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Hello everyone! I've been a reader since 2008 but never got around to reading the forums until now. I'm a college student studying game design in my free time while I work on transferring to DigiPen. I love reading, playing games and running. I'm currently hooked on In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, a book about the history of the shipping accident that Moby Dick was based on. I'm also playing Spelunky, Payday 2 and Don't Starve daily. I'm excited to get to know some of you and make up for the dearth of video game banter in my real life. 

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Hello! I've been a listener for a couple months now, and figured now would be a good time to join. I'm a self-taught programmer who has been working on a game (if appropriate, I will probably post something about it down the line...), and just generally enjoy gaming and over-thinking them. Which is of course how I first got introduced to the podcast. 

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Hey, I'm relatively new to the podcast, been listening for a month or two now and am currently through the archive from the beginning. The cast is hilarious, informative, and insightful and from what's mentioned about the forums on the show I can find more of the same here.

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Hello! I've been a listener for a couple months now, and figured now would be a good time to join. I'm a self-taught programmer who has been working on a game (if appropriate, I will probably post something about it down the line...), and just generally enjoy gaming and over-thinking them. Which is of course how I first got introduced to the podcast. 

 

The Game Development portion of the forum needs more content, so I would love to see you posting there. The Amateur Game Making Night thread is a bit of a catch-all.

 

There's also the Plug Your Shit thread that seems to be intended to lessen the shame of wanting to talk about something you are making.

 

If I was you, I wouldn't be too concerned about shilling. Forum moderation and rules aside, every instance of someone showing the mere possibility of attempting to advertise without sincere engagement in the community has been seen as an opportunity to interrogate to humorous lengths. I mention this because it seems like the people who have content to share in a reasonable way are too considerate to do so, and the shills don't give a fuck about rules or social norms so they just advertise and leave. Don't let the terrorists win.

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Hi, Idle Forum. I'm a long-time gamer and new dad who discovered the Idle Thumbs podcast while I was on paternity leave.

 

With all the time I spend working and parenting, there's not too much time to actually play games at the moment. Instead, I find myself mostly reading (and listening to) other peoples' thoughts about games. This has been unexpectedly fun and satisfying! :-)

 

That said, two great things have already happened in my life as a direct result of Idle Thumbs:

  1. The podcast discussion was so reminiscent of the best conversations I used to have with my gaming friends that I got motivated to try to create more discussion like this in my life. So I started a gaming "book club" at work, and it's been wonderful thus far. Each month, we pick one game that we'll all try to play (not necessarily finish).[1] Then at the end of the month we have lunch in a conference room, talk in-depth about our experiences, and pick the game for the next month. There's also a lot of good hallway chatter about the game-of-the-month every day. Many of my colleagues were very into games, including a few former game developers. But everyone was time-constrained, and almost no one happened to be playing the same game at the same time. Converging as a group on one game each month has made gaming way more enjoyable for all of us.
  2. I stumbled upon the Terminal 7 podcast, which solidified an interest in Android: Netrunner, which got me raving about it all the time at work, which got 10 coworkers into the game (thus far). :-)

Anyway, this silly Video game podcast has felt like such a big, positive part of my life lately that I decided to hop on the forums and engage a bit more deeply. For reference, my head-narration for this entire email has been Chris's impatient get-through-the-long-reader-mail voice.

 

[1] - Games picked in our group so far: Super Metroid(!), SimCity 2000, Half-Life 2, Bioshock: Infinite.

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Howdy,

I'm Jay Tholen. I'm a composer (more like a sound-player-wither) pixel artist, and game developer from central Florida. My current project is Dropsy, and we're hoping to have it out by the end of the year. I'm a regular on Something Awful, but I wanted to find somewhere more relaxed and this place seems like a lovely alternative.  :tup:

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  1. The podcast discussion was so reminiscent of the best conversations I used to have with my gaming friends that I got motivated to try to create more discussion like this in my life. So I started a gaming "book club" at work, and it's been wonderful thus far. Each month, we pick one game that we'll all try to play (not necessarily finish).[1] Then at the end of the month we have lunch in a conference room, talk in-depth about our experiences, and pick the game for the next month. There's also a lot of good hallway chatter about the game-of-the-month every day. Many of my colleagues were very into games, including a few former game developers. But everyone was time-constrained, and almost no one happened to be playing the same game at the same time. Converging as a group on one game each month has made gaming way more enjoyable for all of us.

 

[1] - Games picked in our group so far: Super Metroid(!), SimCity 2000, Half-Life 2, Bioshock: Infinite.

 

We actually tried something like that around here for a bit. First with Killer 7, which everyone fell off pretty quickly (myself included, unfortunately. Came up at a really busy time in my studies), and later, a bit more successfully with Shadow of the Colossus. I say "a bit more successfully" because a couple of us actually finished the game. I wouldn't mind trying again. I like the idea of a "game of the month" club that you just need to play a bit and discuss. I'd be interested in seeing what you guys play and maybe trying the home version myself.

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Hey guys,

 

I'm a dude who sometimes makes tunes and dabbles in game making.
I got into thumbs stuff recently and I have been digging the reasonably fair and thoughtful approach those guys take to games/life. 

It seems weird that an hour long audio recording of a couple of people in a room can teach you anything but I would honestly say I've learnt a thing or two on a surprisingly deep level. Also like Javalaser said this reminds me of having friends who you can have long amazing conversations with about stuff you care about. 

 

Anyway I think this place seems to reflect what I like about the thumb staff so I'm in, though i'm a pretty quiet internet guy so I don't know how much ill actually post. 

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Hey all, been listening to the cast for about half a year now and really enjoy it. I also enjoy forums, and video games. Given that this is a forum about video games, I'm here to talk about them.

 

On a serious note, this forum ties in very well with the theme of the podcasts in facilitating some really wholesome discussion about video games, which is a welcome change from many of the other social outlets geared towards games elsewhere. Really looking forward to contributing around here!

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Hi, everybody.

 

I've been on the Thumb since around the Kickstarter revival. In true V. Games' fashion, I'm currently on a video game playing hiatus (I spend way too much time watching people on the interent play video games instead). I'm new to the whole forum thing, but the Idle Forums seems like a cool place, with cool people. 

 

Anyway, greetings to all.

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Hi, Thumbs, I've been a reader for about a year and in the mean time Idle Thumbs has become one of my favorite podcasts (as were the book podcast and Tone Control). They seem to have attracted quite the lovely community, so I figured it was well past time for me to make an account on the forums.

 

So... Hi!

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Hello, long time listener, first time forum poster. Recently I've been diving into Dota with YouTube & Dota Today despite having no idea whats going on. It is the nerd equivalent of whale song at the present. A soft wave of soothing acronyms. Hello, nice to be here. I like your curtains. 

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Sup Thumbs,

 

Been listening to the 'cast through its multiple iterations, never jumped on the kickstarter, and feel bad about it to this day. I'm already a member of the Thumbs Dota2 consortium, but never really got around to posting here until now. Forums are cool, I miss them. Reddit is too troll-y and not really conducive to any sort of insightful conversations, so here I am. Internet.

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Hi, everyone!

 

I've listened to the Idle Thumbs podcast off and on for a while and finally decided to buy a couple of Thumbs t-shirts and check out the forums here. Seems like a cool place, so perhaps I'll stick around! I've already noticed a motorcycle thread, which I approve of wholeheartedly.

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Hey everybody! I've been away for a few years but now I'm back and ready to game controller free! What's the latest in waggle? ;)

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Hey gang.

 

Aaron D. here from Washington, D.C.

 

Been a Thumbs fan for quite a while now.

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First time poster.  Hey y'all.

Heard about Thumbs through listening to the Dota Today podcast, which I found by desperately trying to find a decent Dota podcast on iTunes.  I just wanted to say how amazed I was to encounter a sect of gaming culture that's socially-conscious, feminist, and forward-thinking.  As a liberally-minded gamer, I've generally felt out-of-place in a culture that makes rape jokes on a regular basis, and your podcasts are an enormous breath of fresh air.  I have a lot of respect and admiration for you people, both in your cultural awareness and in your ability to articulate the most subtle details about game design in the most convoluted yet totally understandable ways (the deconstruction of Destiny/MMO's in the latest episode was sheer brilliance).

Anyways, thanks for the brilliant podcasts.

Ben

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Hi everyone!

 

Long time listener. First time poster in a community forum. Jack-of-all-Trades. Master-of-None.

 

 

Oddly enough, it was hard to find a place to start being active online because of my background in video games. I was born at a weird time and place to love video games in the same way as you guys do so a lot of things either fly over my head or make me feel out of place because I wasn't born to experience it.

 

But I think Idle Thumbs has that mix of weirdness and passion that I feels perfect for me.

 

So here I go! See ya!

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Hi everyone!

Long time listener. First time poster in a community forum. Jack-of-all-Trades. Master-of-None.

Oddly enough, it was hard to find a place to start being active online because of my background in video games. I was born at a weird time and place to love video games in the same way as you guys do so a lot of things either fly over my head or make me feel out of place because I wasn't born to experience it.

But I think Idle Thumbs has that mix of weirdness and passion that I feels perfect for me.

So here I go! See ya!

I've been thinking about something along these lines recently. I was listening to a Video game podcast made by people who are younger than the podcast-members I typically listen to. They seemed obsessed with establishing that they have a foundational knowledge of games from the 8-bit era. It made me realize that there is this popular. idea that in order to be a viable critic, you have to be atleast 30 and having played games since you were a toddler. Of course this is an absurd notion. I want to hear detailed accounts of playing Little Big Planet 3 from someone whose first platformer was Spelunky.

I know that you may be older than me and grew up on the moon, but your introduction reminded me of this.

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I want to hear detailed accounts of playing Little Big Planet 3 from someone whose first platformer was Spelunky.

 

Even though I'm a bit of a young 'un compared to most of us here, I imagine, I'd love to hear this too. I was fortunately raised on old Nintendo games so I think my first platformer was Super Mario World at my grandmother's house. If there are any twelve-year-olds out there who have no knowledge of older game design styles, by all means, count me in as someone who would love to listen to you.

 

Also, hi everyone! This is my first post here but I've been listening to the cast for a while, especially Tone Control which brought me here in the first place. I'm a twenty-ish male with a background in Nintendo and PC gaming who is trying to break into the world of game criticism, analysis, and/or journalism while pursuing a CS degree in the hopes that I could design one myself someday as an indie. I probably have one of the largest game backlogs here (my Backloggery account for proof) solely so I can always have the ability to try out whatever's "hip and cool" these days. It's nice to meet you all and I'm looking forward to being an active member in the Thumbs community!

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