dium

From what I understand, this is an Andrew Hussie driven project all the way down to inception. Shiftylook gave him money to hire talent and make a game, and this is what happened. As someone who actually reads and enjoys Homestuck, I can see this working quite well. At least, I can see Hussie-written dialogue working really well in a Japanese style dating sim narrative (I've always thought his writing would match perfectly with a Persona-style game). This is assuming he doesn't play the premise too straight, which he certainly won't. Also as someone who actually reads and enjoys Homestuck: I'm just as disappointed as you guys that Homestuck characters are in this. It feels both really indulgent and like a big cash-in. And I've grown to really enjoy Hussie's storytelling, but It's all been in the context of one franchise... by bringing over some of his own characters this game is gonna feel like he's writing in the same context that everybody already knows him for.

Fuck yes. ...probably not playable, which is fine. I'll happily lap up any and all MM references from Nintendo, happy just for the game to be acknowledged. I'm not proud of this.

Maybe it's just me but I'm weirded out by how normal the word "lore" is treated in conversation. I wanted to end that sentence with "nowadays" but I'm a bit too young and self conscious for that.

Yay Full Throttle! They're fun and worth playing, and you can certainly feel the Lucasarts pedigree that Dave and other ex-lucas people bring to the company design culture (if that's even a good way of putting it). Telltale adventures never quite reach the level of most of their Lucasarts predecessors, though. I think partly because they're so deathly afraid of letting the player get stuck. It's a natural result of the episodic model: a player won't buy the next episode if they can't finish the one they're on, after all. Admittedly, getting stuck is the opposite of fun. But it is almost always a part of the best adventure game puzzle experiences: 1) encountering a problem, 2) trying one or two obvious solutions that don't work but *almost* do, or feel close, 3) feeling lost for a while and maybe even giving up... 4) and then later having a revelation. The payoff in stage 4 is well worth it usually, but there's always a risk that the player won't get past stage 3 (even if the puzzle is designed well, but especially if it isn't). Telltale games basically never take that risk, and so their puzzles are can only ever be so satisfying. Since adventure game puzzles can only be so interesting without a willingness to let the player get stuck, Telltale games needed to emphasize the interesting aspects of their games that weren't puzzles... which is why the direction they took with The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us seems so natural to me.

I wish they didn't have to do the juvenile romance stuff. Whenever they dabbled in romantic moments in A:tLA it was awful, and it was my least favorite part of Korra season 1. I imagine their tween demo eats it up, though.

I say it's still worth watching, if you liked the first season. Just be prepared for the first 3-4 episodes to be pretty weak. Gonna take this out of spoilers since it's common knowledge: there will be at least two more seasons of Korra. I for one am happy about it, since I think the Korra character actually has a lot of potential for interesting growth... and frustratingly the show has fulfilled almost none of that potential so far. I actually have the opposite opinions from you concerning Mako and Bolin. Verrick is the best thing to come out of this season, though, no question.

Final episodes of Legend of Korra have been aired (on the internet only, for some reason). I know a lot of people weren't convinced by the first season, but I loved it. Considering the leap in quality between seasons back in A:tLA (season 2 was especially better than season 1), I was expecting great things from Korra season 2. Turns out I was setting myself up for disappointment. Things get better in the second half of the season, but on balance the show was bogged down by weird plotting, inconsistent animation quality and really frustrating character choices. I'm gonna keep watching future seasons, but I'm not as hyped for season 3 as I was for season 2.

Does the Spelunky/Yello mashup referenced in this cast exist on the internet?

I speak decent Japanese, and my partner is a native speaker. That song was in Korean, there's no question. I'm aware of how popular the group is internationally, and I know there's a version of that song that's in Japanese. If anything, though, the fact that a Japanese version exists and they STILL used the Korean version makes me face palm harder. Still a great doc. I wouldn't give a shit about any of this if it weren't a great doc.

(that would be logical)

Five years ago I could've sworn that the definition of hipster was someone who only enjoys things through ironic detachment if he admits to enjoying things at all. At this point I think the word's only universal meaning is trendy person I find annoying. I enjoy how the Thumbs forum definition of hipster seems to focus on SF, as if Portland or Brooklyn or Lower Manhattan aren't also pegged as "hipster meccas" all the time and way too much. Seems to have contributed a specific software development flavor to their characterization.

Well, that's understandable at least. Still quite unfortunate. That scene alone significantly narrows down who I can show the doc to with a straight face, as most of my nerd friends are either from Japan or have ties to Japan somehow and tend to get pretty angry about media misrepresentation of their country (especially "look at this weird Japanese thing" sort of articles).

Well, yeah. That was my point exactly.

That smash doc is great! But I too wish it spent more than a glancing thought about some of the more unfortunate aspects of the subculture (and all American fighting game subcultures). More than that, though, I wish the doc wasn't so horrible when depicting Japan or Japanese players... whenever anything about Japan comes up the doc goes from quite interesting to almost unwatchable. I mean, Girls Generation? Seriously? Guys. Come on.

Nintendo continues to show that they basically don't understand what the internet is. What a strange, backward company.

I don't think the writing and acting is all that bad. Well, it IS quite bad; I mean I don't think it's inappropriate. I would be disappointed if there wasn't stupid puns in hammed-up "spooky voice". That's basically what 7th Guest is about. But I agree in general, it doesn't feel right... modern technology does seem to be a disservice to the 7th Guest vibe. The original game (I never played 11th hour) was campy, but in a very unique way that was (probably unintentionally) augmented by the limitations of FMV tech; this trailer felt campy more like amateur theater is campy, and seemingly just because I can see the actors more clearly. I'm not sold. I have a lot of nostalgia for the first game, but I haven't even gotten around to 11th Hour yet, why would I invest in yet another sequel?

Pokemon is a weird thing; it has a huge fan base of people of all ages who take it very seriously, but it's main target audience is still, ostensibly, young children. So every new pokemon game adds a bunch of new features that are mainly appreciated by the competitive scene, all of which are completely ignore-able if you just want to beat the elite four (the single player campaign, so to speak) because... the single player campaign is really easy. Earlier games in the series had a difficulty spike towards the end of the game, leading up to the elite four (who are the final bosses of the game). For various reason (but primarily a new feature in the form of the experience-share item), this is not the case in X/Y. The game is easy, and remains easy, the whole way through... so if you're looking for the single player campaign to challenge you you're going to be disappointed. After the elite four there are some single player features that present actual challenges (like the battle maison, or whatever it's called this time). And of course, battles with real people, which is an all-or-nothing sort of rabbit hole you may or may not want to peer down. If you want to try upping the difficulty just a bit, here's a tip: in the options, change the battle style from "SWITCH" to "SET". This removes the option to switch pokemon after you KO an opponent (although you can still sacrifice a move to switch things out). This is how multiplayer battles (and battles in the battle maison) work. This won't actually increase the difficulty by very much, unfortunately, because most trainers in the campaign all use the same type of pokemon (which is dumb). But it's something. EDIT: w/r/t the game expecting you're already a fan because they don't explain anything: this generation actually explains more about how mechanics work than any previous generation, believe it or not. Earlier pokemon games told the player almost zilch about how anything works, and only gradually admitted the underlying mechanics of any of it (if they ever did). For this reason, the pokemon enthusiast fanbase is built around a culture of experimentation and data mining. It's very strange. I'm not going to try to defend it, I don't think it's defensible. I like it though.

4098-3516-2510 I want to be everybody's friend. I'm that friendly.

Yes, little cup sounds perfect. Also: I'm adding everyone's friend codes in this thread and hope you all add me back! There are so many benefits for simply having more friends (most obvious one is the friend safari), so it's really in your best interest! I promise I'm cool! I'm cool! Guys, I'm cool too! 4098-3516-2510

Elite four defeated. Now to start breeding a million things.

I bought and finished this game a couple days ago. Then I immediately played through it again with commentary. Really fantastic stuff. I never got a scary or horror vibe from this game, probably because I already knew so much about the game when I started it. That's unfortunate, I think. Also: in a lot of superficial ways this game strongly reminded me of 7th Guest. I'm hesitant to make that comparison out loud, but I can't deny what I feel man.

You know what's dumb?

Getting a serious Welcome to Nightvale vibe from Chris as he reads reader mail this episode. If unfamiliar with the reference, this post can easily be ignored.

Oh wow, alright. When I saw Stanley Parable as the only game on the discussed list, I thought that was a pretty good indicator this would be a spoiler cast.

I'm playing it safe with this one and skipping it entirely in order to avoid spoilers. This is the first time I've done this with an episode of Idle Thumbs, but after playing the demo I'm pretty sure The Stanley Parable is something I want to go into completely unspoiled.