Messages

Congrats on the release of this fun-looking game, Matt. I look forward to trying it out.

Hey Arthur. Don't worry, man. Some people have it set up so that private messages are forwarded to their email but that's their choice. You are allowed to send PMs to people. That's what it's there for.

That said, you did send the same message to a lot of people which sort of defeats the ‘privateness' aspect. It might be better to just make a public post in that case..

To be fair, the cinema isn't library. You're not trying to read a book. You've paid to watch a movie in the company of hundreds of other people. You might not necessarily talk to the people next to you but it's still very much a social experience. Sometimes (especially here in Japan) the silence during funny bits is even more gear-grinding. You need someone with a well-timed ‘oh snap' to break the tension and give the audience permission to react to the film in a way that the filmmaker almost certainly intended.

I'm not saying people should chat and eat loudly and bring young children into the room (I agree with Blondbraid in this) but for me the film is much more enjoyable when there is almost an element of interaction between the audience and the screen.

Apologies Morgan. I don't always have a lot of time when I'm putting together the voting tables and polls and occasionally miss this kind of thing. I sometimes ask people to tell me if I've missed anything. I should make that a habit. I've added your name where I can 

Josh Clark from the podcast ‘Stuff You Should Know' recently brought out his own podcast called ‘The End of the World' about all the different things that could wipe out humanity. One episode was about artificial intelligence (https://itunes.apple.com/jp/podcast/the-end-of-the-world-with-josh-clark/id1437682381?l=en&mt=2&i=1000423958728) and is a very interesting and disturbing listen.

The problem is not creating clever machines. It's creating machines with a specific goal which can teach themselves that they no longer need humans in order to achieve that goal. It's not a new idea but with recent developments in neural networks and self-learning AI, these old fears are taking on a new dimension. If these stories are to be believed, AI can now talk to each other in a language that they have invented themselves. If that isn't scary I don't know what is.

It was merely a suggestion to potentially increase voters. I believe it was suggested in the past and one or two devs took up the idea.

Most of the nominees are commercial games. I wonder if the devs might be persuaded to offer a little discount or something for anyone wanting to play all the games in order to vote.

[Cassiebsg and Morganw]

The votes are in and we have a winner!
Well done to Cassiebsg and Morganw. You will be contacted soon about coming up with a theme for March.

Thanks to all participants and voters.

Time for another bump. We're into the back-end of the voting period and could do with more votes. Now is the best time, before the AGS Awards voting starts up. Thanks :-)

That's really up to you. If you've got the money to gamble then why not? Especially if it's cheaper than the actual release price will be. Personally I've never really been all that into preordering games.

We've just had a company-wide teachers' meeting day (aka “training”). Our boss told us that, at the end of each day, the CD players that we use should be unplugged (fair enough) and that the lids to the CD trays should be open? Why on earth would that be best practice? Let alone company policy? What about dust?

No one seemed to know why he was asking us to do this, least of all himself. Can anyone here enlighten me?

[edit] I told my wife and she had a brainwave. It could be that, by their thinking, if we make s point of leaving the tray open there is no chance that we'll accidentally leave a CD in there. Seems plausible, but I wonder if that's the real reason.

Time to vote. You have 7 days to choose your favourite pitch (using the poll above).

Enjoy.

I've often asked myself this question and wonder how anyone can kill another human and not be considered insane. But here's what I keep coming back to:

Murder is a concept invented by man and the fact that it is illegal and/or otherwise frowned upon is a testament to our species as a civilized society. But we do kill each other... aaaaallll the fucking time. More than some other species. It's actually kind of normal for us. War, tribalism, greed, revenge. These are all things that might cause any one of us to risk spending the rest of our lives in prison.

What that doesn't explain is serial killers. People who just get a taste for it and go on to kill dozens of people under the guise of ‘Mr Nice Guy'. These people are often not found to be insane. Some are, but many aren't and just serve time as regular killers. That is the part I can't quite work out. Is it that they are not insane or is it that they are so calculating and clever that they just don't seem insane?

And who gets to decide what insane means anyway? Doesn't it just mean ‘not normal'? So if killing is so normal for our species, maybe we are the insane ones for not getting rid of our enemies and keeping our hands clean.

[The Intergalactic Republic]

The Intergalactic Republic
Bringing peace and order to the universe...
In this planet colonization sim-adventure game hybrid, you are in charge of an Intergalactic Republic battle ship and are sent on missions to add planets to the republic. However, you soon realize that many planets do not want to join, and any enemies you encounter are rebels hanging on to their independence. You can make the choice to keep colonizing or to disobey your superiors and stand up for the people of the universe.

Nice trailer. Your pixel credit card readers are scarily accurate. Also, love the album covers, especially Garbage 

You might want to reverse the direction of the birds flying, or flip the sprite. They fly with the head of the V at the front.

[Crumbling Elites]

Crumbling Elites
A small town doctor investigates a deadly disease
A small town is quarantined when people start getting sick. Their doctor is their last chance. During her examinations, it strikes her odd that all of the victims seem to be the town's top people.   They all worked in the big city, in high-end jobs, but decided they want a simpler life. Or was there another reason for their move?  The doctor will try to solve this but the quirky town's people will not make it any easier.



Note: last chance to send some pitches if you're in. We could do with a couple more.

[an outrage]

Ummm... I think it's an outrage that the jury for the Innovation/Lifetime Achievement awards is secret. How can we take these awards seriously when we don't know who's behind them, eh? I say BOYCOTT the awards until my our demands are met!

How dare you say that! Those awards are secret to stop people like you and your raindrop buddies from leaking them all over the internet and making a big digital puddle, you big raindrop.


I'm my case I just haven't set aside myself the time to do it. And I really haven't played that many of the games this year. Not even the MAGS ones 🤫

I'll see if I can have a quick look now without getting interrupted by something.


[edit] As a suggestion, would lowering the number of required nominations from 5 to 4 make any difference? (or dare I say even 3?)

Keep them votes coming. It's currently very close.

Charles Cecil often cites Focault's Pendulum as a massive inspiration for Broken Sword. I keep meaning to give it a go.

Nice to see this thing is still alive. Keep the updates coming, yo.