Idle Thumbs Special UK Report: "Live at the Eurogamer Expo"

[Marek]

BONUS CONTENT.

James Spafford and myself got back into podcasting as well, so on top of this week's podcast with Chris/Jake/Nick/Steve, you can also listen to us.

Our podcast was recorded live at the scene from Brick Lane at the Eurogamer Expo. Spaff incidentally was involved in organizing this expo, so we ended up recording part of the podcast back-stage while booths were being torn down. Expect some background noise.

For the first part of the podcast I chat with Lawrence Bishop and Alex Ashby of Beatnik Games (also formerly of Idle Thumbs) about their game Plain Sight. I was still only just getting into the whole podcasting vibe so it might start off a little slowly, but I hope you stick around and listen to the rest of the segment.

For the second part me and Spaff sat down with Bob Watson, now at Disney Interactive but also formerly of Idle Thumbs, and we talk about HAWX, Mirror's Edge, Far Cry 2, Machinarium, and other games.

Also: a non-cameo by Nachimir.

Hope you enjoy it! We might do more of these UK-based ones in the future.

Direct MP3 download: http://www.idlethumbs.net/podcast_uk/idlethumbs_liveatbricklane.mp3

RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/idlethumbs-uk

Edited November 17, 2008 by Marek

[Nachimir]

Woo, been looking forward to this

I'm surprised at just how good that mic is, though you could now set out to collect as many interesting background noises as possible.

[elmuerte]

Plain Sight sounds and looks interesting...

[DanJW]

The guys were very modest in the interview about Plain Sight. Fact is every time I walked past there were tonnes of people round it, it seemed like the most popular game in the indie arcade. When I finally got to have a go at the end of Day 1, I was soundly thrashed by a bunch of teenagers who has clearly been playing all afternoon.

[Nachimir]

Plain Sight is excellent, and a 4/5 player LAN meant it was indeed the most popular game in the indie arcade. The design is really nicely executed; though the maps are pretty huge it's always quite easy to find people and see how juicy a target they are. Beatnik had to kick some guys off at one point because they were hogging the machines

I've not played a deathmatch game that compulsive since I first played UT99, nearly a decade ago now

[SignorSuperdouche]

That was a good listen. I loved the biscuit part "Oh wait that's a custard cream! Sweet" "Oh you son of a bitch.":tup:

I had a peek over at Plain Sight website and it does indeed look like a lot of fun. They have a sweet Louis Armstrong track on their trailer too, which is a big pile of awesome. Sadly though I don't own a 360 nor do I run Windows so I'll have to give this on a miss.

Machinarium also looks like it'll be a blast. I remember playing the Samorost games a while ago and, although the gameplay was pretty bland, I was impressed by the strange fantasy world that was created. The art work was beautiful, kind of like The Clangers, if you ever saw that, but with a surreal industrialist influence. Actually it was nothing like that but I can't describe it any better.

[miffy495]

Oh man, I just listened. Very awesome. Especially the old podcast's theme music. I got so psyched when I heard that. Hope to hear more from the UK team now that you're back into it.

[Marek]

Thanks for the comments! Since this is our first podcast in nearly a decade 2,5 years, hopefully the quality will improve as we do more of these, and also hopefully we'll slip into some kind of regular format. The intention is definitely to keep doing these, though probably not at the unstoppable breakneck pace of our US brethren. I think we lack that kind of discipline.

The microphone we bought for these podcasts is omni-directional and originally designed for recording live performances and such. We can easily take it anywhere and maintain some semi-decent audio quality. Would you guys prefer more of a studio setting, or do you think live-on-location podcasts is something we should do again? We have some ideas about this but I thought I'd ask you guys too.

[toblix]

Although the podcast was awesome, I found the background noise to be irritating, especially with it being present in both long segments. Of course, I don't know what you'd be able to do about that.

[Nachimir]

Spaff mentioned possibly recording the intros in the pub but the rest somewhere quiet. I like this idea, background audio could be used to give them some really nice pacing. You could do them from the beach when the weather's good (with a windbreak I suppose)

Also, stands being dismantled isn't the best background noise, a pub would be much more aesthetically pleasing.

[Scrobbs]

Or you could do a short segment on extremely poor background noises to record against or something. Bottle recycling factory for instance, or building site. Windy hill top.

Shit, they sound like game levels.

[elmuerte]

Or you could do a short segment on extremely poor background noises to record against or something. Bottle recycling factory for instance, or building site. Windy hill top.

Shit, they sound like game levels.

Themed background noise

Background noise is ok, as long as it's not over the top. There were a few cases where somebody dropped something heavy, that didn't work well. Of course you could always fake the background noise.

[Nachimir]

Themed background noises FTW!

Or you could do a short segment on extremely poor background noises to record against or something. Bottle recycling factory for instance, or building site. Windy hill top.

or they could be used as signs of disdain. "This game is so shit we're going to shout about it to each other on a building site". (Or constantly eat biscuits ).

[Scrobbs]

Haha good one! "This game is so rubbish we're going to talk with our mouths full (sorry mum!)"

[DanJW]

These ideas sound very consolvevania-ish. I heartily approve

[Spaff]

the next one is recorded live on the scene of a woman giving birth.

[Scrobbs]

...with an interactive element, where the audience can vote for an epidural.

[Spaff]

....and the child will be named as a video game auter the likes of which has never been seen, the Gods shall look upon him favourably.

....make the sacrifices.

[DanJW]

..and it shall be named Molynaux...

[Spaff]

so yeah that's next week, tune in!

[brkl]

I'm craving for some cookies now :/

:tup:

[castorp]

Great Podcast, thanks.

The 'childish' intro was brillant.

[vimes]

Damn, I missed this opening music.

[Marek]

Great Podcast, thanks.

The 'childish' intro was brillant.

Glad you liked it! You don't want to know how fucking long it took to record that intro or how many failed takes there's on the cutting room floor.

[Roderick]

It's AWESOME to hear that opening tune again. I totally identify that with Idle Thumbs. The podcast itself wasn't completely up to par with your earlier ones, it felt a little improvised, but otherwise entertaining. I'm looking forward to what you can do when you're back in 'the studio' and Spaff can work his sample magic again.

We hafta get outta here!