vimes

I've got a strong intuition the story is going to be weak, but the color treatment - that makes it look like a color script - and the art is really amazing.

I completely appreciate Gilbert changing environments to find the one that's best suited for his next project: Hothead was the place for Deathspank, DoubleFine for The Cave and now he's going back to indie to wrap upa two-man team project. I don't see why this is bad.and he seemed to leave his former comanies in perfectly good terms, and that's pretty much excellent.

Interesting, I pictured him as Peter Fonda from the "On Golden Pond" years.

But the narrator is supposed to be a 50 or 60, right?

Ten times yes to that,yesterday I read 5 in a rows, and I overdosed on the style and mannerism of Qfwfq for the near future. Maybe one story every two days during commute or breakfast is the best.

By the way, which edition of the Cosmicomics should we use? I've borrowed Penguin Translated Texts' The Complete Cosmicomics and it's 400 pages long. I don't know if it makes sense - I only read two stories so far, so I don't have a strong grasp of the overall structure - but since the Feburary cast is late, maybe it'd be good to have a selection of some sub-stories as a 'minimal set'?

Selfish time: does the "everybody else" includes me or can I just consider that I carried my point across successfully?

Wow, I'm glad I listened to the podcast after reading the book! First, because I didn't pick up at all what Sean sensed was the core of the book - well I did realize that there were only male characters and all of them were unreliable but I never thought it could be a central piece to the book. So that's super valuable Second, because, while listening to the discussion about the portrayal of subculture, I came to the realization that maybe, the whole book is all the fate of sub-cultures. About how, in the real world, they get quietly integrated to the main culture and what would happen if, like in the book, they fought to remain independant asTrystero did and become these lockness monsters of infinite irrevelancy: after all, Trystero existence isn't a game changer and their operation, though its history is fascinating, really isn't anything special: it's just secret courrier. This is not a earth shattering conspiracy - it is no Solient Green or Illuminati reveal - and Oedipa could walk away from it very easily, even after unveiling everything. The fact that she doesn't is truly a puzzle to me. What is monstrous about Trystero though, is the extent at which the members of this forever lasting sub-culture might be going (might because no one is really sure whether the conspiracy is real) to preserve this puny secret - and I'm not sure if the author is making a point through that. Like everybody else, I had a lot of problem with a style at first but got used to it - but I don't think it's something on our part: I re-read the beginning and the style is way more affected than the rest of the book.

My appreciation of the book sounds a bit similar to Greg's: I thought it was too neatly constructed, with too many pieces fitting exactly in the puzzle as they come in - even the narrator waiting impatiently during the holidays seemed like a necessary step the author force him through to reach the psychological state that will make him appreciate the content of the next session so that the theme can move along. It's so efficient and so focused that, in a way, it almost felt like a reverse-engineered book: [spoilers]Ullman wanted to talk about how we let uncontrollable and partially known facts of our origin define us and so she used religion because it is one of the most arbitrary one. And which religion is more exclusive and full of stigma more than judaism? And oh, wait, that links back to WWII and the nazis, who, ahHA!, were making eugenics experiment! And psychology is a German science, so let's make the father of the therapist a Nazi himself! Etc, etc...[/spoilers] The book opened me to the fascinating topic of the struggle of self definition which I never quite considered before, and it has one of the most compelling, heart-wrenching and unique explanation for child abandonment (Chapter 108 from page 328 to 330) - so I'm glad I read it. But it just too well oiled.

To be honest, I didn't realize that the "Part 1" of the title meant there would be another episode on this topic; I thought it meant this was the first part of the whole series. So, Chris has a point: it's probably too early to pass judgement. And maybe I have crazy standards but if so they are not at all related to the amount money she got: she has a Master degree in Social Science, she goes into French ethymology and she seemed to have dedicated her last few years to delving into the Women vs Trope topic; so I was expecting the strictness in research and level of insight that Janet Murray or Brenda Laurel provided in their academical works; even their earliest ones. In hindsight, that might be too much. Still, I stand by my earlier appreciation of the video: it's a good effort, not just in the direction that I would find most valuable - so it's probably more my problem than hers.

I really liked the segments about Starfox Adventure's change of direction and Zelda's inability to be written out of her cliché in Ocarina and Wind Waker: they are peculiar, symptomatic and yet non trivial examples that could open enlightening discussions. The sad part is that they don't, and that's my main issue about this episode: it isn't thought provoking and it doesn't explore the topic from enough angles (writing, character design, game design) to be truly a work of analysis. Maybe it's the point of the series - and re-reading the Kickstarter it seems to be - but limiting this to an inventory of examples is a bit disappointing and not very enriching. Also - a pet peeve - her recap' of the trope in the History of Art is partially incorrect (and damn close to the Wikipedia article in that respect): she identifies 17th and 18th century literature with medieval literature, while illustrating them with 19th century Victorian or dandist paintings. Pre-15th century literature doesn't incorporate fairy tales quite yet as it is mostly composed of the Roman Courtois and Chanson de Geste - all Arthurian Tales are in these two genres for instance - and even though their protagonists are mostly male, there are extremely few examples of Damsel in Distress: Iseult, Guenièvre, Enice and Laudine never need saving though they are key to their male's counterpart actions.

I think this game is great: after a a minute or so, it had eased me into a very primitive, raw state of consciousness; one similar to what I think early Man might have had be when no societal frameworks were there to structure his experience of the world. My first session was a chaotic string of extreme feelings of wonder , befuddlement , anxiety and terror . Invaluable.

I've read all of them and I'll back up Small Gods too.

I heartily recommend these, I did one of their walking tour in 2008 and it was fantastic. Man, I really want to live their someday.

I'm not looking forward to more Star Trek or more Starwars; but you're all saying that it's good that the only two major space opera movie franchises in existence be helmed by the same creative person? And use the same actor to play their Villains? to that. Also, that Plinkett comparison video is bullshit: you don't compare dialog sequences to action sequences to determine which movies got the best tension and pace.

These last few posts makes me want to play this game so much: terra incognita + cartography + dangerous faunae with pattern you cant quite get = perfect exploration simulation?

There's so many things that ACT I did great. * sigh* Basically, it's FAN-TAS-TIC and I think it is on par with Journey and Windowsill as a pure, un-contrived game experience I regret not backing their Kickstarter; but back then, the game felt completely different; and I would love to know how that change came to be.

Why didn't you do that before buying the game ? Also, I hear AC3's naval sequences are worth playing.*shifty*

Yeah, I don't know about the SteamBox, but Big Screen mode is pretty rad: they need to make adjustement for multi-screens and allow to skip the opening video but, imo, it's faster, more usable and more straightforward than the Xbox, PS3 or Wii UI/shops.

Merry Christmas 'verybody!

Sorry, I meant after Gatsby.

What surprised me most is that, despite a first evaluation that was about 45% off target (they need 1 more million and Greg Rice stated they were working with 2.2 million last April), they are reevaluating the cost based on 'aggressive projections' (Isa Stamos says something along these lines) which means that they are planning for the best. Wouldn't it make more sense at that point, given the deviation, to plan for the worse and work with very conservative estimates?

Anybody knows if the book for January has been chosen?

If it's InFlux, I'm in.

I'm going to chime in and say that even though the Thumbs were right in their criticism, 30+ minutes of wailing about it was too much; even more so when this is the 4th episode in a row that they've talked about FC3 in similar terms. For instance, Chris's cry of "What game did they think they were doing?!" is very apt but once was probably enough... and like Chris said in the discussion intro, it's not a very pleasant (or enriching) discussion to listen to - actually it's pretty exhausting. Still, it's completely unfair to say that this is what Idle Thumbs does; because they've got a track record of championing positive aspects of games - of analyzing what works - and when they inspect failure, they mostly focus on why this failure is interesting.