Idle Thumbs 193: General Interest

[juv3nal]

So re: Night in the Woods, Scott Benson is the guy behind But I'm a Nice Guy and Alec Holowka has worked on Aquaria and Towerfall.

There is another one of these freebie thingies (Lost Constellation is pay what you want including zero), called Longest Night which can be accessed on their web site (below the screenshots, to the right of the soundtrack link).

[Sean]

We'll report back to confirm but I assume they are really nice.  ( A smart woman once pointed out to me that women often pay way more for underwear and get what they pay for so I started buying nice underwear at Nordstroms and don't regret it considering it's touching my most sensitive areas most of the time I'm awake) 

 

I was kind of excited about the MeUndies advert, until I went to their site. Unless I'm super dumb, they want $20-$24 per pair. Da fuq? I mean, I even buy some fairly nice undies as it is, but that's still like 3 times the price of buying a premium brand at retail.

[Bjorn]

We'll report back to confirm but I assume they are really nice.  ( A smart woman once pointed out to me that women often pay way more for underwear and get what they pay for so I started buying nice underwear at Nordstroms and don't regret it considering it's touching my most sensitive areas most of the time I'm awake)

 

Oh yeah, I agree, that just still seems super expensive. I've tried a few brands, and settled on Calvin Klein, as they're just hands down the most comfortable pair I've worn. I think I can usually get them for about $10 a pair or less. MeUndies would have to be considerably more comfortable to justify double the price, and even if that were possible, I'm not sure I would want to know.  Cause if they were twice as comfy, I'd probably want to start wearing them. 

[Cyborg771]

I should probably stop buying underwear from Costco I guess...

[sclpls]

As far as multiplayer recommendations go, I don't know if this is what people had in mind, but I would suggest checking out Chaos Reborn which is in early access. It is being made by Julian Gollop (of X-COM fame) and is a remake of one of his earlier designs. It hits the sweet spot of not being a huge time commitment (there's a max of 20 turns per game, but in my experience it's usually over way before that, and a turn usually doesn't take much longer than a minute).

 

The game is a turn based wizard battle where you have a random selection of spells, and your turn consists of moving, and casting a spell or attacking. It has an elegant simplicity to it reminiscent of the Firaxis XCOM remake or a really good board game. Between the turn-based nature, the shortness of the matches, and the highly random elements of the game I think it removes a lot of the stress people often associate with multiplayer games even though I think there is a lot of skill and interesting strategy to the game. It also helps that in my experience the community around the game seems very friendly and mature.

 

I think the game is worth consideration, and I suspect it would be up Chris and Sean's alley.

[Bjorn]

I partially retract my earlier complaint.  The lady informed me that CK also has a premium line that's $28 a pair.  I'm just slumming it with their mid-range and didn't know a higher tier of luxury boxer briefs existed. 

 

I still think that's crazy for a single pair of underwear though. 

[Coods]

I suspect that Sean's Dota history already prevents this from being useful information, but League of Legends, while also obviously being a competitive LOMA, is also an incredibly fun casual game. There are frequent experimental, non competitive game modes that are rotated in and out on occasion (such as a mode where all cooldowns are heavily reduced, making things INSANE). All Random All Mid also exists. For the most part I find it very easy to play the game without worrying intensely about winning, and 10-man ARAM games over skype are probably the most fun ive ever had in a LOMA. 

[mikemariano]

Future Idle Thumbs episode sponsor:

 

[Jordan A]

As far as multiplayer recommendations go, I don't know if this is what people had in mind, but I would suggest checking out Chaos Reborn which is in early access. It is being made by Julian Gollop (of X-COM fame) and is a remake of one of his earlier designs. It hits the sweet spot of not being a huge time commitment (there's a max of 20 turns per game, but in my experience it's usually over way before that, and a turn usually doesn't take much longer than a minute).

 

The game is a turn based wizard battle where you have a random selection of spells, and your turn consists of moving, and casting a spell or attacking. It has an elegant simplicity to it reminiscent of the Firaxis XCOM remake or a really good board game. Between the turn-based nature, the shortness of the matches, and the highly random elements of the game I think it removes a lot of the stress people often associate with multiplayer games even though I think there is a lot of skill and interesting strategy to the game. It also helps that in my experience the community around the game seems very friendly and mature.

 

I think the game is worth consideration, and I suspect it would be up Chris and Sean's alley.

 

I bought this the other day and I'm yet to try it online (only really played it vs. the AI which is pretty rudimentary at this point) but I agree. Matches are short, and it has a really interesting bluffing element that I think would be great with a group of people who weren't strangers.

[Problem Machine]

So Danielle went to Disneyland, yet not a single mention of Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters!?

DisneyWorld, not DisneyLand. Similar name but on the other side of the country.

 

Also, the most obvious comparison that comes to mind when I look at NiTW stuff is to Achewood, which also has animal characters but gives them unique and well-drawn personalities and sometimes goes into very dark and surreal territory. I haven't played any of it yet though so I don't know whether that's accurate at all.

[MixedUpzombies]

DisneyWorld, not DisneyLand. Similar name but on the other side of the country.

Space Ranger Spin is at Magic Kingdom. I only have been at that one but Danielle would probably know the differences between them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzz_Lightyear_attractions

Also I left as a little kid during the presentation part at ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter because it scared the shit out of me and it wasn't scary at all when it got Stitch in the mix. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExtraTERRORestrial_Alien_Encounter

Tyra Banks totally was the alien in the beginning tho.

and The Timekeeper totally made me read all of H.G. Wells books in highschool much later looking back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Timekeeper

[Korax]

This is what pops into my head whenever people talk about vaping:

 

[Apple Cider]

I partially retract my earlier complaint.  The lady informed me that CK also has a premium line that's $28 a pair.  I'm just slumming it with their mid-range and didn't know a higher tier of luxury boxer briefs existed. 

 

I still think that's crazy for a single pair of underwear though. 

 

TBF, a lot of ladies I know just wait for sales because a lot of us love nice underwear but also don't have a ton of cash. Victoria Secrets or Lane Bryant usually do a 5/$25 deal, which is where a lot of women I know stock up. 

[SecretAsianMan]

I was not familiar with the term vaping until this podcast.  If you asked me what it was before, I probably would have given you a horrible gross definition.

[feelthedarkness]

I feel like Inherent Vice the film made some major deviations from the book. He cut out or minimized a lot of the structural conspiracy stuff, (references to Lemuria, most of The Boards stuff, Doc's proto-internet hacker, the shipwreck, and the whole abandoned city trip) and made it more of a personal story, shifting the focus more onto reuniting Coy with his family, which in the book I took to be less of a major motivator, than evidence of the great conspiracy. 

[kickinthehead]

I made the Dishonored Serial Season 2 opening that I think you guys were imagining in the beginning of this episode.

 

 

I saw Inherent Vice (didn't read the book) and the movie pretty much made no sense to me and I was lost almost immediately. It's sort of like the first time I saw The Big Lebowski. Once I realized that the movie sort of didn't seem to care about me making sense of it I just enjoyed it for the performances and how it embraced its ridiculousness.

[zerofiftyone]

I made the Dishonored Serial Season 2 opening that I think you guys were imagining in the beginning of this episode.

 

HAH this is excellent.

[melmer]

all the tup's belong to Derek

[Synnah]

As far as multiplayer recommendations go, I don't know if this is what people had in mind, but I would suggest checking out Chaos Reborn which is in early access. It is being made by Julian Gollop (of X-COM fame) and is a remake of one of his earlier designs. It hits the sweet spot of not being a huge time commitment (there's a max of 20 turns per game, but in my experience it's usually over way before that, and a turn usually doesn't take much longer than a minute).

 

The game is a turn based wizard battle where you have a random selection of spells, and your turn consists of moving, and casting a spell or attacking. It has an elegant simplicity to it reminiscent of the Firaxis XCOM remake or a really good board game. Between the turn-based nature, the shortness of the matches, and the highly random elements of the game I think it removes a lot of the stress people often associate with multiplayer games even though I think there is a lot of skill and interesting strategy to the game. It also helps that in my experience the community around the game seems very friendly and mature.

 

I think the game is worth consideration, and I suspect it would be up Chris and Sean's alley.

 

I've been playing this recently as well, and I like a lot (The original Chaos is the only one of Gollop's games I've actually played). I'm finding the matchmaking a little flaky, though, so I thought about resurrecting the Chaos Reborn kickstarter thread in order to find out who else is playing it, and maybe organise multiplayer games.

[sclpls]

I think that's a fine idea. I'd be happy to play the game with other people here.

[Badfinger]

Dishonored Serial Intro is excellent. Well done!

 

 

With regard to whatever that feeling is from fast multiplayer games that maybe aren't all just murders - do you think that's a niche Splatoon could fill? Did Garden Warfare hit anyone in the same way? I realize everything about those games in a mechanics sense is the same, except for a murder.

 

 

Danielle's amused, horrifed "NO" makes Jake's car stories even worse/better. It's like the best/worst version of Car Talk.

[Anym]

Don't Dementors feature prominently in the third movie?

[tegan]

The story about the weird Disney living arrangements sound a lot like Walt Disney's original plans for the suitably Rapture-ish "Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow," which is where EPCOT got its name.

[tberton]

Don't Dementors feature prominently in the third movie?

 

Yeah, Prisoner of Azkaban is when their introduced. I guess Chris just wasn't paying attention. Also, "Dementor" is a word that works so much better written than spoken. On the page it evokes the strangeness and misery associated with the creatures. Spoken, it sounds like something a 12 year-old came up with when playing make-believe.

[Patrick R]

I basically said the same thing Chris did about Azkaban on my podcast when Sarah Argodale guested. There's no time in that (or any of those movies) to breathe..

 

I had a terrible string luck with cars. My last one was plowed into by a drunk driver while parked overnight, then plowed into by a sober driver while I was driving a week later. The latter happened while I was delivering pizzas and I had to walk home 6 miles afterwards. Then the rental car I got was slammed into while parked, knocked off the bumper. Didn't get rental insurance, of course, so I had to pay for that.

 

Then the day after I bought my replacement car, it wouldn't stop accelerating and I couldn't put it into park or neutral and I couldn't turn it off. So I basically just had to pull the emergency brake, slam on my brake, and skid around the streets of Chicago at 5 miles an hour until the 911 operator I was talking to just told me to drive it into a park and do donuts until the cops could figure out what to do. Eventually it got stuck in the mud and the engine gave out and I was able to turn it off.

 

The kicker is that if it had happened 10 minutes earlier I would have been right by The United Center the night of a Rihanna concert, which meant I would have for sure driven through crowds of people. So, needless to say, I have PTSD and can no longer ride in the front seat of a car, let alone drive one.

 

Thank God for public transportation!