Sean

Warren Moon Colin Kaepernick Ron Mexico (Mike Vick) Boomer Esiason Tom Brady David Garrard Donavan McNabb Rodney Peete Andrew Luck

That was my iPad that had the Little Miss Sunshine song queued up getting an iMessage - it's normally on silent and I took it off for the stupid bit about Kickstarter and then was the rudest man. Bah.

Man, I've got like, 10'000 things to unpack in this (starting, in no particular order, with "not inherently interesting") but I guess I would say get some cool friends? I think a large part of what makes Thumbs enjoyable for me is that I simply enjoy games and my job more because I have good people around me to experience them with. I don't think there's any magical game that will turn a stone-faced dolt giddy with childlike glee. Maybe NP isn't for you and your friends -- it's totally not for everyone -- but I don't think that's because the game doesn't bring some capital-q Quality design mechanics to bear.

I have a Shoei RF110 helmet, a Dainese jacket I got 2nd hand, shitty-need-to-be-replaced gloves, looking for boots that at least resemble my Red Wing Iron Rangers that I wear now and some pants at one point.

What was incredible is he didn't know most of those songs and then went and learned them, on the fly, while Nick was building and was playing them 5 minutes later. Bonkers.

Also, I started journalling (mostly for me and not public consumption, but hey! it's the thumbs!) on tumblr at todomoto.tumblr.com

Better. https://twitter.com/vanaman/status/324709961424834560/photo/1

I playtested a game at Supergiant and it was the first game I've playtested since being in the industry and it was incredibly difficult and really mentally taxing. I'm not going to say a word about which game it was (Bastion or their new one, Transistor) and every verb/button/comment I make is purely made-up in terms of specifics but an honest recollection of tone. Nevertheless, I will say when it came to giving honest feedback, it was really really challenging. I kept wanting to say "I would do X differently, maybe, well, if it were my game, but you probably did X because of Y, which makes sense, but still, if Y is the problem then maybe you should think about it in terms of Z, no?" until I finally realized that wasn't the reason I was there. I had to think about the experience as if I were them and what I'd want to hear and it got a little easier. My rule of thumb became "give these guys problems to solve instead of solutions to my user experience problems." Like, I, swear to God, said something akin to "Couldn't there be a run button?" when what I should've said "I was frustrated I couldn't get to where I wanted to be fast enough." Maybe that means they tune the move speed (remember, all hypothetical scenarios here) or maybe they do implement a run button. Their job, ultimately, is to turn my rambling player-response bullshit into problems to solve BUT I felt better about contributing my thoughts when I didn't ask for things in the game and simply shared my thoughts about the experience. Anyway, just kind of rambling here, but being on the other side of the table in a playtest fundamentally changed how I listen to them as a designer and also turned me into a neurotic mess.

I think Chris is actually doing it now; or he's even very close to done.

That would make for a very short podcast.

Yeah, this was one of those conversations where, as it was happening, I was just stoked to be part of the podcast. With Chris and Nick having legit careers as journalists, and having thought about these questions a lot, I found myself just surprised and interested as to their answers.

Put this on twitter but speaking of helmets: https://twitter.com/vanaman/status/321839127907667968/photo/1

These are great! Thanks, man -- super duper appreciated. Those look badass but possibly more forward than I want to be.

It came with the solo seat and the original two-up. He had the solo on there with the rack so I've kept it on until my wife's semester is over. Also gave me two unused helmets, three pairs of gloves, a jacket and various other accouterments. Poor guy can't ride any more because of seizures so the bike only had 900 miles on it. Just the pits.

I lied about pics but here it is in the truck on the way home. Drove all over the curvy roads of Marin from SF on the way to Telltale yesterday and had a blast. Killstar -- any chance of you posting a photo of the seating position with the M-bars on there?

That would be DOPE -- I was looking at Superbars; Norman Hyde M-Bars and Renthal Lows but I really have no clue. Pics tomorrow!

I bought a 2010 Triumph Bonneville T100 Black with 900 miles on it! Woooo!

Let's do it; Jake is out of town until Tuesday; will talk to him then.

If you guys want to get together post it in here and we'll do our best to show up! We're all running around like chickens with our heads cut off but it'd be a delight to see you guys.

I'm on pills for that now.

I don't want to speak too much for Chris, Nick or Jake but I think I'm the only one who really follows sports. I watch ESPN at the gym, probably read fifteen or twenty minutes of sports news a day and keep up on US baseball, football and basketball and the World Cup whenever that comes around. I know Jake really enjoys going to baseball games (our buddy Adam took us to down on the field of SF Giants batting practice last year and it was a highlight of my life as a baseball fan). I don't really equate any of my fandom with sports to my enjoyment of DOTA -- watching sports doesn't invigorate me at all. I don't go nuts if my team wins, even my college, I don't hang any emotions on the outcome of the game. I experience it like a movie -- the drama of the situations, the curiosity of what will happen next. That being said, I don't reall pay attention to the competitive DOTA scene with much regularity, but having been to The International, it felt exactly like watching an exciting sports event. I thoroughly enjoyed myself but there was nothing wrapped up in it. Playing a round of DOTA invigorates the same parts of my brain that playing sports does. I was on a softball team in LA for a while and we won the Burbank City Championship in a close close close game against the fire department (who were just BRUTES and hit like four homeruns in five innings) and my coworkers and I were really fired up. I'm probably the most competitive of the Thumbs, in general (although I think Breckon is secretly a mad man but has suppressed so much of his outward emotion that his insides are now cold and black) and I DO think competitiveness has the potential to be expressed in really ugly manner and is also such a powerful feeling for those who experience it that, uncontrolled, can be a real problem. But I think you can say the same about a lot of emotions.

You know, I didn't realize he was playing 30 min a night and averaging 13pts a game for the Mavericks when I made the reference -- which may still holdup because those are solid but not superstar numbers (and people assumed he'd be a star when he came out of highschool and did a shady bid at my alma mater USC).

I play about 50/50 solo-public matches vs friends matches. I use the mute button (frequently) when I don't like someone. Which makes people who ARE great teammates despite being strangers on the internet all the more refreshing. I also think there multiple points here: one is the tone of a player communication, friends or otherwise, in a LOMA match and the other is the tenor and attitude of the player community as a whole, which is an issue across the entire industry and not at all unique to LOMAs.

HOW dangerously?