Chris

Idle Thumbs 166: Cyberpunk Cop-Killer

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It's always struck me as wanting the praise for having a gay character without doing any of the work. (In reference to Dumbledore)

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Just posting to say I'm really grateful to be able to share in the experience of Sean's ultimate dream episode.

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As someone who hasn't paid harry potter any attention, but has been on the internet, I'm pretty much in the exact same boat as Chris.

 

I can now also say I know 2 things about Dumbledore and 1 thing about Snape. I learned stuff in this episode \o/

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That's pretty much the extent of my Harry Potter knowledge as well.

 

Excellent episode! Danielle's accent is so gorgeous that it should be one of the t-shirt options at Idle Store.

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It was never stated in the book, and AFAIK never really implied. Rowling came out later and revealed this fact.

 

That's what I figured. I'm generally pretty clued up on Potter Haps, though!

 

I really like that Dumbledore is gay, but I hate that it's not mentioned in any of the books. I hate the idea that LGBT characters should be on the down-low so that straight audiences don't have to be offended by their gayness.

 

Agreed. If that's what the character is in her head, that's what he should be on the page. After a certain point she must have known that there was basically nothing she could do that would threaten the books' popularity, so why worry about the easily-offended minority?

 

iUOCBdZ.jpg

 

I'll take 3!

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In a sad turn of events, the podcast's recent migration over to soundcloud coincides with my being in China, where both youtube and soundcloud are blocked :(

 

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from the episode:

My friend said she wanted to try Dota 2 and I was like, "No. You can't just play it. You can't. It's 100 hours to get even a glimmer of how I feel. You can't just play it you have to internalize it into your life."

 

To offer a couterpoint: I played 2 or 3 games of Dota 2 a month, starting from zero, for more than year. I wasn't getting the game on the same level as people who were way into it, but I got a lot out of the experience from day 1 nonetheless. Even just trying all the heroes is interesting. This one breaks into more than one hero. This one can teleport anywhere. This one can copy other players spells. It was delightful discovering that stuff and if you try out new ones in a human vs easy-bot games everyone is chill and doesn't care if you have no idea how they work.

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Just got to the Jaws Game section; Majesco's showing at E3 2005 was a huge part of old Thumbs coverage. Why not read the preview?

 

From the comments on that story:

 

"David Eggers says:

(Metallus!, Idle Thumbs)

I don't really know how Jaws got leashed in the first place. The developers should probably explain that in more detail."

 

Love that that joke still had legs on today's episode.

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Sean's mixture shock, enthusiasm and sadness at the Jaws movie revelation is incredible.  That's one of my favorite movies ever.  I also have this deep, deep affection for the song they sing on the boat (

).  I did study abroad with a guy from Boston who was also a crazy fan of Jaws.  We took to singing that song drunkenly on our way home from the bars on the weekends.  So now that song, and the movie by extension, are inextricably linked to one of the best periods of my life.   A few years ago I was wandering through an antique mall, and found an original printing of the sheet music for that song and had to have it (it's crooked cause I'm lazy about taking the glass apart to get it back into place and it shifts occasionally). 

 

post-33601-0-85480500-1405028123_thumb.jpg

 

The song has all these crazy alternative lyrics you can sing too:

 

post-33601-0-10067500-1405028260_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

The accent talking about cyberpunk had me in tears laughing so hard.  I had to pause it to catch my breath and not miss anything. 

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It's always struck me as wanting the praise for having a gay character without doing any of the work. (In reference to Dumbledore)

 

First thought that comes to mind was Is it possible to create a gay character in fiction without having to "do the work" to give depth to that part of their character? Does our cultural reality prevent this? Or are specifically confining this to J.K. Rowling? I can see either being true, especially in regard to the way J.K. seems to have a perhaps dependent relationship with her fans at this point.

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I'd like to point out that Itch.io is now more than just a place to host game jams. You can actually sell your game through the site. In a certain sense it is attempting to be a democratic alternative to Steam.

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I will never stop supporting more Pikmin 2 esports discussion.

 

Someday the San Francisco Marble Championship will happen.

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Also on the subject of Wings of Saint Nazaire. The game looks super awesome, but it is also staunchly retro. This isn't a bad thing but some of the parts they emulate felt like the flaws inherent in the limited technology of the time and not the nice touches. 

Here is some advice, too. I got so excited by the game that I wrote them a long email of feedback after a long playtesting session. Hoped it would help and thought nothing of it. A day later I got an excited response back where they explained why they were doing all the things they were doing and explained why certain suggestions I gave didn't make sense; not for technical reasons but why they didn't make sense in terms of realism.  This is just a personal taste thing, but if you're a dev and a player gives you feedback you don't need to take it but you also don't need to tell the player why you disagree, especially when the reason is purely subjective. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

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Also on the subject of Wings of Saint Nazaire. The game looks super awesome, but it is also staunchly retro. This isn't a bad thing but some of the parts they emulate felt like the flaws inherent in the limited technology of the time and not the nice touches.

Here is some advice, too. I got so excited by the game that I wrote them a long email of feedback after a long playtesting session. Hoped it would help and thought nothing of it. A day later I got an excited response back where they explained why they were doing all the things they were doing and explained why certain suggestions I gave didn't make sense; not for technical reasons but why they didn't make sense in terms of realism. This is just a personal taste thing, but if you're a dev and a player gives you feedback you don't need to take it but you also don't need to tell the player why you disagree, especially when the reason is purely subjective. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

This is interesting because I would really appreciate an explanation of why they made different choices. The exception to this is when the developer didn't really listen to what was said and responds to feedback as if it were similar feedback that they've heard before or if they are just being dismissive. As long as I get a sense that they are listening to the criticism, I enjoy hearing detailed responses.

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From the comments on that story:

 

"David Eggers says:

(Metallus!, Idle Thumbs)

I don't really know how Jaws got leashed in the first place. The developers should probably explain that in more detail."

 

Love that that joke still had legs on today's episode.

 

Not exactly a true comments section. Idle Thumbs features often included space for other Thumbs writers and friends to write second/alternate opinions. Many years ago, I chose to contribute that dumb thing to Ben's piece.

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This is interesting because I would really appreciate an explanation of why they made different choices. The exception to this is when the developer didn't really listen to what was said and responds to feedback as if it were similar feedback that they've heard before or if they are just being dismissive. As long as I get a sense that they are listening to the criticism, I enjoy hearing detailed responses.

 

One of my criticisms was that ship and weapon names are evocative but ultimately meaningless without context. This is a peeve I have with a lot of games; it means people can't pick up the game and play it effectively without extensive encoding of names with their meaning. Their response was that they understand but not to worry because there will be descriptions of what the weapons do. Basically they didn't understand my issue I guess?

The second one was about how the core combat loop, while fun, may get a bit stale. Enemy Starfighter has added fleet control RTS elements to the game to add depth. I suggested they add something similar. I also gave an example, such as a system where you can perceive the relative balance of individual furballs at a glance and direct other wings of fighters to shore up weak-spots in the battle. The response was "This doesn't make sense to me. A pilot already has so much to do managing their ship that they won't be able to handle fleet control."

This kind of response isn't very interesting or useful, at least to me.

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I feel like the amount of work needed to get into Lords Managements is kinda disappointing. Me and a friend tried to get into LoL a bit but the level of strategy was so inscrutable that my usual approach to games (playing around, choosing things that sound fun or interesting rather than focusing on effectiveness) didn't just make me play bad. I was totally crushed. I don't think I even got a single kill, just a few assists.

 

By contrast, TF2 hooked me immediately with the idea that I could just light people on fire then push them around. I was presumably garbage for many hours of TF2, as someone who can't aim and just flung bullets and projectiles around. I slowly got not terrible at the game because even if I was being stomped I had fun running around and stuff. I've played it for hundreds of hours and I know more of the meta and higher level tactics but there was no way I'd get this deep without the basic level of accessibility it offered.

 

I don't really get why Lords Managements are so different in that way, whether the actual design framework procludes a simple low level to draw people in as fun or if it's because the audience actually wants it to be hard to grasp from the get go.

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Sean's mixture shock, enthusiasm and sadness at the Jaws movie revelation is incredible.  That's one of my favorite movies ever.  I also have this deep, deep affection for the song they sing on the boat (

).  I did study abroad with a guy from Boston who was also a crazy fan of Jaws.  

 

I have always loved that scene as well. I've had this song and Spanish Ladies stuck in my head since watching this movie again last week. Not to rub salt in the wound, but there was something pretty wonderful about seeing a movie like this in the theater. The whole audience was so into the movie and it made all the jokes seem funnier and that scene with Ben Gardner's boat scarier than I remember it being. I actually kind of wish that this was my first time seeing the film, that's how fun the whole experience was.

 

Also, some people might get a kick out of this: http://www.npr.org/2014/07/08/329731479/richard-dreyfus-children-jaws-makes-no-sense

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I will never stop supporting more Pikmin 2 esports discussion.

 

Someday the San Francisco Marble Championship will happen.

 

Now that there's a Wii-U in the group, I'm hoping to see a stream of the new Pikmin multiplayer. I've heard a lot about how it's flawed, but I'd still like to see how it turned out.

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