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Jake

Idle Thumbs 102: Standing on the Shoulders of Babies

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Gravity Bone has an ending that improves everything that came before it, at least for me. Probably one of the better endings I've ever seen in a video game, or any medium really.

 

Endings by default are always going to be weaker than the other parts of a story. That's why it's so much easier to think of 'bad' endings than it is to think of 'good' ones. I try to not put a lot of stock into the ending of a story, because I know it's already an uphill battle to pull off a satisfying ending and if the ending manages to not completely ruin everything that came before it, I tend to consider it a success.

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Unfortunately, I have to file my GOTY 2011, Catherine, under the banner of 'horrible endings that dulled the awesomeness of the game'. I don't agree that endings necessarily have to be the weaker part; it's just that they are incredibly hard to pull off in any satisfying manner. You NEED to have a plan ready. If you just wing it, or do any of a million things wrong, it'll be :tmeh:.

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I love that Nick has taken on the persona of "guy who is immune to all the bullshit of the modern world."

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I love that Nick has taken on the persona of "guy who is immune to all the bullshit of the modern world."

Fuck [it, I'm] Nick Breckon

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I love that Nick has taken on the persona of "guy who is immune to all the bullshit of the modern world."

I'm pleased that, although Jake said that Nick was the purveyor of all the weird insane bullshit of early Thumbs (aka the best stuff), now we actually hear it be the case. It's good.

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Anyone else notice that the ruined recording also had Jake introducing himself first? Possible connection, maybe? (Sorry Jake)

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Anyone else notice that the ruined recording also had Jake introducing himself first? Possible connection, maybe? (Sorry Jake)

The world self-corrected. Me claiming first chair was never meant to be.

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Anyone else notice that the ruined recording also had Jake introducing himself first? Possible connection, maybe? (Sorry Jake)

Jake was the most despondent about the loss of that episode, because it contained his introduction triumph.

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My knee-jerk immediate just-got-out-of-the-theater-twitter reaction was that it was a cool, cool cast, guys :clap:! It's great to have Nick back. Between Boost, Games, Famous, and Breckon (and of course the ever-orbiting SCOOPS, who will always be true thumb to me), the Thumbs are definitely a good gang.

 

It's now been a few episodes without him, and I really do miss Sean Robotmanaman, who sounds pretty sweet as a cyborg, and is a nice guy, who we like.

 

Completely unrelatedly, the other thing I miss is a pretty silly thing to even notice, let alone pine for ( :P), but I enjoy Chris's music stuff and was always amused by the mini-fanfare that opened each episode, using the "Wuxtry!" chords set to a random instrumentation. I would always crudge around with stuff like that on my little keyboard as a kid, recording a MIDI track and switching the instrument out to Tubas or Timpanis or weird space synths, so I guess I've always been fond of that sort of thing.

I was just curious if it might pop back up again, or if it was phased out permanently after ep. 100. And I now realize I sound like the guy from that EA shareholder's meeting inquiring about that charming Michael Jordan photo. I just thought those chords were quite charming, is all.!

 

I know it's a pain in the ass to edit and put all those little touches that make Idle Thumbs what it is, so I wanted to say that I always appreciate and enjoy it when Thumbs music and sound design is used to playful, humorous, or atmospheric ends. Good job on that, Chris. And as far as the actual discussions, lengthy digressions, and meaty center of the show, well you guys always make my week that much better :)

 

Also, cool new theme arrangement! Video gaaa-aaaa-aaaames.

 

Oh! And P.S. Was that podcast idea of Jake's that was mentioned a while back a real thing, or just some typical Big "Video Bird" Games japery? (Semi) seriously though, what's the deal with that?

 

 

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Oh! And P.S. Was that podcast idea of Jake's that was mentioned a while back a real thing, or just some typical Big "Video Bird" Games japery? (Semi) seriously though, what's the deal with that?

I had a podcast idea?

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Jake was the most despondent about the loss of that episode, because it contained his introduction triumph.

It sounded like we were on the cusp of surviving the Mind Kill.

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I had a podcast idea?

You claimed you did, once!

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I had a podcast idea?

 

Remember? It was going to be called Idle Thumbs or Hands or something? Shame it never really worked out.

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Jake Podcast? Mega McCheese?

 

I do really enjoy achievements in multiplayer games that act almost as extra stat tracking. Especially valve achievements. Tracking how far away you tongue lassoed a survivor or dinging when you get bunch of kills while ubered as a scout is really awesome, and does that great game thing of rewarding the player for specific play, making you feel like the designers know you did something awesome. It's part of why I lament some stat tracking stuff being tied to random crate drops :\. I think it would be awesome to know, for example, how many times I've used Shallow Grave to save a dota hero from death, but I'll never bother interfacing with trading or crates to get that one stat tracked.


I also enjoy exploring all the achievements in a small game I'm already enjoying interacting with, just to prolong the experience. Early examples include stuff like Trine, where I was ecstatic to try everything in the game and mess around with the physics. Of course, they then added in weird seasonal achievements so I probably don't have the 100% that I was kind of happy I got. A recent example is The Cave, which I also got all the achievements in, mostly on my enjoyment of the tone of the writing, and only slightly because of wanting to mess around with different abilities in different spots. If Papers Please released with a bunch of achievements that were just alternate ways to mess with the systems, I'd probably do all of them too, after doing a playthrough on my own.

 

As for the whole looking at everything in a space question, I find it's not even limited to rummaging through stuff for loot. Jake mentioned "look at" commands, and I always use those on everything in a point and click or text adventure. Even in a game like Runaway, where I didn't enjoy anything the protagonist had to say, I would still look at things I could probably just pick up and know how to use. There's rarely any reason not to experience all the content in a game space. Even in survival horror games where there are motivations to avoid lingering, there's almost greater pressure to find everything in a space before running away, for fear of having to return later with less resources.

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The only time achievements have been relevant at all to my life in the past year or so was when they irritated the heck out of me for interrupting my time with Dishonored and Bioshock Infinite with their bloody stupid popups.

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Remember? It was going to be called Idle Thumbs or Hands or something? Shame it never really worked out.

Are you sure you're not thinking of Steve Gaynor's The Idle Thumbs Podcast?

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Listening to just the old crew brought back some memories (don't worry Sean, I still love you).

 

Question about Neptune's Bounty Pride II: Am I correct to assume it uses the same credit system for game creation as the first?  Will the block of credits I purchased so long ago still work?

 

As for exploring spaces, I got to thinking about how I used to play adventure games as a kid.  Whenever I found a thing that allows me to take one step further into a puzzle solution, I would immediately leave the area to go use said thing in said puzzle.  This resulted in a lot of wandering around.  Now, I go for efficiency and pick up everything in an area then solve puzzles until I'm out of inventory, even in games I haven't played before.  I don't know if that's reflective of my mindset as a kid/adult but that's not an unreasonable position to take.  I was especially reminded of this during the Lucasarts Saturday stream.  Watching you guys walk into a room in Day of the Tentacle and then proceed to pick up all the things seemed strange to me because that's not how I remembered myself doing it, but it's probably what I would do now.

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Achievements are great!

 

SO THERE!

 

I will vigorously seek them out, as long as it doesn't seem like or become a detriment to my enjoyment of the game. Also, if the game stops being fun for me, I stop caring.

 

BUT THEY'RE GREAT.

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Nick Breckon rating every film on Netflix as 4 stars is bizarrely hilarious.

 

And by hilarious I mean "eh, it's ok".

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I think the frequent gating in many games trains you to be a scrounging hobo. I'm sure plenty of people, like me, try to suss out the critical path and avoid it, in favor of turning everything else upside down before they get locked out.

 

I think one way to alter players behavior is to make better use of the physical space. Have critical messages written on a wall, or even be contained in the material within the observable, instead of encouraging you to tunnel down to drawer and bellow bed interactions. So many games prompt you to look for the smallest, darkest corner, rather than the whole space.

 

I don't care much for achievement hording, but I enjoy when they suggest challenges or unusual expansions of techniques I haven't used, like grinding a mile of unbroken rails in a Tony Hawk.

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Okay, so, crowd sourcing.

 

This is something people have been talking about regarding this game that's in development, Starbound. It's a spiritual successor to Terraria (which is a side-scrolling sort of Minecraft game) and actually employs the artist of Terraria. The devs recently launched a pre-order / beta-access drive for the game and it seems to be working out well, though I've found myself (and others) discussing with people how I'm hesitant to invest early. And it's probably for a silly reason, but essentially I invested early into Terraria and ended up feeling burned by it (though, not in any deep way). I read their sort of plans and goals for the game and figured I'd get behind it. It certainly was fun from that day one experience and even beyond the official release date it saw a few updates here and there, culminating in one major update. And then it all stopped, and the team disbanded. All the roadmapped ideas they had for the game left unfulfilled.

 

This is where I start to lean back and forth on both sides of the fence, because on the one hand I wasn't shortchanged for what dollars I put in - especially after that one major content update. I had a lot of fun, no denying of that. But at the same time all the now pie-in-the-sky plans didn't get fulfilled, which was sorta what I was feeling like I was investing in in the first place. Like I got a good game, but not the one I was sold on receiving over the long term. I probably sound like a total butt about it, but that just made me a little wary about investing in things early. It comes down to paying for promised features vs. paying for what the game is when it launches. It's a strange thing to say and all considering that Starbound in its alpha demonstratable form has way, WAY more to it than Terraria. It's just that I've now applied an idea of only paying for things in advanced when it's from people I know can deliver. Not to suggest the artist was the reason why Terraria didn't deliver for me, it's that I haven't played any games the Starbound team has made (or is making, I actually don't know if they've launched anything yet). The artist is just a coincidental factor.

 

This is kind of how I ended up feeling about Minecraft. The game as it stood in the early days wasn't one that did much for me. I mean, the block creations people made with the initial incarnation were impressive, the basic survival and crafting gameplay seemed like a solid basis for something more...but it was a completely undirected sandbox with neither structure nor documentation, and certainly no inherent narrative or goals. This just does not do anything for me. However, I was teased along with promises that there would be a mode someday that incorporated a degree of structure and goals. I think the game may have actually hit formal release without this mode, but it certainly took years to arrive, and it turned out when it did that it wasn't Minecraft's gameplay with structure and goals, it was Minecraft as a scenario editor. Well, great and all, but what made that prospect interesting was Minecraft's gameplay. The survival. The crafting. The ability to shape the world according to your whims. Done to an actual purpose, I would be in heaven. Separating the two made neither worthwhile to me. There are plenty of other games and toolkits that make amateur game content possible and most of them are better suited to delivering a compelling experience than Minecraft-minus-Minecraft.

 

So, I dunno. I don't begrudge Notch his millions at all. I can totally see why people who do enjoy sandboxes full of incredibly elaborate internal systems would fall so in love with Minecraft. But it's never become the game I thought I was going to get when I purchased it.

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I think the frequent gating in many games trains you to be a scrounging hobo. I'm sure plenty of people, like me, try to suss out the critical path and avoid it, in favor of turning everything else upside down before they get locked out.

 

I think one way to alter players behavior is to make better use of the physical space. Have critical messages written on a wall, or even be contained in the material within the observable, instead of encouraging you to tunnel down to drawer and bellow bed interactions. So many games prompt you to look for the smallest, darkest corner, rather than the whole space.

 

Yeah, when the Thumbs were talking about the way players interact with a space, I thought back to my experience with the second episode of The Walking Dead. There's a part where you come across a campsite, and I figured out immediately that something inside the tent would set off a trigger. So, in the interests of experiencing the full story, I scrubbed the entire campsite first, then went inside the tent, and oh crap. There are four different things to interact with and, of course, the first one I picked started a cutscene. Oh well, I did my best.

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I had a podcast idea?

I just have a terrible memory and the passage of time and long-term effects of anxiety medication  :nuts:  kind of muddled things in my head. On "The Clapper" at around 80 minutes Shawn mentioned the phenomenal fan fiction and musical stylings of JustinRPG and Chris in fact mentioned an ostensible future podcast it might be better suited for, and then few moments later Thumbs Sean said that Jake was cooking up a future podcast. Re-listening to it, I realize it in fact sounds more like a reference to an off-cast joke and I guess I either misremembered it or dreamt it as some future reality thing. Weird.

 

 

You claimed you did, once!

Were you thinking of the same thing as I was, Twig? Or am I just :oldman:  (Like your friend's Dad, I just found emoticons.)

 

Oh and as far as explorable space/content in games go, I've just started playing through Metroid Prime for the first time, and I'm LOVING the "Scan" mechanic. It strikes me as a brilliant way to put forth contextual narrative/story/gameplay tidbits in a quick, clean, and totally optional way. For being a couple of years old, it's suprisingly modern: it's sort of a more succinct, readily available version of Dishonored's Heart. (I love The Heart, but I would often try and get backstory on certain NPC's to see if I felt like killing them or not, and it got a bit irritating when I would keep clicking a pixel or two off a certain character and then have to wait through a thirty second, utterly depressing monologue I'd heard six times before. I wish it would've been skippable or something...but I'm sure that would've probably presented its own problems. I'm no game designer.)

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