Steve

Tone Control 8: TOM FRANCIS

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My browser didn't show those big red arrows pointing at it so I didn't see it. Ahem.

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More importantly Jonathan Blow on the 15th woop woop (I bet that will be a long one)

 

Yeah, an hour 58 minutes, looks like! So not quite the longest one on record....

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FYI to all the people like me that found out about Silent Storm from listening to this episode: that game is 75% off on Steam right now.

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For the love of god, if you just found out about Silent Storm from this and you have any interest in squad-based tactics, get it. It and it's sequel, which adds a financial element to hiring/firing guys and buying/selling equipment, and makes the random missions more interesting and useful, and makes an enemy with a powerful weapon more exciting to run across, especially if you can recover and use it in mission. It also has a ballistics system that makes angles and cover actually tactically important, and the camera is pretty good at letting you judge lines of sight and fire, which is actually what I like most about it. The story is ridiculous and the voice acting is pretty dull, but man, its pretty unique in terms of feel. I don't even know how much I'd compare it to JA, just because it doesn't have any of the strategy layer, and the graphics feel so much better suited to the actual gameplay in combat that I honestly can't stand how simplistic and unrepresentative JA is. It's always had a really special place for me, and I've never seen anything that feels like it, particularly before the mechs show up (human on human fights are more interesting, if only because the firepower is lower, and injury is more common and injurious.). Its a really gripping WWII era squad based tactics game, its terrible to see it languish in the 'Eastern European game' ghetto for so long.

I guess this was my first post as well, so hello! I was just very excited to hear it mentioned, its the game I've played the most without ever having heard it referenced by anyone else.

Edited by neonrev

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I guess this was my first post as well, so hello! I was just very excited to hear it mentioned, its the game I've played the most without ever having heard it referenced by anyone else.

 

Welcome! And off-topic, you a KoL player? Seeing that sabre-toothed lime brought some flashbacks.

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Yes, and I have to say, the Idlethumbs/asymetric crossovers recently? Messing with my head. Been a fan of both for a while, and its weird to hear them suddenly have an office together(?) and stuff. Makes a lot of sense to me though.

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Just listened to this today. I found it really interesting that Tom's thinking about making his game use procedurally generated levels that incorporate the narrative so that people can play it through again and pick different dialog options and still have fun in the levels because they're brand new. With Ken Levine saying he wants to start working on games with narratives that you can play through multiple times, this seemed like a timely sort of idea.

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The Crate and Crowbar podcast has a bunch of people who sound like Tom, unless Tom is on at which point he's the only one who sounds like Tom. I guess my voice processing is weird.

 

Yeah, Tom Francis is on the Crate and Crowbar podcast.  There are actually two Toms on it I think... I used to get them confused all the time.

Also, Tom Francis has written some great short stories.  You can find them in the Machine of Death and This is How You Die books at Barnes and Nobles.   I think they are on his blog too for that matter: www.pentadact.com

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Yeah, Tom Francis is on the Crate and Crowbar podcast.  There are actually two Toms on it I think... I used to get them confused all the time.

 

I think Os means that there are a bunch of people who sound like Tom F, but whenever Tom F is on the 'cast the differences become apparent enough to pick him out.

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This episode finally got me to play Gunpoint, which is great, because the game is great. But I feel like I'm missing something. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR GUNPOINT: Didn't Tom say in this episode something about a last level where the bad guy knocks you down? And if you fight back, it's programmed that you won't win until the last moment? And one of the testers realized you could do a vertical jump and the bad guy would sail through a window? Because I played the last level a couple of times, and couldn't get any of those things to happen. What's-his-name, the bad guy, just opens the door in your face and shoots at you, and you can take him out pretty much the same way you take anyone else out. Was Tom talking about something that didn't make it into the final game?

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I think it might depend on which story path you go down. I did get the sequence he described.

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