Erkki

I just finished The Wise Man's Fear. I'm kind of ambivalent about it. At times it feels like a badly written early teen fantasy. At other times it is a really interesting and somewhat unique fantasy story and a thrill to read. If Kvothe was less full of himself, maybe it would be better. I guess it was pretty much the same in Name of the Wind (and in the first 300 pages of TWMF basically the same things happen as in the first book), but it was new enough then that I noticed this less.

I hadn't heard about this before. Looks about 2 times more interesting to me than the official Gothic sequel (which is developed by Spellbound I think): http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/05/06/fantasy-world-fantasy-risen/ Risen, developed by Piranha Bytes, so I guess it might be the spiritual successor to Gothic. I hope they do a better job with QA this time. And keep the world as small as Gothic 1 or 2 (which were still big). Gothic 3 was so huge that it lost focus and I almost remember it as 2 or 3 separate games. The environments look really good, but perhaps resemble Gothic even a bit too much.

I thought this was a joke. Anyway, can't get excited about this at the moment. Too many other cool games on the way.

A dev diary video: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/developer-diary-i-am-alive/727329

I stumpled onto this old gamasutra interview with Dan Pinchbeck and this helps me understand the game a bit better. Actually he doesn't come off as pretentious at all so I have to redact that comment. [edit]Also, it is interesting that the games he mentions most are S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Far Cry 2.

A lengthy interview with Limbo devs at gamasutra. Wow! One guy programming just the player character for 3 years. Sweet.

looks exciting! haven't played a city sim in a long time unless you consider the previous Anno game to be one.

"Ass Revelations" is finally 25 € on Steam (for 30 more hours) At this point, I'm not sure I want it though. Got too many games already.

Yeah, I think I should probably say something. In Estonia that lawsuit wouldn't happen though, and here people in general are not aware of these issues at all and are behind the times. There was a person appointed as a gender equality commisioner a couple of years ago and turns out she's not been doing her job very well. There was a case where a woman that was being discriminated against turned to the equality commisioner's office and had to wait months and months for a statement, meanwhile things turned worse as the employer assumed no response from the commisioner meant all was fine according to the law.

Stuff like this makes me want to punch someone in the face. Then again, I'm sure there have been situations when guys have been sexist but I've done nothing about it and not said anything. I don't think I've ever witnessed anything as bad as what was in one of those videos linked in Giant Bomb, but I also don't have many female friends. Recently it's mostly a few co-workers trying to be funny in a "I like boobies" way on a company-wide Skype chat that includes several women. None of the women have ever responded to that AFAIK. Should I say anything the next time it happens? Sometimes I think I'm taking it too seriously (it's not like it's frequent, maybe happens once a month or so and involves only a couple of guys among tens of people on the chat).

I'm really interested in what comes from Dear Esther makers' (thechineseroom was it?) and Frictional Games' collaboration (Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs). In my idea, Frictional Games is currently at the forefront of moving first person games forward (away from shooters), and I guess thechineseroom is on the same front. What Frictional really handles well is still giving the player interesting stuff to do without involving combat. As I've said before I'd love to see something of Frictional's school in a non-horror genre and perhaps this is a step towards that. I think this game is lead by thechineseroom rather than Frictional (?), and I imagine that a really interesting thing to see would be if they can take the mechanic(lessnes)s of Dear Esther and add a minimal amount of new mechanics to that in subsequent games. Dear Esther would then be the game where they wiped the table clean and started building new things on top of that. Note: this doesn't change anything about me not liking Dear Esther.

I personally don't believe that but it would be interesting to hear one episode that was stereo. Can you point to other podcasts that are stereo?

Hahaha.

That's a good point. I had forgotten how long that period was when he made adventure games. Also, I realize you know more about SCUMM than I do so perhaps my idea that it's aged is false. I didn't know (or forgot) that it was used in the Monkey Island Special Editions. Anyway, it still doesn't mean it would be perfect for the project. That depends on a lot of stuff. If the AGS engine is really (going) open source with a sane license, they could easily work out the kinks of that. Or whatever, maybe Ron has been working on a SCUDFA in secret.

What brkl said. And also that they made awesome games with it 15 years ago (or more recently in case of Ron?) doesn't mean they could reuse that experience immediately right now (or maybe they could). Although there is SCUMMVM, so that might make it more realistic, but I don't think it is any way obvious that SCUMM would be perfect for this, or that we even can have a clue as outsiders what would be.

Surely you meant "get back at Nick"?

So I bought it, though I perhaps shouldn't have considering all the kickstarting I've been doing and not having much spare money right now. It's good, but it does seem super complicated and I feel like I should watch some videos of people playing it first. I conquered England as William the Bastard and then let it fast forward some years -- poor Will was declared incompetent (or something to the effect) and his wife took over. I think they could have done some small things better to make it more accessible. For example, the way armies move is a bit weird -- the figures stay where start from, but a progress on the movement arrow shows how far they are from the goal. I find the managing of excess demesne to be quite difficult -- who should I give lands to etc. Same about the marriages, tutoring and stuff. At first it's really hard too keep track of so many details. I couldn't figure out why some regions where not producing any income. It seems great though. I think it will take time to really get into it, but it should provide hours and hours of fun once I figure it out.

I imagined this coming from Adam West's Batman. Also, the last progcast was really awesome!

Or taking parts of AGS or something. I forget, is AGS open source now or not? The FAQ still says not.

Rodi's and Sal's advice sounds good. But as an alternative of distancing yourself from the whole thing (which seems hard for you to do as well) have you had a chat with the other guy about this? If I remember correctly, he is/was(?) also your friend. Maybe you are focusing too much on her. Maybe you should have a talk with him about this situation. I don't know what you'd say, but maybe it would help to resolve it whichever way it goes. (disclaimer: this advice may or may not be completely stupid)

To be honest, DeathSpank is one of the funniest games I've played in recent years. Maybe a bit over the top with some of the jokes, though.

And about $10K away from passing Venus Patrol + Kill Screen combined. I was actually surprised looking back and seeing Kill Screen's goal was so small (I didn't back it myself, probably didn't even have an account then). I guess it was early in Kickstarter history and people didn't trust the system that much then.

This is amiguous. For example, the Elevation Dock thing (which I found out about shortly before it ended and probably thanks to the Double Fine project) is pretty much you buying something for a price less than the eventual retail price for it will be.

Yeah sorry I took it the wrong way as I haven't read many opinions on it and was the main complainer in this thread