chummer

i don't even think it was a riff. if i remember correctly, the actor Adam Baldwin coined the term and those folks hanged onto it because it allowed them to dogpile through a an account with a wide audience. (it's a technique you'll see a lot if you pay attention to them on Twitter.)

Zen and the Art of Transhumanism by Deconstructeam the folks who made "Gods Will Be Watching" created this 'pottery game' where you install upgrades into humans. the writing is predictable, but the tactile experience of spinning the wheel, shaping the digital clay, sliding the buttons up and down to turn on music and choose designs is so incredibly good. the art and music are nice as well.

i remember that you could disarm and take enemies' weapons in Wind Waker as well. it's interesting to note how Nintendo has already applied a lot of the changes people seem to be excited for in small ways across various games, but never committed to them in the same way they seem to be doing with Breath of the Wild. regarding those subscription boxes that aren't about food: in my least charitable mood, they're this weird excess that's about having so much disposable income you're willing to give it away in some weird lottery for a chance at some trinkets you may or may not enjoy. i also realize though that it's closer to people signing up to being surprised, which while may not be a thing i find joy in, i can understand is some sort of relief in this capitalist hellscape. ✌

aw yiss i'm pumped.

if someone figured out how to add the JoJo Roundabout freeze frame to this conversation somewhere, that would be *chef's kiss*

i'm a big fan of listening to other things while playing games and while i strongly associate ska music with with N64 games, i think my strongest song association happened when i was playing the original Fallout. this was in 2010 and since i hadn't played any PC games from the 90's, i was going through a lot of them. i was also dating a girl who was really into Radiohead and had given me a mix of their stuff. whenever i hear 'Idioteque,' i still recall traversing deserts and mutant-filled hallways. speaking of traversing, the walking simulator talk had me thinking about whether genre and form names should be represnetative of what they are. for instance, someone who knows nothing about 'magical realism' would probably be able to discern what the genre is about, but someone who knows nothing about 'house music' probably couldn't tell you anything about it. 'metroidvania' has often been derided as a genre name, but i feel that it at least gives information to those who have a particular context with video games. to get at the point of the reader's letter tough, while i don't think organically created names are always good, i'm generally in favor of them and calling it a 'walking simulator' or 'secrets box' or 'software theater' (though i love those last two) still won't change the attitude of those deriding it (who i think was the target of the reader's concern). that said, calling a video game a 'secrets box' is very beautiful and evocative and i want it to be called that. i also like the idea of calling a Call of Duty 'software theater.'

played a couple matched recently and was reminded how good this game was. depending on how reviews go, this is a day one perch for me.

not sure if this is the game that reader was looking for, but i'm almost positive that the Steve-recommended game Chris mentioned was Saira. the premise of the game is that you're a young woman looking for an explanation as to why every human has seem to have disappeared after you teleported to Mars. it's a 2D game in the style that's not quite a Metroid-like, but does have the same joy of exploring spaces. the dev- Nifflas- also made Knytt, which is a 2D platformer about a stranded alien looking for replacement parts for their ship. it feels like a more boiled down version of Saira, but it's one of my favorite games and is worth checking out if the reader enjoyed Saira.

snapchat was the app where i also tried it and realized i had crossed over into the sphere of old people. i think the appeal of it over vine was that for a while youngins sent nudes over the service because they believed it was deleted after viewing, but the media turned out to still save to your phone, just with .nomedia extension or something.

fav video game music/rap crossover:

isn't Battlefront giving out free maps? i googled a bit and am still baffled at who is getting what on that game.

it'd be an interesting counter to the 'just kill bots' strategy if you were able to give them a temporary boost that made it so that they needed 2 bullets instead of just 1 to be killed. also, the ability to use ziplines would really open up the maps in some neat ways. seeing the sword in the trailer reminds me of super sentai shows and then wondering what co-op titans would look like. what i would really want is some taller levels. I loved how in the Rise map you could be wall running over Titans while they made their way through the narrow passages- what an incredible feeling that was.

i got a Nokia Lumia 635 for <$50 because i'm cheap and don't need my phone to do a lot. aside from basic phone functionality, i just use it for e-mail checking and web browsing, which it does great. coming from a Galaxy S3 i do miss some apps (specifically Google Keep and Maps) but i'm pretty happy otherwise.

maybe i'm wrong, but i feel like the meat grinder moved at a slower pace than CoD, which really appealed to me (though my strategies rarely put me in contest w/ many other players, so that might contribute to my perception of this). asides from TF2, this is the only online FPS that i've ever played more than a handful of hours and that's almost entirely b/c of the movement mechanics. i also liked how going after bots meant that i could play almost solipsistically and still end up being a help in attrition. how would you guys feel about the game adding some Battlefield style support abilities/classes? i think i could def see myself playing a Titan engineer/hacker in this game and still having lots of fun. i almost always enjoyed playing on foot when the Titans were out b/c it really added to the sense of scale the levels had. if the game encouraged that in some way, that'd be a treat. edit: also, this thread title has me imagining Titans with mudflaps. get ready for that micro-transaction.

was checking out just this past year's episode titles and there are some A+ options. Buble Bloodborne Beef, Momazon Prime, and Idle Thumbs Demo Disk Q1 2016 top my list.

finally saw ep. vii this past weekend and i felt like its strongest quality was the way in which it was informed and worked against the original trilogy (though i often found myself bored w/ what was going on). wonder how a different lead writer and director will affect all that though.

is this a prequel? is there where many bothans die?

i guess i'm specifically interested in how to use that stuff. conceptually, i understand what the different modes are, just not quite how to implement them in interesting ways when creating chord progressions or writing out melodies. i've messed a little with the IV-iv progression and using the sharp from a IVmaj7 and can hear how it adds a lot of flavor, but it always feels like an accident.

you're going to have to convert them into WAV, but you can get recordings of individual notes from Bb0 to C8 here: http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MISpiano.html

does anyone have any good advice or pieces about changing tonality and/or using substitution chords? feel like that's the next thing i need to really get at in my composition skills. on the engineering side, i still feel like i've no idea what i'm doing in regards to mixing, so anything on that would be appreciated as well. other than that. how's everyone doing? ya'll make any new pieces that you're excited about and want to share?

Hey, you know how when you're inside a sub-forum looking at all the topics and at the bottom of the page is the option to 'load more topics'? is there a way to make that available within a topic to read replies that way instead of going to different pages?

woof. really found ep 10 of Project BEAST a slog. some good nonsense happens at the beginning and end, but the middle felt really slow.

great first ep! gonna subscribe.

the talk about Hackers as a story of marginalized youths working against the system got me thinking about how a young tech wiz today is more likely to be envisioned as an entrepreneur who has assimilated into the system- the 20 year old who makes an app and then sells it for a billion dollars. the lingo around this stuff evokes transgressive ideas- the underdog startup, disruption, sharing economy- but are either just new words for old ideas and/or bolstering established hierarchies. how incredibly disappointing. simultaneously, the internet's promise of a broader world where you encounter more types of people has been fulfilled for me. i can point out specific tweets that have challenged my ideas of race, gender, economics and have pushed me to expand my feelings of empathy and kindness; the internet has definitively made me a better person. while that may not be as flashy as hacking a romantic message on an office building or getting arrested for messing with banks, it's a much more useful manifestation(?) of that implied transgressive-ness. (on a side note, the internet has also gotten me laid and paid. so there's that.) Edit: oh! also: great episode!