Jake

Idle Thumbs 181: Rumors & Hearsay

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WHAT ABOUT ANDROID

 

GOSH

 

I was speaking casually. They cover Android games as well.

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Is it me, or is everything on there for iPad? I'm not seeing a lot of iPhone submissions.

 

There's a lot of stuff that comes out for iPad that doesn't work for iPhone. Don't know what else to tell you, sorry!

 

That being said, I looked at the first page just now and it looked like a fair amount of the stuff covered were universal iOS apps unless I'm mistaken.

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Since Chris and Nick both liked 80 Days so much, I'm going to try again to push King of Dragon Pass as another amazing story-based game on iOS. Basically, it's 80 Days meets Crusader Kings 2, where you play the chieftain of a small Iron-Age clan trying to survive and unite with its neighbors to form a tribe and then a kingdom. Even the short campaign's a bit longer than 80 Days, but it does the same thing of having discrete decisions lead to long and surprising chains of events, in a setting that's packed full of quality writing. It's easily one of my top five games of all time (and maybe a better "historical" game even than Crusader Kings 2).

 

Nick, you would especially like it because it's a game where being righteous is often more important than being right.

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Yeah, I've heard so many amazing stories from people playing King of Dragon Pass, I really need to pick it up.

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Thanks for all the added "shit" words, folks. Can't believe I forgot apeshit and chickenshit (although I think chickenshit has more of a cowardly connotation). And yeah, Chris, you're right, I forgot the verb use of "bullshit" which "horseshit" interestingly doesn't share.

 

I am way too into this.

I was going to wonder aloud why all of the words that get the -shit suffix are animals, but then I thought of one. Dipshit! (n) a stupid or simple/ignorant person.

Now I'm, instead, wondering about the origin of dipshit. Dipped in shit? Dips (i.e. tobacco) with shit?

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I was going to wonder aloud why all of the words that get the -shit suffix are animals, but then I thought of one. Dipshit! (n) a stupid or simple/ignorant person.

Now I'm, instead, wondering about the origin of dipshit. Dipped in shit? Dips (i.e. tobacco) with shit?

 

It first appears in the 1970s, so it makes sense that it's a contraction of "dippy" and "shit."

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For anyone else wondering, yes King of Dragon Pass is on Android.

Unfortunately at ten dollarsish I should probably wait on buying it.

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For anyone else wondering, yes King of Dragon Pass is on Android. Unfortunately at ten dollarsish I should probably wait on buying it.

 

The original version of the game from 1999 is also on GOG for six bucks. Most of the differences between the PC and mobile ports are in terms of interface (like the ability to plant different ratios of wheat, barley, and rye and the format of the Heroquest menu). I own both, plus the CD version from way back.

 

I'd also just point out that King of Dragon Pass is a full-fledged PC game with potentially massive playtime ported in its entirety to mobile, so if anything's worth a ten-spot, this is it. Okay, I'm done.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to disparaging about the price. I was mostly remarking on it cause it was more than I expected from a mobile game (more than I've paid for any game in a good while). I have the game on my wishlist, and I'm just waiting for a more affluent period of my life.

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Yay for the 80 days talk. I'd appreciate a spoil on the solution for the murder mystery if anyone has it. I was not clever enough to figure it out and it would take me a while to get back to that point again (assuming randomness didn't somehow prevent me from getting there).

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Also noteworthy: Shaun White Skateboarding, the skateboarding game about Stride Gum

 

Shaun-White-Stride-Gum-Mintacular-630x35

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I was surprised to hear very positive views of Monsters U. I posted at the time that it was "uninspired and unfunny", and zeusthecat agreed:

 

We took our daughter to see this, and yeah, pretty much what you said. It was a pretty said ripoff of Revenge of the Nerds if you ask me and was predictable all the way through. It was okay at the surface level I guess for just an average, stereotypical college movie but it was definitely the worst Pixar movie by far. I don't understand why it was even made.

 

And I had the impression that the general consensus was that it was pretty weak, but perhaps not...

 

(I was also surprised to find out, after reading that arstechnica xenomorph article the first time it was posted on the forums, that some fans took that Gorman line to mean that it was an established, named species; that's obviously not intended.)

 

Was Jake's (?) Cloud Atlas spoiler a big spoiler? That book's next on my reading list!

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Cloud Atlas is next to impossible to spoil unless someone lays out the structure of the book for you (which he didnt!)

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Cloud Atlas is next to impossible to spoil unless someone lays out the structure of the book for you (which he didnt!)

 

Cloud Atlas in printed book form is comprised of pages made of paper which in turn is made from pulp which is a lignocellulosic fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating cellulose fibres from wood, fibre crops or waste paper. The wood fiber sources required for pulping are, “45% sawmill residue, 21% logs and chips, and 34% recycled paper” (Canada, 2014).

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Cloud Atlas is next to impossible to spoil unless someone lays out the structure of the book for you (which he didnt!)

 

Yeah, it sounded like a minor thing from what I've heard about the overall craziness of the book!

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Also, Cloud Atlas can't be spoiled, because it's a pretty incredible work of complex fiction. I think that I've determined that if a piece of long-form art can be "spoiled" by a reveal of some detail, it's probably not really all that great to begin with. For instance, Citizen Kane is fucking fantastic, even if you know the "TWIST AT THE END."

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But, to be honest, how important is the "discovery" aspect, when you look at the sum total of a piece of art? I know that this is not a popular opinion I have, but I think that we live in a world where we're very, very worried about "spoiling" everything, and I don't really get it. There are certain genres (mystery, but science fiction short story as well), where the whole point is to like, build and eventually reveal, and I can see how "spoiling" the ending of a Sherlock Holmes mystery would lessen the impact of the whole thing. But for (I think) the majority of pieces of art where people these days are worried about being "spoiled," it may be that the art is lacking. AGAIN, I know that this is controversial, and I really would love to hear a defense of the spoiler. 

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But, to be honest, how important is the "discovery" aspect, when you look at the sum total of a piece of art? I know that this is not a popular opinion I have, but I think that we live in a world where we're very, very worried about "spoiling" everything, and I don't really get it. There are certain genres (mystery, but science fiction short story as well), where the whole point is to like, build and eventually reveal, and I can see how "spoiling" the ending of a Sherlock Holmes mystery would lessen the impact of the whole thing. But for (I think) the majority of pieces of art where people these days are worried about being "spoiled," it may be that the art is lacking. AGAIN, I know that this is controversial, and I really would love to hear a defense of the spoiler. 

For me, at least, it's not so much about the experience of the art being "ruined" as it is just about it being different. When you haven't been spoiled, I at least am spending a good portion of the time reading/watching/playing something speculating as to where it's going and trying to connect various elements of the work into those theories, whereas if I'm spoiled on how something ends, it's more about appreciating how the various pieces fit together. They're both very valid ways to appreciate something, but they are markedly different.

On a different topic, I was taken a bit aback by the "ironic" email. Sean in particular always comes across to me as extremely earnest.

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Yeah that's it. It's something that's precious because it's a fragile experience that you only get to have once. Some people will value that experience in particular more or less than others, and as you observe the particular qualities of the piece may emphasize or deemphasize that aspect of the experience, but it's an aspect that can be taken away by careless actions of another. Now, one could say the same is true of experiencing a work in any arbitrary circumstance, but it's not for us to declare what the most interesting or worthwhile aspect of a piece of entertainment is for someone else.

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Yeah that's it. It's something that's precious because it's a fragile experience that you only get to have once. Some people will value that experience in particular more or less than others, and as you observe the particular qualities of the piece may emphasize or deemphasize that aspect of the experience, but it's an aspect that can be taken away by careless actions of another. Now, one could say the same is true of experiencing a work in any arbitrary circumstance, but it's not for us to declare what the most interesting or worthwhile aspect of a piece of entertainment is for someone else.

 

I don't know, the militant policing of spoilers has become a genuine issue in almost all of the cultural discourse I follow. The fact that nothing substantive is able be said about most media works, not at least without putting the breaks on the conversation and debating whether it's worth spoiling even basic details, is something that bothers me every time I encounter it. How many times have the Thumbs started to get something going about a game, only to stop and spend three solid minutes asking themselves if they should spoil stuff, or put their discussion off to another day that never comes? It honestly bugs the hell out of me to be listening to two smart people talk about a movie or game and then pull back to a comical degree once they realize they're in spoiler territory. "Oh! That thing on the train... Uh, it's good. It's really good, I'll just say that." I don't know, great? Why is the actual thing a spoiler but not how I'm going to feel about it, anyway?

 

Generally speaking, I wish that people would approach the recorded or written discussion of any work with the full expectation that the topic discussed will probably be spoiled. It's one thing not to get pissed that your friend blew the end to Lucky Number Sleven (the last time something got really spoiled for me without warning) out of nowhere and another to listen to a podcast explicitly about Alien: Isolation while still not wanting to hear any specifics.

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Okay but Idle Thumbs isn't a podcast specifically about Alien:Isolation, it's a general gaming podcast. I usually don't even look at the list of games discussed, and for people who listen to it through a feed the list probably won't even be visible. It sounds a lot like complaining about people being considerate, which seems odd to me.

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