RubixsQube

a w e s o m e I love me some wizard jammin'

Got my first chicken dinner in a squad match that I made a contribution to. The end of the match was me crawling around pointing out where the other squad was hidden in the grass. At one point, a few minutes earlier, two (2!) crates dropped right next to us, which was a blessing and a curse, since it alerted the whole universe to our position.

They're behind a paywall, but I found them by searching for "Walt Whitman Sick" on the NYT page. The headlines are also discussed and linked in this Paris Review blurb by Zack Newick.

He was referring to the greatest vine of them all

Actually, I don't know if Youtube stars care about TV shows. Providing they can continue to get those like and subscribes, they seem pretty happy just making internet content. Heck, it's even easier to do it all on Instagram (RIP Vine).

Yeah, they all met at Second City in Chicago, back when you could be very funny in a sketch group in Chicago or LA or New York and get a TV show out of it, or at least get on SNL, or at the very least get on Mad TV.

I think that the Louis CK news has highlighted something larger, and I wonder if Too Funny To Fail discusses this at all. (The New York Times review of the documentary definitely does) The show is real male-centric. There was only one woman in the writers room, and she was the one woman actress in the cast. Louis CK's behavior was profoundly atrocious, but it is really the tip of a misogyny iceberg in comedy in this country. Glorifying the cast/writers of this show based on the success they've enjoyed in the last twenty years is an exercise in ignoring the privilege and opportunities that men receive (even after repeated failings). Also, it's falling prey to survivorship bias. I know that this is real negative, but the more that I've read news about the comedy world the more disappointed I've become. To make up for it, here's a funny sketch from The Dana Carvey Show.

Mark Brown has made an episode of his Game Maker's Toolkit series about Super Mario Odyssey: While some of the video shows the later game content, you can mostly just skip watching in favor of listening as he describes, quite clearly, how the game was designed around the cap-throw mechanic. The more that I keep playing this game, the more that I am just taken with it's pure ebullient joy. It's the type of game that really, really likes you, the player. Olly Moss tweeted recently that he wasn't super taken with the art direction in the game: Does anybody have any thoughts about this? I think the game holds itself together pretty well with the kind of wacky and varied art design. There are so many different decisions, which I think works well with the "explore the world" concept.

I actually think they're more interesting than Korok seeds, but you are right, they do serve a similar purpose, @dartmonkey. I found that Korok seed acquisition didn't require a huge diversity of actions, and because of the size of Hyrule, I didn't stumble upon Korok Seeds in the same way that I suddenly find moons. I agree that Breath of the Wild is still my game of the year thus far, because of the confidence of its interacting systems, but Odyssey does give it a run for its money (as an aside: at the end of the year, GOTY-wise, I predict it's going to be hard for publications to decide between Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds).

After starting and kind of really taking my time in Tostarena, I took someone's recommendation and just made my way through to the end before exhausting myself on each kingdom. I'm pretty happy about that. I think that the game is pretty fantastic in that it does what I really want in any Nintendo property: gives me some interesting game mechanics and lets me mess around with them, with rewards. I get what you're saying @Cleinhun, about the relative frequency of moons, but I guess my response when I think about it, is that there are enough Moons to represent Nintendo saying: "hey, good job getting here," or "good job trying that out," or, "good job poking around a little bit longer here." That always feels nice to me. I don't know if I understand your comment, @Jake, about the game not feeling "dense enough," but perhaps this is because I'm seeing the game from a little farther into it. I am astounded by just how much is crammed into every nook and cranny of each kingdom, and the variety by which you traverse things. I really do recommend just making your way through the core path of the game and then returning, especially because of how the game decides to both open itself up a bit, and also provides an increased challenge. (I decided not to spoiler-tag this, because this is literally how every primary Mario game has done it for almost the last ten years). In my opinion, people are going to look back on this and feel that the review scores were totally indicative of what an achievement this game really is. Nintendo has done something never really seen in other games of this scope. They've built an insanely varied series of gaming worlds where you are rarely able to do something they didn't anticipate and reward you for doing, and married it to perfect platforming controls.

I also tie my shoes like that, @SecretAsianMan. It's pretty quick, and seems miraculous. I re-learned how to do that a few years ago. I should write a question into the podcast about skills that required retraining your brain to do something you'd done your entire life up to that point. It's weird to like, remember how I tied my shoes in the more traditional bunny-ears method now. Also, speaking of SkyMall, it's kind of like Hammacher-Schlemmer in that it was named after its founders: doɥsoʇoɥd ɐ oslɐ sᴉ sᴉɥʇ :uᴉɐƃɐ pǝlooɟ ǝq ʇ,uoʍ ǝʞɐſ os

Regarding the limited life weapons in BotW, I think that the reason people hoard things is that: 1) They think they're going to need it for something big 2) They think that it's rare So, I ended up hoarding like, elemental rods, and not using them, until I realized that that the game had not yet communicated the other side of these two concepts: 1) What is "something big?" What types of enemies are you going to going up against for which these weapons would be properly effective (not overkill, but not too weak) 2) How often can you find another one of these weapons? So, for elemental rods, once I realized that I was able to find them plentifully from those flying whizzrobe jerks, I started using them more often. Also, the game eventually opened up enough to give me an idea of the scale of the enemy strengths, teaching me where these weapons fit in. At that point, I found the right balance between hoarding certain weapons and just trying things out. Video games need to communicate more to the player than game designers think they do. If they want to encourage you to use items, you need to let the player know if they're gonna be able to get another one, and let them know where that item is going to be a useful and fun tool. If the game doesn't do either of those things effectively, you end up either hoarding things, or without some key item because you didn't realize you were about to waste it.

Yeah, you can find the Nick freakout right here.

Regarding the final question here about the designer's duty to force their players to engage with systems, there was a good video that Mark Brown recently made on a similar topic: It was interesting to hear the discussion on the podcast, but here, Mark reasons that designers do have a duty to fight against the kind of system laziness that many gamers have to prioritize tedious things over taking risks. He reasons that you shouldn't punish players, but reward them for being riskier, and brings up some of the same systems you all talked about in the episode.

I know I'm late to this party, but that Kraft Making of video is just my favorite thing. "Mario jumps into the sea-oni" I had to make a url of that because it made me laugh so much: https://tinyurl.com/mario-jumps-into-the-seaoni

I played a bunch of this game on a plane yesterday, and I concur. I think that the addition of being able to tee up from anywhere on the map is a fantastic idea, as is the sheer variety of game modes that I've encountered. Also, it's really very, very unapologetically Australian. Also, I was really happy to find the precision mode to help make individual shots, as well as the like, ability to nudge a shot left and right with the control pad. I also grabbed Picross S for my flight, and if you like Picross, here is more Picross. It's cheap, and addictive, and I was even ok with the lack of touch-screen controls for it. People here, it seems like, have also been into it, and it's definitely worth just having on the system.

Edit: I removed the dumb joke I'm excited to listen to this, I have a big long flight to Europe this week, and I could use some video game rambling.

So, I got my first chicken dinner, with a fun end to a squad match where I really didn't contribute much, although it did end for me in a spectacular fashion.

hahahahaha kniiiiird alert

Ok, so, I second Nick Breckon's Star Guitar recommendation, but also I want to point out that Michel Gondry made a Making Of video that was on the like, DVD of his music videos that I had in college, and it's less amazing, but very charming: Yes, it's like, 10 minutes long, but stick with it, especially at the end. Also, I drove on the Lancaster musical road (it's a bit away from a huge poppy field, if anyone is in southern California in early spring and wants to see something incredible), and while the effect was nice, it was highly variable on the speed you drove the road, which made me think of someone driving the DRINK COCA COLA road during a day with more traffic would get the version where it's some sort of demon advertising a soft drink.

There was a new Nintendo Direct this afternoon, and my takeaways were: 1) Jeez, JRPG exposition is long and tedious and I do not care about it. A bunch of people must care! I am not one of those people. 2) There's some Snipperclips DLC coming out, with expanded and a new Snipperclips+, which is the original game plus the DLC. If you haven't picked up Snipperclips, this is a good game. 3) Doom and the new Wolfenstein game are coming to the Switch, which is a pretty big deal, actually. They only showed clips of Doom, but it looks like it's running pretty well? 4) Super Mario Odyssey looks completely nuts. There's an insane amount of content, and unlockables, and little moons to find. It looks like, between this and BotW, this is perhaps one of Nintendo's greatest years for game releases.

Every time I read an article that references something discussed (or tangentially related to something discussed) on Important if True, I wonder just how many people think they're going to be the only people who email that article to the podcast. For instance, here's an update on the self-driving car impersonator: https://gizmodo.com/ford-funded-that-weirdo-in-a-car-seat-costume-who-prete-1807402996 How many times will this appear in the Important if True email inbox?

I definitely agree. What I think is more likely is that, growing up, Trader Joe’s pushed this made up fact (perhaps in its Fearless Flyer monthly ad magazine) as a way to promote their no-sugar ketchup, and this was then told to me (and whoever wrote that website I linked to). Edit: I just texted my parents, asking if they remembered this ketchy thing, and my dad very confidently stated this ketchup has to contain a certain amount of sugar, otherwise it’s catsup, (a fact which is not shown to be true anywhere on the internet). His response was that this is a “pre-internet thing” and something must have changed since he learned this when he was younger. So now I know the source of my own wacky misconception.

When I was a kid, I swear that Trader Joes made a thing they called "ketchy," and I once asked my parents why it was called this and not "ketchup," when it was actually just ketchup. I think that my parents told me that the word "ketchup" was reserved for a tomato based condiment that contains sugar, and other companies weren't allowed to call their condiments that if there wasn't added sugar. I thought this for most of my childhood (even into adulthood), although it is definitely not true. EDIT: wait, I found this website here, which at least echoes my insanity from above. Could this be true? Does ketchup have to have added sugar? EDIT 2: Perhaps this was just Trader Joes advertising? Here is a newspaper ad from 1980 which says:

Oh, "sassy carl" is what steve gaynor and his pubg buddies call the SCAR-L.