Idle Thumbs 93: Babywall the Horse Armor

[melmer]

You know what i've just realised!! Gaben is Gabe N for Gabe Newell. fuck me i'm dense

[melmer]

My irrational hated for a video game character... Sweet tooth

I do not want to play your game

(scarily i got that image from a 25 Coolest Video game Characters list )

[CathodeRayTube]

I'd really like to hear an update on Sean's Little Inferno game when he finishes it. It takes a bit of a weird left turn at the end.

[OssK]

If you want technical details on how Valve is making Piston for Steam, please refer to this link

[OssK]

I cannot, I CAN NOT unmake the appearance of the following image in my head when you talk about LBJ.

Yes, to my sick brains, LBJ is in fact EL BJ, a mexican, sex themed super hero...

[Luftmensch]

That's a badass steam engine and I want to install it on my boat.

[Chris]

  On 2/8/2013 at 2:29 PM, Mington said:

My irrational hated for a video game character... Sweet tooth

That is fully rational

[tilde]

When I saw the title I knew this episode was going to be good. I've had to take a couple breaks so I don't look crazy in front of my coworkers.

Unrelated question, how reliable have the SimCity central servers been? There was one blogger complaining about it on kotaku, but I was wondering if you guys have experienced any problems with the "always on" DRM.

[Chris]

  On 2/8/2013 at 5:27 PM, tilde said:

When I saw the title I knew this episode was going to be good. I've had to take a couple breaks so I don't look crazy in front of my coworkers.

Unrelated question, how reliable have the SimCity central servers been? There was one blogger complaining about it on kotaku, but I was wondering if you guys have experienced any problems with the "always on" DRM.

The beta was only open for two days, so it's tough to get a sense of it. It looks like the beta will be back in a week or so though.

[Badfinger]

It was down or extremely intermittent for a period of more than 6 hours on that Saturday.

Important to remember that it was a closed beta/stress test, and also the game wasn't gold yet.

[mike]

Sean, let's talk about Joe Montana!

[seasleepy]

It's really weird to me how very under-the-radar Little Inferno has been (at least in my corners of the internet). I got it over the Christmas break and really enjoyed it and then there was nobody to talk to about it and I was sad. So I was happy to hear you guys explain the history of video games in the cast this week!

  Reveal hidden contents

The thing I find most interesting about the game is how not judgmental it is in the end, given all the other themes present. It would be tremendously easy to take the game to where the final message is "Video games are confections people use to distract themselves from the world around them, and these specific types of time-waiting games are specifically designed to burn your time and money, and corporations will happily take advantage of this and make themselves rich on that knowledge, and they will ultimately ruin your life and the world, and you just spent however long you played this proving that, you poor socially-malajusted person." (And what chatter I have seen about this online from people who haven't played it mostly assumes that this is the ultimate message.)

But then it doesn't at all. Instead it goes, "Look, we know, video games are fun! They are supposed to be fun! They're designed to be fun! You are not a bad person for finding them enjoyable! There are lots of rad things to do in the world though, and you only have so much time. So make the most of it." Which is such a refreshing and positive message that simultaneously doesn't invalidate any of the other more negative themes present throughout the game.

I just thought it was super interesting and neat.

[melmer]

Little inferno isn't in the uk top hundred paid app. The app icon and in game screenshots on the app page are really boring. They're probably doing themselfs a disservice. The beautiful fire effects that Sean spoke of... Not in the Screenshots

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/little-inferno/id590250573?mt=8

Edit. Sorry fire is in the screenshots

Why isn't there video trailers in the App Store?

[feelthedarkness]

I don't have a tablet. Will I be missing something special by playing on steam? I guess that sounds a little odd, but I couldn't imagine playing Super Meat Boy or Ray Man Origins with WASD.

[Chris]

  On 2/9/2013 at 12:45 AM, feelthedarkness said:

I don't have a tablet. Will I be missing something special by playing on steam? I guess that sounds a little odd, but I couldn't imagine playing Super Meat Boy or Ray Man Origins with WASD.

I haven't played it myself but I sat with Sean for a while as he played it, and I can't imagine you'd lose much on a per-platform basis. The interaction is really simple and doesn't rely on reflex-dependent precision.

[Luftmensch]

  On 2/9/2013 at 12:45 AM, feelthedarkness said:

I don't have a tablet. Will I be missing something special by playing on steam? I guess that sounds a little odd, but I couldn't imagine playing Super Meat Boy or Ray Man Origins with WASD.

I hate playing 2D platformers with an analog stick so I can't imagine it the other way. It did kind of piss me off that, even though there's a config file and you can totally just change it if you want, Team Meat still decided "How about instead of putting in an options menu, let's just make the loading screens admonish players for not having a game pad?" Then to add injury to insult, they made the default keyboard controls the most uncomfortable contorted hand position.

[CaptainFish]

I played Super Meat Boy with a keyboard and Rayman Origins with an arcade stick and never looked back.

I found the Rayman discussion strange, because aren't all cartoon depictions missing physical features almost by definition? I just took it as how they drew humans in that setting. In Rayman 1 everything had that style from the fairy that gave you powers to the various enemies and bosses. I guess I'd think of Rayman as a weird 'not man' if he were unique in his design in that game, it wasn't a cartoony style *or* if he was animated using his appendages in non human ways (throwing his head at enemies rather than winding up and throwing punches). I will admit he stands out a lot more in Origins.

I struggle to see why it would put someone off a game, but then again I'm used to other stuff like Vectorman, Plok and Ballz, which are probably a lot weirder. Also a lot of older games liked to use nearby collection of disparate parts/orbs to make up their character design anyway.

[seasleepy]

  On 2/9/2013 at 12:45 AM, feelthedarkness said:

I don't have a tablet. Will I be missing something special by playing on steam? I guess that sounds a little odd, but I couldn't imagine playing Super Meat Boy or Ray Man Origins with WASD.

I played it on Steam -- it works fine. You just use the mouse. I think it fits well thematically on a tablet, but there's not really anything you lose by playing it on PC as far as I could tell.

[sclpls]

Man, I hated how the controls were implemented for the PC port of Sword & Sworcery.

On the other hand, I love playing Waking Mars with a Game Pad even if navigating the menu kind of sucks.

[Luftmensch]

Well, there was a keyboard input option for S&S, which worked fine but it felt kind of disconnected from the rest of the experience. The on-screen controls were unusable.

[thestalkinghead]

DLC that was clearly just taken out of the game = Mass Effect 3 prothean that is what annoys me, also DLC that effects the story annoys me because is makes the game you have incomplete, imagine if you bought a book and loved it, then later the author added another chapter in the middle of the story and then said there would be more to come, that would put you in a position of never knowing if you have ever got the full story and also not allow you to fill in gaps yourself because you may get that story later and it may contradict your imagination, maybe that makes it easier to understand why DLC annoys me

also DLC always punishes people that buy the game when it comes out (and funds that DLC) because they have to buy DLC separately with no package deals, i would be much happier about DLC if you got if free with the purchase of the game (not a separate and expensive season pass) but the story effecting DLC would still be a problem.

but basically i would prefer a complete game with a beginning, middle and an end then just leave the game alone and make a new game, not keep adding bits to the game that turns your complete game into an incomplete game unless you want to pay more for it to be complete.

[melmer]

The prothean DLC in Mass Effect 3 and Catwoman DLC in Arkham city comes free with the game if you buy them new. It's just a way of making money out of people who buy the games second hand.

I actually rented both titles and bought both DLC's and i didn't have a problem with it. I should've really purchased both games because I knew they'd be amongst the best games of the year and I'd get a lot of enjoyment out of them. (Actually mass effect was complete garbage and I quit it after 14 hours, but luckily I played through the DLC mission I had purchased in that time)

[Brannigan]

Prothean was extra unless you bought deluxe or whatever it was called.

[thestalkinghead]

  On 2/9/2013 at 2:13 PM, Mington said:

The prothean DLC in Mass Effect 3 and Catwoman DLC in Arkham city comes free with the game if you buy them new. It's just a way of making money out of people who buy the games second hand.

I actually rented both titles and bought both DLC's and i didn't have a problem with it. I should've really purchased both games because I knew they'd be amongst the best games of the year and I'd get a lot of enjoyment out of them. (Actually mass effect was complete garbage and I quit it after 14 hours, but luckily I played through the DLC mission I had purchased in that time)

i dont know maybe the prothean DLC comes free with the game now but it didn't when it came out, it was either with a pre order package or you had to buy it separately, and i think it is the same for the catwoman DLC

[melmer]

My bad about Prothean. I'm pretty sure Catwoman came with every new purchase... Maybe that was a timed thing and if you buy it now it doesn't come with it.

Either way I totally agree with you on withholding story content as DLC, although I think it does depend on how it's handled.

The grand theft auto episodes and minerva's den is what story DLC should be. completely separate stand alone stories (I guess that's what minerva's den is I haven't played it) these stories can run parallel and insect the main narrative that's fine, enriching the oringinal narrative, giving you a different view point on it.

I think ultimately if you feel like you are missing some part of the story then that's the worst as it overshadows your whole experience.

I played through Mass Effect 2 without the DLC character and didn't feel like I missed anything, in fact I didn't even know about it until my friend started describing his time with the game. Similarly the prince of presia 2008 had a prequel DLC which was core story, but again I didn't feel like I had missed anything.