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Sean

Idle Thumbs 76: The Three Antidotes

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The reader mail lamenting emergent and imagination-assisted narrative in kids' games was great. Lot of food for thought there, and as a parent I have a similar wish. One game I think that falls into that category was/is The Oregon Trail. I used to play the hell out of that game in 1st and 2nd grade, and it conjured up a ton of horror stories from the American frontier. Writing up epitaphs for travelers you named for friends who died of violence or disease was quite moving (read: often hilarious). FTL also evokes similar feelings to me that I got on an Apple II many years ago.

I wish I could have played FTL as a kid, because I'm sure I would have done the same thing of renaming the crew after me and my two brothers and then setting rations to minimum and pace to grueling for a nihilist march towards certain death exploring the galaxy and shooting anything that moved. It would be cool if the game did more to memorialize crew deaths, like taking a screenshot of the scenario so you could see what was happening when they died. It's hard to beat "died of dysentery" tombstones, though.

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The reader mail lamenting emergent and imagination-assisted narrative in kids' games was great. Lot of food for thought there, and as a parent I have a similar wish. One game I think that falls into that category was/is The Oregon Trail. I used to play the hell out of that game in 1st and 2nd grade, and it conjured up a ton of horror stories from the American frontier. Writing up epitaphs for travelers you named for friends who died of violence or disease was quite moving (read: often hilarious). FTL also evokes similar feelings to me that I got on an Apple II many years ago.

Damn that's a great example. In fact, it became the thing to do with my friends and I in the computer lab in gradeschool. Thanks for bringing this up, those were great times.

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The reader mail lamenting emergent and imagination-assisted narrative in kids' games was great. Lot of food for thought there, and as a parent I have a similar wish. One game I think that falls into that category was/is The Oregon Trail. I used to play the hell out of that game in 1st and 2nd grade, and it conjured up a ton of horror stories from the American frontier. Writing up epitaphs for travelers you named for friends who died of violence or disease was quite moving (read: often hilarious). FTL also evokes similar feelings to me that I got on an Apple II many years ago.

Absolutely. We had The Oregon Trail on an Apple II in my elementary school library, and I loved it.

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I love that it's pronounced that way. It suggests to me an archetype that is so deeply woven into the public consciousness that it simply adapts to fit the conventions of its host language, rather than maintaining an element of exoticism.

Hmmm, I take it as the historical British English arrogant/ignorant tendency to pronounce everything according to the rules of English pronunciation. Think Juan in Byron's Don Juan being rhymed against 'true one' (so roughly pronounced as 'Jew-One' instead of 'wan') in the poem. There are a lot more examples in that work, as well as others from the same period. Call me a romantic, but I always saw it as the arrogance of an Imperialistic, hubristic and insular culture.

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Quadruple post, sorry!

ahahah, ok I'm walking away before I do any more damage.

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The Oregon Trail is just ludicrously successful as an educational game. It's one of the very few that are properly systemic like a game ought to be and it doesn't try to fill players' heads with boring data, which seems to be what many educators wish from educational games. Instead, it uses its relatively simple systems to teach a few core lessons about the danger and challenge involved in the process, the importance of planning etc. It's so successful that literally millions of people who've never played it (like me) have learned these lessons through its cultural significance. That bit of American history isn't part of our school curriculum, so I know a lot about it than I would otherwise simply through The Oregon Trail's existence.

Unfortunately, at least the new version I saw a Giant Bomb Quick Look of has had all the interesting systems stripped out in favour of more "fun" gameplay, making it just a bad run of the mill game with subject matter that will not interest many kids. I've been studying theories of learning in connection with using games for education for a while now (for a very long time because my "method" of doing research is so haphazard), and it's ridiculous how little credit is given to The Oregon Trail. It's the most successful educational game, kids who've played it actually have good memories of it and it's sold something like 70 million copies altogether, but practically no-one seems to be interested in studying and replicating why it works.

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Unfortunately, at least the new version I saw a Giant Bomb Quick Look of has had all the interesting systems stripped out in favour of more "fun" gameplay, making it just a bad run of the mill game with subject matter that will not interest many kids.

Luckily a proper successor exists, which continues the legacy of hard lessons. So Long, Oregon, formerly known as Fuck Oregon, Let's Go Find El Dorado: http://solongoregon.captain-games.com

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Antidote 1:

I love that it's pronounced that way. It suggests to me an archetype that is so deeply woven into the public consciousness that it simply adapts to fit the conventions of its host language, rather than maintaining an element of exoticism.

I remember being about 11 or 12 when I realized that chow mein (chinese pronounciation) was actually the same thing as chow mein (american pronounciation.) The "Chow" part is relatively unaltered, but here in the U.S. we say "mein" like the state "Maine" rather than something closer to MEE-en, which would be the chinese pronounciation.

Honestly I kind of love that there is an American pronounciation and pretty much exclusively use it when trying to communicate in english. People know what i'm talking about for one, but it also almost seems uppity to insert a random chinese word into an otherwise english conversation with someone who doesn't speak any chinese.

Antidote 2:

I also liked the stuff about driving. As a completely car obsessed nut since well before i could talk, i frequently think about some of the topics mentioned. The podcast launched me into another bout of deep self reflection as to why the automobile is interesting. I decided it was in part because cars are, on their deepest level sort of the ultimate tool. They are a piece of equipment that must be expertly guided by experienced hands whose only purpose is to essentially enhance our physical abilities, in particular our physical ability to move from place to place. As human beings we get these awesome brains and...lets face it...the shittiest, weakest, slowest bodies in pretty much the entire animal kingdom. Not only does the car address this, but it addresses it in the form of a tool. As a subspecies of monkey that has conquered the world through a better and more efficient understanding of tools than any other subspecies of monkey, i find the automobile profoundly compelling. It doesn't just give me results (allowing me to move about the world much faster) it gives me results through my own skillful tool usage.

Antidote 3:

I'm so glad i found this podcast. A month or two ago my good friend suggested idle thumbs after i'd completed the excellent "history of rome podcast" and was looking for something else to pass the time. At first i thought i'd go from the beginning, so i downloaded the first 10 or so episodes. At some point, i was listening to you guys talk about Far Cry 2 for probably the 3rd or 4th time in as many episodes and decided that i was sick of hearing about games that came out four years ago. So I downloaded the latest epesode and put it on. I swear within the first 15 minutes you guys started talking about Far Cry 2 again. I literally had to go back and check the date on the episode i had just downloaded. I couldn't believe my ears and immediately envisioned a world where you guys had been caught in a sort of farcry 2 conversation quagmire for like 50 episodes. Suddenly it dawned on me, "Is this their Vietnam war?" Had you tried unsuccessfuly to extricate yourself from far cry 2 conversation for years to no avail? Is episode 42 simply you guys saying "Far cry 2" over and over again to eachother for an hour and a half like that one scene in "Being John Malkovich?" (

) I found this thought hilarious and decided to continue listening to your podcast.

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I hear shots were fired?

I think it's kind of silly personally. But then again, I was introduced to Idle Thumbs through recommendations from the Giant Bomb community, which I was introduced to by personal friends. The casts specifically have since introduced me to Three Moves Ahead and Gamespot Gameplay. It's, like, cool to know about things people who do things you like also like? And stuff? If someone's not interested in either of those things but likes games in general I think it's their loss, but I wouldn't get mad at anyone about it. It's also pretty obvious to anyone who pays attention to both casts that while there are the overlaps that make for hilarious observation, they came about completely organically.

Unless Giant Bomb hired Patrick Klepek BECAUSE he's loved Jurassic Park since he was 12 years old...

The plot thickens.

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As human beings we get these awesome brains and...lets face it...the shittiest, weakest, slowest bodies in pretty much the entire animal kingdom.

If humans were just smarties we wouldn't have lasted long enough to make tools. We don't have the physical speed and strength of other animals, but we have several advantages which make up for it. The human design excels in the areas of efficiency and flexibility: We can walk/run for days, we can climb trees, we can swim, we can eat vegetables or fresh meat or carrion. Humans have a lot going for them, they just aren't going to win any arm wrestling competitions with the other great apes.

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I think it's kind of silly personally. But then again, I was introduced to Idle Thumbs through recommendations from the Giant Bomb community, which I was introduced to by personal friends. The casts specifically have since introduced me to Three Moves Ahead and Gamespot Gameplay. It's, like, cool to know about things people who do things you like also like? And stuff? If someone's not interested in either of those things but likes games in general I think it's their loss, but I wouldn't get mad at anyone about it. It's also pretty obvious to anyone who pays attention to both casts that while there are the overlaps that make for hilarious observation, they came about completely organically.

Unless Giant Bomb hired Patrick Klepek BECAUSE he's loved Jurassic Park since he was 12 years old...

The plot thickens.

FWIW we are friend with those guys and like them very much.

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FWIW we are friend with those guys and like them very much.

Yeah all beefs or complaints are fictional. Except that there is really only one true scoops and it's Steve. Or maybe some wry fast talkin newspaper reporter from the '20s.

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I'm a Giant Bomb subscriber and am saddened to hear about this genuine feud.

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I'm a Giant Bomb subscriber and am saddened to hear about this genuine feud.

Same.

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Yeah all beefs or complaints are fictional. Except that there is really only one true scoops and it's Steve. Or maybe some wry fast talkin newspaper reporter from the '20s.

You mean like Patrick Klepeck except with short hair, a pencil moustache, pocket full of pens and a pork pie hat? As in

"Yeah, I'm tellin ya, Jimmy Rodkin, that newsboy Klepeck was a genuine guy"

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I can make a slight contribution to clearing up the XCOM "ghost level" confusion. Jake's mistaken impression that the demo was 3 levels rather than 2 levels (out of a 5 level tutorial sequence) is due to my post, where I said as much. I had read elsewhere that there was a 5 mission sequence and that the demo had 2 out of those 5, but went I made my post, I seemed to recall having played 3 levels, so I just typed 3. My bad. My false recollection does not rise to the level of Chris', because it was based on the downloaded demo rather than something I played at PAX and because it was just fuzzy confusion on my part rather than some way to account for the full on temporal dissonance that Chris experienced (so we still don't know why it took him so much longer than everyone else to beat that PAX thing) but at least things are slightly more clear.

I don't listen to Giant Bomb although some day when I run out of podcasts to listen to when I exercise I may start going through their archive, but as of now I'm totally willing to throw down in defense of Idle Thumbs should the beef escalate to full on violence. I'm pretty handy with an instagib railgun and I've been known to play a mean game of Company of Heroes. Anything to defend the rightful Scoops. Or whatever.

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I can make a slight contribution to clearing up the XCOM "ghost level" confusion. Jake's mistaken impression that the demo was 3 levels rather than 2 levels (out of a 5 level tutorial sequence) is due to my post, where I said as much. I had read elsewhere that there was a 5 mission sequence and that the demo had 2 out of those 5, but went I made my post, I seemed to recall having played 3 levels, so I just typed 3. My bad. My false recollection does not rise to the level of Chris', because it was based on the downloaded demo rather than something I played at PAX and because it was just fuzzy confusion on my part rather than some way to account for the full on temporal dissonance that Chris experienced (so we still don't know why it took him so much longer than everyone else to beat that PAX thing) but at least things are slightly more clear.

I don't listen to Giant Bomb although some day when I run out of podcasts to listen to when I exercise I may start going through their archive, but as of now I'm totally willing to throw down in defense of Idle Thumbs should the beef escalate to full on violence. I'm pretty handy with an instagib railgun and I've been known to play a mean game of Company of Heroes. Anything to defend the rightful Scoops. Or whatever.

I definitely played three levels. The third level was very different--you had to reach a woman on the map and escort her back to the Skyranger, whereas the second level was just a standard "kill the guys" affair. They may have had two different builds at the PAX booth or something???

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Obviously Chris should have been doing math in his head during the demo experience.

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This is unacceptable. I didn't sign up for this, I just wanted to get away somewhere remote.

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This is unacceptable. I didn't sign up for this, I just wanted to get away somewhere remote.

Great, now I have Space Asshole stuck in my head. Not that that's a bad thing.

Also, to interject on the pronunciation discussion, one that's always bothered me was zealot. I never really used the term outside of Starcraft and all that time I never heard it said out loud. Then one day I learned how it was "supposed" to be pronounced. I always read it in my head as "zee-lot" rather than "zel-uht" since zeal is pronounced "zeel" (rhymes with seal) not "zel" (rhymes with bell). I think I even argued with Chris about this on Twitter many moons ago.

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