CaptainFish

One of the things I loved as a Canadian kid in elementary was going to a fairly nearby maple tree forest for field trips every year. Maple syrup on snow is super delicious! Other than that I don't care about it. Great cast, it was cool to have Anita on the show!

I believe that's the starting point the bombcast took with it as well, although I think they just used it as a starting point before describing other aspects. I totally understand bristling at the reductiveness of that statement though, after looking at a game for so long and putting so much into it. The whole thing did remind me of Sean calling Divinity: OS a Diablo, though, which is still pretty hilarious.

To be clear, I think an article about the ethics of the monetary split between the pitch creator, charity, developers and TFYC, how their transgender policy was and is framed and the FYC's generally unprofessional conduct would be of way more value. The VICE article isn't about that.

I honestly don't understand any narrative that tries to vilify 4chan for supporting a charity games project designed to get a potential female designer's game pitched and developed. They put up enough money to be able to have a character in the game, so they made a character. The only way they "took their support a step further" is by donating enough money to surpass that stretch goal. The Fine Young Capitalists have received no coverage from gaming outlets, so I think for 4chan their project is an example of a place where they can have a real impact on something that is not supported by the journalists they're railing against. It's not really "an opportunity to make Quinn look bad" as the article suggests, but rather a tangible positive project the image board believes they can support. However, because they are 4chan and their discourse is full of abrasive, offensive language it's easy to paint those supporters as just being trolls. I notice the article, for example, doesn't mention how they raised $17 000+ for charity. Even if it's framed as a response to voices they don't agree with who are speaking out against sexist issues in games, it's in no way an unhealthy response. The hacking, threats and harassment are the unhealthy responses. I'd like to think that their support of this project shows that while some of the harassers stem from 4chan, not every member fits that mold.

Ell oh ell.

It would be cool if they found a way to just jettison all those people off the internet.

Yeah there was a lot of really dumb comments flung around by lots of people during this conversation. The Buzz Aldrin comparison was actually pretty apt for some of them, but maybe not for others.

I saw the Zoe stuff on SA when it first came out, and my reactions have more to do with how the internet reported and discussed it. I was really surprised that there weren't tons of articles and discussion threads in places for so long. The lack of reporting was great from a journalistic standpoint, I can totally understand the morality behind not wanting to report on unsubstantiated text and text that will lead to harassment. However, there's been a wake of silence that resulted in, for example, no articles about The Fine Young Capitalists' women in games project. The lack of discussion on forums and whatnot was a little bit stranger, as I feel like that kind of dumb drama is stuff that people love to discuss endlessly. I don't know if those discussions are good or not, but at the very least inconsistencies tend to fall out and I get to see smart people drill to the core of topics. However, all the conversation has been so dominated by shitty people on the internet who use the acronym SJW seriously and as a pejorative, who yell out misogynistic insults and slurs and who threaten people. I guess I just wish so much of the discussion wasn't dominated by what those people say and will alwayd say, but they're incredibly loud.

Ah, Big Dog on Campus.

PT talk was interesting. Isn't Silent Hill 4 the one that's most similar to this demo, in that there are first person sections when you're trapped in your apartment? That's what PT made me think most of when I found out it was a SH thing. Shattered Memories feels similar to me in retrospect because the game took place entirely over-the-shoulder using a flashlight to look around. At one point you wander through a dark forest in a snow storm and it might as well be 1st person. There's also actual first person perspective when you talk to the psychiatrist, but you don't have a lot of control in those sections. With those precedents and the current popular model for horror, I feel like a part first person, part third person campaign could make for an interesting game. It could also help to break up the tension inherent to navigating a horror game in first person. Team Silent games have always been unique, even from the beginning where clunky combat actually made avoiding enemies a natural choice without having to resort to the blunt solution of removing combat entirely. I hope Silent Hills ends up doing something new as well. Cosigned.

That part of the theme of the title is definitely there, and is supported by player choice breakdowns between chapters. It also assesses you on how your demeanour was as a player between missions and attempts (you were a ruthless/pacifist/foolish player etc.). All that stuff is great and interesting. That is more what the game is about, at least mechanically, and it's handled well. I guess this might be spoilery, but I'll try be vague. There's also stuff like a justification for why you can retry missions, and dialogue about how this 'isn't your first time' doing a mission, when you retry. I'd be fine with it as it is used cleverly to allow them to do the scenarios the way they want even after certain results in previous ones. However, this also lets them ignore some of the fallout from previous missions, so you do leave some of your mistakes/choices behind. The main part I dislike is that it takes the forefront as the game concludes, and I just don't care for that stuff.

Hideo's presence can really be felt through the radio voice over, which I enjoyed, and certain other glitches. I watched a friend's stream and loved the first half before it kind of descends into obscure puzzles. It's really weird that PT is so similar to a lot of the indie FPS horror games that have been all the rage, but with so much more polish. The design did seem overly frustrating and obscure, apparently Hideo thought it would take people a week to figure it out, so it was purposeful. Hopefully not a lot of that design makes it into the actual game. The idea of scrutinizing a small highly detailed space in first person sounds great if the space is more responsive.

Nice pull. Lee in TWD: Episode 1 fit that character separation example for me when he goes to his family's drug store and is poring over the clippings and memorabilia while I thought it was just a random location. Walker from Spec Ops might also count for his refusal to retreat or negotiate with allied troops. Most other occasions of a character acting atypically and confusing me that I can think of are just examples of bad writing.

Just finished this after being reminded of it by the Thumbs mention. A new build is up on humble that fixed the progression bug I was getting. I think this game is pretty special and I would love to see more adventure games or games with adventure game trappings use more system based mechanics like this one does. Like mentioned on the cast it breaks up the game into more digestible chunks which works well. As for difficulty, I played it on the harder of the original two options, and only ran into issues with the web-game based scenario, for which I had to look up a hint. Otherwise I think it does a great job of surfacing the mechanics, conveying how those variables are changing through visuals and giving you a wide variety of options to let you be morally expressive within each one. I do have a lot of issues with the meta-narrative. Like an interpretation of the title can suggest, Gods Will Be Watching seems to be about being a character in a game with someone controlling them. I never really appreciate this sort of stuff, and the game narrative doesn't do anything interesting with that angle. On the other hand, the world-building of the universe, while well done, never gets in the way of the elemental scenarios you have to survive, and I appreciate that. There's some decent-if-heavy-handed theming going on as well that is conveyed through backdrop and gameplay. My favourite moment is a section from the torture scene that I only encountered once.

Fun to hear some Gods Will Be Watching responses. I really enjoyed their systemic gaming in an adventure game wrapper as it reminded me more of older adventure games where systems would sneak in for a section or two to break up the 'authored puzzle -> authored solution' gameplay. I also appreciate the use of short scenarios a lot, as it lets you play around and be expressive in different ways within a situation without having Sierra-esque 'did I forget an important thing 8 screens back' worries. One slight thing though, I'm pretty sure time stands still as long as you are not engaging in an action. I only mention this because I agonized for minutes over a single decision in the second scenario and could barely look at the screen as I made the choice. I hope Chris plays more and discusses how he feels about the various chapters, specifically the narrative brutality. I've been fine with it, but it's an aspect that has turned people off from diving in.

I think I prefer 'ulti'. Sure it's not as brief, but it's more distinct to the ear and easier for a mumbler like me to say. Preferably people should probably just use the actual spell names during play-by-play and say the full word 'ultimate' when describing heroes during downtime though.

I don't really notice much jargon, but TV Tropes' naming convention of using references to create jargon does bug me.

Blades discussed: Original Xbox 360 interface, Marvel Film Trilogy, Gillette products, Finn's plant sword.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, I was stuck at the Post Office.

Clearly the solution is to do all ad reads as Brad Reads.

I figured you guys had some trepidation with the decision to do game ads on the cast. I don't entirely agree. What you say is true if filling an ad spot is accomplished by selling a space to anyone, but it's definitely possible for a content creator to form advertising contracts with products they are enthusiastic about. I think the latter approach is how ads should work, ideally. A good example of this is the fighting stick ads that the CrosscounterTV guys would run on Excellent Adventures, a youtube show about playing fighting games online. The sticks were used on the show before any ads showed up, and it's pretty clear that they were able to reach out at some point to the manufacturer for a mutually beneficial deal. Since the players were tournament-level, you could trust that they were recommending a good product, and people who used the code got a little discount. For Idle Thumbs, maybe the equivalent would be doing a Unity ad read. Or a microphone ad read. I do totally agree that if ad decisions are made completely separate from editorial opinion less impact is better. Thinking about doing ads about products as an outlet that is about opinions of those same products hurts my brain.

To be clear, my little issues aside, what I was trying to get across is I'm fine with game ads, and trust Idle Thumbs to make good decisions about them.

I found it a little weird as well, although I expected it because of another Midroll-handled gaming podcast I listen to. The game being free-to-try alleviates some of my negative reaction, but a cast member having played and enjoyed the game talking candidly about their experience would've been much more palatable than just reading the copy. That being said, I want Idle Thumbs to exist and be successful, they put out editorial gaming content and editorial gaming content has always come alongside gaming ads. Also, I imagine they feel as weird about it if/when asked to do something that disrupts what the cast is about as we do listening to it.

If someone didn't mention Blade the Vampire Hunter I would've gone nuts Some motherfuckers are always tryin' to separate language from its original denotations... uphill.