T w e n t y S i d e d

Has the meaning of “poser” migrated? My memory of it was that it meant “faker” or “impostor”. But here Max walks up to the skater guy and strikes up a conversation. She makes no effort to pretend she knows anything about skateboarding, but he calls her a poser anyway. (Technically she’s a poser AFTER she rewinds time and uses some fresh lingo to bluff her way through the conversation.) He seems to be using the word to mean “lame”. I dunno. It’s been a quarter century since I heard “poser” used as a derogatory term, and I can imagine usage has changed.

Also, I brought up the game Bully in this episode. Eleven years ago, Rockstar took a break from making open world games about car theft and murder to make this small, focused little game about one boy at a private school. I remember really enjoying it. I liked the non-lethal combat that ended fights by stuffing foes in lockers or garbage cans. I liked how each student character model had a specific name and identity, as opposed to filling out the school grounds with generic nameless clones. I loved the school itself. It wasn’t perfect or anything, but I’m sad the game seems to have been forgotten. It felt like a solid prototype for a much better game. Too bad Rockstar doesn’t seem inclined to revisit the idea.

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.

To repeat my rant: If you’re a teacher and you make kids stay in your class when they say they’re sick, then you’re an asshole. A villain. Kids are human beings. They have pain and discomfort just like us big people. They also have a lot less coping mechanisms for dealing with discomfort. One stupid class session is not more important than their suffering. Making a kid stay when they ask to be excused is a great way to end up with blood, feces, urine, or vomit in your classroom, which isn’t going to improve anyone’s educational experience. Also, on top of making a kid suffer you’ve also given them an intensely humiliating experience that they will carry around for the rest of their lives.

Moreover, if a kid is trying to get out of class then they have already mentally checked out. You can make them stay, but you can’t make them learn. Refusing to let a kid use the bathroom is all downside. You monster.

Part of my problem was that I was really incompetent socially. There’s a certain performance of body language that we expect from people who are sick. It’s reflected in face, posture, and tone of voice. I don’t know if it’s something we learn from adults or if it just comes naturally for most people, but I apparently never got the memo and didn’t know how to “act” sick, even when I was sick. I’d just walk to the front of the room and state my problem, which would get me flagged as a faker. So once in a while I’d have one of those teachers that decided their dumb bullshit needed to be the center of my life and would send me back to my seat when I asked to be excused.

Well, that’s been bugging me for 35 years. Glad to finally get that off my chest. I feel like we’ve made some good progress here today.

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.

I know I’ve mentioned this in the past, but it bears repeating for new-ish viewers: Choosing a game to cover on this show is a complex process..

1. We want a game a majority of us have played and have something to say about it. If we made it a rule that EVERYONE has played a game, then we’d be limiting ourselves to just a narrow band of ubiquitous AAA games. Our tastes are diverse enough that it’s very unlikely we’re all going to play the same experimental arthouse project.
2. It needs to be a game that none of us will “veto” for whatever reason. I know we have a reputation for being kind of negative, but we actually do a lot to avoid overdosing on negativity. If we didn’t, then every season would be Hitman: Absolution.
3. It needs to provide a regular supply of conversation stimulus. For example, the likes of Diablo II, Neverwinter Nights, and Borderlands might be popular and historically significant, but those games have long stretches where the player just goes through the same gameplay loop with very little variation. That’s fun if you’re the one playing, but if we’re trying to provide fan commentary it leaves us without stuff to talk about. Then the show turns into a podcast with more interruptions and cross-talk. We already do a podcast, so we don’t need that.
4. It needs to work with our existing technology setup, which means modern-ish PC or PS4 only.
5. It needs to be a game the audience will care about. I suppose this one ought to be higher on the list.

We usually start talking about the “next game” as we get down to the end of the current season, and it often takes us a few weeks to hammer this out.

Sometimes we end up with a game that’s a great fit for the rest of the team but not something I have a lot to say about. But no problem, right? I can just shut up and let everyone else comment. That’s good for the show. I actually like this because when I talk less it usually gets Chris to talk more, and I’d rather hear Chris than me.

However…

I’m the one that writes these blog posts, and I have almost nothing to say about Life is Strange. I don’t have any strong opinions on it. I don’t love or hate any part of it with any noteworthy level of passion. So I dunno what I’m going to talk about in this space.

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.