Idle Thumbs 286: I Can't Do It, Gilgamesh

[Gormongous]

The funny thing is, I had been aware of podcasts since I first downloaded Winamp in the late nineties, because it came with a podcast feed and a couple sample podcasts. I just thought they were a terrible idea (cue Jake saying that they are) until I moved to a new city and needed some surrogate friends. It took almost a decade for podcasts to be a thing I took seriously. Under those terms, Idle Thumbs is doing fine!

[Problem Machine]

I heard about the podcast when my mom was doing a kickstarter and was looking at other popular kickstarters, saw the Thumbs one, and linked it to me as something I might be interested in.

The degree to which crowdfunding also functions as advertising is weird!

[SL128]

1 hour ago, WickedCestus said:

I found out about Idle Thumbs because there was a prominent Wizard joke on Giant Bomb, and everyone kept mentioning that it reminded them of Idle Thumbs, so I thought "what the heck is that", looked it up, and then didn't listen to a single episode. Two years later, I remembered the name out of nowhere, listened to all the episodes, and have been following ever since. That was...episode ~160ish era so I guess it's been over 2 years.

 

Hope this informs your future marketing strategies. 

This clearly means more meme sharing is needed. Chuck Tingle and Zoe Quinn definitely have the back of Idle Thumbs: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/703752115/kickstarted-in-the-butt-a-chuck-tingle-digital-adv

[marginalgloss]

Related to the discussion about SimAnt on the SNES, and how nothing like that could exist on a Nintendo platform today - you can still buy the latest instalment of A-Train on the 3DS. It's the latest in a long-running series of highly technical Japanese transport simulation games. Digital only, but man, I have no idea how this made it to the EU/US eshop.

 

I think I played the original on the PC when I was very small. I haven't played the 3DS edition but who could fail to be excited by screenshots like this? It's got spreadsheets!!

 

 

[thornghost]

On 10/28/2016 at 5:13 PM, tberton said:

I got into Idle Thumbs back in 2011 (otherwise known as one the In-Between Years) because a bunch of people at another forum I frequent were fans.

 

Same, even down to the exact other forum I think.

 

Also, got an email read on this episode woop woop

[Cordeos]

I either found Idle Thumbs in a list of podcasts about video games in a podcasting app or a friend recommended it to me. I went on a big spree of trying out podcasts 3 years ago and can't remember where they all came from, but mostly those two ways.

[Valorian Endymion]

I think I heard about Idle Thumbles from a when Brazilian podcast mentioned it (they, if memory didn´t fail me, where either talking  about recommendation of other podcasts or answering a question about other podcast they listen to), but only after the Three Moves Ahead pocast when they joined the network that I start to listen to it.

 

On Chris comment about victory conditions on civ - yeah, I agree with it, that one reason I really like grand strategy games, because they often don´t have a victory condition, you can have all those narrative where you could be someone loyal vassal/ally, or how you and allies survived the whole thing, or how you helped someone to do this or that.

 

 

[RubixsQube]

CHRIS REMO: "The ability to stream a modern head-to-head Pikmin game on its native hardware would be so awesome"

 

Chris that dream is a CURRENT REALITY. It is called Pikmin 3, and it can be played and streamed in HD on its native hardware, the Wii U, right this instant. 

 

[gavku]

Hmm from memory it went the irrational podcast > thumbs so I'd be totally fine if you got Shawn Elliot on the pod again

[mikemariano]

If you're interested in more "How I Found Idle Thumbs" posts, please also check out the 10th Anniversary thread!  It's heartwarming!

[mikemariano]

FYI the official Dishonored twitter account has been tweeting "Happy Halloween" messages today and today only.

 

 

Could Dishonored Halloween have been October 31st all along?

[chummer]

"Dunwall is save now."

[marginalgloss]

10 hours ago, RubixsQube said:

Chris that dream is a CURRENT REALITY. It is called Pikmin 3, and it can be played and streamed in HD on its native hardware, the Wii U, right this instant. 

 

 

Just FYI there's no built-in facility on the Wii U itself for streaming -- you would need some kind of external hardware solution like an Elgato to capture the image first.

 

Streaming isn't something Nintendo is totally unaware of but their current hardware is sadly under-equipped to deal with it at the moment. You could stitch together simple video clips and upload them directly to YouTube in Mario Kart 8, but even then you could practically hear the gears grinding in the poor old Wii U...

 

Pikmin 3 is a wonderful game, though. One of the most underrated games in recent years to appear on any platform, IMO. You can tell Miyamoto really put his heart into it.

[Badfinger]

On 10/28/2016 at 5:13 PM, tberton said:

I got into Idle Thumbs back in 2011 (otherwise known as one the In-Between Years) because a bunch of people at another forum I frequent were fans.

 

I THINK this was me also. I definitely enthusiastically backed the kickstarter. I didn't listen to podcasts before I got a smart phone, which was in 2010, so I was not aware of the original run but had listened to them all (most of them twice) by the time the new run started. I likely heard about it from the Giant Bombcast or another forum. It is insane that it's been ~5 years that I've been listening to the cast. It's also crazy that the "original" run, which I think of as vital, is like 20% of the episodes.

[SecretAsianMan]

The first episode of Idle Thumbs I ever heard was Episode 3: Field of Dreams, which very quickly made me listen to the previous two and I've been a reader ever since.  I was super bummed when the first run ended and spent a lot of time after listening to the existing episodes multiple times.  I was extremely excited by the Kickstarter and backed at the highest tier I could without going broke.  I think I was turned onto the cast by one of the other podcasts at the now defunct 1UP.com, most likely Retronauts.

[juv3nal]

36 minutes ago, SecretAsianMan said:

The first episode of Idle Thumbs I ever heard was Episode 3: Field of Dreams, which very quickly made me listen to the previous two and I've been a reader ever since.  I was super bummed when the first run ended and spent a lot of time after listening to the existing episodes multiple times.  I was extremely excited by the Kickstarter and backed at the highest tier I could without going broke.  I think I was turned onto the cast by one of the other podcasts at the now defunct 1UP.com, most likely Retronauts.

 

Ditto, I also was around for the original podcast run (but not the text-only site prior to it)...and it would have been one of the 1up podcasts (though not retronauts as that one never really clicked with me) that got me to thumbs.

[Ethtrip]

I found the cast through some sort of top 10 video gaming podcasts last year and have been making my way through the back log since. I've been going backwards and am on episode 13, listening to the episodes backwards creates this weird effect where I hear a reference to something that doesn't make sense until I get to the origin hours later.

[WickedCestus]

5 hours ago, Ethtrip said:

I found the cast through some sort of top 10 video gaming podcasts last year and have been making my way through the back log since. I've been going backwards and am on episode 13, listening to the episodes backwards creates this weird effect where I hear a reference to something that doesn't make sense until I get to the origin hours later.

 

This seems like it would be especially difficult with Idle Thumbs since they introduced a bunch of stupid jokes right at the beginning and then constantly referenced them for a long time. 

[Cordeos]

This weeks In Our Time podcast is about the Epic of Gilgamesh, coincidence? I THINK NOT!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b080wbrq

[TychoCelchuuu]

The part of the cast where they imagined what life must be like in Gilgamesh's city almost made me cry, I was laughing so hard.

 

I found Idle Thumbs because I heard BLENDO Games was making a new game for the Kickstarter, and that made me inerested in the podcast, but not super interested, and then Steve Gaynor livestreamed... something (BioShock 1, I think) and a lot of people chatting in the livestream were making Thumbs references that I didn't understand, and since I like both BLENDO Games and Steve Gaynor I decided Idle Thumbs must be pretty neat, so then I started listening and it is indeed pretty neat.

[Gormongous]

37 minutes ago, TychoCelchuuu said:

The part of the cast where they imagined what life must be like in Gilgamesh's city almost made me cry, I was laughing so hard.

 

Yeah, although it's always a moment of ludonarrative dissonance in all of the Civilization franchise when you realize how long a war took, in terms of the game's timescale. Even the most one-sided war is going to take a minimum of ten turns before the AI will consider a peace deal, no matter how badly they're losing, which is reasonable in the modern era where a turn is one season, but in the medieval era when one turn is a decade or the ancient era when one turn is a century? Ridiculous. The facts that one-unit-per-tile makes wars last twice as long for all the maneuvering and that ranged units can't capture cities has just exacerbated it (to a comical degree) in the franchise's last two installments.

[Valorian Endymion]

19 hours ago, Gormongous said:

 

Yeah, although it's always a moment of ludonarrative dissonance in all of the Civilization franchise when you realize how long a war took, in terms of the game's timescale. Even the most one-sided war is going to take a minimum of ten turns before the AI will consider a peace deal, no matter how badly they're losing, which is reasonable in the modern era where a turn is one season, but in the medieval era when one turn is a decade or the ancient era when one turn is a century? Ridiculous. The facts that one-unit-per-tile makes wars last twice as long for all the maneuvering and that ranged units can't capture cities has just exacerbated it (to a comical degree) in the franchise's last two installments.

 

Yes  - even still inside the old stack model, that still would happen, because when each stack would meet they start in that one against one duel. Well, in Call to Power 2, which used stacks, but when they meet up the game would open a small window showing the battle (with in 12 units in each side arranged in two rows of 6 units facing each other) meaning that stack battles where much faster, the game still would have wars which last forever, reinforced because like in older civs wars had no objectives or any war exhaustion, therefore, there was nothing stopping the ai or player to make it last forever.