Ninja Dodo

The original Outcast remains one of my favourite games and I think it's actually aged quite well aside from issues with compatibility. Some of the tech and design ideas they had (like NPC AI and their awareness of the world) are still ahead of how open world games are typically handled today. "You want that Talan over there, Ulukai." That said I agree the campaign could be better. Their decision to wait with a paypal option till after the kickstarter is mystifying...seems like a good idea if you've never followed a kickstarter campaign before. By the time the hype stops slacker backer numbers are going to be negligible and mostly people go for paypal because they can't use kickstarter's payment system, so not much overlap. I'm also not completely sold on how they've re-interpreted the art style . It doesn't feel stylized enough to be truly "painterly" nor detailed enough to stand side by side with more realistic games. Still cautiously optimistic.

Also the "this was interesting" link makes good points. This is something that bothers me a lot as well. Painting nazis as cartoon villians (that should never be discussed or examined) makes us forget they were real people that did terrible things, which could absolutely happen again under the wrong circumstances. See also the rise of far right extremism in modern Europe: Golden Dawn, Front National, PVV...

So that was originally more as a response to the thread than to the podcast and I already regret posting it as I clearly made my point poorly if I had one, but I agree, and what I was trying to say was only that in this context being surrounded by that history would make it difficult to be unaware of the historical implications of both events and imagery related to that time. I also do agree that any given background does not absolve anyone from questioning or criticism.

OK so with offense being taken I was more referring to the controversy in general. I thought the discussion on the podcast was actually fair and nuanced, though I'm not sure I'd agree that the blog response was particularly dancing around the issue or lacking in understanding of the subject matter which is what I was trying to get at with my point about growing up in that country. I didn't mean to make generalizations and I'm sorry if I came across as attacking anyone.

My initial reaction to Luftrausers was one of "hm ok, not sure I would've gone with that, but ok"... That said I'm going to agree with Jim Profit here. Lecturing Dutch people about the significance of WW2 imagery seems more questionable than the aesthetic being discussed. Growing up in the Netherlands you are inundated with the history of The War. They celebrate liberation day and remember the dead every year. So yeah, the suggestion that someone who in all probability has family a couple generations back that *were there* doesn't understand the signficance of WW2 imagery is actually kind of offensive. Thumbs' hypothetical counter example of an over-the-top fun arcade game interrupted by random atrocities - you know, for context - actually seems a lot more offensive than the faux Third-Reich aesthetic of Luftrausers. Meanwhile playing as HOORAH Americans invading not-Iraq or any other country in all games ever gets a free pass. I don't think any aesthetic should ever be inherently off limits or only to be discussed or depicted in a certain a way but it seems to me like the offense being taken here is rather selective.

Outcast Little Big Adventure 1 & 2 Gothic 1 & 2

Really interesting discussion about the interpretation of dialogue choices. This seems to vary a lot from game to game. Haven't played Walking Dead but tempted to check despite my ambivalance towards zombies. It seems to me there's a genre-divide in how such choices are presented. Adventures usually go with "these are things the character would say" where RPGs tend to favour "this is you defining who this character is"... or at least "this is your interpration of the role". Regarding achievements, I'm really dissapointed with Sony that they added trophies to Shadow of the Colossus/ ICO HD. It's like they don't understand why their game is good. On PC, I routinely turn off Steam Community In-Game to be rid of pop-ups. It boggles my mind that there is no option for disabling pop-ups (and that annoying sound) on PS3. As long as notifications can be turned off I'm not entirely against achievements in certain types of games, but progression-based markers, or worse, achievements highlighting dramatic moments or important choices in a narrative context need to go away.

You should try playing their older games in the original German if you want to pick up some language. I now know useful phrases like: "Zeig mir deine ware" and "Du dreckiger dieb!"

Unless it's openly broken or painfully generic from the start, I'll play most games for at least 5-30 minutes, more if they seem promising. I have very little patience for bad controls though. If something you'll be dealing with moment to moment through the entire game isn't fun, the rest (story/atmopsphere, larger gameplay choices) better be really good. If the "good part" is apparently after the first 10-25 hours, I usually don't bother. Even a giant RPG has no excuse not to have an interesting first act. There's a difference as well between games you've sought out and games that you stumbled across with no expectations. If I have no emotional investment in a game yet it has to work extra hard to grab me... especially if I'm trying to look at a bunch of games all at once (like checking out Ludum Dare or IGF games). For a free indie game starting with a long non-interactive intro is the kiss of death. Cinematics are fine as a palette cleanser between gameplay - but an FMV or text intro is not going to tell me whether I want to play the game or not. Sometimes I really try though. I gave Far Cry 2 a good 17 hours before I gave up on it. I enjoyed certain aspects, but eventually just got really bored with driving nowhere and getting run over by guards I killed 5 minutes ago.

Thanks! And yep, I was and am.

I used to be a regular at Adventure Gamers which overlaps a bit in its history with the Thumbs and I posted some on the old Idle forums but for all intents and purposes I am new to this iteration of the forums, so hello to you all. I don't know if I will post much but I will definitely be listening to the renewed casting of pods.

Rescue the Beagles By: Nenad Jalsovec Available: free at 16x16 Synopsis: Rescue innocent beagles from animal testing, shoot evil doctors in the face with owls.

My brother and I joined in from the Internet and made this (based on the pause tweet): http://www.whatwouldmolydeux.com/display.php?GameID=77

In AC Brotherhood, when one of my trainee assassins died, I made all the other trainees wear black to mourn their lost comrade. New recruits who had not been there would get standard colours again so towards the end only a handful of veterans still wore black. Pity graduated assassins all looked the same.

Holy shit, my account still works! I can't even remember the last time I posted here. That song was utterly magnificent. I really hope Thumbs continues or comes back in some form. In this short period you've developed into simultaneously the funniest and most insightful podcast in the industry. I salute you.

I haven't managed to leave the room yet, but I like it. Cool concept.

Turbo Turtles ... and I thought I'd post it here and see what you guys think. http://turbo.ninjadodo.com/ It's a bit like Asteroids meets Mario Kart, but with rocket-powered turtles... Also: TNT...

With the help of that Nullsoft installer thingy I've managed to bring the whole thing down to a somewhat more agreeable 22 megs, plus you no longer have to unzip stuff manually, you can just run the setup and it installs everything. I added a quick readme as well... Has anyone had a go at playing it with two or three players yet? Messing around with it on your own really doesn't do it justice... With two or three it can be a lot of fun. (though I'm biased, obviously)

Thanks. I'll have to check that out.

Everything is explained in the Help section: ... and no, there's no singleplayer version. Programming bot AI would've taken time we didn't have. The lightning isn't something you fire... You simply attack as you would normally. The difference is that your attacks have an effect even if the other player is hiding in his shell.

Yeah the concept is fairly simple, although some complexity is added by the fact that you can hide in your shell to deflect attacks, you can bounce off obstacles and you can pick up the lightning powerup to hit people even when they are hiding. Totally changes the pace of the game. Tag mode is probably my favourite though... You're desperately trying to chase after the other player to get rid of the TNT, and when you do the roles are reversed and you try and stay the hell away from the other guy for the remainder of the 60 seconds. It's a bit different with three players though, cause then there are two bombs. Crazy. Try that in the volcano level. The smoke health indication thing isn't so much something from my Interactive Animation project as it is more like my general philosophy I guess. I prefer strong visual (or for that matter, aural) feedback that fits the game world to iconic and textual messages. I did have an idea though to make it a bit clearer, cause at the moment the feedback isn't instant. I wanted to have stars circling a players head for a second the moment he gets hit, but there wasn't time to implement it. Maybe in version 1.1...

You're not supposed to run it from the zip file. And the exe isn't the installer, it's the game. Just extract the whole lot (with folders) to a location of your choice and run the exe to play. Maybe we should start including a readme... Does anyone read those things?

I've been reading a collection of short stories on marriage by Chekhov. Good fun.

Motion capture is so overrated it's not even funny.Compare The Incredibles to The Polar Express. Almost invariably motion capture creates boring lifeless mechanical action, with no emotion or character whatsoever. One of the few good examples of motion capture I have ever seen is Gollum, and that was only because they used it sparingly, mixed in with lots of handcrafted keyframe animation. So yeah, it's probably the 12 FPS.

The video is called "HDR_LostCoast" so it probably is from the actual thing.