Idle Thumbs 216: Super Hypercast

[Chris]

I think it's unfair to read that article about the racist connotations of Cuphead as reaching, because it's the writer expressing their genuine reaction to the art style. The article is basically tracing why that reaction might come from seeing this art style. I didn't read it as a harsh criticism about how terribly racist Cuphead is, just highlighting the fact that there's a strong racist connection to the art style that people should be aware of and not evoke thoughtlessly.

Well, sort of. The author of the article expressly asks why nobody at the studio questioned this artistic choice. Perhaps they did. I mean, maybe they had months of discussions about it. How would we know? As someone who makes games (or literally any creative thing that is meant for other people to enjoy), I am painfully aware that it is impossible to communicate through the work itself all of the discussion and argument and iteration that goes into any particular choice.

That absolutely does not get anyone off the hook for making an ultimately bad choice, but to question creators' motivations or to assume ignorance or lack of thought is meaningless. Judge the actual work itself, not the entirely imagined circumstances of its creation. If a game makes somebody uncomfortable, they should interrogate why, and that interrogation can be illuminating for others who do not share their experience. But they have direct access only to the work itself; access to the creators' minds is vague at best. The fact that the author was concerned about the game stepping into thoughtlessly racialized territory, but the game seemingly not actually doing so, to me suggests its creators likely DID act thoughtfully, and not the opposite.

[CaptainFish]

I really appreciate that early animation aesthetic, so I'm looking forward to Cuphead. Although I looked at a couple E3 clips and they were showing long boss sequences that I didn't enjoy.

 

I'd really like to hear Sean follow up on The Last Guardian next week. I'm a big fan of Shadow of the Colossus, but I didn't really get anything out of the demo they showed at all. To be fair, I don't know how much you can demo the stuff I love about that game either. I guess the way they make you appreciate Agro is a big part of it, and the beast is a giant Agro with more AI, but I kind of always expected that without needing to see that footage.

[Johnny Driggs]

So is it up to me or Derek Lieu to edit together an episode of AI-dle Thumbs?

[kickinthehead]

So is it up to me or Derek Lieu to edit together an episode of AI-dle Thumbs?

 

Man I'd love to do some sort of super robot Idle Thumbs video, I just don't have the time and/or I'm too lazy. Too many funny little segments in general that I'd like to compile into a video >_<

[SuperBiasedMan]

Well, sort of. The author of the article expressly asks why nobody at the studio questioned this artistic choice. Perhaps they did. I mean, maybe they had months of discussions about it. How would we know? As someone who makes games (or literally any creative thing that is meant for other people to enjoy), I am painfully aware that it is impossible to communicate through the work itself all of the discussion and argument and iteration that goes into any particular choice.

That absolutely does not get anyone off the hook for making an ultimately bad choice, but to question creators' motivations or to assume ignorance or lack of thought is meaningless. Judge the actual work itself, not the entirely imagined circumstances of its creation. If a game makes somebody uncomfortable, they should interrogate why, and that interrogation can be illuminating for others who do not share their experience. But they have direct access only to the work itself; access to the creators' minds is vague at best. The fact that the author was concerned about the game stepping into thoughtlessly racialized territory, but the game seemingly not actually doing so, to me suggests its creators likely DID act thoughtfully, and not the opposite.

I think that is fair. I'm not arguing in total favour of the criticism. My point is just that it was a genuine response, not fabricated for the sake of making a point.

[BobbyBesar]

In theory, somebody could pay a couple hundred bucks to transcribe all the existing idle thumbs episodes and then Markov chain the results, and generate new idle thumbs episodes pre-robot overlords.

[SuperBiasedMan]

If you want terrible results, just use the YouTube transcripts.

[CaptainFish]

If you want terrible results, just use the YouTube transcripts.

Podcasts for robots, by robots.

[BobbyBesar]

Indeed.

 

Sean:i do. name for this one no Irene anonymity said if the answer is

Jake:keep trying to inject it in the fuck yeah

Sean:just tell you what it is now taking his own accepted it smells like ass

 

<theme>

are 

is

do

you

 

Jake:Chris where some great news

Chris:I do

Jake:its June 24th 2015  this is I'll comes 216 

Chris:I'm Chris Remo

Sean:I'm John Bannon

Danielle:I'm January and air

Jake:and I'm J crowd came

 

Good old John Bannon.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Ooh. I really want to make an I'll Comes twitter bot.

 

Also clearly J Crowd Came is the best.

[Bjorn]

Jake:and I'm J crowd came

 

This could so easily end up as J Allard.  Please let that happen at some point, Googlebot.

[natellite]

The hottest track of 2015? J Crowd Came - January and Air (ft. John Bannon)

[BobbyBesar]

In retrospect, I should have intentionally inverted the Sean and Jake voice-attributions, just for fun.

[tberton]

Don't give up, Jake. Keep trying to inject it in the fuck yeah! It will work out one day.

[Turgid]

A bit late, but for anyone interested in more modern animation principles, here's a great series going over some:

[syntheticgerbil]

Nice! Clear and simplistic. Thanks. I don't know how to describe animation stuff because a lot of it is just internalized since while I went to an animation school, Art Institute, I didn't actually learn how to animate from any teacher, since they had no idea what they were doing. It's all just books from various sources and flipping frame by frame through DVDs to me and everyone tends to use slightly different terms.

 

Also I hope one day I just have $1000 to burn on the Richard Williams big DVD set. Hopefully if he dies anytime soon, they still sell it. It'd suck to miss out.

[ultimatt]

For the record, Spelunky doesn't track things like consecutive days played.  In a way I kind of wish it did, mostly because I'm curious to know how long I've been doing it.

 

Same. 

I use spelunkyexplorers.com (http://spelunkyexplorers.com/leaderboard?y=2015&m=7&d=2) to kind of track it. 

I missed one day in 2014, but it didn't break me of playing. I've played every day since. 

I feel like I should stop playing but don't really want to. 

[SecretAsianMan]

I started playing daily back when Chris and Patrick Klepek used to compete.  I would unofficially compete with them as well (although I only have Chris on my friends list).  Even after both of them stopped playing I kept going.  I think I've missed a total of about 3 days in all that time.  At this point I'm still playing mostly out of habit.