Twenty Sided

By Rutskarn Posted Wednesday Feb 15, 2017

Filed under: Lets Play 123 comments

 Unfit for XCOMmand CH4: Driving PrincePrevious Post

Next PostUnfit for XCOMmand Finale: After the Black Site 

I took the night off for Valentine’s DayActually, I’ve worked on something for Patreon backers, but the point is I took it more off than usual., but since by its nature my little tango through XCOM could snag a rug and eat floorboard any second, I figure it’s prudent to start priming the next project. I’m not going to ask for game suggestions exactly–I think I’ve got a pretty tight list–but I do have a more abstract question I’d like you all to weigh in on.

You may have noticed that I’ve got two speeds:

LP where I’m writing from the perspective of the central characters and create a narrative one-to-one inspired by my playthrough, such as Half Time, and
LP where I’m writing from my own perspective, playing tour guide to a game that’s in some way fundamentally twisted, such as Battlespire.

I’ve had little success merging the two, and think at this point I’m most comfortable with one or the other. But I don’t know which you prefer.

Does one of my house styles work better for you? Do you like or dislike both? Chime in below and I’ll bear that in mind picking the next game.

Rutskarn is a writer, author, wordsmith, text producer, article deviser, prose architect, and accredited language-talker. If you enjoy his contributions to this site you could always back his Patreon.

 Unfit for XCOMmand CH4: Driving PrincePrevious Post

Next PostUnfit for XCOMmand Finale: After the Black Site 

123 comments

Pseudoku: Understanding the Game

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Feb 14, 2017

Filed under: Programming 90 comments

 Pseudoku: Feedback to the FeedbackPrevious Post

Next PostPseudoku: Steam Greenlight Trailer 

There’s an old saying that programmers use to explain why you can’t use programming to solve particular problems: “You can’t write a program to do anything you don’t know how to do yourself.” The saying is used less these days now that most adults get what sorts of things computers can and can’t do, but back in the day you needed this for the not-yet-middle-aged baby boomers who thought of these new computer gadgets as magical thinking boxesTo be fair to the boomers: People in popular culture were REALLY bad at explaining them, and the movies of the day were full of nonsense dressed up to sound like computer science.. You needed a way to explain why you couldn’t just write a program to solve a crime, cure cancer, predict the stock market, or whatever it is they wanted a computer to figure out for them.

Writing a program to do something you don’t know how to do is impossible for the same reason that it’s impossible to give someone driving directions to a location you can’t personally find.

But the really goofy problems to solve are the ones where you only think you know how to do something, but really don’t. Or you do know how to do it, but not how to explain it.

Playing Sudoku turned out to be one of the latter types of problems.

Let’s jump back in time to January of 2016 when I was working on Pseudoku… Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Pseudoku: Understanding the Game”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Pseudoku: Feedback to the FeedbackPrevious Post

Next PostPseudoku: Steam Greenlight Trailer 

90 comments

Diecast #188: Happy Anniversary

By Shamus Posted Monday Feb 13, 2017

Filed under: Diecast 78 comments

 Diecast #187: Husk, Borderlands, Sims 4Previous Post

Next PostDiecast #189: Let's Plays, Skype, Steam Greenlight 

Direct download (MP3)
Direct download (ogg Vorbis)
Podcast RSS feed.

Hosts: Josh, Glitch, Campster, and Baychel.

The Diecast is now four years old. In celebration of this, Josh takes us back to our roots and makes the conversation a freeform ramble. Thanks to Glitch for joining in while we were short-handed.

13:45: For Honor DLC

Josh streamed the game last week. The archive will go up on YouTube later this week.

28:00: Bay’s Book, and everyone’s creative projects.

Bay’s Deviant Art page is here, although she’s barely uploaded any content. I know she’s done hundreds of drawings over the years, and she hasn’t uploaded any of my favorites.

43:00: Steam Greenlight

It’s a shame I couldn’t make it this week. I’m putting the finishing touches on a game right now. I don’t have a lot of money to risk on putting it up on the store. I have no idea how many sales I might get, so I can’t count on making my money back. The new system supposedly rolls out in April, but they have no indication on what the new pricing structure will be. Should I rush to get my game out under the old system, or take time and wait for the new? I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Maybe we’ll talk more about this next week.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Diecast #187: Husk, Borderlands, Sims 4Previous Post

Next PostDiecast #189: Let's Plays, Skype, Steam Greenlight 

78 comments

Messages From Spammers Pt 3

By Shamus Posted Sunday Feb 12, 2017

Filed under: Random 73 comments

 Messages from Spammers Pt. 2Previous Post

Next PostMessages From Spammers Pt 4 

I’ve tried embarrassing the spammers by criticizing their work. I’ve tried offering constructive criticism. And yet they just keep sending the same broken pointless messages. It’s so strange. It’s almost as if they don’t actually read my site.

Well, let’s try again:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Messages From Spammers Pt 3”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Messages from Spammers Pt. 2Previous Post

Next PostMessages From Spammers Pt 4 

73 comments

Impromptu Hangout: For Honor — It’s Over!

By Josh Posted Friday Feb 10, 2017

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 58 comments

 Until Dawn EP21: Wendigo is Wendigone!Previous Post

Next PostHangout: For Honor 

So we decided to do a stream! And it’s Ubisoft’s man-slashing For Honor beta! Complete with peer-to-peer server problems! Check it out!

Thanks for everyone who tuned in, it was lots of fun. Especially after the game crashed.

Josh Viel is the primary editor and producer of the Spoiler Warning video series. You can support the show by backing the Patreon.

 Until Dawn EP21: Wendigo is Wendigone!Previous Post

Next PostHangout: For Honor 

58 comments

Game of Thrones Griping 3: The Gitchy Feeling

By Bob Case Posted Friday Feb 10, 2017

Filed under: Game of Thrones 161 comments

 Game of Thrones Griping 2: Completely BonkersPrevious Post

Next PostGame of Thrones Griping 4: The Gospel of Jon 

This series analyzes the show, but sometimes references the books as well. If you read it, expect spoilers for both.

Last week we attempted to locate the “original sin” of the season five Winterfell storyline – the place where it all started to go wrong. My conclusion is that the whole thing never should’ve happened to begin with. From a character motivation standpoint, it was hopelessly broken from the word go. And yet as you’ll recall, the critical backlash centered not on the fact that none of it made any sense but that Sansa’s rape was some mixture of excessive and exploitative. My personal explanation for this centers around something I call the “gitchy feeling.”

The Gitchy Feeling

Check out Bone if you get the chance. It's a fun (though tragically short) comic.

The phrase itself comes from an oldBy “old,” I mean nineties-era. You know, old. comic book called Bone. I briefly attempted to be a comic book nerd in the fifth grade – it never really took, but I did enjoy Bone, which had an art style and sensibility something like Walt Kelly’s Pogo, another favorite of mine. One of the characters in it is Gran’ma Ben, a salt-of-the-earth homesteader type who sometimes gets the “gitchy feeling,” an omen of bad things to come.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Game of Thrones Griping 3: The Gitchy Feeling”

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.

 Game of Thrones Griping 2: Completely BonkersPrevious Post

Next PostGame of Thrones Griping 4: The Gospel of Jon 

161 comments

Arkham City Part 3: A Difficult Discussion on Difficulty

By Shamus Posted Thursday Feb 9, 2017

Filed under: Batman 452 comments

 Arkham City Part 2: The Dark Fight ReturnsPrevious Post

Next PostArkham City Part 4: Dark Souls vs. The Dark Knight 

For a long time I’ve been wanting to contrast Batman with Dark Souls. But every time I get into it I realize we’re just going to end up having the same frustrating arguments that always arise whenever someone mentions Dark Souls.

Dark Souls is famous for being “hard”. But then some people will insist, with a straight face, that Dark Souls is “Not that hard” and someone else says the game is “Tough but fair” and someone else says it’s not hard because videogame torture devices like I Wanna Be The Guy exist. Still other people use Dark Souls as a universal metaphor of arduous challenge. As in: “Ghost Peppers are the Dark Souls of spicy food.”

On top of this is the judgemental attitudes people throw at each other over what difficulty level they play on. George Carlin once said:

Have you ever noticed when you’re driving that anyone who’s driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac?

Anyone playing easier than you is a filthy casual noob and anyone playing the game harder than you is a masochistic tryhard.

The point is that some people are really particular about what difficulty levels other people should play on, and so every discussion on what difficulty is ends up getting sidetracked into this side-argument on the “intended experience” and “the right way to play”.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Arkham City Part 3: A Difficult Discussion on Difficulty”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

 Arkham City Part 2: The Dark Fight ReturnsPrevious Post

Next PostArkham City Part 4: Dark Souls vs. The Dark Knight 

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