toblix

I really, really want to play scary games, but I'm terribly, terribly easily scared; a horrible, horrible combination. For example, I really want to play Amnesia, but when I play Amnesia and run around for a while and turn around and see the silhouette of a man, I ... I do things. Embarrassing, debilitating fear is my motion sickness.

THAT WAS A PRIVATE CONVERSATION MEANT ONLY FOR THE TWO OF US PIRATE. It's true, though. When doing actual programming, especially when you need to have one or more browsers open at the same time, you need two monitors (or a ridiculolousluy wide one.) OR MORE. Oh, and http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/7746-show-me-your-deskgaming-space/page__st__40

In fact, what do you even nee one monitor for? Are you so superficial and shallow that you need fancy visuals to enjoy interactive digital narration? What, you need a monitor to play Halo and Gears of War «death match» with your slack-jawed bros? Get out of my library!

Don't worry, the rumours about mummies and unstoppable killers sneaking into your house whilst playing Xbox Live Gold are just that... rumours.

Don't critic my english

I actually went from a two-monitor setup back two a one-monitor one, and I'm really glad I did. AMA

Lori and Corey Cole, the people behind the Quest for Glory games, are kickstarting a new game. The video is pretty bad. It has the new «Risks and Challenges» thing Kickstarter now requires. The bulletpoints, which is all I ever read in these things, promise only the most generic of Kickstarter RPG features, such as «Tactical combat that is much more than "hack and slash"» and «Characters with unique personalities and their own agendas,» promises as old as the genre itself. I probably wouldn't back this if I hadn't backed the new Larry Kickstarter, and now I feel like a Kickstarter asshole and try to make amends by backing other non-Larry games.

Okay, first mission slight spoiler. I'm going for the non-lethal, non-alerting achievement, but still wanted to get into the house guarded by two thugs. I was unable to choke any one of them out without the other noticing, so what I ended up doing was firing two bolts into the boards in the door, shattering them. The thugs then went full combat mode and killed the guy inside (don't know if that was someone important ...) after which I was able to choke them out nice and stealth like. Now, I dont have much experience and feel with the stealth AI system – I never got the "omg it's him" symbols over their heads, but they did end up fighting each other because of my bolt-shooting. Will this count as alerting anyone, do you know? Also, later on there was a bunch of fights between guards and thugs and the survivors were eaten by rats (naturally!) This doesn't affect me in any way, does it?

So I'm playing this thing super-slowly, all stressed out because I'm going for the non-detection, non-lethal achievement. I do a little reading, and it turns out there's all sorts of bugginess and weirdness that breaks these. In the first mission, there's the "poisoning" sub-mission, which apparently doesn't break it for you right away, but in a later mission. There's also someone you rescue, who then wanders around and end up getting themselves killed on your account. So, from what I can gather, trying to go for these achievements is the most hopelessly frustrating thing ever. God damn it, why did they have to make those achievements?!

I love this game, but feel almost paralysed by fear of being spotted without knowing about it, or one of my choking victims dying from some unknown thing. If I spend this much time on every little thing, and find out I've accidentally or bugsidentally botched the unseen/non-lethal achievements at some point, I don't know what I'll do. I really do hope they patch in some way of checking that status whilst playing.

Hm. Really enjoyed the the first part, didn't care for the last one. Hope the ratio of sweet exploration and awesome locations to wild and crazy, rootin' tootin' combat is higher than in the intro.

Hey guys, did you see this hyperlink?

DATA BASE

I do this as well. The internet's ability to generate content together with my low standards and lack of self-control has turned my life into an endless, tasteless, nutritionless sausage of factoids, funny video clips, short blog posts and webisodes. It will never end.

Netflix launched in Norway today, to much fanfare and many headlines. I signed up for a free month and am immediately impressed that I can view, say, Arrested Development, legally without fussing around with torrents or DVDs. Then I discover this: Apparently they force subtitles on some of their content. On some stuff, like The Walking Dead, there's an «off» option for subtitles, but for Arrested Development and some other stuff I checked, like the seminal Volcano, there isn't. Weirdest thing I ever saw, and it ruins the whole thing for me (if you can imagine.) I wonder if it's a weird technical thing, or a licensing one. I wouldn't be surprised if, yet again, lawyers are working hard to prevent me from not torrenting stuff. I asked HBO, who will also be launching an on-demand thing here soon, and apparently they won't be forcing any subtitles. So, back to your life stories.

Didn't Simon the Sorcerer pretty consistently shove stuff into his magic, glowing hat? Magic, man.

https means it tries to download the youtube with multiple https, and you only need one.

Could it be the https?

Anyone planning on getting this? Seems like the first game in forever that actually makes some changes to the formula ... maybe the multiplayer is fun?

The Dark Story of Prison Architect

Weirdly, I'm unable to buy Armageddon, and only get a message saying it's available with the pre-purchase of Revolution, which I already have, and which is out.

I know there's a thread for this game, but it's in Idle Banter, which is crazy, because this has to be one of the most important games ever made. I've played this for a while now. I'm past the second station on the map, closing in on the third, and there's just so much going on I'm starting to wonder what kind of system is in place to make all this stuff work at all. It seems everything – the conversations and movements of people around the train – is actually happening in real-time. At first I assumed there was some amount of triggers being used to ensure I was there at the right time to see the chef scalding his assistant or whatever, but the more I play the more it looks like I'm stumbling upon these events by pure luck. This is awesome and crazy. It looks like they've made graphics for everything, from all possible angles. I can stand right next to people to overhear their conversation, or I can move around like an idiot, or sit down and glance at them over my shoulder like I assume a smooth spy would. I know people have been praising The Last Express for its design, but it's also impressive from a technical standpoint. My point, however, is that it seems there are so many variables in this game, either "winning" is nearly impossible, or the possibility space is not actually as big as I'm led to believe, and there are some mechanisms in place to nudge me back on track.

Seems so weird that they would allow a corrupt/broken game to break the achievement system.

Although there are worse games to pay double for, I thought you could just activate your key on Steam?