Thrik

That SYMBIOSIS thing is pretty cool, and a good example of how to grab attention. Literally within seconds of reading the one-sentence blurb and seeing the quality of the art I was hooked, and after that point the video and extra text was largely superfluous. That's the key I think. It's interesting that his project works as a product for writers, too. While I'm sure many people will enjoy it for its own merits, everyone considers themselves a bit of a writer and there are plenty of guys actually getting paid for it too. He specifically outlines that his book is great for people to look at and get ideas for stories, and that they have his blessing to take those ideas and do anything they like with them. He's not just selling the idea of gorgeous art, but also the idea of thought-provoking material that significantly benefit someone. Hell, if I were writing some sci-fi story I'd be poring through this shit. And more than anything else, not showing too much works in his favour. He shows enough to evoke the imagination, but there's a small enough amount to cause your imagination to fill in the blanks. You're buying into an ideal concept rather than a tangible product. Maybe holding a lot of your stuff back is a good idea with Kickstarters, but determining the right balance is best left to someone far more suited than I. Good stuff to keep in mind.

Heh, the concierge of my apartment block literally just sits watching YouTube all day. The building has a 24-hour presence for security, accepting deliveries, etc.

It does sound like you've had some exceptionally bad luck with jobs. I'm a firm believer that no company should be asking their employees to regularly work in excess of a standard working week, and if they are it's a sign of bad management. Where I work now we fully utilise Agile/SCRUMM planning and it's incredible how much work we can get done without running into overtime, and when we do work extra it's because of exceptional circumstances. I guess many places aren't so lucky though, I know because I've worked for them — it was such an eye-opener when I realised, holy shit, not every company is ran like crap and burns its staff into the ground. Of course I'm not in your discipline so it might be your options are severely limited, although I do know that passionate creatives also sometimes dig their own graves by doing extra hours they really don't need to (done this myself). I've no idea whether or not that applies to you, but if you do end up with another job don't let them pressure you into working retarded hours. It's almost always not worth it from a health or a career point of view — if anything, I find that companies tend to disrespect and treat those hard workers worse. Working endless extra hours earned me precisely nothing. Anyway! My feeling is that a low-commitment part-time job would be good because it gives you a daily mission aside from sitting there at your desk feeling under pressure to get the book done. You'll probably come to your book more energised and looking forward to it because of the contrast, and it's a phenomenon that when doing relatively mindless work your creative mind tends to explode with ideas. But you definitely wouldn't want one that exceeds 15–27 hours a week, as that should be enough to keep things ticking and relieve some of the pressure. I don't know about over there, but there're endless (fancy) bars and restaurants offering part-time hours here. In fact, my girlfriend's biggest problem right now is that no one place is offering enough hours so she's working two and potentially three jobs. The work is relatively stress-free so long as you're OK in that environment like she is. I wouldn't like it though, but there are other part-time things I could do more suited to my skills.

I'd never heard of this game until it got slammed in the latest Feminist Frequency Tropes video. Looks great!

God, I've been making so many burgers recently. For some reason I've always put off the idea of just going ahead and learning how to fry a burger. Now I realise it's the easiest thing ever I've been going crazy with gourmet burgers (or when lazy just using some flatbread, fine beef, dairylea slices, and sweet chilli sauce).

I don't think a Kickstarter will only succeed if well-known people are involved, I've seen numerous ones that don't fit that requirement. What's really important is that it's a truly awesome idea that instantly captures people's imagination — if you need more than the opening paragraph and a few pictures to do it, you're probably in hot water. So you need to have the confidence in your own creation, as well as a keen marketing pitch with the right people being made aware of it so they can hype you up (this bit is absolutely critical). If you know people who do that kind of thing, ask them to help. Or just get ideas from a fun group like your Idle Thumbs buddies, show us your proposed pitch and get some QA on it. If you're currently unemployed then of course now's a great time to start preparing something that'll make people go 'yeah I want that' within seconds, once you've done whatever job hunting you need to do. Don't be afraid to reveal your stuff to small groups of people to get them interested and solicit feedback, you don't need to save it for a 'big bang' Kickstarter launch. This could also help to build hype as you can gauge interest on multiple concepts without launching a Kickstarter, by drip-feeding mini-pitches. While I'm reluctant to say this because I don't want to dent your motivation, is this really something you couldn't do while also getting some kind of other income? I personally find it quite easy to do hobby projects, as my girlfriend gives me plenty of time alone (largely thanks to her crazy shifts) and I love my job so I don't feel sapped of all desire to do anything outside of work. If this is something you can do without becoming completely dependent on handouts and backers then that will reduce the risk if it ends up going tits up. Not that I'm saying don't do a Kickstarter, but you could reduce the funding goal (and thus the chance of it failing) if you had a part-time income or something rather than going all-in. And is it even practical to treat making this book as a 9–5 job? I know my creativity would wane with that kind of relentless dedication — which is why I like staggering my hobby projects over more time.

Computer games, man. Computer games. Jeez.

I don't really see CotC as selling out, even if it's not something that personally appeals to me. I see it as like the time trial arena DLC that was released for Mirror's Edge: a simplified experience that completely forgets about the story and canon, and just focuses on the pure gameplay mechanics that make the game fun. Dishonored's Dunwall City Trials DLC was a very appropriate equivalent to bring up, as it's much the same thing. It seems to be becoming an increasingly common thing for games to have one DLC akin to the above, and one or more that continue the narrative and canon of the world in some way. Clearly there's an audience for both or they wouldn't be made or bought, and I can very easily see how one might enjoy a distilled gameplay DLC and be willing to pay for it even if, again, it's not my cup of tea. I certainly don't see it as selling out. In fact, to my mind one of the huge advantages of optional DLC is that various types of extra content can be offered without it affecting the core game. For example, a small part of the development team might have had some crazy idea for some awesome gun/traversal gameplay that they couldn't quite make work in the central game, but by being freed of the requirement that it make sense or appeal to everybody they can just go nuts. That's a good thing, no? Even if there is the risk not everyone will like every DLC. If anything, the safe, easy, sell-out route would be making the DLC exactly in the same vein as the original game, thus eliminating the risk that it might not appeal to everyone. If you can't understand or tolerate that, I guess this is just something that's going to annoy you for many years to come.

There is no more Fez 2.

I have a similar reaction to trying to play the originals, for some reason I remember them looking way better than they did and I kind of want to leave it that way. Even if the Special Editions aren't perfect, because they're not literally the originals it leaves my original memories intact. It all makes sense in Thrik logic. It's a bit like when I once emulated one of my favourite childhood Amiga games, Dizzy. I was almost distraught when I saw how off the reality was to my rose-tinted memory and had to immediately stop playing lest I completely ruin my warm, fuzzy memories.

And on a tangentially related note, I'm really glad that this exists for when I do eventually play the SE. Guybrush Hair Patch for SE

I love it all, it's so thoroughly disturbing. I did not like that section as a child. Not as bad as the 'LeChuck chasing you through hallways with the most jump-inducing music ever' in MI2 though. Gilbert and Schafer enjoy making their endings as horrifying as possible it seems. I just noticed the monkey skeleton beneath the head has brass bones. Foreshadowing of the robot monkey?????

Agreed, you're in the wrong tavern here boy.

I think you're worrying too much, just bloody go for it.

You really don't need those driver cleaning utilities and shit nowadays unless you encounter a legitimate problem. Just uninstall, reinstall, good to go.

This forum is a bit like the Monkey Island catacombs, each thread potentially leading to numerous wild and disturbing passages.

I identify myself as a gamer, in the same sense that somebody might consider themselves a film buff. I don't really go around proudly proclaiming it though, maybe at most saying that I consider myself "a bit of a gamer" if my enjoyment of interactive entertainment is questioned. To consider it a negative label seems daft, although I think the original point was really striking out at the fact that some people use the title like it automatically makes them easier to relate to or authoritative on the matter, similarly to how some nerds call themselves 'foodies' and assume it gives them automatic superior knowledge on the subject of what makes good food. To put it another way, if you're consciously going out of your way to highlight the fact that you consider yourself a gamer on a regular basis then you're probably a bit of a dweeb.

I've been deciding between investing in this or Skyrim for my next big game, now that I'm nearing the end of the thoroughly enjoyable Tomb Raider. I think Skyrim will win, but I was curious about how long this has taken people to finish on average? I don't mean crazy collectathon stuff though, just story and side-things.

It seems kind of ridiculous to me that Zero Punctuation is still going. After watching a few episodes I definitely felt like it'd run its course, being entertaining but hardly the kind of thing you'd tune in for for years on end. How do you keep that fresh for six years?

Plenty of Fish, son. Plenty of Fish.

You're better off looking for somewhat standalone ratings if you can't find a direct comparison. For example: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+7570 http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+5750 As you can see, the 5750 is a fair bit more powerful than the 7570 — but still falls significantly short of a new £150-ish card. Comparing game benchmarks is useful, too. For example, most cards of the past few years have been benchmarked against Battlefield 3, so even if the two cards aren't in the same benchmark you can still see how they fare in the same game (just try to make sure the CPU and RAM aren't too wildly different in both cases).

Heh, I was so delighted that they continued the tradition of silly FMVs. It really is a large part of the C&C charm and appeal for me, which is why the upcoming sequel/reboot doesn't interest me that much because it's multiplayer-focused and lacking FMVs.

I'd keep him on Facebook and routinely call him a dirty bastard every week until the end of time.

I've just gotten past the cliff-side bunker and until then I'd only done one optional tomb. I think allowing the player to make a choice about when they have to deal with some big puzzle is a pretty good approach. I'm not a fan of the absolute killing of momentum that a fiendish puzzle in something like Uncharted can cause, and often end up going with a walkthrough because I just can't be bothered with the puzzle at that exact moment in time. With Tomb Raider I can instead do some exploration and tomb raiding when I'm in one of those moods where you don't want to do anything particularly meaningful. You know, the same kind of mood you're in where you just go do some side-quests or something in an RPG. I'm really enjoying going back to some of the earlier areas now that I'm near-ish the end and discovering there's more to them than I thought. Plus the beautiful time of day effects make things feel very different. It's also very satisfying discovering these tombs myself. I've had numerous 'tomb nearby' prompts but just ignored them, so now I'm tracking them down and generally just discovering more books and shit (I love books/diaries/etc in any game).