twmac

Oh man, people explaining North Korea to Dan was amazing. He found it hard to believe that they don't have McDonalds there.

I know that Midnight Resistance are doing some drinks on Saturday - but I am not sure about RPS. The Birmingham one was nice - I went to one but I did feel a little isolated.

Sweet - will be making sure to say hello as I want to see The Swindle.

So, based on the Eurogamer review I ended up buying The Escapists (trailer actually makes the game look less slick than the final version): I was really disappointed, everything seemed a little clumsy and repetitive. I don't know what it was but all of a sudden the game just clicked into place when I got to the second prison and I had to devise plastic copies of guard's keys, steal a uniform and then sneak out at night to disable a generator. Learning not to push your chances too much and creating balance in the prison environment made so much sense and I got really into it. I am now on the third prison and I find myself thinking about it when I am doing other things, trying to figure out how to trick the cameras, how to befriend other inmates and figure out how to break through the perimeter wall (I think I might need a sturdy shovel). Anyway, this seems like the kind of game that The Idle Thumbs would love so I was surprised that I couldn't find anyone talking about it.

Right, I guess this is a problem for you. For me the tension of keeping everything on an even keel (the heat from the guards and the distaste of the prisoners becomes more important as you need to keep your bunk mate happy), foraging for supplies and biding my time was compelling. In many ways it reminded me of Don't Starve and Minecraft in that respect. The quiet moments helped build up to the excitement of the escape attempts. It normally took me about 2 days to get the gear I needed (once you start a prison the same guards should always the keys you want). It sounds to me like this game really isn't for you, you definitely persevered with it for long enough.

The Pre-Raphaelite group weren't just bummed about art techniques, they were trying to turn the clock back. They extremely elitist in their attitudes too. I forget the name but there was a guy who agreed with them about using traditional techniques and showed them how he had developed a method for making affordable, hand made wall paper and they turned they noses up at him. That last bit you quoted is indicative of the problem a bunch of rich kids throwing names out and pretending they are proper movement when they were nothing but a bunch of hooting dickholes. Rosetti was an amazing douche bag too, after his wife died, possibly due to having her lie in water to pose for one of his paintings, he made a gesture of burying the only copies of all his unfinished poetry with her. Then he realised that he could make some money off of them so had her exhumed to get the collection back. I'll admit that I am biased against the Pre-Raphaelite group but that Wikipedia page sheds them in a much nicer light than it should.

Thank you for the link! Friday I will be wandering around and fairly sober, with an Arcadian Rhythms black T-Shirt, beanie and zombie back pack. Saturday I will most likely be wearing an Idle Thumbs T-Shirt but will likely be fairly drunk on that day. If you see me then say hi!

I would have to go back and check for Prison 1. Prison 2 and 3 you can leave legal items anywhere, unless you get put into solitary and then they disappear. Illegal items will get picked up.

The more I read about this the more the gamergate stuff reminds me of The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They were a bunch of privileged white guys who were appalled at how accessible art (this is my conclusion on their approach to disseminating their work) was becoming with the advances of the industrial age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood

Oh man. If you mean prison 1. The thing is, a lot of what you are trying to do does not become pertinent into Prison 2 and 3. My routine for these so far has been: - Keep my job until I have around 200 (I might keep my job after that but usually the tension with other inmates and guards has escalated to the point that it is untennable - Look for obvious weak points, plot out the guards routes to see where they are least likely to go - Once a day, try and knock one of the guards out without getting caught and check to see if they have a key that you need (write their name down on a piece of paper if they do as this equipement shouldn't change) - if you can make that part of one of your tasks even better - Once you have your route down wait until evening roll call, if youdo not have a key to your cell - don't worry just have all your gear ready - Try it and see! If you fail try and identify whether it was your plan that was weak or your execution as everything from whether you were doing it in a guard path or in a well lit area will have an effect General tips: - Guard uniforms are really useful but if you get identified by name, knock that guard out - Two simultaneously knocked out guards usually means lock down, this is not the end of the world if you are about to escape but if you aren't get back to your cell immediately and wait for guard attention to die down - Don't upset the other prisoners unless you need to and never upset the guy you share a cell with as he will rat you out to the guards if you do - You can weaken fences and turf during the day and it will stay damaged for a while as long as you don't get put into solitary - Green items don't need to be stored in your stash spot in the early levels - you can leave them on the floor - Only have as many red/orange items as you can store on your person - if you get a random cell search you can rush back to your cell before they get there and put them on your person - If you get into a fight with a prisoner try and lead him away from guards - You can run away from guards in most scenarios until they give up, that changes when you hit 98-99 alert level from Prison 3 onwards

So, I got a bit drunk and sent this email out a few weeks ago. I suspect that the giantbombcast team aren't going to read it but given that there is some fondness for Dan I thought I would copy/paste it here for people's entertainment: "(Please note I was tempted to write this all in caps but as that is a sin, I think this text would be better accompanied by the Star-Spangled Banner playing and a majestic Eagle flying) When Dan first arrived on the scene I was not, as a Brit, able to fully decide if I liked him. However, the more he has talked the more I have come to realise that Dan Ryckert is an honest holder of 'Legend' in his spare time. I mean this in the best way possible; listening to the evolution of a conversation with Dan is like witnessing a loud fart in a lift that turns out to smell okay (this happened to me once). At first, you are dreading what is going to come next but then you are pleasantly surprised by the resulting warmth. A previous emailer suggested that they dreaded the idea of him being a cop; so do I but mainly because he is too good for such a role. His ability to calmly stick to his figurative guns while remaining empathetic with people who clearly do not agree with him would be of great value to the Police force but I say bollocks to that. Dan Ryckert for President! No other position is good enough for him. Dietary health amongst Americans might plummet but I imagine that he would endear the country more to its global neighbours. If I could, I'd definitely vote for him."

Yes, frequently inmates will have content that they are not selling. That's why you indulge in helping out people when they want someone beaten up. Other ways of getting is to take on jobs. If someone is doing a job that you want, shiv them during the work period to make them fail and then take on their job. The game has its own tip system via the phone booth that you pay for recipes, if you look them up then you have kind of invalidated one of the reasons for currency. The glacial pace, I fear, is caused by you looking them up instead of using some of the systems in the game. That, and you sound like you are really good at min/maxing, not upsetting the guard etc. What prison are you on?

Oh, okay - how much of the Wiki did you look at? Part of what I found fun was dicovering what did and didn't work. Like, how does the contraband bag work and when is it a good time to use the bold cutters on a fence. The lack of information seemed like the point of the game where you are trying balance the unknown with the formulaic. If you took that away from yourself then, yeah, I can imagine it might be a little tedious. Last night I discovered that I don't need a screwdriver to open vents and instead I can use bolt cutters. That was a mini triumph/face palm situation for me that I imagine wouldn't have had the same impact if I had looked up an answer.

Thanks for link, have been absorbing his stuff for the last hour, while chugging Corona. Hmm, does this need to go in the intoxicated thread?

Is there a storify of this delightful outburst?

You may joke about that, but when I mentioned it at work someone asked me if it was a game made by Yahtzee. If anyone tries it out and wants any advice, then let me know. I forgot to mention that it has Rogue elements to it. For example, if you get beaten up by guards or inmates you lose all your illegal gear (re: useful stuff) and when you escape a prison you lose all your stats, gear and money but keep all the information you have accrued about crafting equipment.

I only just now realised due to the [sic] that I have been spelling Giant Bomb incorrectly for years. I think it is because I only know it as a url or as an email address I have never bothered to parse it out as two words. I think that the last couple of podcasts have felt like duds to be honest. I still enjoy them but I think the recent talk about Ryan has reminded me of what I am missing.

Oh for fuck's sake. She got into a bit of an argument with a guy in the comments called Rommel02 but he was basically being an arse because he kept saying 'That is just the way it is and you shouldn't complain' and her response was very reasonably 'To consider toxicity as a constant is bullshit.'

Claire Hosking posted this great article on Polygon: http://www.polygon.com/2015/2/19/8068937/gaming-reputation-fix

I know what you mean, I felt like I got somethign caught in my throat when I watched the video.

Is this the woman who was the community manager for Mighty # 9? If so, I remember that. It was fucking brutal, at the same time you had mega man fans going 'you need to know your audience if you are going to speak to them' Fucking travesty.

My favourite quote from the comments: "I don't particularly like the threads TB was talking about but at the same time if we were doing what he suggested and researching journalistic wrongdoing instead of shooting the breeze here this place would become tumbleweed pretty quickly." Yeah...

See, I am not very good at Tetris but I do play a mean Puyo Puyo (Super Puzzle Fighter has trained me well) so having this mashup is exactly what I wanted. The combination of the two is so weird. Yesasia also have some in stock so anyone who hasn't played it really should.

So Dan Ryckert got me into Puyopuyo Tetris (the disc version released in Japan is region free) - oh my word how this game shits all over the Ubisoft version we got. Not only does it have all the game modes from Ultimate Tetris, it also has the Puyopuyo modes that are mental AND it has a bonkers single -player campaign.

I drew comparisons between the way men are portrayed in popular romantic dramedies (Breakfast club was used as the main example) and the excuses nerds use for their attitudes towards gaming and gaming culture.