Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Feb 14, 2017

 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 

452 comments

Unfit for XCOMmand CH4: Driving Prince

By Rutskarn Posted Wednesday Feb 8, 2017

Filed under: Lets Play 47 comments

 Unfit for XCOMmand CH3: Regroup and ReallocatePrevious Post

Next PostRuts Plays: Reader Survey 

Today Fisher was handed his release papers from Avenger County Hospital–along with a puppy sticker, a shotgun, and orders to jump over East Asia into an active massacre. Turns out Rebel City’s being hit by Advent stormtroopers, and if we burn every cloud between here and there we might just save a few of the poor bastards camped out there.

I’ve managed to pick the distress frequencies up on my hospital monitor since we crossed the NFZ. I’m not supposed to, but I am the last great hope of humanity, so the medics don’t actually slap the thing out of my hand. After a few minutes of screaming and booming I kinda wish someone would.

I’d been wondering why those two new rookies decided to sign up with XCOM, even though we’ve lost so many folks, but I guess the wailing speaker gives me a hint. There’s just nowhere safe to stand in this resistance. You sit up straight, you’re gonna be in the aliens’ sights sooner or later–and at least if you join the rank and file you get a gun to shoot back.

I really don’t have it in me to regret signing up for this shindig. I mean, I’m an American; I used to have some ordinance that makes XCOM munitions look like a polite suggestion. I would’ve locked and loaded and got on the bus if the aliens had taken over a Burger King in Tallahassee, let alone the whole world, let alone the whole free world. Honestly, I mean hand to God, I sort of figured all this was gonna happen. I mean, I didn’t know it was gonna be aliens–but I didn’t know it was gonna be not aliens, know what I mean?

But the thing is–that’s just me. Now I’ve seen two ops go south, and I’ve listened to a lot of folks die on radios, and not for myself, but for all those people in Rebel City, I find myself hoping we find some down-and-dirty on these aliens real soon. Find out they were gonna kill us all or fry our atmosphere or turn us all into toilet paper. We better find out they’re up to something real bad, or I’m gonna have trouble looking in the mirror for the rest of my very short life.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Unfit for XCOMmand CH4: Driving Prince”

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.