RubixsQube

On my last day of Sundance 2014, I waitlisted and got into A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and then spent the next few months raving about it to anyone in earshot. I'm super, super glad that it came out and got the acclaim it deserved, and I'm really glad Ana Lily Amirpour (who is a MEGA BADASS, ffffuuccck) is being given the rein on other cool projects. (By the way, the film I saw at Sundance 2015 that I feel the same way about is , a film that not only looks and sounds great, but features a great set of young "nerd" protagonists that are not often depicted in film with the respect and authenticity they get here. Fuck yeah, Dope.)

Here's where you can download it from replacementdocs, although if you can't get it to open, I have a copy of the pdf I can send you, also. It's a bit of reading, but it's fun.

I can't remember - did you have a copy (even in pdf form) of the Grail Diary that came with the game? (I guess I could go search for this myself in the thread) That was a really important aspect of what made this game real, the fact that you had to look for clues all the time from a real life book.

I recently started replaying Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (The Graphic Adventure), which you played ages ago, Zeus. I played it a lot when I was a kid, and it holds a special place in my heart, even if it relies too much on action sequences, and even if you can screw yourself over and get into fail states. I'm just a real big fan of the art, here, especially those handsome windows on the left side of Barnett College. Sure, Fate of Atlantis is better, and looks better, but I'm seriously thinking of printing this out and framing it. Look at cute little Marcus there, going back and forth from display case to display case. it's also neat to look at how they changed the perspective slightly as you go down the hallway to simulate the "camera panning," even though they're just scrolling across a static image.

I guess I had never noticed that the text speed was so slow. They did fix it for the Ages/Seasons games:

psssh tim and lex don't say grandpa when everyone is visiting the raptor pen they're in the visitor's center the thing that interrupts their visiting the raptor pen is chef alejandro's chilean sea bass

push it to the limit. (still not as good a use of the song as )

That is exactly the thing that I like about the conversation on Idle Thumbs. When a group of people know each other well enough, you stop even hearing the verbal agreement, it just comes about naturally. Nothing makes me sadder than listening to people who are trying really hard to sound cool and funny to the point where their negativity halts any creativity. My favorite parts of Idle Thumbs are where they take an idea and just run with it, ping-ponging back and forth and exploring. Nobody ever says, "that's dumb," nobody ever pauses and deflates everything with an "...ummm, ooooookaaaaaaay." It's all yes, and, and it makes it feel like you're listening to some fun, cool people you want to be friends with.

Actually, while those puns are indeed pretty goofy, and John Oliver is indeed suffering, I think that this podcast is in stark difference to the gleeful response that I am pointing out. John Oliver is groaning, and as you point out (obviously hyperbolically, I recognize), he seems to be "feel[ing] physical pain;" the point is, his responses makes it sound like he wants this to stop. My Brother, My Brother and Me has a similar take on the (actually not very funny) Sad Libs they sometimes do. Jake's response on the podcast to Chris is partially, "ugh, that's bad," and "ugh, that's so good, that's actually clever and funny," and the tone of his voice reflects this. Unless, of course, he really does hate Chris' (really fantastic) puns, in which case, I'm just writing a bad high-school english essay. This is pretty much why I stopped consuming any Giant Bomb media, entirely.

Every time someone makes a joke or a pun, and Jake gets indignant, and upset, it is like the most joyful, wonderful thing. I really, 100% mean it. I look forward to this podcast every week because everyone on the cast love to build conversations, always accepting, and always keeping things moving. So, so often in modern media, people have this really too cool attitude that makes the open sharing of ideas feel potentially caustic. Idle Thumbs really works hard to make sure that there's an environment for creation and conversation, and it just feels so good to listen to. This means that moments where someone throws up the hands and says "fuck off" like Jake does ("Master.bat" offers two moments, and then "Catch-22" offers one that sounds like it's punctuated by claps) it feels jarring, but in a really good way, since Jake's voice has a smiling quality to it that makes even the rejection of the joke seem ok, and fun. OOF.

I guess I don't understand what people need with a lot of money. Like, this sounds like I am joking, or being deliberately obtuse, but is it really that people want money so that they can spend money on things? I guess I can understand supporting a family, or buying a house so that you can house yourself and your family, but I don't think that billions of dollars are needed for that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the storyline goes: notch sees infiniminer, notch decides to make his own version of infiniminer, notch works really hard to make minecraft, minecraft makes a lot of money for notch, etc etc. Notch did not set out to make a bunch of money, and notch ends up working very hard, and makes a lot of money. So. The questions that I have (some are big, unanswerable questions): - did notch work hard? (yes) - is minecraft a net positive or net negative for humans on the planet? (like, when it comes to apple, or microsoft, and the usage of rare earth elements and exploitative labor, that's pretty bad, and does put a significant dent in the way in which these companies have shaped the modern world technologically) - did notch work hard enough to deserve billions of dollars (?) - does minecraft deserve to be the game that made billions of dollars (?) Steve talked about how it's the defining game for a generation of people younger than him / the Idle Thumbs crew. And that's certainly true. Is that a good thing? I guess the defenders of Minecraft say that it's open ended, and essentially the video game version of Lego for kids. This is an intriguing point. Is it true? I've seen a sea of research that indicates that Minecraft has had positive impacts on kids lives, but I wonder about the detrimental effects as well. All this is in service of: if Notch has done the world a public good, and worked hard, and now has over a billion dollars, he can do what he wants with it. If he's just The Person who managed to do the thing that was about to be done anyway, by someone, does he deserve to have billions of dollars for that? There are people working very hard, on very important things, around the world. People who over the course of their lives will never make a sum total of money even approaching a billion dollars. Like, I work pretty hard. If I work for something like twenty thousand years and save all of my money, I'd have a cool billion dollars. When I read about the things that notch has done with his money, it's upsetting, because I am on the spectrum of people who believe that even given Minecraft's importance on the world's stage, even given the work and time notch devoted to it, it's not worth giving a human being billions of dollars. Maybe this makes me a spoilsport. I just wonder about people who have a lot of money, because the lottery's going to be won by someone, right?

T H E S I X E R

I had to go to New York for the weekend, and haven't been able to touch my 3DS in a few days since being back. I need to get back into playing before I can join anyone for some multiplayer, sorry! I just don't feel comfortable dragging any party down with my exciting MH incompetence.

I think that this is video game dramatic license. Certainly, one can see stars after sunset, while there's still a glow on the horizon, but at this point the landscape wouldn't be nearly this red and lit up. I think that the minute 8 - 10 minute portion of the IGN video makes me think that the sun is very, very low on the horizon, and then, at the 12 minute part, the sun has fully set. It's set a little fast, but again, this is storytelling, and I think it works great and looks gorgeous. (I'm less ok with those same repeated star patterns from the PAX demo because I am a nit-picky jerk.)

Here's 17 minutes of gameplay, presumably the demo, from IGN. Looks fucking great, still. Damn. My frothing demand increases, etc etc (Apparently they've just fixed the typo in the second paragraph.)

Hrm, things seem a little mixed around the ol' thumbs-o-sphere. I try to read a big chunk of this thread, and for what it's worth, I do think about the issues and problems and processing that a lot of people are dealing with. I am in New York to give a talk at the AMNH, and also for a book release party (at one point, Dave Eggers shook my hand and thanked me, since he had read my contribution to the book, which is the weirdest thing that's happened to me in a while), and I was at the Guggenheim earlier today seeing the On Kawara exhibition, which is wonderful, but there was one piece that struck me in particular. For a while, he started to send telegrams to his friends saying "I AM STILL ALIVE." I like to think about a place like Idle Thumbs, and one hundred million other online forums as a kind of version of this. At one point, Kawara wrote to a friend: "I AM NOT GOING TO COMMIT SUICIDE DON’T WORRY," and it was placed next to another telegram that said: "I AM NOT GOING TO COMMIT SUICIDE WORRY". Be well, everyone.

N1njaSquirrel, I definitely agree about Shantae. I had really high hopes going in, and the game ends up feeling like a third party SNES game, where the same attention to detail that I really responded to in Shovel Knight was lacking. I guess that, unlike Griddle, I'm more into the jumping/platforming aspect of these games, which is not where Shantae's focus is.

Yeah, I hear you, but it's just tough when there is like, four hundred million options, it's paralyzing. I have a box full of random materials I've collected, and a million different weapon types. I think I'll redo the great jaggi hunt in order to try out some other weapons and also mine for jaggi items. I really appreciate all of the advice, everyone! I feel a little out of my league considering how far afield this game type is from what what I'm used to. At the moment, I've just unlocked the "expedition" option, so I'm going to see what the hell that means, what with all of the warnings that the caravaneer was giving.

Actually, the second egg I got (after the first one is kind of given to you when you enter the zone) was gold. I had transported it all the way back to the second-to-last zone, and I was doing a pretty good job staying away from enemies when a stupid insect got me right at the last minute. Fuck those missions. I assume if you try to hustle too much, you drop the egg, right? Also, I've only been so-so at doing the sub-quests, since sometimes I don't even know what they mean. "Destroy the Selta's Horn"? Whatever. I'm still not really able to change my weapons to anything better, due to missing various important items, but I guess it's still way, way early in the game. I don't know why I'm focused on this, but I just feel like I'm not doing something right, although maybe I'm used to getting more upgrades quicker in games.

Yeah, I just fought a Selta, which was tedious, since the thing was real intent on not allowing me to attack it. I am still pretty shit at collecting essences using the insect glaive. It's relatively easy to target the monster and get a little fuzzy spot, but then it's a pain to try to get the insect to actually go and collect it, especially against the fast moving Selta. I went through quite a few potions in that battle. And now I'm going to go and do that egg transporting mission. But I'm not super excited about it.

oh man, fishing mini-games are not fun to me. Patience, I hear, is a "virtue"

That does make sense! I think that I'll try for a jaggi set, I've got a few different items already from jaggi hunts that can allow me to get that armor. And poison resistance seems like a good thing to have, considering how much of an annoyance that potentially might be.

Ok, I appreciate the hand-holding you guys are providing around here. It seems like I should just be playing along and completing the various quests until it gets tough, then maybe grinding a little from there. I was just disheartened that it seems like all of the various upgrades and new weapons and the like require things I haven't seen at all. Also, I am going to hold off on upgrading armor until I can create a set, right? Also, are there consequences for dying? I suppose I lose whatever items I've collected and used in that fight, yes? But do I lose anything else?