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Jake

Idle Thumbs 124: Blockbuster Black Case

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Chris always says he doesn't want to devote the time it'd take to get good. But then he goes and plays 600 hours of Spelunky, so I think he's basically just a baby.

 

A run of Spelunky (at least for me) is often only 15 minutes or so, very rarely more than 30, and there's no winning or losing, you just die and try again in a pretty low-pressure way. Dota 2 is cool but it's too intense for me to want to spend that much time on. I also have a strong resistance against games that are best played with arranged groups, not because they're bad but because of all the logistics involved and because I know I have to commit to a certain amount of time during which 9 other people are counting on me to have uninterrupted focus and attention. One of the reasons I have so many hours of Spelunky logged is because I just leave it running all the time. I've only played two games tonight but probably logged something like three hours on Steam, because it was paused for the duration of dinner. I just find it hard to get psyched up about the amount of focus and attention Dota 2 demands right now. I'm sure at some point I'll have a cycle where I'm more interested in playing hardcore multiplayer games.

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A run of Spelunky (at least for me) is often only 15 minutes or so, very rarely more than 30, and there's no winning or losing, you just die and try again in a pretty low-pressure way. Dota 2 is cool but it's too intense for me to want to spend that much time on. I also have a strong resistance against games that are best played with arranged groups, not because they're bad but because of all the logistics involved and because I know I have to commit to a certain amount of time during which 9 other people are counting on me to have uninterrupted focus and attention. One of the reasons I have so many hours of Spelunky logged is because I just leave it running all the time. I've only played two games tonight but probably logged something like three hours on Steam, because it was paused for the duration of dinner. I just find it hard to get psyched up about the amount of focus and attention Dota 2 demands right now. I'm sure at some point I'll have a cycle where I'm more interested in playing hardcore multiplayer games.

 

Cry-Baby.gif

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I'm going to side with Chris on this. If you want to play a game you want to play a game, and not manage a bunch of babies to play together. That feels more like work.

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I'm going to side with Chris on this. If you want to play a game you want to play a game, and not manage a bunch of babies to play together. That feels more like work.

What are you some kind of Baby Agent? Baby Personal Assistant? Baby Club Owner? Baby DOTA Team Organizer?

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No, I'm a software developer. My colleagues are often like babies, they cry and produce shit.

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Regarding the Gone Home discussion, I often hear people say that it the setting is a lot of the reason for why people love it, but, like Chris, I feel that the game's appeal has more to do with its universal themes. I have little in common with Sam, other than that were both white, upper middle class North Americans. But I'm not a woman, I'm not gay, I've never been to Portland, I hadn't heard of Riot Grrl until I saw a trailer for this game and I have no nostalgia for X-Files VHS tapes. But I do know what it feels like to fall in love, to get hurt, to feel unfulfilled or unfaithful. Those themes have far more resonance than TV Guides and trapper keepers.

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Superhot is really fun. The only thing that would make it perfect is if it could record your level playthrough and play it back at full speed after you're done, so you can see what you looked like to everyone else who doesn't have bullet-time.

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Superhot is really fun. The only thing that would make it perfect is if it could record your level playthrough and play it back at full speed after you're done, so you can see what you looked like to everyone else who doesn't have bullet-time.

 

Yep yep, I played it a few days ago after hearing about it on complementary podcast "Crate & Crowbar" (i.e. the podcast I listen to when I'm not driving because it's hard to understand slightly-alcohol'd British people with lesser microphones through an old car radio). The playback idea would be amazing, since there did come a point where I stopped feeling like a powerful special agent and started to feel tile-based, tapping WASD in short bursts.

 

I see there are some SUPERHOT speed runs on the internet; I will have to watch some of those sometime. The funny thing is that a perfect speedrun would simply turn the game back into an ordinary FPS. ^_^

 

I keep thinking of ideas for multiplayer SUPERHOT and all of them are silly.

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I could see a bizarre multiplayer mode where movement is only done when everyone is actually inputting something.

 

It'd be awful. But also kind of great.

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A run of Spelunky (at least for me) is often only 15 minutes or so, very rarely more than 30, and there's no winning or losing, you just die and try again in a pretty low-pressure way. Dota 2 is cool but it's too intense for me to want to spend that much time on. I also have a strong resistance against games that are best played with arranged groups, not because they're bad but because of all the logistics involved and because I know I have to commit to a certain amount of time during which 9 other people are counting on me to have uninterrupted focus and attention. One of the reasons I have so many hours of Spelunky logged is because I just leave it running all the time. I've only played two games tonight but probably logged something like three hours on Steam, because it was paused for the duration of dinner. I just find it hard to get psyched up about the amount of focus and attention Dota 2 demands right now. I'm sure at some point I'll have a cycle where I'm more interested in playing hardcore multiplayer games.

 

It is definitely a time commitment. My approach has evolved since I began playing to the point where it feels more like team sports than any other comparison I can think of. The notion of being expected to play a match to completion or be penalized, is a type of expectation that hasn’t really existed much in video games. Companies instead tend focus to design a game where a player wouldn’t want to quit early, to a point where the common loss is not getting precious XP that would let you unlock something new. The consequence Dota’s penalty requires an extra level of planning on my part, that often makes me consider my real life surroundings and scheduling much like leaving the house to play an intramural sport or running an errand would.

 

The intensity on the other hand, like any group activity, depends on who you play with. When I play with friends, there’s a lot more room to make mistakes and take risks, because there always an option to play against bots with a low difficulty, even without a full team five in your party. The intensity mostly comes from playing against other people that unlocks that primal desire to win and crush your enemies to dust. When things don’t go that way, is when you see a darker side of people that throw blame, or generally make people feel like shit. Again, it reminds me so much of the dynamic of team sports, and it’s had me consider who I choose to play with, and consider if my mood will be affected by someone acting up if I play with a random group. It’s certainly not for everyone.

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Regarding the Gone Home discussion, I often hear people say that it the setting is a lot of the reason for why people love it, but, like Chris, I feel that the game's appeal has more to do with its universal themes. I have little in common with Sam, other than that were both white, upper middle class North Americans. But I'm not a woman, I'm not gay, I've never been to Portland, I hadn't heard of Riot Grrl until I saw a trailer for this game and I have no nostalgia for X-Files VHS tapes. But I do know what it feels like to fall in love, to get hurt, to feel unfulfilled or unfaithful. Those themes have far more resonance than TV Guides and trapper keepers.

i agree that you don't need any of the nostalgia for the setting to enjoy it, but it helps, it helps with the immersion in the same way that you know what is like "to fall in love, to get hurt, to feel unfulfilled or unfaithful." obviously it isn't exactly the same, but if there was nothing in the game that you were familiar with it would have a lot less meaning to you, i don't think any theme is really truly universal just very common.

 

like you i have had a very different life to Sam, I'm english, I'm a man, I'm not gay and i had never heard of riot Grrl, but it was the similarities that helped me to see the world from her point of view (empathy) in a way Sam was like a gay female american version of me born a few years earlier, yeah that sounds very different, but she is a fan of rock music (including Nirvana which i am a fan) she is the younger one of the sisters (my sister is 3 years older than me) she liked drawing and she was a bit of a rebel, and there are lots more similarities including certain family stuff (and these things would take a lot of explaining if you weren't familiar with them), i could go on (but i won't) i think if i was a tribesman from the rainforest i don't think the game would have had the same impact on me without a serious education in western culture, most fiction has greater significance if they feel familiar, even if they are set in a fantasy/sci-fi world, it will be the things that are familiar that resonate the most with people.

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The first like 30% of this episode is just everyone interrupting each other. It's great.

Nick Breckon's supporting cast in their most Nick Breckon's supporting cast performances of the year.

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i agree that you don't need any of the nostalgia for the setting to enjoy it, but it helps.

I grew up in a middle class white family in california, so a story about an upper middle class white family in oregon seems like it should feel pretty familiar, but it didn't. When I was playing the game it almost felt foreign at times. I'm pretty sure a lot of this was because of how specific the setting was. Most of the cultural artifacts are things that I recognize, things that feel genuine. But since I didn't graduate high school until 2008, I never experienced most of them first-hand.

Playing the game felt like stepping into someone else's life, more so than most game, because it like a real life, that a real person could have lived. But it wasn't my life.

I can't say whether I would have liked the game more if I had been 17 in 1995, but I'm sure it would have felt very different.

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I find it funny that the thumbs accidentally reinvented MMORPG world events, without even knowing it. (Except instead of an NPC enemy, a real person would be driving.)

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Great episode.

 

Why isn't everyone demanding the "That's The Stuff!" video in this thread? This is my number-one takeaway from the episode.

 

Seconding this notion. I was expecting it to be already posted in the OP, like in the old Thumbs episodes, but then Jake did say it'll be on their blog "someday." I hope it gets posted real soon.

 

Also, I love how Nick is just calling Chris a baby in this thread. Classic Breckon.

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Damn this episode for getting me back into Card Hunter, it's already sucked up two full evenings. So good.

I only started it last night, and yeah it's a ton of fun! I've had a lot of experiences where i misjudge an opponent's cards and end up having to solo to the end of an encounter, and it's really satisfying. The way it always doles out a movement card is super smart. I did feel like I was on the rough side of some enemy armor rolls, though.

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My phone says the security certificate is out of date for my podcast RSS link for idlethumbs.

I could not find a webmaster link, does [email protected] work?

What's the url you're using? What client?

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