men on the penthouse floor, following along for its final seven-episode conclusion. As big fans of the show, we're looking forward to sending it off with reactions and discussion every week. Join us, starting with this brief introduction to the podcast. Yes, it seemed like a good idea for all of us to take on a third weekly podcast, so here it is. The first of the last episodes of Mad Men start tomorrow (Sunday)! If you have anything you want to write in about it or anything else Mad Men, write us at madmen@idlethumbs.net. Listen on the Episode Page Subscribe to the RSS Feed Soundcloud coming soon iTunes coming soon Also there is a Pre-Discussion Thread for the first new episode, "Severance."

The closest we'll ever get to that is Don looking down the empty elevator shaft last year. Even that shot and moment surprised the heck out of me.