syntheticgerbil

I knew they had to be online somewhere still because I remember the scans of most if not all issues floating around. And without further ado, all of the Adventurer magazines (with the Sam and Max comics inside): http://lucasartsadventurer.blogspot.com/2011/09/adventurer-issue-no-1-fall-1990.html It appears issue 13 is missing though. I think a lot of what is wrong with The Dig is heavily apparent with all of the production problems that went with it. Learning the history of that game is almost more fascinating than the game itself. What's most immediately jarring is how awkward and compressed the cutscenes look and how lo-fi the actual game plays. It feels less advanced than Day of the Tentacle, but has a lot of window dressing to try and not make you feel that way, I guess? The Dig is great though when you aren't stuck. It definitely has way less comedy than Full Throttle, so it might be the most serious LucasArts adventure game out there.

I think you're right Thorn, I kind of forgot almost all of the shopkeepers in EMI really want to drone on about whatever is going on with their backstory.

Are those two mutually exclusive?

Oh, I meant mostly funny adventure games that aren't by LucasArts. For instance, I once played this god awful piece of shit (also known as Bud Tucker): And this broken game called Down in the Dumps: As well as Koala Lumpur, who tried so so hard to charm me with his horrendous Indian accent: Why did I do that to myself? But I did find this gem in my trek through tons of shit games. U.F.O.s: It looks an animates a lot like a super fluid Ren and Stimpy, but the atmosphere and humor is much closer to Courage the Cowardly Dog. And I really did enjoy Stupid Invaders while I'm talking about cartoon alien games. It's not a shit game even though it has a lot of shit. Sorry to be a downer, but I personally would not recommend Toonstruck. I only slogged through it as a kid for the cartoons and animation since the puzzles and story were extremely mediocre. Also for whatever reason the dialogue in Toonstruck is incredibly long and drawn out. Not exactly Longest Journey long but for a game that takes place in a cartoon world there sure is a fuckload of talking. I swear getting through a full dialogue tree with some of the characters goes well beyond 10 minutes. This is another reason why LucasArts games work, because they tend to do all of their exposition through scenery, actions, and animations instead of having some guy blab about their life story. And if that ever does happen, it's written pretty concisely. The only drawn out moment of expository dialogue that compares to a lot of other wordy adventures is maybe LeChuck explaining his evil plan near the end of Curse of Monkey Island. I feel like instead of playing Toonstruck, you'd be much happier watching some Ren and Stimpy episodes and then playing Day of the Tentacle again. Then you can top it off with a viewing of Who Framed Roger Rabbit for good measure.

Please tell me you chucked a bunny into the truck fan! It's funny, I feel like a lot of people avoid adventure games because they think most will be too cartoony for them. To a degree it is true most of the adventure games probably lie on the comedy/dorky/cartoon end of the spectrum but there are enough serious ones out there. However I guess the issue then is since most adventure games are bad games, then there's a higher chance a more serious game will suck. I think I probably got sucked into adventure games originally for the funny stuff, but I think I grew weary of that type a long time ago. There's nothing worse than a dialogue driven game with tons of bad jokes.

It's weird to compare the wall kicking difficulty you had compared to the Cave Fish goggles difficulty I had. Seems like a matter of luck sometimes. Somehow I never had an issue with the wall kicking because I landed within the first few tries on the right spot. I wasn't exactly sure where to kick either, but I did see that nice little spot since I guess I always had my monitor contrast turned way up as a kid. I remember being somewhat annoyed with the numbers you were talking about but it's probably not a big deal if you just write them down. If I recall I preferred to not use pen and paper and just double clicked to room warp as fast as I could with one of the numbers in my mind still. Speaking of the double click room warp, this is essential to adventure games. I noticed Tim Schafer mentioning that a lot of the team did not want double click on Broken Age when watching his Full Throttle playthrough. That should really be on the player whether they want to take in the scenery or not. I know when you lose a save game or something goes wrong, double click and cutscene skipping can very quickly get you back to your previous spot in an adventure game.

I was always thinking this is such an easy way to invoke Godwin's law that it just can't be good for any argument on your side should you choose to use the term feminazi.

Gold crowns?! I thought people only did silver or porcelain now because of the current price of gold. I have a fake porcelain front tooth because I hit my mouth on some guys head at a concert when I was fifteen and didn't think to ask my parents to go to the dentist until the tooth had turned grey. There's a shaved nub that the crown sits on. I've seen it once when I peeked into the mirror when the dentist went out the room and it was horrible. That all said, I think I want a gold front tooth should that porcelain crown ever fall off.

Now that you say that Miffy, I'm actually curious to see if maybe it works much better if I just sit in one Nintendo Zone spot for hours more than driving to multiples.

Okay I went to like 8 different locations today and I got six people at the very last one. Way to fucking go Nintendo. I don't know how the Spotpass swapping works but it wasn't anything like that little video of the guy sitting in the cafe with tons of Miis barging in on him. I don't know if maybe it just depends where your location is swapped and maybe I was given a shit swap at every place? Possibly Austin was frequently swapped with Nintendo Zones in Montana? Either way, the last place I got a bunch of people from Michigan and the surrounding area. Hooray I guess? Do they rotate the locations frequently because none of this shit is clear at all? I might give it another shot tomorrow since I have to buy some Christmas gifts, maybe the second day will bring more luck. This is certainly not anything worth any fucking announcement Nintendo. They should just not do this if they are going to do it that badly. I get more way more passes by just parking in McDonald's and Starbucks lots on normal days.

Oh god those rabbits. Be sure to get a ton of rabbits and use them on many things in the game. You don't want to miss the fun like the knife fight.

I think this. It's insane to think that a community manager is somehow going to change Mighty No. 9 into a game about gender politics. Community managers wouldn't be that close to the development in anyway, so as far as jobs you can give to people close to you, community manager is pretty meager pickings. NO OFFENSE TO ANYONE BY THAT. The worst that could happen is a ton of awkwardness for everyone if they broke up. Also, did you draw that awesomeness Tegan?

Close friends, not just friends. As in someone you may be sharing a house with or sit and talk with personal matters extensively outside of work, thus compromising the work force and creating favoritism. I actually just went to an IGDA thing last night where someone spoke of this and said you want your friends to work with you, but you want the friends you bitch with and cry on to work at other companies. You guys can say you've never heard nepotism mean close friends, but that doesn't change the fact that it gets used for that as well, plus many definitions (not all) carry the friends stipulation. No one is incorrect for using the word nepotism to refer to the Mighty No. 9 situation.

Rewind This!, a documentary about the rise and fall of the VHS tape, has now come to DVD (and VHS)! I did not direct this film but I did a short animation for it. While the animation was cut from the final film due to time and flow reasons (don't worry they said they were really sad to get rid of it, as they had other animations, but wanted to keep mine), it is a special feature on the DVD. Anyway, I'm just psyched my animation is in an actual product you can buy on a shelf. Also the documentary is great. You'd expect them to usually just focus on porn and the beta wars, but it's so much more than that and focuses a lot on the filmmakers who used VHS to distribute their lower budget stuff that would have never been shown or had an audience otherwise if it weren't the for the cheapness of the format and predominance of video rental stores.

I'm going to drive around this weekend pathetically sitting in the parking lots for Starbucks, Best Buy, McDonald's, and AT&T stores looking for spot passes for that special weekend thing. Otherwise I wouldn't leave the house.

Nepotism doesn't only mean relatives, many definitions include "close friends." And if you want to make a case about strictness of the definition then nepotism can really only mean nephews given favored positions by bishops.

Yeah I feel similar. I don't know if it's because I've done work for more than a few games since graduating, but I doubt it because all of that stuff has pretty much increased my hatred for games (or the industry). I think a lot of it is I know how derive some enjoyment out of almost any game even if it's not the best game I've ever played. I think it's because when my knowledge of games expands, there's a lot more to appreciate in historical context, conception, and interesting game mechanics, even if there are failures in some of those aspects. Probably Idlethumbs has had the most with me caring about video games more since I kind of stopped playing them much at all before joining these forums in 2004 and then members started to mention many interesting things about games I've never heard about and doing all sorts of cool write ups. Then you get the podcast with Jake, Nick, Steve, Chris, and Sean and they are all just brilliant and addictive to listen to, even though what they play almost never overlaps what I'm playing currently.

Nepotism in video games really bothers me, even when it involves people I like. Has nothing to do with gender since it's usually all men getting in on the nepotism anyway. I don't know enough about the Mighty no. 9 project to have a comment, but I do get the feeling that the nepotism deal isn't actually a real issue with the men's rights guys but instead just another thing to get mad at her about, secondary to her views.

The only thing I'm worried about is if the company makes any profit on this game at this point plus I hope there's enough money to still get those physical rewards out at the end of the project. I'm starting to even wonder how many discs the Two Player Productions documentary is even going to fit on, even if it's blu-ray I feel like a lot of the stuff isn't going to appear on disc, especially the side quests. It can't be cheap to press a bunch of multidisc blu-ray sets.

I thought he only went up when going over the bumps. I couldn't remember if you hit him from the head in the front or the back though.

God that's a pet peeve of mine. Indie being listed as a genre in any type of media makes no sense and just causes confusion of expectations. It would be more valuable to state the production as indie and the genre of what the actual game is. It feels similar when people list "animation" as a genre of movie. No it's fucking not. That said, I think generally genres are there for marketing reasons more than anything. Just a short hand to tell your friends what they may expect when they play a game (or to get them to play it in the first place). I think games are a bit different compared to books or movies when it comes to genre because for the last decade or so, I don't feel there's many cases where you can expect to play a game that is completely basic in the genre it's in. Usually there's always a mix with another genre (or two) and I get the feeling at this point most gamers expect that. This is probably why people just end up watching a bunch of Let's Plays before they buy a game now. I know I can't take any kind of said genre on face value anyone and usually resort to something a bit more meaty than a trailer to get an idea of what I'll be playing.

Geez, I had such a bitch of a time getting those goggles. Did you just luck out and hit the cave fish with the 2x4 at the exact right time or did you know to hit him while he was going over bumps in the road? I think you're on the right track with everything, there's nothing out of the way you missed. Just try combing over everything again.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask about it, not having played any God of Wars or Devil May Crys. Probably another case of style over substance for me.

Ah, that's what's going on! I couldn't exactly point out why I didn't want to use Miiverse (which is a good idea for all intents and purposes) until you said how slow it was. I guess I already assumed the WiiU and 3DS as being slow as default so didn't think much of it, but for sure something like Miiverse needs better loading times to be successful. And it's not my connection this time, that's for sure, just upgraded.

Thanks guys. Seems like a lot of people I know are in the same boat when it comes to video game/tech/art jobs. Hope you find something soon Twig, sad that Dallas job didn't work out (yet?). I like Dallas.