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Idle thumbs IS BACK (Kickstarter ended) -- Funded in 3 hours

C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Oh wow, on the topic of Steam - Chris,I just saw that you've played over a hundred hours of the binding of isaac... you have to talk about that game! I'm "only" at 9h played but the game is bloody amazing.
 
S

stupei

Member
POWERSPHERE said:
I thought there might be a time where they click, and the casts get awesome. That can happen.
Click to expand...

Episode 2 covers Jay Allard, Blizzcon, Gamer Grub, LittleBigPlanet, and third party console exclusivity's gradual disappearance as well as the angry fanboy reaction to that. Does that sound interesting to you? Then try listening to it.

I started listening at the Resident Evil 5 podblast, loved it, and so decided to go back and listen to the episode right before it. Then the one after that. Then eventually I went back and listened from the beginning and of all the early ones, episode 2 is my favorite.

Obviously they eventually hit their stride and improve as a podcast since that's what happens with literally every podcast, but it's difficult to pin down when that happens precisely since everyone has a different moment and once you like them even the oldest stuff is improved by context.
 
A

ArjanN

Member
Corky said:
Oh wow, on the topic of Steam - Chris,I just saw that you've played over a hundred hours of the binding of isaac... you have to talk about that game! I'm "only" at 9h played but the game is bloody amazing.
Click to expand...

I like how they laughed at the idea of going through a long list of all the games that came out in the mean time, not realizing that's actually what they're going to have to do.
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
Corky said:
Oh wow, on the topic of Steam - Chris,I just saw that you've played over a hundred hours of the binding of isaac... you have to talk about that game! I'm "only" at 9h played but the game is bloody amazing.
Click to expand...

Seriously - I love Binding of Isaac and Idle Thumbs would have been the perfect place to hear people talking about it.

Amazing how a massively successful indie game like Binding of Isaac, which has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, can go completely ignored on every single gaming podcast from Gamers With Jobs, to Rebel FM, to IGN podcasts, to Weekend Confirmed, to 1UP, and beyond.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
Scarecrow said:
Done and done. Hey, is there a way to cram the progresscasts on my ipod?
Click to expand...

the progress casts are mp4 files that can be downloaded using, as one example, the activity window in safari. I’m sure there are other extensions and such to do so in other browsers.

you should then be able to get the file onto the iPod without much trouble via iTunes.
 
C

Cohsae

Member
Corky said:
Oh wow, on the topic of Steam - Chris,I just saw that you've played over a hundred hours of the binding of isaac... you have to talk about that game! I'm "only" at 9h played but the game is bloody amazing.
Click to expand...

100 hours? Sweet fancy moses.
I'm also at about 9 hours, beat Mum for the first time a few playthroughs back. Didn't realise how much things change after that. Such an awesome game. The poop is a bit weird but hey sometimes you gotta have some poop I guess.
 
Scarecrow

Scarecrow

Member
LCfiner said:
the progress casts are mp4 files that can be downloaded using, as one example, the activity window in safari. I’m sure there are other extensions and such to do so in other browsers.

you should then be able to get the file onto the iPod without much trouble via iTunes.
Click to expand...

Any tips for Firefox?
 
G

Gomu Gomu

Member
Corky said:
100k soon :)

Congrats thumbs.
Click to expand...

Wow. When I first heard about the KS idea, I was so afraid they wouldn't hit the original $30k. So seeing this number makes me so happy. Can't imagine what those guys feel right now lol.

Also, I hope this doesn't cause any pressure on them. They were great in the first place because their casts were so relaxed and liberated from any other cast out there. Having this much money could generate some kind of pressure to feel the need of doing the podcast in a certain way or something like that. I hope not, though. And those progress casts are a sign of that.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
Phone went off saw it was from idle thumbs and got all excited there was a new cast out.
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Ifrit said:
Are progresscasts part of a regular future episode or standalone podblasts?
Click to expand...

From what I've understood, the progresscasts are there during the progress of this project with everything culminating in a ruinationcast and THEN after all this we're looking at the regular idle thumbs being up and running.

Confirmed?
 
L

LCfiner

Member
100K. That's one heck of a milestone and it really shows just how much the community believes in the Idle Thumbs guys to rock our socks off.

Congrats.
 
A

Akia

Member
poserdonut said:
Damn 100k, with 1800 backers. I wonder how large the listnership was for idle thumbs before they closed down last time.
Click to expand...

They must have had downloads in the tens of thousands before they closed down last year.

I think they need to publicize the Kickstarter better.
 
Z

Zeliard

Member
Akia said:
They must have had downloads in the tens of thousands before they closed down last year.

I think they need to publicize the Kickstarter better.
Click to expand...

That's how Kickstarters seem to work. It's a relatively small amount of contributors, with some of those throwing in large chunks of money due to the rewards system (and/or generosity).

Double Fine is at over 2.2 million but "only" has roughly 65k backers (averaging out to about $35 a person). Schafer's commented that if the number of people who backed the DF Kickstarter constituted the total sales for a game, it would be considered a huge flop. But through Kickstarter's "give what you want" rewards system, it tends to work quite effectively.

In Idle Thumbs' case they're getting an average of roughly $55/person, which is rather impressive.
 
M

MehsterChief

Member
I'm still overwhelmed by the mere thought that Idle Thumbs returns. I relisten to the old shows as some others here.

Today, I couldn't stop laughing when I listened to "Green Lantern is the Blindfolded Fool"

They talked about Tony Hawk peripherals. So absurd, yet so great. I'm looking forward to the horsebag discussion... ;)
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
New cast up!

In under a week we hit $100,000! And it is all thanks to you, the reader. We are Blown Away, have entered Explode Mode, etc., etc. Et cetera!

To celebrate, enjoy this conversation with Kickstarter collaborator and artist extraordinaire Vincent Perea. He joined us for Progresscast The Third One to briefly discuss his process and then lengthily discuss The Legend of Zelda continuity and McDonald Chicken McNuggets. It's a hefty cast, befitting our guest's prodigious talent and love of fast food poultry chunks.

Vincent is the artist behind Disney's hit iOS game Where's My Water, and is also known for his considerable contributions to The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. He is currently hard at work on a Space Asshole-influenced print for the Kickstarter, a glimpse of which can be seen in this episode's artwork below. Note that the final piece will be rendered in watercolor, and the sketch below is very early work.
Click to expand...
 
S

sixghost

Member
How the hell did it take 70+ episodes of Idle Thumbs to get a David Foster Wallace reference on the cast. Nicely done boost.
 
O

Oxymoron

Member
Augh, Zelda timeline discussion. I can't tell if I'm ironically angry or non-ironically angry. Just read the rest of this post in nerdvoice, I guess.

Jake talking about getting frustrated that Wind Waker was retconned into being a sequel to Ocarina was kind of pointless, since you're literally told that Wind Waker is a sequel to OoT 1m12s into the game. It was actually really cool back then because it was the first Zelda game that explicitly referenced another. I have no idea where you got the notion that it was a sequel to Zelda 2!
 
J

Jake

Member
Oxymoron said:
Augh, Zelda timeline discussion. I can't tell if I'm ironically angry or non-ironically angry. Just read the rest of this post in nerdvoice, I guess.

Jake talking about getting frustrated that Wind Waker was retconned into being a sequel to Ocarina was kind of pointless, since you're literally told that Wind Waker is a sequel to OoT 1m12s into the game. It was actually really cool back then because it was the first Zelda game that explicitly referenced another. I have no idea where you got the notion that it was a sequel to Zelda 2!
Click to expand...

I knew Ocarina was a predecessor but I guess I read too much into the legend told in the opening.

My assumption was Ocarina happened, then the legend of the hero ended up passing through a bunch of people over thousands of years (and games) ending in Wind Waker. I read that as "Link from OoT was the first hero, and ever since then when Hyrule needs it a hero in his image is tapped," not "this game you're playing now is a direct sequel to OoT." The idea that there were a bunch of separate continuities never even occurred to me. I just thought, through the opening of Wind Waker, Nintendo had declared Hyrule a very very very very old place, where their cultural legends come to life pretty much any time its people are on the cusp of forgetting them. That was really damn appealing to me, and rectified any weirdness in the continuity.

Apparently, though, there are three distinct branches and stuff. Oh well, now I know. I like what I imagined a lot more than what Nintendo says it is, but I'm not hung up on it, as I'm slowly becoming a Zelda snob who hasn't really liked a game since Wind Waker anyway. :/
 
J

Jintor

Member
Jake said:
Apparently, though, there are three distinct branches and stuff. Oh well, now I know. I like what I imagined a lot more than what Nintendo says it is, but I'm not hung up on it, as I'm slowly becoming a Zelda snob who hasn't really liked a game since Wind Waker anyway. :/
Click to expand...

Boo this man
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Chris's perspective on Zelda is so damn spot-on.
 
S

schlew

Member
I can't give to the Kickstarter for another week or so, will these progresscasts still be available to me? Didn't know I'd be missing out on these...
 
K

kadotsu

Banned
Rez said:
Chris's perspective on Zelda is so damn spot-on.
Click to expand...

While I agree with him, I felt that he didn't phrase his criticism particularly well. I wouldn't put too much determinism as the main problem of the current Zelda series. Zelda games have always been completely deterministic (with the exception of some gambling minigames).
I feel the current problem of Zelda games is the lack of a translation problem. In most older games, even 3D Zeldas, the fantasy setting and supernatural tools, that are given to a player, create a formal, foreign language. The game then provides a "Rosetta Stone" through the environment or enemy behavior. A good example of this is the Spirit Temple in OoT. It teaches you the basics of the Mirror Shield and then expands on it in the Twinrova battle.
Modern Zeldas have gone away from the "Rosetta Stone" model and now give you the expanded use of the world explicitly, in text, in your native language. To the extent that in Skyward Sword the player will go through a dialog in the penultimate dungeon that will mark a wall on your map with an X and tell you that you should put a bomb there.
The only clear "Rosetta Stone" moment in Skyward Sword for me was an instance in the same dungeon. I used my hookshot to get to a chest but now my way back was blocked by lava. Besides the chest there was a bit of sand. I had learned that I could blow away sand with an item. I then blew away the sand, nothing happened. Since I already had the item out I tried it on the lava. It worked. The game had taught me an expanded use of an item without giving me a 30 second written tutorial on blowing away lava.
(I probably mean the same as Mr Remo but I'm a pedantic asshole that likes arguing semantics)

Also, nice progresscast. I was surprised the Zelda discussion didn't mention the awesome OoT MST speedrun, since you folk love wonky game mechanics.
 
C

Chris Remo

Member
kadotsu said:
While I agree with him, I felt that he didn't phrase his criticism particularly well. I wouldn't put too much determinism as the main problem of the current Zelda series. Zelda games have always been completely deterministic (with the exception of some gambling minigames).
I feel the current problem of Zelda games is the lack of a translation problem. In most older games, even 3D Zeldas, the fantasy setting and supernatural tools, that are given to a player, create a formal, foreign language. The game then provides a "Rosetta Stone" through the environment or enemy behavior. A good example of this is the Spirit Temple in OoT. It teaches you the basics of the Mirror Shield and then expands on it in the Twinrova battle.
Modern Zeldas have gone away from the "Rosetta Stone" model and now give you the expanded use of the world explicitly, in text, in your native language. To the extent that in Skyward Sword the player will go through a dialog in the penultimate dungeon that will mark a wall on your map with an X and tell you that you should put a bomb there.
The only clear "Rosetta Stone" moment in Skyward Sword for me was an instance in the same dungeon. I used my hookshot to get to a chest but now my way back was blocked by lava. Besides the chest there was a bit of sand. I had learned that I could blow away sand with an item. I then blew away the sand, nothing happened. Since I already had the item out I tried it on the lava. It worked. The game had taught me an expanded use of an item without giving me a 30 second written tutorial on blowing away lava.
(I probably mean the same as Mr Remo but I'm a pedantic asshole that likes arguing semantics)

Also, nice progresscast. I was surprised the Zelda discussion didn't mention the awesome OoT MST speedrun, since you folk love wonky game mechanics.
Click to expand...

This is a fair point. I suppose what I was getting at is the difference in how explicitly the games telegraph their determinism.

I'm not familiar with the MST speedrun. (What's MST?) In general I haven't spent much time watching videos of playthroughs and things like that.
 
wolfmat

wolfmat

Confirmed Asshole
Chris Remo said:
This is a fair point. I suppose what I was getting at is the difference in how explicitly the games telegraph their determinism.

I'm not familiar with the MST speedrun. (What's MST?) In general I haven't spent much time watching videos of playthroughs and things like that.
Click to expand...

Google "MST speedrun". (I have no idea what exactly it is either, but I guess it's some kind of speedrun through all dungeons without skips?)
 
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