GDC 2012: The Death of Nick Breckon

[Jake]

WHOA GDC OH MAN GUYS

The Idle Thumbs Conf Grenade 2012: The Death of Nick Breckon

Idle Thumbs starts to wake up, both literally and figuratively, with our first special episode from the first day of GDC 2012. We attended some sessions, we played some games, and we made up excuses to talk about all sorts of things together for the first time in years. With special guests all of us, and all of you. Support our Kickstarter campaign: http://idlethumbs.net/kickstarter

Things Discussed: GDC Indie Games Summit, Atom Zombie Smasher, Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure, Grim Fandango, Will Wright, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, QWOP, DOTA 2, StarCraft II, Super Black Bass, Super Metroid, Major Havoc, Syndicate (SNES), SimEarth, Kane & Lich

Download through iTunes

Even the RSS is updated!

[Nappi]

RIP Nick.

[elmuerte]

Hurray for us

[subbes]

In the end, it turns out the entire Idle Thumbs Kickstarter was just an elaborate "viral" front for Steve's upcoming indie thing.

[pabosher]

I got back to my room ready to read another 20/30 pages about Socialism, Communism and the idea of a 'Soviet family' in the early 1960s. Then I saw this and listened whilst playing Blitz games on facebook.

I hate/love you all.

[Henroid]

I cannot tell you guys how pleased I was to hear that discussion about Super Metroid. It also kinda opened my eyes to how much I've taken the game for granted.

I've played the game at least once every year since it's come out. I've got the game nailed down to like 40 minutes of gameplay with 100% items (I am ridiculous). So there's a lot of rooms that I just see glimpses of, and there's rooms I never even go through.

I haven't played it that way since the first time mind you, but when all of the visuals and layout of the game became routine, I switched over into "dominate this game now."

[Throaty Timbre]

Vanaman didn't do too bad at Dota 2. I had a great time playing with Lich. If you have Dota 2 you can download the replay and watch him with the match ID in my image link.

Also great to hear a reference to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. One of my favorite books.

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/469737224495112620/637106BB894B1EA5E88FA5E8D8FFB02A05AAE115/

[RichardPuncher]

With all the Dota2 talk I'm surprised no one mentioned the shitty wizard since dota has a good shitty wizard reference(or at least it did).

[toblix]

Yeah, I'm now super excited about Super Metroid! I've always heard people talking about it, and referencing it as inspiration for so many games (and genres). I really like the exploration/unlocking gameplay style of games like Shadow Complex, so it'll be interesting to see from whence it came.

[barichnikov]

Excellent episode! Good to have the thumbs back in a full episode, and with an all-star crew!

About that dota2 comment, on how some heroes are super epic and some others are really like lame joke, i think it's pretty clear that since this game came from War3, the modders just took anything they could from the engine, and spawned almost one hero for each model.

Also, it's weird that Valve is keeping the UT announcer voice in there. These sounds were clearly used at first because those dudes needed some sound clips in their mods, but at this point... isn't it really out of character for the rest of the game? I wouldn't really care, but in some way, this game takes itself pretty seriously in many respects, I would expect it to be a little more coherent for those voices too.

I love that game though. I recently got into it, and played some baby heroes (gankers, mostly Spirit Breaker). I'm getting better, and I'd love to meet y'all in the idle thumbs channel or something. It'd be sweet.

Keep on the awesome casts. I want more. :tup::tup:

[Winks]

I'd love more Super Black Bass discussion. It seems like my dad was pretty similar to Famous's, so I spend a ton of time with the NES Black Bass as a kid.

[Roderick]

I loved hearing the bits about Starcraft 2, I just love it in Mein Confgrenade!

[Korax]

So now there's F. Nick Breckon and Death Nick Breckon. We need to identify the third one.

[Lu]

I. M. Nick Breckon, my sources tell me.

[Henroid]

And I'm Nick Breckon.

[Orv]

Breckon.I.Am.? Soon to be hit lead vocalist of the Congrats Nick Breckons.

[Hermie]

I have so many things to do this week but all I really want to do is make a Wizard N'Gai photoshop.

[DanJW]

Mn'kbr'kn

[mikemariano]

It's yet another episode in which I get to feel old!

Remo talks about playing Thief in high school, a game that missed my high school years by months/a year/years?

[Sully907]

Great to have Nick back for a good ol fashioned pod blast! Also, Congrats Nick. Phaedrus

[elmuerte]

I think I spend more time on games when I was at the university then when I was at highschool.

[Korax]

I. M. Nick Breckon, my sources tell me.

I should have been able to come up with that. The only logical reason I didn't is that you have some sort of nefarious psychic mind-drain on me. UNHAND MY BRAIN!

[Coods]

I started playing Grim Fandango after this podcast. Awesome stuff.

[Brannigan]

I started playing Grim Fandango after this podcast. Awesome stuff.

I tried to play it a little while ago, turns out the kid me who enjoyed adventure games died off at some point. It's sad because I love everything about Grim Fandango except actually playing it.

[Coods]

I tried to play it a little while ago, turns out the kid me who enjoyed adventure games died off at some point. It's sad because I love everything about Grim Fandango except actually playing it.

Yeah, it'd be really nice to play Grim Fandango without being forced to stop playing because you're literally stumped like Chris in the podcast. I've gotten to the petrified forest part with no major roadblocks so far.

Opening the tube-machine threw me for a loop though.