Sean

I doubt the guys will cut anything out. No worries. Thanks to everyone who came to the panel -- it was a blast.

Definitely not Chris in that left photo. Definitely Chris in that right photo.

I will say that watching Chris scroll through the reader mail on his phone, watching him be pleased by some and raise eyebrows at others, is very much like a father looking over the work of his children.

i've been pushing some sort of board gaming time at PAX with jake chris and steve so we'll see if that happens. I'm also wiling to bet there will be an unofficial Thumb meet up in a hotel bar somewhere. so, yeah, keep an eye on a forum or a tweet for that.

Yeah, I couldnt do the game justice as I'm crunching on a "thang," and I will be at PAX. So, ya know, BRING THAT SHIT.

As the newest addition but long-time listener, I will say we have a TREMENDOUS amount of fun and the end of this particular type of fun is the only negative to come out of a great opportunity for Chris.

I just don't have the bandwidth -- I'm woefully behind on ten other things and would've just let my galactic empire fall into decay. I'm on the next one though.

It saddens me that you would have to ask this.

I can't speak for Jake or Steve, but I sure am gonna miss Chris "Gunga-Galunga" Remo when he heads off to .

Agreed, the first time you see a person I damn near lost my shit. Jake and I were actually playing it together and even then I think I yelled "FUCK THIS GAME," and was secretly glad I was not at the reigns.

If I remember correctly (and by the time we recorded that Conf Grenade it was 11pm on the last day of the conf and I'd been GDC'ing it for four days straight) Jake just said that the name Phaedrus sounded like the shitty nickname a serial killer/kidnapper would use and off he went. A Phamily of Phaedruses was born much later.

we we're going to wait until episode 25: "the identity redux" to say so, but that's actually what you're getting right now. sean vanaman, aka "sean famous vanaman" is actually a construction of jake's. jake switches from jake voice to "sean voice" or "famous mouth" and back with uncanny quickness and clarity and has been performing the character since the gdc conf grenade (where jake took too two many frenet shots and had sean emerge in public). seeing this bizarre personality switch in the wild, chris thought it would be a good idea to bring this character to the cast. also, this is jake aka sean aka famous video games writing this.

Jake and I are reading this to each other over our cube wall (not gay) and laughing our asses off.

I would tinker with the wording. The Ides of Darkness: Origins of Max; Dark Moon Rising

I am not pleased that a reader has sullied the Bandanaman name yet Jake Rodkin continues to thrive.

The Ides of March: beware that shit.

AKA Milkstraw.

Robert is in fact Robert "Yare" Oates -- AKA Robert Oatbag Oates AKA Robert Oatbag Horsebag Oates AKA Roberto Paninni AKA Robert Crepevine Oates AKA Ro-bawss AKA The Libyan. And thanks guys, I've been enjoying being on the cast from time to time and will try to bring more in depth analysis from here on out.

Yo Sumo, I didn't work on Sam & Max 301 -- I've been doing odds and ends on later episodes but The Devil's Playhouse is pretty much all Chuck Jordan, Mike Stemmle and Joe Pinney in the design department.

christ!

Apparently. Chris and Steve weren't impressed -- I don't have a version to compare it to.

I started playing Far Cry 2 this weekend (on my PS3 -- which I should say is a shoddy port) and Chris and Steve came over. Chris walked in and made a "crowd goes wild" "ahhhh!" noise with some hand waving for a solid 20 seconds. Apparently those dudes are big fans of that game.

Concerning game schools -- Steve and I were talking about this yesterday a little bit and we both agreed that programs that teach you tools in lieu of design philosophy are sort of worthless. Being able to think about things in an interesting way, understand what motivates not just a player but a person, and being able to deconstruct things into its parts make you a good designer. There are some programs where design philosophy IS the focus, and I definitely commend those (USC's Interactive Media comes to mind). Learning a level builder or some sort of off the shelf engine (unless you go and use that to make something incredible, but if you're capable of making an amazing game in your free time, why are you spending money on school??) really aren't valuable. I had few technical skills before coming to Telltale but now I've learned how to wire up logic and build things in the tool. We can teach you the tools but we can't teach you how to think.

I'm not sure I quoted Soren Johnson too accurately during the cast, but in reference to evolution and WoW, Soren specifically used the example of build trees. He started with a base Paladin and showed that over time, choices are made to become increasingly more specialized, where you've got upwards of eight different combined specs, from healer to tank and everywhere in between. He compared these specs to Darwin's finches and to then argue that WoW, in some ways, was more ABOUT evolution than Spore, despite Spore's theme (or "creative wrapper). I agreed with him at the time, and I think I still do. You guys have made the (intelligent) point that evolution is about natural selection, whereas your WoW spec is a conscious choice. I think it *could* (and that's a big could) be argued that perhaps a Paladin (or Druid or Hunter or whoever) makes the choices they do in WoW based on what will help them thrive moment to moment in the game. While some players certainly set out with the idea "I'm going to become a resto druid," it's not difficult to imagine the player who, based on the fact that they solo or that all of their friends are mages, start to make less conscious choices about their specialization and simply evolve into whatever makes the most sense for the types of situations they generally find themselves in during the game. Of course, you still have to click the little box to say "yeah, one point in feral please." So there's that. It's a loose connection, but I think if you look past the fine details, Soren makes a good point. It should also be said that this was about 90 seconds of a 60 minute talk, the whole of which is well worth tracking down on the GDC Vault if you're into such things.

Steve kept lightly dragging his finger down the inside of my arm during the quiet moments. So, being on the Thumbs fulfilled a multitude of fantasies for me. In all seriousness, I was really stoked to be on the 'cast; so thanks to Chris, Steve and Jake for having me on. They bounce of each other almost perfectly so it's tough coming in as the fourth and as a sleep-deprived schmuck. I hope you found a modicum of joy in my awkwardness.