Jake

Idle Thumbs 250: A Palpable Dream

Recommended Posts

Central does indeed lament the loss of his sweater, but I think Nick confused him and the medical guy with regards to him being a former alien ally.

 

I had to look up what this was, which led me to this amazing custom-sweater from a Russian clothing manufacturer:

 

Bwhe7SICEAAZI_3.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Any more NBA screenshots?!

 

Also dudes, talking about NPC chatter / barks and not a mention of Dishonored? Guess you won't be gathering for whiskey and cigars tonight.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Fun basketball origin fact, James Naismith (the inventor of basketball) was hired by the Univ. of Kansas to bring the game here and be the first head coach of the team.  He was our worst coach ever in terms of success, and the only head coach in the history of the program to leave the job with a losing record. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The Idle Thumbs twitter account put out some very good news.

 

CbmjWDjUUAAKU1L.png

 

Alex Navarro of Giant Bomb has spoken at length about this campaign, so I'm very excited to hear Nick's take on it.

 

I got very excited to hear that email about NPC barks, because they are my weird passion. I have an ironic love for hearing dumb canned dialogue in games, especially if it inadvertently repeats too often. There's a line in LA Noire that goes "Let's bust in there and find the goddamn evidence!" and it always stuck out to me because it plays in every police station, and since you always start each case in a police station you hear it constantly. It came to mind again recently because I was playing The Division beta, and there are a group of NPCs in your base right next to the vendors who are discussing some sort of plan. Their discussion doesn't last very long but it plays on repeat, and every 30 seconds you hear a guy say "Let's go in, let's go around back", and the frequency with which he says it makes me imagine that everyone else is trying to figure out some complicated plan and he keeps butting in with his one idea that everyone knows won't work, but they're too polite to tell him to shut up.

 

In terms of actual good combat barks, Spec Ops: The Line has a really interesting system with them (spoilers if you haven't played it, and if you haven't you definitely should because it's brilliant). In Spec Ops, the combat barks for both the protagonists and enemies change throughout the game. The protagonists start off as straight-laced soldiers out doing their job and fighting the bad guys, while the enemies start off as a confident military force. But as the game progresses, things get worse for everybody. You mow down wave after wave of soldiers, and every situation you face seems to end in the worst possible way. You kill innocent people, your character's ear gets ripped off, you all end up battered and bloodied, and it actually takes its toll. When you order a squadmate to target an enemy at the start of the game, your character will say something simple like "Take him out!". By the end of the game he's screaming "KILL THAT SON OF A BITCH NOW!" The enemies change in relation to you in that by the end of the game, they're fucking terrified of you. You and your two squadmates have killed literally hundreds of their comrades, and they get progressively more afraid of you until they are outright running from you in terror. There was an interview with the developers at the time where they talked about coming up with these systems and realising that they'd actually never been done before in a game. I wish more games did it, because it's a really cool way of progressing the state of the world.

 

I'm actually a little surprised that nobody on the podcast mentioned it, but Dishonored has great idle NPC chatter! NPCs have conversations with each other that are procedurally generated from questions and responses. There aren't that many lines so you notice the patterns pretty quickly, but it's a really cool way of creating dialogue in situations that would otherwise have to be entirely scripted, or completely silent.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

On the topic of Goldeneye 64 and movement, one of my favorite things about the game is the built in co-op mode.  There are a couple of controller schemes you can select that enable two controllers to be used.  Both can do actions and select weapons, but one controller will control movement and turning on the targeting reticle while the other will control looking and shooting.  I used to play this mode alone with one controller in each hand which was a very interesting experience before the modern dual stick shooter scheme was created.

 

Here's a speedrun from AGDQ 2014 that demonstrates the control scheme (

)

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It probably doesn't mean anything but when Chris mentioned Firewatch he said "Jake and I shipped Firewatch..." and it made me realize that we have not heard Sean on the podcast in awhile. I infered some big stuff is going on in his life so I am not surprised or anything, but that stood out to my brain. Is Sean still officially on the cast?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also, it was funny to me that Nick said "Jon Blow judges you for playing a silly game" because during launch week Bennett Foddy (of Qwop fame) asked how X-Com 2 was and Mr. Blow responded saying it had the same "clunky core mechanics" but was now also "loud and in your face. The character stuff is like it was designed for twelve year olds." I jumped in to say that if you prefered the 1994 Xcom because it was the smart one you won't like it but the incorporation of extensive player expression to foster human connection with your soldiers in a tactics game is really interesting and cool. To this Mr. blow replied:

"I think what he means is it has hats."

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It probably doesn't mean anything but when Chris mentioned Firewatch he said "Jake and I shipped Firewatch..." and it made me realize that we have not heard Sean on the podcast in awhile. I infered some big stuff is going on in his life so I am not surprised or anything, but that stood out to my brain. Is Sean still officially on the cast?

 

 

I had assumed that Sean was just incredibly busy handling the business side of Campo Santo and Firewatch during the launch week.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think that difficult being an okay thing for games to be now comes from three places.

 

First, right around the 360 era you guys mention where everything just got incredibly watered down and boring is when the indie scene really started taking off, most notably I think with Braid and Super Meat Boy, both very challenging games. After these came Spelunky and The Binding of Isaac, which really established a trend in indies of allowing for challenging and unforgiving games, and once it was established that these were formulas that could be successful I think AAA publishers became much more open to the idea of challenging design.

 

Second was Demon's Souls, which I definitely think was more cause than effect with this trend since From Software has been making these kinds of games for basically as long as they've been making games. In fact, I suspect a big part of the reason why Chris compares it to early PS2 games is because From Software was one of the earliest devs on the scene when the PS2 came out, releasing Eternal Ring, Evergrace, and Armored Core 2 pretty much on launch. Armored Core 2 is a giant robot game rather than an RPG, but Evergrace especially shares a lot of the Souls games game design sensibilities, though it has a very different aesthetic -- one which is actually pretty striking in its own right. Anyway, similar to the indie games mentioned above, Souls came out of nowhere and became hugely popular, another data point showing that audiences can be willing to accept difficult and obscure games.

 

Third, I think it has to be a factor that that era of gaming just fucking sucked. It sucked so bad. Around 2007 or 2008 I'd been spending years studying programming and whatnot pursuant to my dream of creating games, and I was seriously starting to wonder if that was really what I wanted to do because everything about gaming just seemed so fucking dull. Around this time I played Cave Story, and from there I got interested in the indie games scene and it blew my mind. It really opened a door, demonstrated that we could make whatever the fuck we wanted, we didn't have to follow the 'best practices' that were slowly choking the life out of the industry.

 

So yeah. That's why I think we are seeing games that are more demanding now: A game that demands nothing from us offers nothing to us.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

According to this RPS guide there isn't any overwatch aim penalty when you fire from concealment: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/02/12/xcom2-guide-tips/

 

Since the game doesn't actually explain that anywhere, I have no idea whether that is true or not. But if so it is always a good idea to fire from overwatch. Otherwise after the first shot the enemies will run to cover and be harder to hit. Even if it is not true it is still probably worth it just because the aim penalty for overwatch is less severe than the penalty for firing against a target that is in cover.

 

Using your concealment effectively to setup an effective ambush as usually the difference between having to deal with 3 enemies at once instead of 6 in my experience. So it seems important to me!

 

I think the most optimal, but hardest to setup, method to end concealment is to have everyone on the team in overwatch, then have the alien walk around the corner and spot you on their turn. Since the aliens' turns are taken by the reaction moves, this gives you everyone's overwatch shots, then the entire next round to finish them off. The only downside is the occasional enemy who decides to take a shot rather than move for their reaction. I've noticed this happening most often with aliens that don't use cover (mainly mechs.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As a side note, I'd love to get a little inside Firewatch information on the cast. I know you're worried about shilling too hard, but I think you could give us some behind the scenes stuff while also serving as an advertisement. I'm sure that a lot of your listeners have already purchased, but it never hurts to remind people. If you're really feeling guilty about it, you could always have Campo Santo pay Idle Thumbs the commercial mentions fee that you're selling on the store.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As a side note, I'd love to get a little inside Firewatch information on the cast. I know you're worried about shilling too hard, but I think you could give us some behind the scenes stuff while also serving as an advertisement. I'm sure that a lot of your listeners have already purchased, but it never hurts to remind people. If you're really feeling guilty about it, you could always have Campo Santo pay Idle Thumbs the commercial mentions fee that you're selling on the store.

 

Yeah, I also feel that the deliberate firewall there is a bit too high at times, but it's whatever is comfortable to the Thumbs. We're not the ones who'll get brigaded by 4chan if the latter takes it poorly that people are talking about a game they made on a gaming podcast...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As a side note, I'd love to get a little inside Firewatch information on the cast. I know you're worried about shilling too hard, but I think you could give us some behind the scenes stuff while also serving as an advertisement. I'm sure that a lot of your listeners have already purchased, but it never hurts to remind people. If you're really feeling guilty about it, you could always have Campo Santo pay Idle Thumbs the commercial mentions fee that you're selling on the store.

 

This is probably already a totally obvious suggestion but a segment on Idle Weekend would be great if that makes the idea more comfortable.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I also feel that the deliberate firewall there is a bit too high at times, but it's whatever is comfortable to the Thumbs. We're not the ones who'll get brigaded by 4chan if the latter takes it poorly that people are talking about a game they made on a gaming podcast...

In my case at least, it's not so much that I'm worried about blowback; those people already think they're connecting incredibly important dots anyway.

I don't know if I can necessarily explain why I generally like to keep that line drawn, it's just an instinct thing, I guess. To me Idle Thumbs has never felt like a "behind the scenes" kind of podcast. We've always all been game journalists or developers, but it's never been a podcast ABOUT those things, like Tone Control or Designer Notes. We used to do occasional interview segments on Thumbs with other game developers and it just never really felt right to us. Idle Thumbs is not so much about process, it's about sensibility. And even there, it's not so much about declaring a sensibility so much as it is feeling one out over the course of the entire run of the podcast.

Obviously even all of what I just said is more declarative than I like to be with this show; it's not very meaningful to say what Thumbs is or isn't supposed to be, because the only thing it is supposed to be is what we enjoy on any given week. There aren't any hard lines to draw, and I don't think our own work is verboten or anything like that. Nevertheless, it just doesn't feel as "right" to me. I'd rather be a guest on someone else's podcast where there are simply no concerns of muddying the waters at all. Plus, that would give me the opportunity to plug Idle Thumbs to a new audience. (Collusion, corruption, etc.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Obviously even all of what I just said is more declarative than I like to be with this show; it's not very meaningful to say what Thumbs is or isn't supposed to be, because the only thing it is supposed to be is what we enjoy on any given week. There aren't any hard lines to draw, and I don't think our own work is verboten or anything like that. Nevertheless, it just doesn't feel as "right" to me. I'd rather be a guest on someone else's podcast where there are simply no concerns of muddying the waters at all. Plus, that would give me the opportunity to plug Idle Thumbs to a new audience. (Collusion, corruption, etc.)

 

I personally would like to see you be a guest on Idle Weekend, even though that's the ultimate corruption/collusion/communism of "podcast network operator, podcast editor, and special guest." Also, if at all possible, my dream is having you and Tom Chick on the same podcast, so I could hear two of the most thoughtfully opinionated people I know going at it, but that's silly of me. I look forward to whatever you all do!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Coincidentally I just started a podcast called Title Hums where I'm not even on it but I invite people named Chris Remo, Jake Rodkin, Sean Vanaman, Olly Moss, Nels Anderson. Jane Ng, Paolo Surricchio, Rich Sommers, Cissy Jones, James Benson, Patrick Ewing, Will Armstrong, Ben Burbank, and/or any other unnamed participants (in no particular order) in developing the game called "Firewatch" to talk freely about their experience during said development.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In my case at least, it's not so much that I'm worried about blowback; those people already think they're connecting incredibly important dots anyway.

I don't know if I can necessarily explain why I generally like to keep that line drawn, it's just an instinct thing, I guess. To me Idle Thumbs has never felt like a "behind the scenes" kind of podcast. We've always all been game journalists or developers, but it's never been a podcast ABOUT those things, like Tone Control or Designer Notes. We used to do occasional interview segments on Thumbs with other game developers and it just never really felt right to us. Idle Thumbs is not so much about process, it's about sensibility. And even there, it's not so much about declaring a sensibility so much as it is feeling one out over the course of the entire run of the podcast.

Obviously even all of what I just said is more declarative than I like to be with this show; it's not very meaningful to say what Thumbs is or isn't supposed to be, because the only thing it is supposed to be is what we enjoy on any given week. There aren't any hard lines to draw, and I don't think our own work is verboten or anything like that. Nevertheless, it just doesn't feel as "right" to me. I'd rather be a guest on someone else's podcast where there are simply no concerns of muddying the waters at all. Plus, that would give me the opportunity to plug Idle Thumbs to a new audience. (Collusion, corruption, etc.)

 

It seems to me that it's always been about what's important to all of you any given week, and I'd imagine that releasing a new game would be on that list, but I understand what you mean. :)

 

Well then, I'll just say the advise that I've told my friend who's in a band, have heard from Penny Arcade, and various other folks of low to mid celebrity. You might feel like you're repeating the same message over and over to the same people, and you're just boring folks, but sometimes the 10th time you say something is the first time that a given person has heard about it. Were I a podcast-only fan and not a forums goer or general follower of video gaming news, I may not even know you've got a game out there.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It seems to me that it's always been about what's important to all of you any given week, and I'd imagine that releasing a new game would be on that list, but I understand what you mean. :)

 

Well then, I'll just say the advise that I've told my friend who's in a band, have heard from Penny Arcade, and various other folks of low to mid celebrity. You might feel like you're repeating the same message over and over to the same people, and you're just boring folks, but sometimes the 10th time you say something is the first time that a given person has heard about it. Were I a podcast-only fan and not a forums goer or general follower of video gaming news, I may not even know you've got a game out there.

Oh I'm well aware of that, and I make that point often to coworkers; but the larger feeling I'm trying to explain really has nothing to do with whether the game is promoted enough or not.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also, it was funny to me that Nick said "Jon Blow judges you for playing a silly game" because during launch week Bennett Foddy (of Qwop fame) asked how X-Com 2 was and Mr. Blow responded saying it had the same "clunky core mechanics" but was now also "loud and in your face. The character stuff is like it was designed for twelve year olds." I jumped in to say that if you prefered the 1994 Xcom because it was the smart one you won't like it but the incorporation of extensive player expression to foster human connection with your soldiers in a tactics game is really interesting and cool. To this Mr. blow replied:

"I think what he means is it has hats."

 

Yeah, Jonathan Blow is a jerk. This has been clear to me for a number of years and the only thing that's surprising about it is how easily the video game community accepted it. Usually in the industrialised world we have a little bit of time during which we wring our hands about a creator who is "difficult" but makes something we like/find interesting, before accepting it and enjoying the thing with the occasional "but the creator, eesh" comment thrown in down the line. I may sound dismissive, but actually I think this is generally the healthy way to go about these things - it is totally possible to enjoy something that is problematic, and it's definitely possible to enjoy something that's made by a problematic person. Hell, if it wasn't we'd never get to enjoy anything because everyone is "difficult" somehow.

 

Anyway, either I missed it, or this simply never happened with Jonathan Blow. We pretty much instantly allowed for the fact that he's a jerk that makes interesting things. He is the House of video games.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

His actual complaints in his tweets about XCOM 2 are ones that I agree with, but I think it's losing the forest for the trees by focusing on surface niggles rather than engaging with the far more interesting core changes (almost all his complaints were about the strategic layer, how clunky it is and the terrible transition between map and ship).  But its also Twitter, where deep engagement is actively discouraged.

 

 

That said, I agree with your assessment of Blow, I just don't think his XCOM 2 commentary is inaccurate. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, Jonathan Blow is a jerk. This has been clear to me for a number of years and the only thing that's surprising about it is how easily the video game community accepted it. Usually in the industrialised world we have a little bit of time during which we wring our hands about a creator who is "difficult" but makes something we like/find interesting, before accepting it and enjoying the thing with the occasional "but the creator, eesh" comment thrown in down the line. I may sound dismissive, but actually I think this is generally the healthy way to go about these things - it is totally possible to enjoy something that is problematic, and it's definitely possible to enjoy something that's made by a problematic person. Hell, if it wasn't we'd never get to enjoy anything because everyone is "difficult" somehow.

 

Anyway, either I missed it, or this simply never happened with Jonathan Blow. We pretty much instantly allowed for the fact that he's a jerk that makes interesting things. He is the House of video games.

 

Everyone is a jerk. I don't think Jonathan Blow is any kind of world-beatingly-jerky monster. He worked for decades as a complete unknown in the video game industry (unknown to the public, I mean—but even in the industry he was only really known in certain circles), then somehow had a hit, used that to largely self-fund a fairly ambitious game and, to the best of my knowledge, paid the people on his team above-market rates in an expensive city even when it required him having to take on more personal debt to do so. That doesn't make him a saint or anything, but him being a public grump feels like a minor sin to me while making games that are legitimately interesting and treating the people working for him well. I guess you basically agree.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

One thing that gets lost a lot in online conversations is sometimes people are going to talk in off the cuff ways, and I think that should be okay especially when it comes to evaluating creative output (it is less acceptable when we are discussing real world issues that affect real people). I see a statement like that from Jonathan Blow and I think he is making some ridiculous statements, but that's okay because he doesn't owe me an explanation of all his critical assumptions about what's important and why something works or doesn't work. I also think games are pluralistic enough that it is healthy for people that have different ideas about what is good about them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think I have a higher threshold for labeling someone "a jerk". Criticising games, even in a blunt manner, is not enough.

 

But I also think some types of online communication, especially twitter, are just weird and causing people to express and process everything in the worst possible way. I wonder if people would still perceive this "conversation" as somebody being a jerk if it e.g. happened on the 3MA podcast in a relaxed atmosphere, with people possibly continuing discussing it in sentences longer than 140 characters after the initial blunt statement.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, I didn't by any means mean to suggest that criticising XCOM 2 on Twitter is something that makes you a jerk. This has been my perspective on Jonathan Blow for a long time, and it wasn't his critique but rather his patronising response to Dualhammers that reminded me of it - even that response would not have been enough to form that opinion, though, as I said it was just a reminder.

 

That said, Chris is right that I basically agree with him. I don't think it's a particularly big problem that (I think that) Jonathan Blow is a jerk. I also think Christian Bale is a jerk but I still like the Dark Knight. He can still be good at what he does, and indeed can still be a positive force in the industry - and I think making interesting games that are about different goals and require different skills from us than the usual is a way to be a positive force.

 

As I said, the only thing I find remarkable is that we seemed to skip the hand-wringing period altogether with him. I don't know whether it's a sign of any shift in the community or just an anomaly, but it's stuck out to me when I see him interact with people.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Every time I listen to Jonathan Blow actually have a full conversation with another human being, he comes off as a pretty humble guy with strong opinions who fully admits that not everyone has to agree with him. As in, he goes out of his way to explicitly state this. And yet for some reason people believe he believes he's superior to everyone else? Mehhhhhhhh.

 

Twitter is a terrible platform for him.

 

It actually legitimately upsets me to see people jump on him for, as far as I can tell, having opinions that differ wildly from the majority and stating them in a blunt manner.

 

I felt (and still feel) the same way about Phil Fish, and I will continue to feel that way every time I see these things happen.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now