CaptainFish

Yes. SWAT Force Forest Forage Forge for Four Foward Fords.

I was all set to say it was Runic Games, but they aren't on the east coast. Still it makes the most sense considering Chris' experience with Diablo and Torchlight and his glowing opinions of them. I'm turning Chris's announcement into an ARG. Or maybe he already did, by making that tweet and I'm just picking up the thrown gauntlet. If we take his word to be precise, there is only one game by the developer he's going to work with (I'm assuming it's developer and not publisher). Thus we can rule out any developer that has multiple games in the sale. We can also rule out any west coast developers. Based on this it could be Freedom Force vs The Third Reich developer, Irrational Games. Bioware does have the Montreal Office, but there are several Bioware games in the sale. Ion Storm is in Texas, which I think counts as central. It could be Iron Lore, also in MA, but there are two (three) Titan Quest games on the list. [sarcasm]He could also be working for Backyard Ninja, the creators of The Great White Destroyer, although I couldn't figure out where they are located.[/sarcasm] Demiurge Studios (Who did the ME PC port) was also an option until I realized they also worked on Titan Quest Anyway, I'll stop being a huge dork to say that if you are going to work at Irrational Games Chris, you have to convince them to give the SWAT series some love. The world needs SWAT 5 something fierce. Wait, I didn't stop being a huge dork at all.

I like the sequence, but wouldn't it have to be the 12th at the start? According to dictionary.com The ides of February is the 13th day. Hope you don't mind a little "Yes, and" Max chases his target leaping across rooftops. The mark thinks he's won when Max doesn't chance a long jump. He opens the staircase door only to see Max standing there smoking a cigarette, with several smoldering butts on the ground as though he's been there for hours. He backs the scared criminal up to the edge of the building... Target: B-but you won't touch me! You can't! It's the 12th! Clock Strikes Midnight MI: Not anymore Gunshot Target: At least *cough* I made you break your code. Max hands the mark a piece of paper Camera shot of target with the paper in the bottom third of the shot, showing the target looking up from the page and then falling into the alley below. Camera closes up on his dead body. Looking up a single sheet of paper gently falls down and lands on the body. Camera looks back at the body to reveal it's the February page of the calendar, with each square x-ed out up to the 12th, which begins to soak up blood on the 13th square. At this point if it was a marvel style movie, it would become fully blood red and that would transition into a red cg calendar to start the opening cinematic.

Yeah, he used the pen name (podium name?) Phaedrus for his talk at GDC 2010. At some point in the conf grenade the thumbs were doing a kidnapper voice for some unrelated reason, and Phaedrus got called back into it.

Hello! I kinda discovered idle thumbs about a month or so ago thanks to the ign.com stuff. Someone on giantbomb linked it in their status and I ended up reading the whole twitter all the while not entirely sure if it was real quotes or not. Eventually I got to the Idle Thumbs site and started listening to all the episodes of the cast. It was really weird, because I got super excited about the cast, and then realised the thing was already officially over, and then had the pleasant surprise that it had turned into something else cool. I've gamed for since grade school, mostly on the pc, although I did/do have a genesis, PS2 and Wii. Favorites include: C&C1, Red Alert 1, Dungeon Keeper, Theme Hospital, Diablo 1, Starcraft, all the LucasArts stuff, all of Ben Croshaw's stuff and almost any Interactive Fiction especially Planetfall, curses and the enchanter series (I'm surprisingly meh on Zork, but I do love the dumb Spider-Man and Hulk game). I also have a weakness for anything with RPG elements and direct control, all along the spectrum from Devil May Cry or Champions of Norrath up to Deus Ex or Kingdom Hearts.

I'm sure this isn't the first time this has been said, but you had me at "famous mouth".

Oh man, that would be awesome. Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin and Steve Gaynor with special guest Sean "Famous" Vanaman Jake Rodkin! Two times the Jake two times the power. I feel like there might be some crossover power between the illbleed trailer and the max ides trailer. "Maximum Ides! Maximum Bleeding! His enemies will shit with fear, once a month. 'I played this game on a non-ide and my PS3 locked up! Would play again!' -IGN.com This winter three days will mean certain death. MAX IDES. Pre-order at GameStop for an exclusive pin up girl calendar unlock, only at GameStop!" Edit: Sorry, Sombre.

In a fit of insomnia last night, I downloaded the demo of this game. I'm a huge telltale fan, but didn't really see myself liking a logic puzzle themed game. Although I like logic puzzles, I would prefer to buy a book of them than play a game, since I figured there would be a lot of game-based frustration.* However, the way the menu was presented, with each line representing a file opening was cool. I can't remember the last time a menu reflected the content of the game. The humour and horror also hooked me. Basically once the game popped up a tool tip that said , I was sold. I bought the game last night and played through it today, and really enjoyed it. I think my favorite puzzles were the sets where the mechanics never changed but the set up became more difficult. I also enjoyed the "slot these items together" puzzles as they served as a break for the more mentally taxing ones, although the object selection was wonky. I'm super glad that the game never resorted to using a timer, as this was probably my biggest worry at the outset. *There was a bit of frustration in some of the puzzles, but it never came from the puzzle itself, rather the explanation or the real life trappings. The first football one confused me greatly, I stumbled on the brain puzzle, Also, some of the puzzles are trivial, while others are hard in an abstract way. The broken snowmobile puzzle The bird pictures puzzle is a good example of being abstractly hard.

Wow, I got my e-mail read (I'm Myles). I instantly felt bad once I realized you hadn't finished Cryostasis, I hope I didn't spoil it too much. I'm also glad you didn't read my original facetious e-mail on the topic. I really like Assassin's Creed's Animus construct, because it puts the video game trappings in the game world. It reminds me of Sands of Time's rewinds and storytelling construct, in that they are in game reasons for lives and game overs. POP was clearly a lot more natural than AC though. Putting their historical game in that frame makes me believe their fairly weak world mechanics. The Incognito/Notorious switch is a good example. There's really no reason why Ezio isn't just constantly hunted down, but the animus is designed to represent that in a specific binary way. I thought of the guards and companions as programs and routines, which explained why they are so system driven (even though all games are that way). I feel like if the game was just set in the various historic settings Ubisoft would have to up their ability to simulate a town or the game would feel weird. Even stuff like objectives make more sense in the Animus, since you're supposed to be experiencing the lives of Altair/Ezio as they did. Telling me I failed a mission because I failed to assassinate a guy while remaining unnoticed is dumb. This is especially true if it's handled like it is in most games, with your unstoppable dude being killed by the guards that saw him in a cutscene. However, if I failed because I didn't mimic the actual event it makes a bit more sense (although it is still dumb). AC2 also made me want to play as Desmond more, and experience his world, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. If you don't care about the world of their frame narrative, then everything else they do is just annoying and unnecessary.