Diecast #341: THEY ARE BILLIONS, Valheim

By Shamus Posted Monday Apr 26, 2021

Filed under: Diecast 71 comments

Heads up: As of publishing, the YouTube version of the podcast is set to private. Paul’s in charge of that, so I can’t do anything about it on my end. I’m just bringing this up so I don’t get fifty comments telling me about a problem I can’t fix. I’m sure Paul mis-clicked and he’ll fix it when he’s available.

EDIT: It’s fixed now. Paul published the video after midnight, and thus made the classic off-by-one blunder with the publishing date. As the guy who regularly publishes the entire article to the front page and fails to learn from his mistake, I find myself with very little room to criticize.



Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast341

Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #341: THEY ARE BILLIONS, Valheim”

 


 

Eh! Steve! Game Engines and Meta

By Shamus Posted Friday Apr 23, 2021

Filed under: Diecast 23 comments

Chris and I have been trying to make this happen for a couple of months, and this week finally pulled it off. If you were missing my droning voice for lack of a Diecast this week, then check out the Eh! Steve podcast where we talk about Capcom’s engine and games with an evolving meta-game.

That was fun.

This podcast is an hour and forty minutes long, and we only covered two topics. That might sound like overkill, but in reality I think we could have given either topic more time. I forgot how much more discussion there is when you have more than two people.

 


 

Factorio Part 1: The Story

By Shamus Posted Thursday Apr 22, 2021

Filed under: Retrospectives 93 comments

Yes. This is what we’re doing. I’m going to do a “retrospective” on Factorio. Rather than complaining about games that frustrate me, I want to talk about a game I love. Also, I want to somehow justify the two-week binge I just went through and this seems like the path of least resistance.

Is this a bad idea? Probably.

Factorio is part of a small list of games that remain evergreen for me. Like Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program, I can come back to Factorio again and again and find something new and interesting each time. Sometimes the novelty comes from mods, and other times it comes from self-imposed challenges or goals. You can learn the basics in a few minutes, and then you can spend years puzzling over all the layers of complexity that the game has to offer.

My reviews tend to be very narrative-focused, so let’s go over that stuff first.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Factorio Part 1: The Story”

 


 

Diecast Unplugged #5: Voxel Tycoon and Windows Update

By Shamus Posted Monday Apr 19, 2021

Filed under: Diecast 94 comments

No Diecast this week. Although if things go to plan, I’ll be on the Eh! Steve! podcast later this week. Chris and I have been trying to make this happen for over a month now, but scheduling conflicts have gotten in the way.

Anyway, here are some topics I was going to talk about on the show…

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast Unplugged #5: Voxel Tycoon and Windows Update”

 


 

This Week I Played (April 2021)

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Apr 13, 2021

Filed under: TWIP 199 comments

Factorio. I played Factorio. A reasonable person could say that perhaps I played too much Factorio. I don’t know. I’m not a reasonable person and I don’t have time to argue about it because I’m too busy trying to scale up my power plant and solve the traffic jams my trains keep creating.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Week I Played (April 2021)”

 


 

Diecast #340: YouTube Killed the Video Star

By Shamus Posted Monday Apr 12, 2021

Filed under: Diecast 87 comments

Here is another podcast for you to enjoy while cowering indoors and waiting for the current mess to blow over. Or I suppose you could enjoy it while jogging. Or at work. Or during class. Or at a funeral. Whatever. Do what you like. I’m not the boss of you.



Hosts: Paul, Shamus. Episode edited by Issac.
Diecast340


Link (YouTube)

Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #340: YouTube Killed the Video Star”

 


 

Being Okay in the Age of COVID

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Apr 6, 2021

Filed under: Column 87 comments

I’ve been taking walks lately, trying to make sure I get enough exercise to keep my hypertension at bay. I hate walking for its own sake, but I’ve found I can stimulate the “getting things done” part of my brain if I can turn the walk into an errand. There’s a store about a fifteen minute walk from here, so every day I look around the house, find some random household item we’re low on, and then hike to the store and buy it. 

Technically the errand is pointless. If we’re low on obscure and rarely-used item, then I don’t really need to hike to the store to buy more. I could simply add it to the shopping list and we’d get it with the weekly groceries. Walking to the store for a single item is a silly ritual, but it really does help motivate me. My overall goal is “keep my heart in shape so I don’t die”. That’s a very long-term goal where progress is measured over the course of months or even years. It’s a bit demoralizing to get home from a walk all tired and out of breath, flop down in my chair, and realize I just made 0.001% progress towards my goal. Being able to come home and say, “Hey, we were out of cumin but I took care of it,” is far more rewarding. I wonder what the cashier thinks of the odd man that comes in every morning to do his grocery shopping one item at a time. 

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Being Okay in the Age of COVID”