Chris

Idle Thumbs 164: The Seed of a Sneeze

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Capsule is a pretty great atmospheric experience but the last level involves a lot of luck to complete.

I disagree that the setting is ambiguous. I felt that it pretty clearly takes place in space.

According to its author, it probably doesn't, though. That doesn't mean you have to agree with his view, but I think it's enough to at least ackowledge it's not an open and shut case.

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According to its author, it probably doesn't, though. That doesn't mean you have to agree with his view, but I think it's enough to at least ackowledge it's not an open and shut case.

 

So I got pretty deep into it tonight.  Not sure if I'm on the last "level" or not, I think the distance I have to go is 7200M, and it kicked my ass multiple times before I decided to take a break for the night. 

 

It's absolutely fantastic, and I'm super glad you guys brought it up on the show. 

 

As for the "where", I would tend towards feeling like the surface of an alien world, or an Earth post-disaster.  Not necessarily post apocalyptic, but maybe something that made a big area unlivable for an extended period of time. 

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Did Danielle kill Nick? She started regularly appearing on the show the week that Nick said on Twitter that he wanted to talk about his WiiU and Mario Kart. Also welcome Danielle!

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My gif collection

http://i.imgur.com/e8rQr.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zjcoH.gif
http://i.imgur.com/ocaFp.gif
http://i.imgur.com/7wbZl.gif
http://www.abload.de/img/0077_8za3.gif
http://i.imgur.com/NBobEl0.gif
http://www.abload.de/img/ianrxuwv.gif
http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/best_animated_images_car_jump_in.gif
http://i.minus.com/i7BszYGlZGgZx.gif

 

Edit: sorry i should elaborate; this is my rarely used collection of reaction 'images' ;) that i collected on my iphone a couple of years ago, it just made me laugh hearing about Sean extensive library. Transformers 'Hahaha... no' is my favourite

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I am always terrified of those technically-.jpg files that are somehow gifs.

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Speaking of associating given names with words that could be horrible illnesses

pubs_2013_14.jpg

 

Mmm, foot ailments.

 

 

It just occurred to me...
 
 
...Danielle needs a painting...

 

I agree, but don't you gotta wait 10 years for that? Until then, how about we put together an installation piece.

 

HxGpNYy.jpg
Congrats, Danielle! (Seriously though)

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Yay \o/ someone played ground zeroes.... I hope

 

Hah!

 

 

I think the things discussed is missing Murdered: Soul Suspect

 

Capsule sounds great, I will have to pick that up some day.

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Animal platformer? You should play Kero Blaster! I haven't played it yet because I'm broke like always, but I hear it's the bee's knees and/or elbows. Disregard if it turns out you've talked about playing it before and I just forgot, since that's also possible.

 

I didn't know Kero Blaster was out, but it reminds me that Ikachan would be my serious recommendation. I watched the SGDQ speedrun of it yesterday and it reminded me of just how cute and fun that game is. Plus it's like three bucks or something on the eshop.

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How is it that Star Citizen gets praised everywhere I see it mentioned but the whole deal of selling people in game things for prices that exceed yearly MMO subscriptions and all micro transactions in any game I've seen isn't strange to anyone?


Is it because 2€ purchases seem like exploiting dumb people but someone spending 2000€ on a virtual space boat can't be stupid enough to fall for it?

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How is it that Star Citizen gets praised everywhere I see it mentioned but the whole deal of selling people in game things for prices that exceed yearly MMO subscriptions and all micro transactions in any game I've seen isn't strange to anyone?

Is it because 2€ purchases seem like exploiting dumb people but someone spending 2000€ on a virtual space boat can't be stupid enough to fall for it?

I would imagine it would have something to do with what Chris said, about how some people have been waiting for a game like Star Citizen to come out forever, and now that it is coming, they are willing to completely buy into everything about the game. When the in-game purchases are for something people are incredibly excited about, they're less likely to see the craziness I would imagine, vs. continually paying for another MMO or match-three game that is more or less a carbon copy of all the other versions of that out there.

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There'll no doubt be a continual stream of DLC items (anyone say decals?) That'll fund servers

 

$5 for some hot pink driving gloves

 

It's a shame that this set up means that we will all carry over our real world statuses in to star citizen. If you're rich you get to be rich in game, if you're poor you'll have to turn to criminal activate like pirating, gambling, entering a gladiatorial arena for prize money  :( wow that actually really does suck

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Happy to hear some talk about Capsule!  I picked it up after Mr. Remo tweetered about it, too.  Hearing you all talk about it, I'm left wondering if I'm playing it right.

 

I'll move to the "depth" mentioned, but then there's an entire range of 360 degrees that the waypoint could exist within.  I find that trying to stay on 1700m, for instance, and explore the full 360 degrees of that depth to be quite a pain.  It seems almost impossible to get my ship to stay in a straight line.  After a while it feels like a really punishing balancing act.  Little to the left, little to the right, spacebar, little to the left, little more to the left, spacebar.  I don't feel like I'm exploring or surviving so much as trying to make a number stay put.  I also tried ignoring the suggested meter depth and exploring, but there's not much to find in the world other than the next waypoint.

 

Am I doing this wrong?  Maybe I have too much anxiety regarding indirect controls to be able to enjoy this game?

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Am I doing this wrong?  Maybe I have too much anxiety regarding indirect controls to be able to enjoy this game?

 

I had a similar confusion as you for the first few minutes, thinking it was much more complicated than it actually is. There's no "depth", there is just direction and distance from target.  The compass constantly tells you what degree you need to be facing in order to go towards your target, and the distance meter tells you how far away you are.  That's it.  The meter on the right is your forward/backward velocity.  The faster you go, the faster you burn fuel. 

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High fidelity interactions is one of my favourite things in games. I think immersion through interaction is more powerful than immersion through audio / visual presentation alone. Things like having to look at and then click individual elevator buttons, having to unlock doors or manually type in codes / passwords is one of my favourite things about Deus Ex. It activates a part of your brain that's dormant in a game with a universal use key which you should always press when prompted.

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Via the Something Awful thread for game podcasts I remembered the video I had wanted to see:

http://www.polygon.com/2014/6/12/5802816/battlefield-hardline-gameplay-e3-2014

I get that he has to be enthusiastic about his games, but Steve Papoutsis kinda comes off as a douche. It's mostly his word choice I guess. He's also the guy who talked about Dead Space 3 being "quadruple-A" in the lead up to that. I don't really follow a lot of promotional material with that sort of commentary, so maybe it's just the norm for that size of game, but it seems a little weird.

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I had a similar confusion as you for the first few minutes, thinking it was much more complicated than it actually is. There's no "depth", there is just direction and distance from target.  The compass constantly tells you what degree you need to be facing in order to go towards your target, and the distance meter tells you how far away you are.  That's it.  The meter on the right is your forward/backward velocity.  The faster you go, the faster you burn fuel. 

 

Wow!!  That makes sense now.  I feel like a huge idiot, as I probably spent a cumulative 30-45 minutes traveling equidistant from the next waypoint.  (I guess I'm the reason we all have to play through elaborate tutorials...).  The game feels so different now!

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Wow!!  That makes sense now.  I feel like a huge idiot, as I probably spent a cumulative 30-45 minutes traveling equidistant from the next waypoint.  (I guess I'm the reason we all have to play through elaborate tutorials...).  The game feels so different now!

Did the part in the podcast where Sean talked about how he did the same thing not clue you in that this was happening?

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Did the part in the podcast where Sean talked about how he did the same thing not clue you in that this was happening?

 

Guess I'm doubly an idiot, because I missed him describing him doing the same thing.  Sorry.

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Yeah I wish the MGS5 thing was discussed way more. As a fan of the series, sort of like Chris was saying, it comes with the precedent where nothing was like that. I feel betrayed, however MGS4 had many problems with the B&B corp that left me disgusted, but not as much as hearing this news. I pretty much fear for the whole direction the series is going. First with replacing Big Boss with Kiefer and also with this futile push towards ultra realism instead of nice art direction as found in MGS3. We did actually discuss a lo of the rape stuff for a few pages on the THumbs forum, no shout out for us?! :)

 

Also Daedalic is both a publisher and developer in Germany.

 

Last thing, it's so weird to hear so much about Justin McElroy lately on the podcast. I pretty much have been listening to all of the crap he's on since the beginning of this year, after only being a regular listener of MBMBaM for the longest time. I actually found out late in the game that Griffin and Justin were games journalists. They never really mentioned it on that podcast much if at all. Being that I found Sawbones to be pretty brilliant, I went back before and found a podcast from Justin and Sydnee called Satellite Dish which was so so, but it had one of the most hilarious summaries of the psychotic Tyro Banks' novel model land. I don't know if it's more upsetting that that was possibly ghost written or not, because it all obviously originated from a strange summary she had of the worst kind of scifi.

 

Anyway, I went back as far as 2008 for the Joystiq podcast and it's pretty boring and embarassing. I almost can't believe it's the same Justin McElroy. He is incredibly not funny, comes off as ignorant, jokes are obvious and not funny, calls people stupid for having a differing opinion, and just generally being obnoxious and having poor podcast etiquette where he just regularly leaves for 10 minute periods and constantly eats and chews throughout the episodes. Some reader mail brought up his rudeness and he was just all, "Deal with it! I'm hungry!" I guess there's hope for everyone after hearing that nonsense. Inspiring!

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How is it that Star Citizen gets praised everywhere I see it mentioned but the whole deal of selling people in game things for prices that exceed yearly MMO subscriptions and all micro transactions in any game I've seen isn't strange to anyone?

Is it because 2€ purchases seem like exploiting dumb people but someone spending 2000€ on a virtual space boat can't be stupid enough to fall for it?

I feel like the majority of our discussion of the game has been about this component of it! I don't think anyone could listen to the last few episodes or Thumbs and not come to the conclusion that we find the Star Citizen economy incredibly strange.

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Yeah, seems like we don't spend a lot of time praising the game (not that it doesn't deserve it, I have no idea) and just dumbfounded by the bucks.

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