mikemariano

Next week's episode of Retronauts will feature special guest Danielle Riendeau talking about Super Mario 64! If you're a Patreon backer you can listen to the episode today! It's fun listening to Danielle make non-sequiturs that none of the guys in the room respond to. I miss that!

It was interesting listening to people who have created and are currently creating conversation systems talking about the conversation systems in other games. I treated Mass Effect conversation like a rhythm game, forcing myself to respond quickly and make the conversation sound like a conversation. This was possible because Mass Effect was mostly just small talk—a wrong sentence wouldn't drastically change the course of your game. Compare that to Pillars of Eternity with about 6 wildly different options for each turning point in a quest. I took my time with those!

Apparently merchandise from this game was an official gift to President Obama:

I am sometimes not bad at the Daily Challenge? I enjoyed Mega Satan's awarded points:

I'm fairly sure she's seen Fire Walk With Me, but I have no idea what she thinks of it. I wonder if she and Mark will do an episode for the 2017 series...?

Whoa, that looks wild!

Yes, I don't understand the justification for this at all. I have no idea how to fight shades at a low level. I went to Defiance Bay first and leveled up as much as possible before returning to Caed Nua. EDIT: Wait, I misremembered. I trudged through that fight and then gave up on the next castle.

Looks like I'll wait until then and decide whether I want to jump back in. I didn't find the end of the main game super-compelling.

Every change made for the DS version of Chrono Trigger was for the worse (cut scenes, monster training, etc.), but I had no problem ignoring all of this and had fun with it.

I don't own a Wii U so I'm not sure why I did this. Should I: 1) Give it to my nieces for Christmas—who also do not have a Wii U? 2) Open it and hug it?

I was just checking our Where in the World map to see if we had any French thumbs, but no one filled in their location if so. Regardless, we can hope for the best.

It's all about showing off your Roguelike cred! I'm not sure what to tell you about the original Isaac—I'm not sure it offers enough variety to make it worth sticking with, and I definitely had a harder learning curve with the original than with Rebirth. In Rebirth, when I get frustrated with Maggie's slow movement or Isaac's low damage, I end up picking up a weird item that changes the way I play for the rest of my run. Those moments are a lot more rare in the original Isaac.

Yeah, demands for more speed without quicker damage just don't work. Plinking away at enemies in Greed Mode that can't possibly die in time for the next round isn't fun. I've completed Greed Mode with all of the old non-Lost characters and fought some new boss with Isaac, though I'm not sure how I got there. So I think I can still ignore the new challenges and stay away from what's frustrating about Afterbirth.

Wow, a sarcasm button. That sure seems like a good use of development resources.

Just beat Read Only Memories. It was OK. The recent 18-minute game Murder did a much better job scratching my cyberpunk itch. ROM had much more of a plot, but the twists weren't very satisfying and the re-use of characters got tiring after a while.

Just beat Read Only Memories tonight with advice that may help the quitters out there:

Whoa, I just started Read Only Memories last night and now am tantalized by all this Spoiler text.

Yeah, there's a very real danger that the central story will be dumber than ever and harder to ignore. We'll see!

Just finished Shadowrun: Hong Kong. It was a more manageable final boss than I thought, and I liked that the final moments of the story were extremely low-key.

Thanks everybody for the input! I'm not opposed to sharing an apartment, but since I'd likely be in the apartment for most of the day, I wouldn't want a situation that would be distracting for me and an imposition for them. Downtown Vancouver is out of my price range, but the other neighborhoods look OK and walking/public transit-friendly. When looking at Ireland I also looked outside of Dublin, but I found it tough to tell whether or not I would need a car. And I never thought about the Netherlands—I'm just reading now how thoroughly English has muscled in on Dutch throughout your country, osmosisch. I apologize!

I am in the process of putting aside 2–3 months at the beginning of next year for a writing sabbatical. Get a sublet somewhere and complete two of the plays I've been working on—maybe also the video game scripts I've been telling myself I'll write? In practice, though, this means quitting my job, leaving NJ and NYC, and finding someplace tolerable to be unemployed for a while. Then magically finding a new job right away in my mid-thirties? I'm thinking of doing all of this in Vancouver, a warmer, milder city than New York. Does anyone know how easy/fun it is to be in the city during the winter? I also thought about Dublin (still warmer than NYC!) but the sublets were significantly more expensive. Or does anyone have any leads for cool cities, sublets, and situations where I can basically hole up with a laptop and a spiral notebook? Or people I should collaborate with? If I'm pushing the reset button on my life I might as well make it count.

Yo, I walked into Ultra Greed with 93 coins tonight. I, uh, got hit enough for that to go down to 87 coins by the end of the match. I put one coin into the machine and it broke. Why does this game hate me?

I was pleased with myself for beating the October 31st Daily Challenge, but only came in 34,947th place out of what seems to be ~120,000 challengers. I accidentally quit 10/30 (I got a phone call mid-game that stole window focus) and intentionally quit today's challenge with about 600 points for each day. At my best I'm not even in the top 25% of Isaac players. And I'm rarely at my best!

Curse of the Blind Curse Room Dead Cat I had forgotten how cruel this game could be! Only two more days until some all-new torture.