Idle Thumbs 148: The Octopus in My Mind

[emptybob]

Wait, so a bunch of us heard the game title un-bleeped in the podcast, and no-one has said the name in the forums or publicly? This is such a great community of folk.

Also Jake, if you were to wear both the hat and moustache at the same time, Nintendo would have shut the stream down, and banned you from Evo.

[dium]

I, too, feel dirty for snooping. Regardless, I'm hella excited for whatever the CS team is up to. Plugs.

 

COUNTER STRIKE?!

 

So psyched.

[bkbroiler]

Man I love counter strike

[Kashkin]

I too am surprised/impressed that no-one has outed their game.

It's amazing how much snooping you can do based on one accidentally uttered URL.

 

A name gets you a trademark, a trademarks gets you an address, and that address is coincidentally located next to...

 

 

BIOSHOCK SEQUEL CONFIRMED

[Jake]

I too am surprised/impressed that no-one has outed their game.

It's amazing how much snooping you can do based on one accidentally uttered URL.

 

A name gets you a trademark, a trademarks gets you an address, and that address is coincidentally located next to...

 

 

BIOSHOCK SEQUEL CONFIRMED

That address is not super secret.

BUT BioShock sequel confirmed for sure.

[Kashkin]

That address is not super secret.

BUT BioShock sequel confirmed for sure.

 

Oh yeah. That explains how fans were able to send you giant paintings.

 

#snoopfail

[TychoCelchuuu]

I liked this podcast. As a Brekcon enthusiast the Breckon appearance was very welcome. Sean talking to himself about Plants vs. Zombies Modern Sporefare was neat too - although he liked it, it turned me off of the game because this is the first I've learned of it beyond its existence, and I was just assuming it was more complicated.

I also have a collector's unbleeped edition which is great because the world-exclusive reveal of Campo Santo's new game is exactly the kind of scoop I need to get my new website, Objective Game Reviews, into the headlines.

[chummer]

I also have a collector's unbleeped edition which is great because the world-exclusive reveal of Campo Santo's new game is exactly the kind of scoop I need to get my new website, Objective Game Reviews, into the headlines.

Oh god. Oh god.

 

If Objective Game Reviews had an exclusive interview with CS about their new game that came out just like an hour before the official press release went out... 

 

Tears of joy.

[Justin Leego]

It would have to be a filtered synopsis of the interview rather the opinion-laden responses themselves.

[agorman]

How hard was it not to name this episode "A Jacuzzi of My Own Excrements"?

[BigJKO]

I got the lame censored one.. This is like my basketball card collecting days all over again. And everyone else got the Silver Jordan..

[boy]

As a Brekcon enthusiast

 

If ever there is an Idle Thumbs convention, please name it Breckcon. Congrats etc.

[sclpls]

Nick talking about the emotional head space of shipping a game was definitely good.

[melmer]

I wish Nick would bang out a spontaneous sax solo mid cast. Episode 150, make it happen!

[chummer]

Well, time to add Army of Two: Obama's Heroes to the pile of sweet Idle Thumbs game ideas.

 

As well as 'Leisure Larry and the Excrement Jacuzzi'

[NotDorner]

Great episode, always jonesing for more dayZ from yall...

 

Did I detect a hint of something resembling enthusiasm in Rodkin, in regards to DayZ?!?

 

This is an excellent development!

 

Since its inception ive wanted a video similar to the one that started the DayZ craze(basically CKilroy from ShacTac losing his shit), but instead with the Thumbs cast.

 

All 4 of you, surviving together for an extended period of time would be awesome.

 

Ive got one more idea since you guys asked for em:

 

Instead of putting up say, steam games as a trophy, put up 100$ in bitcoin, announce it on reddit/elsewhere, and then have 20+ thumbs fans escort you across the map while various cutthroats from all reaches of the interwebs attempt to put you down!

 

That way instead of watching a tightly knit squad go about their business we could watch a hoarde of pantless weirdos dressed in brightly colored motorcycle helmets meander across chernarus doing the miley, armed with various kitchen implements, protecting the epicenter, which would be the cast wondering just what they have gotten themselves into...

[fondue]

Fab episode gents; as NotDormer says - you MUST make that DayZ stream a reality, esp. with the audio stream for you guys.

 

I was slightly surprised though, at your enthusiasm for getting a telepresence robot. After all, what's to stop the robot community from just rendering a human face on the screen and so surreptitiously gaining a foothold in the human world. It wouldn't then be long before offices ONLY had telepresence robots - none of which would be controlled by humans, obviously.

[Codicier]

The one thing missing from a lot of day-z stories is any real sense of consequence. Everyone knows in the end they are just a server reset from a fresh start.

So when the guys talk about 3:10 to Yuma it makes me think your spot on with what would make a interesting stream. All the great cops and robber stories and how one of the most notable things about them is that often the cops are constrained by having to bring someone in alive.

Honestly I don't think you need anything more than the idea of a attempted rescue to make this interesting. Perhaps the one thing I would suggest its that the captive is basically the judge of how the rewards are distributed to his 'gang'.

If you wanted to make it more complicated however you could possibly do something with having the captive stash some objects around the map before anyone including the thumbs spawn which act as representations of the prizes and make it so him & his gang have to physically collect each prize.

[Merus]

I was wondering why you couldn't delay the 3:10 to Moscow stream by 5 minutes. If you're playing, wouldn't that delay make it an imperfect source of information, but enough that you'd have to keep moving.

[Badfinger]

Sean I'm surprised you listen to podcasts playing DayZ, especially with how cautiously I've seen you play while on streams. I want to hear every word other people say, every rustle, soda being cracked, ammo being sorted, etc.

[cleanbean]

I saw that Easter egg.  I even screencapped it, but didn't want to blow you guys up.  It was extra mysterious because the art was all cut up from moving stream elements around on screen.  Felt pretty certain it was what it was with that crisp style (Olly).

[Gormongous]

I love this podcast for being a compendium of Sean's various stress responses. In general, Sean has the best stress dreams, if I recall correctly from other episodes.

[syntheticgerbil]

Man, I totally get Sean's feelings of anxiety when listening to the podcasts of the game developers he admires. I often feel super stressed when I listen to interviews or podcasts involving artists I like because it just makes you feel so inferior but you also love the person's work so you want to keep listening. It's a weird disheartening feeling.

 

I kind of feel similar when listening to Idle Thumbs because everyone on the cast has worked at amazing companies, especially ones involving all of the adventure game designers whose games I grew up on. It's just kind of a sinking sad feeling because I know I can never do that even though it's something I've always sort of dreamed of. But Remo, Nick, Jake, Sean, and Steve all are super smart and indispensible so it's understandable.

 

Also the Double Fine documentary stuff was all super interesting to me but all kind of depressing because it showed a company full of people with a lot of love and support for eachother. It's just kind of depresses me after working for more than a few companies run by abusive types trying to milk you dry.

 

Weirdly though, I found the Tone Control episode with Jonathan Blow to be super inspiring because I feel like I relate to the guy and his working methods. His burnout blog post from years ago was also a very good read I sometimes revisit. I guess he kind of works in that way of procrastinating and refining that eventually breaks through to a stroke of genius. Similarly, I read Jordan Mechner's book full of his Prince of Persia diary entries last year that just spoke of an insane procrastinator with a lot of difficulty working at any kind of constant pace yet succeed from a combination of a lot of thinking away from work plus having a fire lit under his ass.

 

Yeah anyway, it's cool to hear Sean Vanaman, a designer of some GOTY.CX, still has the same insecurities of others. Err... I mean that in a good way though.

[Badfinger]

Also the Double Fine documentary stuff was all super interesting to me but all kind of depressing because it showed a company full of people with a lot of love and support for eachother. It's just kind of depresses me after working for more than a few companies run by abusive types trying to milk you dry.

 

I can relate. I am convinced a job that is fulfilling and pays well doesn't exist. I am starting to doubt that a job that is fulfilling OR pays well exists. Everyone that says they have one or the other is basically lying.

[Gditz]

The 3:10 to Yuma idea is great. Create a team of around 5 people, with gear and walkie talkies. Find one volunteer that you handcuff and make him/her don a burlap sack to cloud their vision. The rest of the participants are bandits.

 

The game is played by having the small team lead the prisoner from point A to point B, for instance start from Elektro and end up in Svetlojarsk. Another requirement for the group is that they have to pass through a set number of towns during their way to the end. So the path goes like: Elektro -> Mogilevka -> Shakhovka -> Dubrovka -> Khelm -> Svetlojarsk

 

The bandits will not constantly know where their prey are or what exact way they are going but they will know that they have to get into every town listed. This means that the closer the team gets to a town, the more likely they are to encounter the bandits. Another requirement could be that the team has to announce/shout what town they are in when they enter or leave it. The bandits are not allowed to shoot the volunteer.

 

Or just do another round of OvS (Olly Versus Sean).