Idle Thumbs 277: Coming Attractions

[Chris]

Idle Thumbs 277:



Coming Attractions
Finally, time for video games. You settle down for a long night of cyber-hacking and theme park design. This is going to be so immersive, you think. But the experiences are fleeting, fractured. Not quite what you expected, in ways you can't pin down. Your memories feel...misplaced. No wait, they're just in that drawer over there. You can't help but feel there's a more complete version of this, if you could only focus. You close your eyes, but they blink back open against your will. Now you are dunking a basketball—blink—you are sorting ever-taller stacks of hats—blink—you are button mashing for your very life. Over it all, a haunting piano repeats a single note. Coming soon.

Discussed: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Deus Ex: Go, Planet Coaster, Hidden My Game By Mom, Multibowl, Frog Fractions, RimWorld

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[Vasari]

Coming Soon? Coming Attractions? I don't know what the episode is called, brand awareness is at an all-time low!

[Jake]

  On 8/25/2016 at 6:05 PM, Vasari said:

Coming Soon? Coming Attractions? I don't know what the episode is called, brand awareness is at an all-time low!

It's pretty clealy Coming Attractions, not sure what you're talking about. Coming soon.

[dium]

Discussed: Hidden My Game By Mom?!

 

EXCELLENT.

[your name here]

You actually skipped the hacking tutorial by putting in the code 0451. The game in no way ever tells you the code to this door.

 

In Human Revolution there's a similar door, but for that one the code is 1337.

[chummer]

Post-outro bit: 

[plasticflesh]

Trailer music tropes fascinate me. I'm very happy you talked about it in such great detail. That darn Inception horn, amazing how much that has persevered. Thank you for the excellent example of the "piano tinkle," I wasn't certain what you meant.

 

I'm a little sad "Who let the dogs out" is no longer used in every comedy trailer.

[plasticflesh]

"A Festival of Piracy" was a good title candidate.

[Cordeos]

  On 8/25/2016 at 9:19 PM, plasticflesh said:

Trailer music tropes fascinate me. I'm very happy you talked about it in such great detail. That darn Inception horn, amazing how much that has persevered. Thank you for the excellent example of the "piano tinkle," I wasn't certain what you meant.

 

I'm a little sad "Who let the dogs out" is no longer used in every comedy trailer.

In a world where .....

[kickinthehead]

Post outro trailer trope mashup was hilarious!

 

Back in April when slow piano tinkle was at its peak, Argobot suggested mashing up the piano tinkle music between the offending trailers and I made this

 

[Askherserenity]

Didn't want to be annoying on Twitter so I decided to make an account on the forums just to ask if Nick could please stream some Planet Coaster. Completely understandable if he just doesn't feel like streaming the game at the moment but man...I think it'll be such a fun stream.
 

[root]

Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill and Rusted Root's Send Me On My Way are two songs that will make me emotionally check out of a trailer like, immediately, because by this point it just feels like low-hanging fruit.

[Badfinger]

I was full on ear to ear idiot grin, and the Gaynor tipped me over the edge into full guffaws.

 

 

I also wasn't 100% on "piano tinkle" so the example was very awesome.

[thenexus6]

I HATE movie trailers because of all the points mentioned in the show.

[Twig]

i feel you chris that FUCKING PIANO TINKLE is AGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[sclpls]

I like how the podcast started out like everyone had taken a bunch of sleeping pills and ramped up to ultimate grumpfest.

 

Also, I am with the cast on trailer soundtracks, but I'm also even grumpier than the cast because I thought the new Star Trek movie was not great, and that Beastie Boys thing was incredibly corny!

[DocRandal]

The outro is ripe for use in Wizard Jams.

[Granny Dragon]

  On 8/25/2016 at 8:35 PM, your name here said:

You actually skipped the hacking tutorial by putting in the code 0451. The game in no way ever tells you the code to this door.

 

In Human Revolution there's a similar door, but for that one the code is 1337.

There is a texture which contrians the code.

[eot]

I wonder if Multibowl could argue fair use if they only show short snippets of old games.

Mass Effect 3 had a slow piano + horn song.

[Ben X]

I don't think I've seen this mentioned before, but I've started to notice it on every 'cast: there's at least one Thumb who regularly sighs and yawns and grunts, seemingly into the microphone, while others are talking. Anyone else bothered by this? It has a weird peer pressure effect on me of suddenly finding what the talking Thumb is saying a bit dull.

[WickedCestus]

Based on the Japanese in "Hidden my game by mom", I assume that the poor translation is simply poor translation, since the JP title is grammatically OK (as far as my understanding goes). Plus, the poor translation makes the in-game hints quite difficult to parse! It's impossible to tell though, I guess, since the difference between "one person on a small team thinks their English is better than it is" and "let's just guess what the English might be and make it silly" is hard to perceive. A lot of the funniest Japanese people I've met like to use ridiculous English all the time as a joke even if they know better.

Love the game, thanks for introducing it to me.

[Claire Hosking]

I read research once that people enjoy plots more if they know them ahead of time (I guess this is except mysteries?), but I also hate spoilers in trailers even tho I'm pretty tolerant of them elsewhere. I think it's because I can handle a whole discussion b/c there's a reason and payoff, but just an isolated clip that reveals a plotpoint for no good reason feels frustratingly pointless.

[Vasari]

I can't stand the slow piano trailers. They all sound like they're ripping off the Halo 3 announcement trailer. 

[SuperBiasedMan]

I think spoilers in trailers are particularly bad because it's the equivalent of having a conversation where someone is just trying to tell you all the best bits from the film, rather than having an interesting conversation that also involves details of the movie.

[plasticflesh]

  On 8/25/2016 at 11:55 PM, kickinthehead said:

Post outro trailer trope mashup was hilarious!

 

Back in April when slow piano tinkle was at its peak, Argobot suggested mashing up the piano tinkle music between the offending trailers and I made this

 

 

 

Wow Kickinthehead this is incredible! This really highlights the nostalgia hook element of the piano tinkle. Because those melodies (Ghost Busters, Star Wars, Jurassic Park) have been in pop culture for decades, inevitably they become the first songs we try and learn on piano, slowly feeling out the themes note by note. To me, that is the feeling those specific three trailers evoke and manipulate. I now vaguely recall enjoying the piano tinkle in these trailers, for resonating with the memory of trying to perform them on piano.

 

To a professional musician, I can see how piano tinkle is low effort submission. It is such a sketch, such a preset.