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Jake

Idle Thumbs '95: H.D. Cool Spot

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GameFly and a few other services were replicas of Netflix' old disc based model, where you paid a monthly fee and they would always mail you the next game in your queue when you returned the one you had. They tended to be flakier than Netflix though, with very few copies of some games so you'd end up with your second or third choice, and none of them seem to have adapted to any sort of streaming model.

 

When OnLive was first announced I thought it was going to be a subscription service, which would have been pretty insane, but then it turned out to be another storefront to buy the games one at a time after all, which is a bummer. Who has the tremendous bandwidth required to support OnLive but doesn't have the hardware to buy and play the games natively? It seems like one could have justified the whole thing if it was a subscription on top of internet access, because then you could have mid to high range consumer DSL, a MacBook Air, and a 360 game pad and have access to every game, but once they start charging you quite a lot per title, the cost/benefit stopped making sense to me.

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I'm not sure I understand the question. With 'that' do you mean the difference between cities in Europe and the US or the difference between city builder styles? If the latter I was mainly going on your comments in the SimCity podcast, I don't really play those games. I may have misinterpreted what you were saying - sorry if so.

 

If you're talking about real cities, just comparing the history and maps of a given large town will show you how different they are (I'm sure you knew this so I probably misinterpreted indeed).

http://goo.gl/maps/uBIhF

http://goo.gl/maps/KZjbe

 

As far as historical urban development in Europe goes, very few leaders/planners in history to my knowledge have tried to demolish and rebuild with completely ordered/straight streets. Only Napoleon's commission to Baron Haussman immediately comes to mind.

 

I find this sort of comparisons an interesting subject so I'm a bit sad I may have misunderstood.

 

I'm familiar with how city growth has changed over time; I meant supporting evidence of the claim you made, that the games themselves reflect it. To me, at least comparing SimCity and Anno, it's the complete opposite--there's not even any concept of curved roads in Anno. In the new SimCity, the game deals with crazy curvy roads and nonsense planning really gracefully. In Anno, you are very tightly restricted in the spacial relationships between different kinds of buildings, because everything is based on proximity--citizens need to be within the radius of the entertainment-providing building to get its benefit, for example. So everything ends up super dense and grid-based. It would be a lot harder to convincingly replicate the kind of unplanned organic growth of older European cities in Anno, although obviously one of the non-futuristic Anno games will feature centuries-old architectural styles that will make it look more authentically Old European regardless. (But that's pure theme, not systems.)

 

The reality is that neither game really captures the way cities are built either then or now--they're both heavy abstractions, although they choose how to arrive at their abstractions differently.

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God dammit. I had multiple spit takes listening to this episode. Some pretty great phrases like: "An opportunistic glutton", "Our Swedish fish", "Pass up the Matt Hansen candy bowl", "The good squeeze" and "The tux info"

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I'm familiar with how city growth has changed over time; I meant supporting evidence of the claim you made, that the games themselves reflect it. To me, at least comparing SimCity and Anno, it's the complete opposite--there's not even any concept of curved roads in Anno. In the new SimCity, the game deals with crazy curvy roads and nonsense planning really gracefully. In Anno, you are very tightly restricted in the spacial relationships between different kinds of buildings, because everything is based on proximity--citizens need to be within the radius of the entertainment-providing building to get its benefit, for example. So everything ends up super dense and grid-based. It would be a lot harder to convincingly replicate the kind of unplanned organic growth of older European cities in Anno, although obviously one of the non-futuristic Anno games will feature centuries-old architectural styles that will make it look more authentically Old European regardless. (But that's pure theme, not systems.)

 

The reality is that neither game really captures the way cities are built either then or now--they're both heavy abstractions, although they choose how to arrive at their abstractions differently.

I wonder if a city simulator game could ever represent the haphazard, organic way that older cities usually develop and grow, or if the required mechanics and design of the game automatically make that impossible. Unless you purposefully build your city in a disorderly way, but even then, you're not truly representing how a 1000 year old city gets planned.

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When OnLive was first announced I thought it was going to be a subscription service, which would have been pretty insane

 

(I think?) the link I posted (to the OnLive Playpack) is a subsription based service (for a 200-ish-game subset of their catalogue). Not as good as streaming All The Games, but still interesting.

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I wonder if a city simulator game could ever represent the haphazard, organic way that older cities usually develop and grow, or if the required mechanics and design of the game automatically make that impossible. Unless you purposefully build your city in a disorderly way, but even then, you're not truly representing how a 1000 year old city gets planned.

City builders have such a broad remit as games, I think it would be totally possible. It would just have to be the focus of the game. Most city builders focus on other specific things, like intentional expressive city planning, or careful economic management, or constructing a well-defended citadel, or whatever, presumably because the developer in question finds one of those things particularly interesting. I think the seeds of the systems you need are already present in most city builders--both SimCity and Anno, for example, have a concept of existing structures becoming more developed over time--housing becomes denser, or more affluent, or whatever. I think you'd want to expand on those systems and maybe allow them to go in horizontal rather than just vertical directions.

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O I Remember the other thing I was going to say about this episode:

 

This talk of Karateka being a fighting game that boils things down to timing and reaction instead of combo-memorization makes me think I will probably acquire it! That's what I always enjoyed about the Smash Brothers games...each character was capable of very different things, but I appreciated having an entirely common control scheme among all characters that only required a direction and a button press. Getting good with a weird character's special moves in Smash Bros always felt like more of an accomplishment than memorizing yet another combo in Soul Calibur (or Ballz for Sega Genesis, which I think was the only other fighting game I ever owned NO WAIT, I think I also had the PC version of Brutal Paws of Fury).

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Loved the gross Windows 95 startup sound. My dad loved that theme but it was objectively the worst.

Also when Jake says the dates, it always feels like he's talking to someone whose name is the year. Like, "Hey you 2013, it's February 20th!"

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I wonder if a city simulator game could ever represent the haphazard, organic way that older cities usually develop and grow, or if the required mechanics and design of the game automatically make that impossible. Unless you purposefully build your city in a disorderly way, but even then, you're not truly representing how a 1000 year old city gets planned.

 

It would make for an interesting game, but I think the mechanics required would turn many people off. Part of why cities are so weird is because the needs, values, and capabilities of people have shifted over time. The optimal strategy for one era would turn out to be harmful in the next, much like how in FTL the weapons and upgrades needed to get through the sectors can be different from the weapons and upgrades needed to defeat the final boss. So there's this constant tension between going in one direction, but not so far that you can't pivot later on.

 

That said, there would be a tremendous opportunity to explore some of the normative choices that have made today's cities thrive or die. Representing historical developments like mass transit, automobile, the post-war boom, redlining, white flight, and bedroom communities through the lens of a game would be a goddamn incredible way to treat subjects that most people are woefully uninformed about.

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I have a much less thought-provoking question about city simulation: In the new SimCity, is there a single treasury for all your different towns? Can I spend the money I made in Blighted Industrial Wasteland to build my city that is nothing but parks and fountains and statues?

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All I've heard, read, and also seen (in videos and images) is that the city plot size in the SimCity beta is the only size there is.

Also, this twitter exchange is confirmation? https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/295973941804167169

 

I would love to believe some of the folks out there saying the full game will have larger cities, not sure how that rumor spread but I haven't seen any proof of this and don't want anyone to get their hopes up. 

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I have a much less thought-provoking question about city simulation: In the new SimCity, is there a single treasury for all your different towns? Can I spend the money I made in Blighted Industrial Wasteland to build my city that is nothing but parks and fountains and statues?

I'm not sure. Other resources are definitely distinct--that's the whole point of trade--which would lead me to believe money is separate too. After all, your income is indirectly a result of how all those other resources are managed. But I don't know for sure. If they are discrete balances, I imagine there would still be nothing keeping you from funneling money from one to the other as part of your general trade policies.

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All I've heard, read, and also seen (in videos and images) is that the city plot size in the SimCity beta is the only size there is.

Also, this twitter exchange is confirmation? https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/295973941804167169

 

I would love to believe some of the folks out there saying the full game will have larger cities, not sure how that rumor spread but I haven't seen any proof of this and don't want anyone to get their hopes up. 

Yeah I think this is the case. 

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I'm not sure. Other resources are definitely distinct--that's the whole point of trade--which would lead me to believe money is separate too. After all, your income is indirectly a result of how all those other resources are managed. But I don't know for sure. If they are discrete balances, I imagine there would still be nothing keeping you from funneling money from one to the other as part of your general trade policies.

The balances are definitely separate, because I took out bonds in one city and not others. I don't know how funds move from one to the other though. I feel  the need to make a shitty high income industry, tourism  and gambling city and use it to siphon funds to my financially impossible and irresponsible beautiful dream city.

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I'm familiar with how city growth has changed over time; I meant supporting evidence of the claim you made, that the games themselves reflect it. 

OK, yeah, turns out I can't. I knew a lot less about the Anno games than I thought. I think I may have gotten them mixed up a bit with the Settlers line of games where the early ones did this cool thing where the roads grew organically. Not really a city builder anyway.

 

Sorry for shooting my mouth off, though I'm happy that I did in the end because I ended up learning a bunch.

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The balances are definitely separate, because I took out bonds in one city and not others. I don't know how funds move from one to the other though. I feel  the need to make a shitty high income industry, tourism  and gambling city and use it to siphon funds to my financially impossible and irresponsible beautiful dream city.

Oh right, of course. I totally forgot about that. Can people commute from one city to the other? That seems like what would make your scenario feasible in the most accurate way, but the way this game models simulation in a 1:1 way would make that really difficult I imagine.

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OK, yeah, turns out I can't. I knew a lot less about the Anno games than I thought. I think I may have gotten them mixed up a bit with the Settlers line of games where the early ones did this cool thing where the roads grew organically. Not really a city builder anyway.

 

Sorry for shooting my mouth off, though I'm happy that I did in the end because I ended up learning a bunch.

No worries!

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Oh right, of course. I totally forgot about that. Can people commute from one city to the other? That seems like what would make your scenario feasible in the most accurate way, but the way this game models simulation in a 1:1 way would make that really difficult I imagine.

I think commuting can happen and buying/selling energy can also happen. If city to city loans can happen I'm golden.

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In light of Fig. 9: McDonalds! it's clear that the microtransaction future of games is going to be paying Sony $1.99 to take Mayor McCheese or Cool Spot OUT of your rich aesthetic experience. 

 

Regarding Anno 2070, I definitely understand, and can appreciate Chris's complaints, but I looked at it as the structures are all pre-fab provided by some "benevolent" corporate overlord. The whole thing takes place in a post apocalyptic flood world, so the squeaky clean modern lines become a little sinister. I think you can see a similar thing in the 1920s Italian futurists, who drew some cool things, but were also forerunners to some real bad news. Also, I think it kind of maps to the modern era the way craft in general has been devalued in the face of disposable, by design, consumer goods (Ikea, H&M, Apple, all modern home appliances. 

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In light of Fig. 9: McDonalds! it's clear that the microtransaction future of games is going to be paying Sony $1.99 to take Mayor McCheese or Cool Spot OUT of your rich aesthetic experience. 

 

Regarding Anno 2070, I definitely understand, and can appreciate Chris's complaints, but I looked at it as the structures are all pre-fab provided by some "benevolent" corporate overlord. The whole thing takes place in a post apocalyptic flood world, so the squeaky clean modern lines become a little sinister. I think you can see a similar thing in the 1920s Italian futurists, who drew some cool things, but were also forerunners to some real bad news. Also, I think it kind of maps to the modern era the way craft in general has been devalued in the face of disposable, by design, consumer goods (Ikea, H&M, Apple, all modern home appliances. 

Yeah I mean that's a fair interpretation but it doesn't make it any more visually interesting to me.

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Two things. One I loved Cool Spot growing up. It was one of those games that I owned and played a lot even though I beat it. It was kind of like Earthworm Jim (not surprising given the David Perry connection) and it was a platformer that I really enjoyed.

Secondly, did anyone else have Sega Channel growing up? I didn't but two of my neighborhood friends did. It was basically a netflix for games type situation where you'd have an adapter cartridge that would slot in to your sega that was a bit smaller than a 32X and you'd connect a coax cable and a ac adapter and you'd get to choose from a large number of games that would rotate every month.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_channel

It was actually quite the technology and pretty awesome as you wouldn't have to bug your parents about going to Blockbuster to rent a game and the variety by and large was pretty solid.

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I have a suggestion for balancing wife (and children) with video games.  I think it is all too easy to get home from work and slip into video games without thinking.  Also it is easy that as soon as there is a lull in activity I just pick up a controller or my laptop and disappear for an hour.  By more clearly delimiting between wife time and game time you enjoy both of those times more fully.  

 

I know that helped me a lot.

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Hopefully staging a Music Man style citywide scam is also supported. Monorail!

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Someone should make a montage of all the times somebody talks about "the most x experience ive had in years", like the Journey thing Chris was talking about. Not mockingly, I'd be genuinely interesting into listening to all those little bits of epiphanies, because I'm pretty sure the Thumbs guys have made that claim a lot on the cast. Another example was that one time where Chris was talking about the funniest thing in years being that part in Arkham Asylum where Batman ignores that lady to have an Adam West-style monologue.

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I wonder if a city simulator game could ever represent the haphazard, organic way that older cities usually develop and grow, or if the required mechanics and design of the game automatically make that impossible. Unless you purposefully build your city in a disorderly way, but even then, you're not truly representing how a 1000 year old city gets planned.

I think you could replicate it, even within something like Simcity, just as a sort of challenge or template mode, that generates a city and lets you develop on top of it within certain constraints. If Simcity gave you a map of San Francisco and then let you play with it, that'd be cool by itself. What would be really awesome is if it tied a hand behind your back keeping you from just demolishing the nice historical neighborhoods.

 

99% Invisible had an episode recently (ep. 72 New Old Town) about rebuilding downtown Warsaw, and what Chris was talking about with weird bland uniformity reminded me of that. The story goes, when the Nazis invaded Warsaw, they burned the city to the ground. When Russia invaded later and occupied Poland long-term, they decided to build good faith with the Poles by rebuilding their historic capital city, ostensibly brick for brick. The problem for the Russians was: Warsaw was a very organically grown city, built-up gradually over centuries. It was very capitalistic and uneven. Since capitalism and uneven distribution both go against Communist ideals, the Russians revised the city by making all the buildings the same height:

diptych-650_zpsd0c7845f.jpg

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