GWJ Conference Call Episode 695

The Outer Wilds, The Cycle, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Through the Darkest of Times, Speaking Simulator, Site Update, Games You've Never Heard Of, Your Emails, and More!

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Amanda, Rich, Greg, and special guest Glendon announce a few site updates for GWJ and talk about some of their favorite games you may not heard of before.

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00:01:32 The Outer Wilds
00:07:00 The Cycle
00:13:20 Fire Emblem: Three Houses
00:17:48 Through the Darkest of Times
00:28:25 Speaking Simulator
00:37:28 GWJ State of the Union
00:45:16 Games You've Never Heard Of
00:59:23 Your Emails

The Cycle has a weird design choice that depending on the days of the week determines what default modes are able to be played. I suspect it's a way to manage the population. So if it drops below a certain number during the week normal Duos isn't available and only Rank becomes available. The same for squads during the weekend.

Got a little more time in with Through the Darkest of Times and I think it is absolutely worth playing if you have a stomach for the subject matter.

I still wish that the various factions/affiliations had more in-game nuance instead of being flags to wrap your imagination around, but I think there’s some utility in wanting to display all sorts of political alignments as potentially anti-fascist.

Weirdly, it has me thinking about the reports on Dragon Age IV’s pitch. The history lesson that TtDoT provides is useful and compelling, and there’s a well utilized sense of dread in knowing where this all goes - but pairing it with a fictional game about resistance and tyranny would have been nice. The act of resistance is definitely ripe for exploration, and I think TtDoT packs a lot into what on paper might sound like a straightforward strategy game with a linear narrative.

Beckett wrote:

00:37:28 GWJ State of the Union

I laughed when I read that, but it’s so appropriate.

Yay, grats Antichulius! Grats Mudbunny! Hooray Staygold!
Very excited.

Loved the podcast. Even though I don’t have the stomach for TtDoT, I was in stitches over Speaking Simulator and Home Alone with a Roomba (my thoughts exactly when I heard the description!!!).
Just amazing. Hear you all next week!

PS. I haven’t played Minecraft either fwiw...

"I'm on the radio! I'm on the radio!" the birthday girl chanted as she bounced around the kitchen.

Having grown up in 70's and 80's and now working in the games industry, I thought I had at least heard about pretty much all video game systems, especially from that era.

That was until today and the mention of the "Cocomax 3" on this very podcast.

And none of the other panelists even asked what the heck that was. It was like everyone knew about this device except me. It was quite distressing - how had I missed this piece of video game history?

Well, I was driving at the time, but now I have had a chance to do some googling...

I don't think this device exists? The only reference to "cocomax" (aside from a coconut water company) is a piece of software - a paint program I believe - for the Tandy Color Computer, which had the nickname "CoCo" (I knew about the computer, but not the nickname). There were three versions of that computer, so maybe Cocomax 3 was supposed to be CoCo 3?

Anyways, I learned something about video game history today...

Speaking of different traditions for movement in shared spaces: Here in the UK we have a lot of roundabouts, both large, multi-lane and mini. A German friend, who I played Myth: The Fallen Lords with, came to visit and was actually impressed by how mini roundabouts can keep the flow going at a junction. They had vanishingly few in Germany.

Some time later he told me that small roundabouts were being introduced in Germany in a big way. As in the UK, Germans travelled around these new roundabouts clockwise and gave way to cars coming from that direction. He also told me about a small village near him where a roundabout had, at some point in history, become a feature in the village centre. Tradition amongst the village's inhabitants was to travel around their roundabout anti-clockwise and to give ways to cars coming from that direction.

What could possibly go wrong.

Regarding which side of the escalator to stand on:

Amanda seems to have very strong feelings that the right side is the "right" side...

One thing to keep in mind is that maybe you feel that way because you grew up and live in a country where cars drive on the right. It's quite astonishing - and you don't really notice this until you visit a country where people drive on the left - how ingrained and totally subconscious the notions of "slower traffic should keep right", "pass on the left", "if you need to pull over, pull over to the right" become. I live in Australia and I can tell you from experience that even pedestrians tend to pass each other on the left here. Not always, but enough of the time that walking in crowds feels confusing in a right-sided country like Germany.

And in Japan - like in Australia - people drive on the left...

Higgledy wrote:

Speaking of different traditions for movement in shared spaces: Here in the UK we have a lot of roundabouts, both large, multi-lane and mini. A German friend, who I played Myth: The Fallen Lords with, came to visit and was actually impressed by how mini roundabouts can keep the flow going at a junction. They had vanishingly few in Germany.

Some time later he told me that small roundabouts were being introduced in Germany in a big way. As in the UK, Germans travelled around these new roundabouts clockwise and gave way to cars coming from that direction. He also told me about a small village near him where a roundabout had, at some point in history, become a feature in the village centre. Tradition amongst the village's inhabitants was to travel around their roundabout anti-clockwise and to give ways to cars coming from that direction.

What could possibly go wrong.

This gives me palpitations just thinking about it. I refuse to drive in countries that drive on the right as I just know I would end up going the wrong way. The idea of having one local roundabout that doe sent follow the rules is truly the dark souls of driving.

I still occasionally wonder how that turned out and how many folks bumped into each other and how many locals still occasionally go the wrong way.

I konw what you mean, Bbk1980. I refused to drive when I was visiting Scotland last year for that very reason. My reflexes would've been all out of whack.

Higgledy wrote:

Speaking of different traditions for movement in shared spaces: Here in the UK we have a lot of roundabouts, both large, multi-lane and mini. A German friend, who I played Myth: The Fallen Lords with, came to visit and was actually impressed by how mini roundabouts can keep the flow going at a junction. They had vanishingly few in Germany.

Here in the DC Metro area we have plenty of traffic circles. Sadly, people don't know how to use them and... to 'help' traffic they added... stop lights... *headsteeringwheel*