Quaro
4801
Just listened a few Roguelike Radio episodes from the past that covered the games I knew. Awesome. This is a great show for anyone interested in game design in general not just roguelikes.
This podcast deserves a bigger audience. I’d love to them hook up with Idle Thumbs or something. At the very least it would give them a free forum to talk with other roguelike players.
I had some problems with Roguelike Radio. I listened to a few episodes a while back (the Diablo one and another about coffeebreak roguelikes were two of them). While the theme is obviously a very good vehicle for discussion and the cast seems pretty good, I found it had the elitist, BS forum-y one liners turned up to 11 at times. The bit about almost entirely abstract gameplay no mattering if the core mechanics are there had me rolling my eyes a couple of times.
Quaro
4803
The Diablo episode had some of that, I agree, but I haven’t felt that way about the others I sampled. And I totally expected a podcast devoted to roguelikes to be elitist on Diablo =)
Speaking of roguelikes, Simon Ferrari just posted (a week ago) the first episode of his new podcast, The Review, co-hosted by Charles Pratt. I love the format – 30 minutes, one focused topic, and two interesting guys discussing. Hope they manage to keep it going. Would love to see more of this!
The first episode: Spelunky.
Yeah, I listened to a handful of them, starting with the Permadeath one, but I also found them to be rather too elitist at times, coming to a head in the Diablo episode. I also found it odd that they bothered to talk about it, given that all of them admitted they hadn’t played it very much, if at all. I understand the desire to cover it because of the Diablo 3 release, but trying to talk in detail about a game you haven’t played is a big waste of the listener’s time.
My bigger problem is that the presentation is just so dry, it’s hard to get excited to listen to it. Also, moreso than even being elitist, I think that some of their guests / panelists / whatever have very strong personal opinions on certain mechanics and don’t really try to see the value in alternatives, which is something that bothers me in a critical discussion. They also too frequently get into tedious definitions arguments about “is this a rogue-like”, which I also find pretty boring. I think it’s probably off my listen list unless a particularly interesting topic comes up.
On No High Scores, Jumping the Shark host (and Qt3 member) Bill Abner – who recently left GameShark – announces his new job:
I have been hired as the new Director of Conquistador Games. Taking the reigns of a shiny new boardgame company is an opportunity that I simply could not let pass by — and I’m being paid — that seems almost unfair. Conquistador is a brand new company and our first product, Road to Enlightenment, is about to ship and we have several prototypes in the hopper. I’m basically handling the day to day duties, some of it fun game stuff and some boring business stuff — but at the end of the day, I am steering the ship of a boardgame company which I have to tell you beats the shit out of worrying about if Game Company X sends us a review build on time.
Congrats Bill, and good luck!
Quaro
4807
I just listened to the interview with the Spec Ops writer on this newish gamespot podcast, pretty interesting.
Idle Thumbs is back with episode #65
As the dancing creature leaps out into the open night air, its rucksack billowing in the wind, you hear a metallic clank by your feet and look down. A gold-plated slide for your Tec-9. You remember the words of Anton Chekhov — “A gold gun part found behind a closet door in act one must be used to kill everyone, immediately” — pocket it and move on.
We’re back, again! Also, we have now become one: The podcast that is “Idle Thumbs” now includes the original 51 Idle Thumbs episodes as well as all 13 episodes of the Idle Thumbs Podcast, together under one roof. That’s why this is episode 65.
Games Discussed: Max Payne 3, Spec Ops: The Line, Armed Heroes Online, Torchlight II, Diablo III, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Far Cry 2
I’m so shocked I don’t know what to do with myself.
That’s very much appreciated.
–bill
Are you still going to do JtS?
Yep. Last two weeks I was unavailable.
Tony_M
4813
In the Borderlands thread Rock8man wrote:
Does anyone find their choice of game influenced by how well it pairs up with podcast listening? I’ve found myself playing more of Burnout Paradise lately, just because driving games work well while listening to a podcast.
Two parts of games that make me switch off the podcast are:
- Deep thought/strategy
My brain mutes the sound when I’m thinking hard, so I miss what the podcast is talking about.
- Great atmosphere or mood
If the game relies on atmosphere or mood (ie alot of my favorite games) then you don’t want a podcast ruining the experience.
I’m never going to stop playing deep games just because they interfere with podcasting. I’m just saying that some brain-lite games get more playtime than they used to just because they give me a second thing to do while I listen to a good podcast.
Tony
Quaro
4814
Getting kinda tired of the same ole podcasts and didn’t see much new stuff in this thread. Rather than look for recommendations I just googled for 10 minutes to see what came up. There are a LOT of podcasts out there. Here’s a few I sampled and a few I haven’t yet:
This podcast with this interview with Sheldon Pacotti, former Deus Ex writer, was cool: http://www.electrondance.com/who-is-sheldon-pacotti/
http://podcast.electrondance.com/PacottiInterview-20120226.mp3
The Game Engine. Not great but has a lot of tech focused episodes with discussion I haven’t really seen anywhere else.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheGameEngine
Immortal Machines. Fairly standard but decent. Keeping for now.
http://www.immortalmachines.com/?feed=podcast
Insert Credit.
The most hipsterist gaming podcast I have ever heard. I like the hosts though and I’d like to see the same hosts do a more standard podcast too.
http://www.actionbutton.com/secret/jaffe/insertcredit.xml
Sup Holmes. Solid interview based show. Quirky.
http://supholmes.libsyn.com/rss
No opinion yet, anyone heard of these?
Flap Jaw Space: http://feeds.feedburner.com/FlapJawSpace
The Loading Bar. Each ep seems to be a single review with different hosts.
http://feeds.spill.com/spill/loading-bar
Moving Pixels
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feeds/podcast-moving-pixels/
Twinfinite:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TwinfiniteSpoilercast
99 Coins. Looks like an indy show.
http://99coins.libsyn.com/rss
Thanks for reminding me about the Insert Credit podcast. I need to check it out. Those guys are self-obsessed, rude, and opinionated, but I could see that making for a pretty good podcast. I also like that it’s not just a rambling discussion of whatever, but they pick 10 topics to talk about for 6 minutes each.
Both Insert Credit and 99 Coins have turned out to be pretty great, and I’m pretty picky about my podcasts. The format for Insert Credit is the best thing about it, and the guys are funny too. And I’m sorry I said rude things about them earlier; they’re not that bad. Their worst quality is trying to show everyone how many obscure games they have played.
99 Coins is smart and well-put-together. Could be longer. Sometimes they spend too much of their time essentially asking the question “Why are indie games so great?”
Anyway, both are recommended.
Giving only examples of where they stumble, and no examples of why you like them save a vague mention of the format one of them follows, seems like a bad way to sell them to us. :)
Does anyone have the rss feed address for the Quarter to Three Podcasts? I realize there’s just one feed for both games and movies, but I’ll take it anyway I can get it.
The address I’d been using, http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/feed/podcast, hasn’t updated since 7/2/12. Thanks.
EDIT: Nevermind. The address is correct. Not sure why its not updating on my desktop, but it works fine on my laptop. Very odd.
Papageno
4819
Hooray, Jeff Green is on the latest Gamers with Jobs podcast!
Just wanted to share with you all the news that tabletop designer Dirk Knemeyer and I are collaborating on a new podcast, titled The Game Design Round Table. We now have two episodes up.
Episode #2 (the first one with real, meaty content) was just posted today. This week Dirk and I had fellow tabletop designer Rob Daviau on as a guest and we discussed a variety of topics from Risk: Legacy to running an indie studio to some design dissection of some of the games we’ve been playing lately.
You can also check out Episode #1, where Dirk and I provided an intro as to who we are, what we’ve done and what we’d like to get out of this project.
We’d love to get your guys’ feedback in case there are any aspects of the show you really enjoy and would like for us to build on, or would prefer us to handle differently.
