Idle Thumbs 125: Eyes of the G-Man

[Jake]

Idle Thumbs 125:

Eyes of the G-Man

Our modular, upgradeable, open source based, library-streaming, performance-optimized future is being revealed in 48 hour intervals and we are there. Or at least nearby, obsessively playing cartooney platformers. And Card Hunter.

Games Discussed: Super Mario 3D Land, SteamOS, Spelunky (Daily Challenge), Card Hunter

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[BigJKO]

Yes! Finally Jake got a 3DS!

 

Very happy that you're enjoying Super Mario 3D Land. Next up you should try Luigi's Mansion.

 

EDIT: Also.. doing that Spelunky Explorer's Club montage.. Right. Now.

[BigJKO]

Here's the Spelunky Explorers Club compilation, a mess of voices talking over each other. Cut it down to a beginning, middle and end, for sanity.

 

[SecretAsianMan]

I would have sent something to Nick, except I had no idea what to send him.  So all he got was a card with an apology for not sending him something.  The gold coins for Lord Remo was an idea I got from some people at PAX, only modified to be chocolate coins instead of actual gold goins.  The chocolate/gummy band-aids for Sean were a happy accident because they were in the store.  And Jake's Nerds Ropes need/deserve no explaination.

[melmer]

[mikemariano]

Listening to Jake talk about Mario is so good.  Little things like the yellow title screens would go unnoticed by almost everyone, but Jake picks up on these small, fascinating details.

 

Post your friend code in the 3DS Friend Code thread, Jake!  Add us all, even though friends are useless unless you start playing Animal Crossing!

[clyde]

I'm trying to think of worthwhile additions to the GTA toolset for interacting with random pedestrians:

-selling whatever

-graffiti

-complimenting their hat

-asking for directions

-pan-handling

The problem is that there are not many legitimate ways to interact with people on the street in real life, unless you are filling the role of your job.

Oh man, it would be so cool if you could approach the victims in those traffic-system induced car accidents and administer first-aid in the proper fashion. Or if sometimes pedestrians were choking or they collapse and you can perform the heimlich or CPR.

Today I'm going to steal a food-truck, drive it to the park in Los Santos and see if I can distribute tacos.

Richard Scarry's Grand Theft Auto.

[Flynn]

I went deep into Card Hunter after last week's show.  The deck/loot stuff is fantastic.  I love low the item 'sets' can come with outright negative cards - a heavy weapon might make your character draw a clumsy card -- interesting gameplay and fits the theme perfectly.  

 

A tip about progression and multiplayer: around level 8 the game will nag you to try multiplayer.  You DO want to.  It's just an easy tutorial match against the AI, but in the tutorial process it will give you a bunch of cards and you can use them in the single player.  I had skipped this step and hit a bit of a wall at the level 8/9 dungeons, but having just a few more options in my deck from the mulitplayer tutorial pushed me over the top.

[melmer]

[tegan]

Hearing Jake talk about Super Mario 3D Land, I'm just like "oh man, he doesn't even know yet."

[Jake]

Say nothing!

[Gormongous]

Say nothing!

 

Nothing!

[dibs]

whatever you do say nothing!, when you talk about you know what.

[Zetabyte]

http://www.camposantogames.com/

[tegan]

http://www.camposantogames.com/

 

.../wizard

[CaptainFish]

The card hunter discussion was nice, really mirrored what I enjoyed about it.

I really think that the guaranteed move per draw is a stroke of genius. I feel like in the design of these games there's usually cards you just need to draw. I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh way back in the day, and you generally made a deck that was half monsters half magic/traps, but if you didn't draw the 4 star or less monsters that could be played on their own you could lose easily to direct damage. Magic: The Gathering I assume is similar in that you always want to draw at least one land per turn (or some equivalent). Not drawing those cards is rare in general when you build your deck properly, but even then, you can lose just to not getting a basic meat shield up half way through your deck. Card Hunter, by giving you that one move, makes sure that you have some ability to protect your unit by attempting to get it out of the way, on every draw. It's a large part of why those one Hero finishes are possible. You are always able to rely on it.

That sense is also bolstered by Keep trait on some armor cards, and the Penetrating trait on some attacks, so it doesn't feel entirely up to the whims of random chance.

[Zederick]

There's only one way the Card Hunter pizza-girl storyline can progress:

 

After all of Gary (the DM's) lies about what they're doing downstairs, Melvin (the jerky brother) needs to try to embarrass them by revealing that they're playing Card Hunter. Then Karen (the pizza-girl) can reveal that she's an expert Card Hunter player... and that it's so much more fun when you're playing it with a bunch of friends, as she introduces co-op multiplayer.

Ball's in your court, Blue Manchu. Make it happen. =}

[tegan]

Zeusthecat said I should post this.

 

[Flynn]

They mix and match the Magic the Gathering and D&D themes kinda loosely, in that the older brother speaks of Card Hunter in the context of competition and tournaments like competitive CCGs... and then you play it like a tabletop role-playing game where that doesn't fit.  The game-master is the game-designer, not a competitor.

[melmer]

Haha wow, Luigi goat is everything I dreamed and more

[Coods]

Tragedy incoming:

 

[Justin Leego]

A N I M A L   C R O S S I N G

[emptybob]

I also put together a Spelunky Explorers Club compilation. Only with 4 people for watching ease, and I took out the voices, and just played the music, until just one runner remained, then turned up his audio.

 

[Zederick]

Theoretically, a multi-video of Spelunky could show each player on a single, static map of each level, with each of them running around that level simultaneously. But that would take a fair amount of video-editing to really compile: you'd want to construct a "background image" of the level from the footage of each player, then track their individual video-feed as they scroll through it, and then properly blend the video when their paths inevitably intersect.

A good programmer might be able to automate such a thing. I'm sure if Derek Yu really wanted to, he could set up something that could make it easier (even if it was just releasing the maps the day after each daily challenge). Hell, if there's enough interest in something like that, it might be worth asking him.

[gregbrown]

I don't really think that a Star Wars displaced serious sci-fi any more than Flash Gordon did, so I'm not sure how Le Guin makes that argument (unless it's "Star Wars made new readers expect my novels to be like Star Wars")

Also, I'm 90% sure you all confused her with Madeline L'Engle, which confused me for years too.